As requested, part 2. Part 1 is my better effort, just not complete. I don't mind if anyone saves or reproduces these as long as they aren't misquoted or parts taken out of context.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WIVES AND LOVERS OF MEN WHO WEAR PANTYHOSE - PART 2

As promised, here is part 2. If you haven't read Part 1, I suggest you do so before reading this one. What I am including in this part will make more sense, or at least be seen in a more complete perspective if you do. This letter is part sociology, part anthropology, part psychology, a good dose of personal opinion, and part rant, but all intended to help explain and clarify why your man is not necessarily a nut case for wanting to wear pantyhose (or other things). An opening disclaimer - I am not an MD or licensed therapist, but I do have 40+ years of personal experience, observation, and contemplation to draw upon on this issue and I believe my observations and conclusions are valid. There are many topics I intend to touch upon, so please forgive the many side excursions on this journey.
First, a few basic premises on human behavior. Humans are rational animals, not logical ones - the difference is huge. If we were entirely logical, this would not even be an issue. Clothing would be dead dull practical and be used only for the purposes of protection from the elements and support. Picture that for a moment. Toss all the cosmetics and high heels in the trash, they aren't needed or practical. Pantyhose are primarily cosmetic - those go too. Likewise Corvettes, Ferraris, amusement parks, all television programming other than news and issues, etc., etc., etc. Anything that appeals to emotion, fantasy, or is not grounded in practical function is gone. I don't care to live in that world and neither do you. By rational, I mean that in most of our decisions we start with emotion and then try to construct logical reasons (rationalize) to justify our wants. "I NEED that home entertainment system." Decisions about appearance are also first based on emotion. Colors, smells, sounds, and textures all affect us emotionally. The rich variety of our world is inspired by emotional wants and needs. Despite its flaws, I prefer to live in that world.
Nearly none of us wants to believe that the things we do or say are wrong. The problem is that the determination of right or wrong on an issue is largely a matter of opinion. Please note I did say "largely". As far as "proof" I can not provide it, but I do believe in a Hereafter and that after I pass from this world I will be accountable for everything I have thought, said, or done during my life. In that respect, doing deliberate harm to another MUST be wrong. That would make, among other things, deliberate murder and theft wrong. Even discounting religion, in a societal context these things must still be wrong. However, even a woman who murders an abusive husband in his sleep has formed a rational argument to justify in her mind that what she did was "right" for her, and there would be a chance that 12 jurors may even agree.
This need to be right compels many to feel that they must force others to see things the same way, as though this "proves" they are right. Have you ever been in a heated argument, possibly to the point of physical violence, over who was right or wrong on an issue? As an example on a grander scale, more people through history have been killed over religious differences than any other single cause. Remember the Holocaust? How about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Roman slaughter of Christians, the wars between Hindus and Moslems, Jews and Moslems, etc.? Each group "believes" it is right but all save one must be wrong! It is not religion that I mean to criticize here, but intolerance. Intolerance over someone else's views may be one of the biggest plagues of humanity, whether we practice it as individuals or as groups.
New direction. (I'll pull all the threads together later, I promise) Let's go WAY back to early male/female interaction. Picture small nomadic tribes - male dominated. One male was probably the clear leader and had his pick of the females. The leader's mate doubtless received what few "perks" were available, as well as the status associated with being the leader's favorite. To be the favorite, that woman would naturally be the most desirable, or "attractive". Thus begins the dance - the ages-old pattern of men pursuing women and women embellishing their appearance to increase their chances of being chosen.
It keeps getting more sophisticated. Now entire aisles of stores are devoted to the cosmetic enhancement of a woman's appearance. Women wear brighter colors to get attention. They change their entire "look" periodically to keep their image from getting stale. New fashion, new hairstyle, new hair color, new "face".
