Hope in Tights

Last Sunday I talked about women playing soccer in tights, but I didn't give any examples of women soccer players wearing tights.  Well, as much as I think wearing pantyhose to play soccer is a good idea, very few women do.  So I thought I'd write about a woman soccer player who does sometimes wear tights when not player soccer.

But first it bit about Hope Solo herself, before I get to the tights.  Unlike some fetish blogs, I don't think of women as just hangers to put tights on.

Hope Amelia Solo (born July 30, 1981) is an American soccer goalkeeper and a double Olympic gold medalist from Richland, Washington who currently plays for Seattle Reign FC in the National Women's Soccer League. She has been goalkeeping for the United States women's national soccer team since 2000. After playing for University of Washington, she played in Women's United Soccer Association league, a Swedish league and a French league. She played in Women's Professional Soccer league during its entire existence from 2009 through 2011; for the clubs Saint Louis Athletica, Atlanta Beat and magicJack. Since 2012 she has played for the Seattle Sounders in W-League.

Solo is often mentioned for her excellent goalkeeping and good looks.

Solo has always been controversial.  The goalkeeper who held off Brazil from scoring and helped her team defeat Brazil 1-0 to take the gold in the 2008 Olympic games revealed that the post-match celebration was so raucous that they were still drunk during an interview the next morning.  “When we were done partying, we got out of our nice dresses, got back into our stadium coats and, at 7 a.m. with no sleep, went on the Today show drunk,” 30-year-old Hope confessed.And while she doesn’t name names, the 5’9″ beauty even snuck  mystery celebrity back to her room at the Olympic (2008) Village for a raunchy rendezvous, which she calls her “Olympic secret.”

Just before the 2012 Olympics, Solo ran into trouble. She tested positive for a banned substance—a diuretic—and explained that she had taken the medication as part of a pre-menstrual treatment prescribed by her doctor, adding that she didn't know it contained the banned drug. After working with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, Solo was given a warning for what she called "an honest mistake," and was cleared to compete at the Olympics. "As someone who believes in clean sport, I am glad to have worked with the USADA to resolve this matter, and I look forward to representing my country," she told NBC Sports.

Solo and Carli Lloyd

With that obstacle behind her, Solo was able to focus on her next goal: Winning gold at the 2012 Olympics. "London 2012 is all about winning a medal. Not just any medal, the gold medal," Solo said, according to a Reuters report.

To the roar of nearly 80,300 soccer fans—the largest soccer crowd in Olympics history—Solo won her second consecutive gold medal with the U.S. women's soccer team, in a revengeful,  2-1 victory against Japan. Solo showed no mercy during the match, stopping 12 of the 13 shots she faced against the Japanese women's team. The victory marked the fourth of five Olympic titles won by the American women's squad since women's soccer was first included in the Olympics (1996)

What about Solo's views.  (Remember guys women have brains as well as tits).

There is no indication that Solo is even remotely religious.  And it doesn’t look like her wedding ceremony had any religious affiliation either.  She described her father as a “tough Italian guy” so it’s possible that she has some Catholic roots. But her father wasn’t exactly a stable presence in her life. Although they had a good relationship, he lived on the streets and in tents in the woods outside Seattle, a vagabond of sorts. So needless to say, he wasn’t taking her to church every Sunday. With that said, I think it’s safe to say that Solo is entirely non-religious.  (Hooray!)


Does the fact that she kissed a girl make her sound like a social liberal?  How about the fact that she seems to support gay marriage?  Maybe. But it doesn’t mean she votes.  I suppose for now we’ll have to call her non-political with a possible liberal bent.

Hope Solo getting her kit off

Oh sorry guys not the picture you wanted?  How about this one.

ESPN The Magazine's annual "People Still Buy Magazines if They Show Naked People, Right?" issue features Solo longingly watering someone's grass (while naked, of course)...

So what about Hope Solo in tights I hear all you nylon nerds shouting.  Well Solo was photographed before a show ‘Dancing With The Stars’ 24.10.2011 - stocking foot in fishnets

Running out

Getting ready

Going for his ball

Nearly got the ball

Got the ball

Returning the ball

Playing ball

Solo was a contestant on Season 13 of the show, making it to the semi-final rounds.

But just as her soccer career has been dogged by controversy so has her dancing career. In the  book “Solo: A Memoir of Hope,” the 31-year-old professional athlete accused her partner Chmerkovskiy, 32, of using shoves and slaps when she would not get her dance moves correct during rehearsals.  “He manhandled me in rehearsals from the start, pushing me, whacking my stomach, bending my arms roughly. I thought that was just how it went – how dancers worked with each other,” she wrote. “But it kept getting worse. One day, Maks was trying to put me in a certain position and hit my stomach so hard with his open palm that I had a red handprint there for the rest of the day.”

Solo appears to have a habit of getting slapped.  She married Jerramy Stevens hours after Solo supported Stevens in Kirkland Municipal Court in Washington on November 13 2011, after he was accused of assaulting her at a party at her Kirkland home. Police had been called to a disturbance at the home at 3.45am by Solo's brother Marcus, who had used a 'stun gun' to fight off a group of men who had not been invited to the party.  Solo was said to have been left nursing a cut elbow following the altercation.  Stevens was found hiding in a bedroom by police, lying between a bed and the wall. He claimed to have been sleeping and unaware of the fight, but officers discovered dried blood on his shirt. He was arrested for fourth-degree domestic violence assault after admitting he had fought with Solo.

Other news to trickle out from Solo's book is that Dancing with the Stars is fixed.  (Tell us something we didn't know).

Another contestant : Mellisa Rycroft

Want to imitation Hope Solo's style?

