Aside from fashion and medical uses, corsets are also used in sexual fetishism, most notably in http://www.sexylingeriespot.com/sexy-corsets BDSM activities. In BDSM, a submissive can be forced to wear a corset which would be laced very clasped and give some degree of restriction to the wearer. A dominant can also wear a corset, often black, but for entirely at odds reasons, such as aesthetics, and to achieve a severe, armored, "unbending," commanding appearance.

Corsets are almost always constructed of a flexible material (like cloth, particularly coutil, or leather) stiffened with boning (also called ribs or stays) inserted into channels in the cloth or leather. In the 19th century, acoustic guitar and whalebone were favored for the boning.