she reminds me of barbie, and that's not a good thing!

Youch...that looks so gross. And how badly distorted must her vital organs be from wearing corsets all the time.

heyyy i read that womans story in new zealand womens weekley (it gets boring during lunch breaks)

they showed x rays of her and her heart seemed to be making its way up to her shoulder... i swear


no it aint healthy but if it makes you happy then it cant be that bad

She looks disturbingly like a blow-up doll...

She does look very much like a "fashion doll." Well, her bosom should be more pointy, but other than that, she does. And yet, this is the ideal we see in Disney movies and even grown-up animation, and we hand to our kids as presents.

Sick! Ugh. Animated females do tend to look weird, but it looks much worse on a real woman. *faints*

Late 19th century, this was quite 'en vogue' and known as a 'wasp's taile'. Quite a lot of women looked like this back then. Of course, they soon discovered that they had damaged internal organs, and Darwin struck in having them die in childbirth.

I think this gal looks abhorent. If you do this to yourself, there's a screw loose somewhere.

It's definitely not real. She's just inhaling for the picture. Exhale, and it all comes back. I have a cousin who can do it too.

Again, Booch has befuddled me. By "not real" do you mean that the women is holding her breath or "sucking in" her stomach muscles? I would categorize that as "real", and "not real" to mean that the image has been altered, either digitally or through photo retouching (admittedly becoming a lost art) I suspect Booch of merely wanting to stir up comments, in which case, the comment succeeded.

You have to wonder what she looks like in the nuddy, without a corset. I think the tights in this photograph are a mistake, because they make her legs look as if they are made of plastic, and as noted above she looks a bit doll-ish.

According to her website she is married to an orthopaedic surgeon, so presumably there aren't any major health risks to wearing her corset, at least not regarding her ribs and spine. From my experience of orthopaedics two of the biggest spinal risks are sudden compression and excessive and prolonged flexion, i.e. slouching, and so the corset would help her in these two respects. And I suppose the liver is squidgy and can mould itself into shape.

Her website states that she wears a corset all the time except when showering. As a man my immediate thought is of sex; when confronted by anything involving corsets, or indeed anything at all my first thought is of sex. And so presumably Cathie either goes on top, or her partner is very gentle, or she breathes rapidly but shallowly. Or they don't bother. I'm sorry, if you're reading this. I can't help it.

YUCK

I sort-of agree it is a "fake" waist, but not that she is holding her breath/sucking it in for the pic. Without the corset, her waist would not be 15" around. I saw her on a TV show, years ago, and as I recall, they don't measure her waist, they measure the inside of her corset to find out how big it is set for. They mentioned that without the corset, she had a 22" waist. That, in my opinion, in her real measurement. She should hold the record for tightest corset, not smallest waist.

The tiny waist looks ok in the Victorian dresses (she and her husband are enthusiasts and members of some re-enactment society), but looks incredibly freaky in street clothes. Yuck.

Forgot to add: as I recall, hubby also wears a corset, but only to their re-enactment events, not every day. A man's corset, of course, doesn't make him wasp-waisted; it makes him look like that cartoon guy that is always on the cover of the New Yorker: pigeon chested.

Didn't William Shatner wear a corset? Because he was too pudgy to be a believable captain?

Ewwwwwww!!!

And it's almost dinnertime, too.

In Gone With The Wind, Scarlett O'Hara had an 18 inch waist.

ew!

What's the big deal? The Guinness world record was 13", and there is documented evidence that 15" was almost common for the ladies of the court in medieval England because of women being more diminutive in those days.

the big deal is that if people look werid in anyway that they have inflicted on themselves (corsetry, cosmetic surgery, or just being fat) its ok to make fun of them, cuz its not like they were born like that,

it is not ok to make fun of them. it is ok to be grossed out by them. get your thinking straight, joeodd! this isn't about poking fun, it's about the fact that she doesn't even look normal. she looks hideous. but if that makes her happy, more power to her. her husband obviously doesn't mind.
but, ew!