It is easy to demonstrate that some people react sexually to the sight of lingerie on the body of the opposite gender. It is easy to demonstrate that many people seem to perceive lingerie in a sexual way. That some of them simultaneously reject the idea that clothing like bikinis is sexual only shows that they do not go far enough in distinguishing culturally popular ideas from rational ones, even if they at least get the former correct.
Lingerie is no more sexual than coats, jeans, or dress shirts are--in other words, it is not sexual at all. It has simply been associated with sexual arousal because the subjective sexual excitement of some people at the sight or thought of lingerie has been mistaken for proof that the material itself is inherently sexual. Can lingerie be used to facilitate sexual excitement? Of course. Nevertheless, other clothing can too, and to draw lines allegedly separating "sexual" and nonsexual clothing is to indulge in an arbitrary illusion.
A personal or cultural association of lingerie with sexuality, even a very explicit one, does not mean that there is a line past which clothing has a sexual nature. It only means that an individual or culture (as a whole, even if it is not true of every individual man or woman) perceives some clothing in a sexual way. Just as bikinis are nonsexual even if some people interpret them in a sexual manner, lingerie is nonsexual, even if it might be worn or enjoyed for sexual reasons.
To say otherwise is no less stupid than insisting that suits or jeans are sexual because some people find them sexually appealing. Of course, few people are ever willing to consistently look beyond cultural ideas, and thus very few people would realize something like this on their own. It is paradoxical for clothing that is almost wholly associated with sexual excitement to have no inherent connection to sex or sexuality, after all, and that fact can make the realization all the more satisfying.
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