Lately, over the past few decades, the dance is changing. Women have asserted themselves and more often they are the pursuers. Now men are increasingly being put in the position of having to attract the women. Men's casual fashions are becoming more distinctive. Cosmetic surgery is becoming more popular with men. Young men wearing earrings have become commonplace. So has hair coloring. The trend will continue. Now women often speak openly of admiring a man's "buns" and legs. Guess where this is leading. To be honest, though I prefer pantyhose, my guess is that while pantyhose may become an alternative fashion for men, tights will be more likely seen. One meme (check your dictionary) has been in place for decades. Comic book super-heroes are typically dressed in tights. Tights are more durable and are available in a wider variety of colors. Running tights are already widely accepted. On strictly practical terms, pantyhose are high maintenance. They run often and require shaved legs to look attractive, but they do feel nicer than tights. But you already knew that.
The sensual attraction of silk and satin among men is not a new thing though. The men of the French Aristocracy typically wore heavily embroidered and embellished silk waistcoats and breeches, silk hosiery, high-heeled shoes, elaborate wigs, and powdered makeup. But, you say, that died out. Yes it did, quite literally, as a result of the French Revolution. To be dressed in silk finery was to be identified as an Aristocrat and risk a visit to the executioner. "I would not be caught dead wearing that" took on a quite literal aspect.
Women's fashions have gone through their own cycles, from mostly covered, to fully covered, to barely covered. Even now, depending on the culture, there are wide differences. Traditional garb for Islamic women covers all but the hands and obscures the eyes. Western garb for women could be almost anything and has included some wonderfully strange innovations such as the corset and bustle; one for shrinking the waist and the other for enlarging the appearance of the buttocks. Believe or not, there are some anthropological reasons these items were popular.
For this, I borrow from the observations of Desmond Morris in his programs on human behavior, which I highly recommend viewing. It seems that men, when first "evaluating" women as possible mates, instinctively focus on three primary aspects - youth, fitness, and fertility. Women use different criteria, which I will get to shortly. These criteria are logical in the context of having children, ensuring a man's lineage. Women have responded, to the delight and success of the cosmetics and diet industries, by investing heavily in maintaining a youthful appearance and pursuing diet after diet. Retaining body fat, sorry ladies, is a natural tendency of a woman's biology. It is necessary for gestating and nursing babies to the extent that if a woman's body fat gets too low (bad for bearing babies) her menses stop. This is a fairly common occurrence among female marathon runners. On the plus side (aesthetically), the extra body fat softens the lines of a woman's musculature and bones. Wide hips imply successful childbirth. Large breasts imply successful nursing. Reproduction is the priority in preserving the species.
Women however, instinctively focus on a man's power, influence, and stability. The expensive tailored suits as well as the expensive cars, etc. bespeak of power and position. The flamboyant life of the party attracts women's attention as someone in control of his social environment. Stability is key in staying around for provision and protection of a woman and her children. Remember all of the silk finery of the French Aristocrats? Those symbolized power, wealth, and influence at that time. Silk was the most expensive fabric and only the well-to-do could afford it. Aside from which, it felt nice.
Until recently, when women starting asserting themselves in the business world, women would choose attire for three main reasons. 1) To attract men, as already noted. 2) For comfort, and depending on the situation would range from form-fitting to light, loose, and airy. A leotard and tights are a very practical combination for exercise, but as far as practicality, men have a slight edge over women. A woman has to practically undress for a "quick" trip to the bathroom, whereas a man need only pull aside a leg opening and pull down the waistband. Could this be why crop-tops and bike shorts have become increasingly popular? Incidentally, the leotard was originally designed as a unisex garment for acrobats and performers by a man. 3) For the sensual pleasure and vanity derived from wearing varying textures, colors, and designs. Self-expression. Face it - white cotton panties are more practical: so why DO you wear colorful nylon underwear when you aren't intending for anyone else to see them? YOU like the way they look and feel! Women professionals are shifting toward more "manly" fashions to convey that air of power and influence, but they still want to feel free and expressive outside of the office. If it can work for you ladies, why not men? Acting and dressing seriously and responsibly all of the time is a bit of a grind for us too.