 No, I meant in tights not in getting slapped by guys?  Well OK, Solo doesn't wear tights often - even I must admit - but perhaps her post public tights style is fishnet without shoes.

Large holes

Finer net

Compare fishnets and other tights

Starting fishnets young

Rock up in red tights - but is it to the Devil's tune?

Yesterday thousands of people across the UK were rocking up in their red outfits and donating £2 to support British Heart Foundation's work.  Did you rock in your red tights?

Red dress, red tights, red hair band.  You can't rock in red much more than this

Red bag, red scarf, red tights - almost as good

Red tights were particularly good for rocking red day because they allowed so much of your body to be covered in red, really showing your support.

Exhausted after rocking in red tights all day

Perhaps if you didn't find any red tights,  you wore a LRD (little red dress) ....

...or an even littler red skirt.....

... or red shoes ....

...or just you natural (or dyed) red hair

OK, you forgot it was rocking red day, but perhaps you managed some red nail varnish anyway

Lets have a closer look

Good girl red painted toes...

..and here are some more red painted toes in pantyhose (it rhymes see)

Yesterday, was also National Wear Red Day of the American Heart Association.  The Association was campaigning on the slogan that heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined.  (Heart disease is also the under-recognized killer of women in the UK.  Perhaps us girls don't complaint enough while men go to the doctor with every man-pain.  Come to think of it man and pain are synonymous)   So I hope our American sisters were wearing red pantyhose.

Even guys could join in, in red

(if they really wanted)

Well all this got me thinking of the cultural associations of red.  Red is frequently used as a symbol of guilt, sin and anger, often as connected with blood or sex. A biblical example is found in Isaiah: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." Also, The Scarlet Letter, an 1850 American novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, features a woman in a Puritan New England community who is punished for adultery with ostracism, her sin represented by a red letter 'A' sewn into her clothes. Would they do that to a man?  Would they fuck.

This all comes from a general Hebrew view inherited by Christianity which associates red with the blood of murder and of course menstruation.  On the subject of which I must quote this from "scripture".

9 “‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.
20 “‘Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. 21 Anyone who touches her bed will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 22 Anyone who touches anything she sits on will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 23 Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, they will be unclean till evening.
24 “‘If a man has sexual relations with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.
25 “‘When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. 26 Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. 27 Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.
28 “‘When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. 29 On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 30 The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the Lord for the uncleanness of her discharge.
31 “‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place,[a] which is among them.’”

Leviticus 15:19-33 if you must know

Now we all know that menstruation is a sin, but you never guessed how bad a sin it is. Not only is a woman "unclean" for a week after her period begins, but everything she touches is "unclean" as well. People, beds, seats, clothing -- everything.  So you can’t touch a woman who is unclean, but worse, you can’t touch anything she has touched. If you lie on her bed, even if you were unaware it was unclean, you become unclean and must wash your clothes and bathe, and wait until evening to be clean. It sounds a bit like a kids playground game, eh? Like cooties might get you or something. I’ve always wondered how hotels are supposed to deal with this -- maybe separate rooms for the unclean? Or how about we all just assume we are unclean all the time, and make a few sacrifices to tide us over....

I feel better now I have pointed that out.  Its enough to make me go and start worshiping Satan (if I didn't already).

So girls, if you are going to be a sinner, (which is much more fun), do it in red.

Naked apart from her red tights and with a cat.  BURN the witch!

At one point, red was associated with prostitutes, or now, with brothels (red-light districts).  I must say I have nothing against either.  (A good career for a sexy out-going girl.  What you'd rather work in Lydl?)

Selling your assets in red?

Finally, a subject close to by heart, in Christianity, Satan is usually depicted as coloured red and/or wearing a red costume in both iconography and popular culture.  So why not wear your little red horns.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and you might get a visit from Beelzebub himself

You were just having a laugh in red tights and horns, but....

...look who turned up ....

.... you don't want to upset him .... unless you want to look like this..

Suitable sacrifice?

Horns, little red dress, fishnet tights, and black high heels, Satan will reward you for all  the men you tempted....

...its just that he will enjoy your reward much more than you will.

Plus Tights

The national average for UK girls is ....... a curvy size 16.  Sales of plus size clothing are up 40 per cent since 2007.  So are plus size tights for us curvy girls?

Traditionally curvy girls often went for flattering black opaques.

Or made big statements, to go with our big personalities

Cool sandals

But why not curvy girls in sheers?

Curves with attitude

There have always be a range of great sheer styles available for us - although many on line only

Sandal toes

Touch of class - seams

And don't forget the fishnets

But now according to manufacturer Crete there is now a revolution for the larger lady in tights.  They have created Madison Plus Size Tights, which cater for up to size 34 and use a first of its kind Lycra Xceptionelle - a Lycra technology so new that it's still awaiting its patent.  (Hmmm perhaps its not obviously revolutionary then .... if they are still having to think about the patent).

The 20 denier tights have been tailor made to offer the correct compression to the right part of the leg with a special reinforced inner thigh area made in a high denier yarn.  The new design aims to eliminate painful chafing that many women on the go suffer with.  The new tights reduce dig-in at the waist or thigh (apparently).

It is good that Cette got the packaging right.....

83% of plus size testers found the garment very different (but was it very different in a good way?) to any other existing product in the marketplace.

.... unlike some we could mention....

So it appears that

• More of us are bigger than ever.   MyTights.com who sell the new hosiery saw a 41 per cent increase in like-for-like for plus size products
• The Cette hype is paying off,  Mytights.com also said Cette tights pre-orders are sky high.

Big girls tights, without the big girls

Big stocking sales too?  Hope not tights offer much more control.