Sometimes I just get obsessed with a particular fashion item and I don’t know why. It’s like being struck by a new kinky fantasy: it’ll pop into my head one day, or I’ll see it in a piece of media or hear someone talking about it, and I’ll fall down a mad rabbit hole of Googling (or Pinterest-ing). Most recently, I felt this way about pearl necklaces.
You know, the classic jewelry item worn by style icons like Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Grace Kelly? The kind of thing you see on women in period dramas like Mad Men and The Crown? Yeah, those.
I find them not only gorgeous, classy, and timeless, but also sexy somehow. At first blush, it would seem obvious why: there’s a sex act known colloquially as the “pearl necklace,” in which someone ejaculates onto someone else’s chest and décolletage, creating a pearly effect. But that’s never been a kink of mine, and I don’t even particularly like watching this act performed in porn – if the coming isn’t happening inside somebody’s orifice, I’m probably not interested! #InternalCumshots4Lyfe
So the question then becomes, what is it about pearls as a jewelry item that is so alluring to me?
In answering this, my mind goes straight to the phrase “clutching pearls.” To clutch one’s pearls is to react with shock and dismay to something, and it’s a phrase typically associated with upper-class types, or morally “superior” types, reacting to something they consider low-class or immoral. (Think: Helen Lovejoy in The Simpsons screaming “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!?”)
I am decidedly middle-class and don’t consider myself a moral authority on anything, so this isn’t an image I can directly relate to – but in some ways, that’s what makes it hot. The idea of pretending to be a certain type of woman that I definitely am not – of co-opting a classy aesthetic to conceal the mischievous mind behind it all.
Pearls’ associations with 1950s housewives also appeal to me. A standard string of pearls isn’t super long, so you can do household chores while you’re wearing it and not worry about dropping diamonds in the dishwasher or sapphires down the sink drain. This delights my inner submissive, and fills my head with images of waiting around dutifully for my spouse to get home from a long day of work, to a clean house, a hot meal, and a hot wife.
The financial aspect of pearls also definitely adds to their charm for me. It’s not that they have to be wildly expensive – the two strings of pearls I own are from Horae and Kay’s, and cost $45 and $100, respectively – but they have the air of being expensive, and for me, that’s enough. I’ve explored financial fetishism from several different angles, and my newest pearl necklace was sweetly bought for me by my partner as a financial domination task I assigned them; I can also imagine finding it deeply erotic for a sugar daddy(/sugar mama/glucose guardian) to buy me some pearls and place them around my neck before a glamorous dinner date. Like a perfectly-tailored suit or little black dress, they’re the sort of thing that can make you feel instantly richer, fancier, and more powerful (or more spoiled, as the case may be).
Notable, too, is that pearls don’t look out of place no matter what I’m wearing, and even when I’m wearing nothing. I feel very Marilyn when I spritz on a jasmine perfume, dab on some lipstick, clasp my pearls around my neck, and slink into bed completely naked. Rachel Rabbit White says she likes to have sex with her false lashes on, and I feel similarly – not only about lashes, but about lipstick and pearls, too. (And, uh, socks, but that’s neither here nor there…)
I’ve looked at a lot of pearl jewelry online these past couple months, and many such pieces are far too ostentatious, expensive, or just plain weird-looking to attract my interest. It’s only the most timeless, simple, and elegant pieces that call my name. Someday I’d perhaps like to get a triple-strand pearl necklace, as those really take fanciness to the next level. But for now, I’m thrilled with the two very straightforward single strands I own. They go with everything, they gleam under every light, and they make me feel like the world’s sexiest little minx.