To the men - Your appearance of responsibility and respectability, and by derivation the social "status" your wife enjoys must be acknowledged. If she has objections to your unusual wardrobe, you can bet among her concerns is how her friends, relatives, and business associates (as well as yours) will react if and when they find out. Will they shy away from her? What will they be saying about her and you? What about the children and their friends? Her mind is weighing all of the possibilities.
To the women - In this same regard, I would like for you to consider for a few moments how you would react if it were not you in this situation, but one of your friends, relatives, or business associates. How would you react to THEM? Be honest. What if "Jane" told you one day that "John" wore pantyhose around the house and has been for years. She's not really happy about it, but she loves him and he is otherwise a good husband and father. How would you respond? I'll guess that you would not react to them much differently. If anything, you would be sympathetic toward Jane. Overall, your relationship would probably not change much at all. In short, this is not necessarily the devastating event you may be fearing. Proximity often blinds us to the complete picture. Keep in mind also that this is your husband (or lover) and with the exception of a child is the person you are, or should be, closest to in your adult life. If this issue is worth parting over to you, either the relationship wasn't close to begin with or your priorities need to be examined.
To pull a few threads together, where are we so far? 1) Most of our views of what is right or wrong are fundamentally matters of opinion. 2) We tend to cling to those views tenaciously because we hate to be wrong, even to the point of needing to impose our views on others. 3) Women's fashions have generally evolved in an effort to be physically attractive to men, while men's fashions have until recently focused on projecting authority. The interpretations of attractiveness change (as well as acceptable clothing styles) over time and across cultures. 4) How others perceive us is important to us in how we believe it impacts on our position in society and in our personal relationships. Unfortunately, many of us lack confidence in the strength or quality of these relationships. Times change, fashions change, opinions change, friends remain.
The next item is one I am reluctant to address, but I feel I must in light of the many postings and photos on the Net (time to send the children from the room) associating male sexual fantasies and masturbation with women's clothing. It has been said that a man's ego resides in his crotch, and there is a certain amount of truth in it. Also, any man who denies he ever masturbated while he was growing up is either lying or is a member of a very small minority. To try to explain to you women, and please excuse me for being graphic, try to imagine having a clitoris several inches long continually shifting around in your underwear, all day, every day. Every time you go to the bathroom, you have to manipulate it. With but a thought, and sometimes unbidden, it rises and stiffens. And it feels good. It's designed to feel good. A little direct stimulation gets the same reaction. Sometimes it's an embarrassment, as for a 10-year old boy finding that he can't stand up in class without his pants tenting out, and he did nothing to provoke the reaction. Some men even give their penis a name, for it seems sometimes to have a mind of its own. Are you beginning to get the picture?
Add to this the natural curiosity of a child, and children are very curious. They will badger you for hours with one "Why?" question after another. Now throw in a healthy sex drive and you have a prescription for some really interesting behavior. I don't know if we will ever really know just how many young boys or men ever fondled or tried on items of women's underwear, but I'll bet the number is a LOT higher than you will ever get men to admit to. We were curious and those garments and textures were not part of our clothing inventory. For most, it seems social injunctions were strong enough to restrain this behavior, but for some, self-interest or self-gratification won out. It felt good. The association with women only added fuel to the fire.
