Dear Lorraine,
Discovered your letters column this morning and what an eye opener it was. Nothing should surprise a dedicated lifelong mackintosh lover, after all my favourite garments were once everyday mundane apparel to the majority of the population. So why should modern hooded parka be any different?
But those letters prompt me to recall a cyberspace exchange I had with a young lady a while back. She, I will call her J, recalled those dual colour rubberised parkas that were popular a couple of decades or so back. J and a group of friends, mostly girls, were playing a variation on "blind man's buff" using not blindfolds but their hooded parkas reversed and pulled up over their faces. When it came to J's turn her hood would not stay up so one of her companions tightened and tied the drawcords behind her head. The impervious rubber lined hood combined with the excitement of the game meant J found it quite difficult to breathe. She remembers the hood "sucking in" on her face. J does not recall playing the game again although she might have been the hooded "blindman" more that once on that fateful day. Why fateful? - because the experience had a profound effect on J in later life.
The rubber-lined parkas had passed into the annals of fashion when in her late teens J brought a nylon-based equivalent rekindling those bizarre childhood memories. Within days of its purchase J found the desire to wear it reversed, with the hood secured up over her face was overwhelming. When she succumbed to the temptation the effect was and I quote "electric", both physically and sexually. Now J has a collection of hooded cagoul- and parka- style garments and over time has found a few boyfriends who she trusted enough, and who were willing to indulge her special taste.
Regards,
RM
