Corset discourse really likes to talk in sensationalizing absolutes but historically speaking a corset is just a kind of garment. They could be uncomfortable and painful or they could be well fitted and supportive. They could be hyper-fashionable or they could be brutally practical. You could tightlace them or you could wear them with no reduction whatsoever. Most corsets were probably somewhere in the middle. Like bras. Or shoes. To say they were never perceived as restrictive or used as tools of enforcing dangerous/misogynistic beauty standards is like saying women's shoes never restrict freedom of movement. Patently untrue, but that doesn't mean those shoes have some deeper moral good or evil and it certainly doesn't mean we can use that fact to draw sweeping generalizations about the relationships of entire centuries of women to their own bodies. Corsets, like all clothing, exist in context.
