Bering makes another important point here. Not only are the most highly prized fetish objects already used, but their value is increased depending on who used them.
I had a college friend who gave up on buying nice underwear because she said her dates always ended up stealing them. She stopped investing in nice panties so she wouldn’t mind when they were gone.
Justin Lehmiller also addresses this fetish in his book, "Tell Me What You Want," “… articles of clothing like bras and panties tend to be among the most common fetish objects - they’re endowed with erotic significance by virtue of the fact that they come into contact with the breasts and genitals.”
How People Buy Used Panties
For those who are into the experience, there are a few ways to purchase used panties. Some people buy them directly from sellers they've connected with online, but many shop on online platforms designed to connect people with this fetish to sellers.
For buyers, this means safe shopping and selection. Sofia Gray, one of the largest such marketplaces, signs up new sellers each month!
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An Online Solution
But what if you don’t have a partner or hookup to swipe panties from? Well, that’s an area where the internet helps provide a solution, with websites designed to connect buyers and sellers. As such, people with niche interests can find community and alleviate some of the isolation caused by having desires outside of the mainstream.
Not only are panties (and other fetish objects) available, but in many instances you can learn about the people they’re coming from, or even make special requests.
The Reasoning Makes Sense
So why are used panties such a turn on? Lehmiller explains one theory about how fetishes are formed, “Most fetishes seem to be learned, in the sense that the people who have them can often tie their interests back to a very specific sexual experience in which their fetish object happened to be present when they had a very intense orgasm. This is something psychologists call one-trial learning, which refers to the idea that sometimes we learn associations between a stimulus and response on the very first try.”
Based on that theory, perhaps it’s no surprise that panties are such a common fetish object. Many people gain access to used underwear long before they have sexual partners. Websites like Quora and Reddit are full of stories recalling early explorations digging through the laundry hampers in the hope of finding underwear.
So, which comes first, the interest in the underwear or the access to the underwear?
This might remain one of those classic questions we can’t definitively answer. The good news is that as kink creeps further and further into the mainstream, it’s getting easier for people to tell partners (or strangers on the internet) what they’re into, and to get their fantasies and desires met.