Body Politics with Cora Harrington

Cora Harrington loves lingerie — and the complex feminist questions surrounding it. On today’s show, the founder of The Lingerie Addict talks about building a business out of a lingerie blog, questioning norms about gender and bodies, and why a $20 bra probably exploits women workers.

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We loved hearing about Cora’s journey from nonprofit worker with a side-hustle blog to running a beloved — and deeply thoughtful — business about lingerie and writing the most inclusive book about lingerie out there: In Intimate Detail: How to Choose, Wear, and Love Lingerie.

From America’s “puritanical” ideas about butts and nipples to how to write about bodies and lingerie in a gender-neutral and body-neutral way to how underpaid garment workers are part of our long history of devaluing women’s labor, this conversation is about so much more than satin and lace.

Follow Cora: Twitter | Insta

Cora Harrington | Photo by Coco Haus Productions

Bodies that are coded as women, or coded as more feminine, are seen as inherently transgressive, and are seen as something that needs to be covered up or censored or hidden… You’re not allowed to talk about your body or see your body or reference your body in public.

—Cora Harrington, founder of The Lingerie Addict and author of In Intimate Detail

On the agenda:

• Why Google won’t serve Cora’s site ads — too titillating! — and why should all be concerned about the Tumblr “female-presenting nipples” ban: “this is the kind of censorship that only grows over time. It doesn’t shrink.”
• How to take the value judgments out of writing about bodies: “No matter what body you’re in, it’s fine. Let’s get you in beautiful underpinnings.”
• How women’s labor is devalued — and what it truly takes to turn lace and tulle into “this three-dimensional structural support that can hold up pounds of flesh for hours at a time.”

Also in this episode: being mistaken for a booth babe, realizing you gotta take something off your plate, and setting intentions over a bowl of queso.

☞ And there’s always a full transcript.

This episode of NYG is brought to you by:

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