The spark which ignites this behavior can sometimes come from unexpected directions. For me, it was the color red. That's right, RED! It has always been my favorite color. I remember distinctly 40+ years later that day when I was 6 years old and walking to school when I noticed a girl walking ahead of me wearing a dress and RED TIGHTS. I was fascinated! My favorite color worn just like a second skin. I wanted those tights on my legs. I wanted to know how they felt. My crotch agreed. Now even a boy of 6 knew there was no point in asking for a pair of tights unless he was seriously interested in ballet lessons. Neither my mother nor my sister had any red tights, but at roughly the same time my sister and I used to play with my mother's discarded nylons. We would put them over our heads and make strange faces. Not red, but second skin? At my first opportunity, it was off to the bathroom to try them on my legs. Picture the situation. The fear and the anticipation forcing adrenaline through my veins, the shaking hands, the physical sensation of the nylons pulled tightly over my legs. Of COURSE I had an erection! I would have to have been dead from the waist down not to have one. An association was formed. I had just found something that elicited intense pleasure, repeatable, and on demand. To make a long story short, I eventually matured in my personal habits, but by that time wearing hosiery was as natural to me as wearing socks. I still find wearing pantyhose pleasurable and comfortable though and can find no compelling logic that this is wrong. It is fundamentally someone's opinion versus my own, and as I mentioned in the first part about women and pants, I regard any suggestion that I should not be able to wear pantyhose as arbitrary and unjust.
I have no way of knowing what each man's story is in this regard, only that the experience was vividly memorable. Some have even carried their initial curiosity to wearing everything, the true transvestite. Some have developed their artistry with cosmetics to enable them to pass as women in public, perhaps out of a belief that the only way they can appear in public in "women's" clothes is by appearing to "be" women. I don't know, but I will guess that it feels right to them. It has become tied to their personality and self-image and to stop would require a change in their personality that may not be realistic to expect.
Many of you at this point are seeing this as an obsession and in many cases you are right. This needs to be addressed. Obsession springs from frustrated desire. Have you women ever had an occasion when there was something you seriously wanted and the longer you had to wait for it, the more you wanted it and thought about it (like becoming married or having children)? To put this in the current context, before the first time you were allowed to wear pantyhose, how badly did you want them? Did you sneak a pair of your mother's or older sister's hose to try on? If you did, it didn't lessen the satisfaction and enjoyment when you could wear them openly, did it? No, the times you sneaked were stolen moments - they were not legitimate. Even though you felt it was right for you when you sneaked, it was not "really" right until you could wear them openly and with approval. Put us in that situation and multiply it by years or decades. We enjoy wearing pantyhose, but the obsession stems mainly from the frustration in gaining legitimacy, or approval, and the two have become tightly intertwined. In a legal sense, most of us have the right to wear pantyhose, but sociologically we are still yearning, unrequited, for society and particularly you to agree that it is OK, no big deal. In addition, nobody likes being told "No, you can't!" when others have full license. The sense of equity is offended, further fuelling the obsession. The truly ironic aspect of this is that if pantyhose were considered standard apparel for men, we might have grown to consider them as much of a nuisance as many women do. People tend to treat with contempt the things which have cost them nothing to have. If diamonds were as common as sand, though their beauty remained, no one would wear them as jewelry. It is the things which are hardest to acquire which we hold most dear.
The questions I wish to put to you are these. Would you be willing for your husband/lover to dictate what you can or cannot wear? Would you think that is right? Do you have any clothes in your wardrobe that you wear simply because you enjoy wearing them? Do you think you should be judged as a person based on what you wear rather than on who you are? Read that last one again. It was only within the last 100 years or so that if a woman showed any part of her legs in public, she was considered as having low morals. How can you expect respect unless you are also willing to give it? If you wish for equality in this world, it must work both ways or it is a sham. Has it really been equality you have been striving for, or just having things your way? Do you think your husband/lover would be justified in turning his back on you because he did not care for how YOU dressed? Or that you got older? Or heavier? I would say that would be very shallow, wouldn't you?
