I’ll tell you this… how one feels about lingerie totally depends on exactly how large one actually is, how one carries the extra weight, and how one FEELS about how large one is.

My experience (and keep in mind that I’m 5′11″, so don’t take the sizes completely to heart–a US size 16 on a tall person looks different than a US size 16 on a shorter person):

I would have been fine with any lingerie up to about size 16-18 (because I was tall, so I carried it decently, and tended to put it on evenly). Then I would have been pickier about it (i.e., REALLY trying to find something that sort of camouflaged what I thought my problem areas were), but still okay until I hit the size 22-24 range.

After that, I would have been mortified if my husband had tried to buy me lingerie. Heck, my husband tried to buy me a HOODIE when I was a size 26 (a thoughtful gift–I was cold a lot), and I nearly hyperventilated during the shopping trip. Lingerie? I think not.

The deal with me was that after about a size 22, I would know that my husband was trying to be sweet, but there’s just no way I would have felt confident in it. And that’s not sexy.

Also, once you hit that size range, things just don’t seem to fit quite right depending on where the weight actually goes on your body. Some things that are technically in your size simply don’t fit as intended. As a quite tall woman, I learnt possibly even more painfully the lesson that many larger girls are learning–manufacturers just don’t seem to know how to deal with how bodies put on weight. They try to make everything proportionally wider without paying attention to length or changing proportions based on how the human frame actually carries extra weight. And maybe it’s for good reason–we do tend to put on weight differently.

So, if your husband was sweet enough to go to all the trouble of finding you something nice in your size, and it just doesn’t fit right, you REALLY don’t want your husband to see you in it. You’ll feel bad that it didn’t work out, and then there’s a little bit of an “Oh, crap, he’ll be expecting me to look much better in this than I do” moment.

Then, if you have hang-ups about your weight, it’s hard (and mortifying) to explain to your guy that not all size 22s are created equal, and the lovely outfit he chose didn’t fit because you happen to have insanely large thighs or a slightly bigger/smaller tummy or larger arms than most 22s. It’s about as much fun as shoving red hot pokers up your bum.

And, then, even worse–you feel totally guilty for not wearing it when he went to all that trouble and was being so sweet. And you WISH you could explain, but you are too embarrassed and decide he probably wouldn’t want to hear it. So you try to ignore it and end up terribly confusing your husband instead.

But you honestly don’t mean to.