Tactical lingerie

No, I’m not talking about camouflage undergarments for ladies, although that is also (sadly) a thing. No, I’m talking about tactical CCW gear, generally marketing towards women, that looks cool/hot but is pretty much useless.

bass pro camo lingerie

For example, thigh holsters. Not tactical drop leg holsters, which while frequently used incorrectly do have their purpose, but rather those inner thigh holsters you see at crappy gun shows and from shady “custom” holster makers. These holsters usually consist of an elastic band with a holster body crudely stitched on to the band to accommodate the little lady’s chrome plated .25 or whatever silly bullshit gun they’re carrying. You know, like this appalling piece of crap.

Image from Femme Fatale Holster
Image from Femme Fatale Holster

The reason I’m writing about this today comes from the discussion around Shelley’s post about Women’s Concealed Carry, which addressed some of the issues the firearms industry has around products for women; in Shelley’s usual speed-of-thought style. An offsite discussion brought up the topic of what we consider to be gimmick/sub-par carry methods, like bra holsters or thigh holsters as acceptable options to quality products. This of course drove me off the rails, and lead to me coining the term “tactical lingerie” that you see in the headline of this post. A piece of gear is tactical lingerie if it’s designed to look cool/sexy but has little to no practical application whatsoever.

Stuff like this goes back to the idea of the gun as a talisman instead of a tool. Self-defense isn’t about what you’re carrying, it’s about your mind. A gun in a thigh holster, or a corset holster (that’s also a thing, apparently) is functionally inaccessible if you actually need it in a hurry, and I’d be willing to bet my sizable collection of M&Ps that no one who’s ever carried in one of these garbage holsters has ever spent any kind of time practicing getting their gun out in a hurry to actually shoot a fool. That’s genuinely important, because while we gloss over it all the time in the name of political correctness, the entire point of carrying a gun is so that you can use it to defend your life. It’s not a cute little fashion accessory, it’s a gun.

Maybe this is just me getting old and crotchety, which I’m fine with too. But stuff like this, gimmick holsters, gimmick guns, it all drives me up the wall. It cheapens the idea of self-defense and reduces the serious responsibility involved in taking up that burden to the same trivial level you’d assign to a pair of cute panties. Worse, it creates a false sense of security in the fundamentally unskilled and unserious person that because they have a gun, they’re safe. That person can then abrogate any sense of self-awareness that should come with going about their life armed, because “they’ve got a gun.”

Mindset is always the first tool of self defense. It doesn’t matter if you’re carrying an M&P under a polo shirt in 5.11 pants or a Spyderdo in a sundress. Everything you add on top of mindset is just tools. Stop pretending that shitty tools are as good as the real thing.

10 Comments

  1. “Not tactical drop leg holsters, which while frequently used incorrectly do have their purpose, ”

    …. I have yet to see one used correctly. I’m honestly not sure there is a legit purpose, unless you absolutely know you can’t mount a gun IWB/OWB and absolutely won’t be moving around. Anytime I see “swat” or some goofball with one, I know that’s the weakest guy on that team.

    “Stuff like this goes back to the idea of the gun as a talisman instead of a tool.”

    Good observation Caleb.

  2. I’m honestly torn on this one. Yeah the above listed craptastisms are bad enough they make my brain hurt! I’m not a fan of off body carry or gimmick anything.

    But on the other hand really how are women supposed to carry in the ‘little black dress’? I mean rule 1 is still “carry the gun!” Right?

    1. Yeah, but you know what? Sometimes you want to go somewhere that makes carrying impossible/impractical. Like a bar. Or a concert. Or an NFL game. Or you’re a lady and want to wear a slinky dress.

  3. My question is how does appendix carry in a well constructed kydex holster catch the amount of crap that it does about being dangerous , while carrying a weapon right next to your femoral artery with just a bit of lace and elastic get a pass?

  4. Just imagine sitting at a restaurant with friends on a blind double date. Things are going well with the girl and you start running your hand up her thigh. Suddenly you feel her ‘barrel’… I know a lot of guys who would freak out and they like guns a lot…

  5. Caleb. While agree that most of what is on the market for concealed carry that looks like lingerie is poorly made and won’t hold a gun properly you really should handle and test the product before you shoot off your mouth. I am the Femme Fatale Holster Manufacture and you are clueless about what you are talking about in regards to our thigh holster

    This is a real holster first with the lace as camo. If someone happen to see it they would not think a thing about it and never dream it was a holster.

    We have had Police department Vice squad as well as high end security details approach us about using our holsters and the garter in particular.

    I will grant you that the thigh holster is very much a niche holster and very much deep conceal. But it does have it place and when the holster is designed and made correctly it can be a very effective tool.

    1. Hey Jon,
      I’m a woman who regularly tests alternative modes of on and off body carry for women. I’d love to test some of your products and write about my experience with them for my blog. If you have a testing and evaluation program please contact me at [email protected]

      1. I think this is the first time someone has ever used my comments section to ask for a T&E for their own blog.

        I’m not sure how I feel about it.

  6. Dude, contact the guy that handles your site and tell him to make the preview not appear when you expand the article. It’s duping both photos and videos, looks like shit.

    1. It’s the way the new theme handles featured images; the old theme treated feature images differently than in-text images, so to fix it we’d have to manually edit…5,000 posts? It’d be kind of a pain in the ass, so posts that went up before we switched to the new look are going to look a little weird.

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