I told you at the outset that this would be part rant, and that was it. I do not wish to end on that note however. The most interesting aspect of our brief stay on this world is the infinite variety of sights and experiences which we may encounter. Not all of them are pleasant, but even those serve to teach us, to challenge us, and to serve as counterpoint so that we may better appreciate the good things when they happen. We have been gifted with an imagination, and one of the results of this is creativity and a desire for self-expression. Conformity, to a degree, is a good thing when it serves to maintain enough stability for us to function as a productive society. When we carry that urge for conformity and stability to the degree that we arbitrarily stifle creativity and self-expression, we are in danger of losing our greatest gifts, as well as fostering an oppressive society; or in a more personal sense, an oppressive relationship. A man wearing pantyhose may be unconventional, but he isn't a threat to others unless he wears them over his head and is carrying a gun in his hand. Your man must have a lot of positive aspects to his personality that attracted you to him. This is just another aspect of the person you have grown to love. It does not lessen the others. Have you never been unconventional yourself?
As for your immediate situation, please keep in mind that if your husband/lover has openly disclosed his "secret" to you, he has placed a lot of trust in you and in your feelings for him. Had he wanted to find a reason to leave you or cause you to leave him, he could have found a more traditional reason to accomplish the same end. He cares enough for you to share something that he may have kept to himself since early childhood. Do not dismiss that lightly. Forcing him to stop does not change who he is, but it can build a figurative wall between you. You will have just rejected a part of him and shown that his trust was misplaced. I will grant that this may be a bit of a shock to you and you are doubtless re-examining whether you really "know" him or not. Do not doubt his love for you. He loves you enough to share his innermost secrets or he would not have told you. In that light, most of what you know of him is genuine.
If you found out accidentally, this may be because he feared YOUR love was not complete; that you would leave if you knew. Now is the time to show him your love. Talk with him, try to understand him, and discuss your concerns. Perhaps total acceptance is not within your "reach" at this time - that is understandable. Assuming you do love him, there must be some middle ground that can accommodate both of your needs. Love will find a way. Good luck and best wishes to you both.

P.S. I should probably stop here, but I can't resist the temptation. I will acknowledge there is a certain amount of vanity involved here, but before you judge your man as silly or freakish for being somewhat vain and self-indulgent, perhaps you need to examine your own practices. What do women do, or use, in the name of vanity or self-indulgence? Starting from the top:
- Hair tints and dyes/frosting/streaking
- Permanents/relaxers
- Mousse/hair spray/styling gel
- Wigs/weaves/falls
- Eyeliner/eyebrow pencils/tweezing/eye shadow/false eyelashes
- foundation/mascara/blusher/rouge
- lipstick/lip liner
- earrings and other body piercings
- facial masks/exfoliation/moisturizers
- teeth whitening
- necklaces/bracelets
- collagen injections/facelifts/liposuction
- falsies/breast implants/breast reduction
- push-up bras/half-bras/bustiers
- shoulder pads(for a more masculine shoulder line?)
- cleavage-revealing tops/sheer blouses
- nail polish/artificial nails
- manicures/pedicures
- shaving/waxing/epilation/electrolysis
- bronzers
-perfumes/colognes
- body lotions/dusting powders
- bubble baths/scented soaps
- high heels
- very short skirts/dresses
- sheer, colorful lingerie
- frilly nightgowns
- girdles/pantygirdles/body briefs/waist cinchers (to flatten the abdomen/buttocks/thighs)
- oh yes, pantyhose/stockings/garterbelts/body stockings/colorful tights in numerous styles
- shall I continue?
Are you seriously going to argue that all of this is solely for the purpose of attracting men? Do you also have some oceanfront property in Nevada for sale? If it is OK for women to use/do all of this out of vanity or self-indulgence, perhaps you will understand why we men have a hard time feeling we are wrong for enjoying pantyhose. We are not even close to being in your league. In fairness, there are some other items on this list which are also used/enjoyed by "normal" men (try defining normal) and that in itself should be telling you something important. The lines are blurring and will continue to do so. Equality can manifest itself in many ways, this is but one of them. Instead of "stressing out" why not lighten up and enjoy the experience. It could be a lot of fun. All it takes is an open mind and an adventurous spirit.