On Buying Underwear

This week, in conversation with María, I found myself discussing the unexpected complexity of buying underwear. In a time, saturated with fabrics, cuts, brands, and functions, the act of choosing something so intimate—something that meets the body directly—becomes charged with meaning. This is especially true for women of my generation, raised within a pedagogy of modesty that lingers in these stores, and does not always allow us to choose such garments with ease, or without self-consciousness, in the presence of others.

María proposed that this capacity—to choose for oneself in such an intimate domain—is something to be valued, because it expresses a form of care for the self. She contrasted it with those who do not exercise this capacity in the same way.

She pointed to figures heads we conventionally name as “powerful”—politicians, top executives—who do not buy their own underwear. Not because they do not wear it, nor because they are physically incapable, but because, in the organization of their lives, even this most private form of care has been delegated. They understand themselves as called to care for others rather than for themselves. Someone else buys, selects, and quietly leaves everything organized in its proper place.

Maria’s distinction stayed with me, drawing me into deeper reflection.

• How does a form of relation emerge in which someone assumes the roles of directing, deciding, protecting, and ordering the lives of others, instead of attending to their own?
• And how, at the same time, is the disposition constituted by which one comes to follow, comply, expose oneself, and obey, expecting another to take responsibility for one’s care instead of taking it on oneself?
• And why do we typically label the former ‘powerful’ but not the latter? 

 

Power

The word “power” comes from the Vulgar Latin potēre, itself born from posse—to be able, to possess the capacity. From that root, when we speak of power, we are often referring to the capacity, the faculty, the moment, or the opening that allows something to be done.

Individual power—understood as the capacity to act, even in something as ordinary as buying underwear—depends on the skills, experiences, and knowledge that allow that activity to be performed effectively.

Social power is of a different nature.

Power is not “in” anyone. It is woven between the one who leads and the one who follows, between the one who decides and the one who complies, between the one who protects and the one who exposes themselves, between the one who commands and the one who obeys, between the one who runs and the one who votes.

Historically, these agreements about social roles can be read as attempts to nurture and protect the collective. The way we divide contributions within the system we build together can strengthen mutual care and expand our ability to face life’s challenges.

Almost every social movement begins with the capacity and intention of an individual, and is sustained through collective effort. In this process, we find countless examples of people who have shaped the world in profoundly different ways.

Nelson Mandela, for example, devoted his capacity for reconciliation to uniting a nation, without seeking revenge. Adolf Hitler, by contrast, placed his political and ideological force at the service of systematic extermination, leaving millions in ruin.

What, then, determines the direction of power—its purpose, its shape, its soul? What makes the difference in how it is oriented and socially constructed?

Leading from Helplessness

When, in a relationship, someone stops experiencing their role as an equal contribution and begins to place themselves in a position of superiority, this often emerges in connection with feelings of helplessness in the face of life—even if it is not always recognized as such.

Paradoxically, this stance need not be read as pure evil. It can be understood as a desperate attempt to uphold a sense of power that is not felt inwardly. In that struggle, the outward expression is often stained with fear, vulnerability, and impotence, which may crystallize into aggression, devaluation, or rigid hierarchy.

In many cases, the devaluation of other springs from a deep sense of one’s own insufficiency. To raise oneself by pushing others down is often a clumsy attempt to preserve dignity when it is lacking within.

From this perspective, when a form of uncaring power is socially constructed, it can be read as a way of managing individual helplessness through the control of another. While we name it “power” in social terms, it can also be understood as helplessness that has been structured hierarchically.

Following from Helplessness

And here an uncomfortable—and necessary—question emerges:
Why do we so often “fall in love” with that force?

Perhaps because we still do not know how to sustain ourselves together from the strength that already lives within us, paradoxical as that may sound. Because we do not know how to self-regulate without collapsing, nor how to co-regulate without surrendering. Because when helplessness grows too large, we instinctively look outward for a figure who can remind us of our own sufficiency in the face of life. And when we do not find it, we cling to any promise of containment—no matter how controlling the shape of that shelter may be.

That is why we sometimes “fall in love” with those who appear strong, even when that strength is sustained by a helplessness as deep as our own—or deeper. For these “strong” figures may also be searching, through co-regulation, for the resources to steady themselves. And when they do not find contributions that invite them to remember their own sufficiency, they may turn to the opposite strategy: superiority instead of collapse.

Two strategies of helplessness that, when they meet, tend to reinforce one another, creating cycles that often end in more pain than they began with.

To Close

The strength of the social is woven from the threads each person can bear alone, and the strength of the individual is built within the shared fabric of relationship. The social is the field where we learn—or fail to learn—how to sustain ourselves with dignity: to care without colonizing, to accompany without subjugating, to regulate without dominating.

When this wisdom is not learned, the absence of embodied autonomy and the lack of available co-regulation often become felt as threats, and from that fear our ways of relating begin to take shape. Some people build themselves through hierarchy, trying to master fear by rising above others. Others build themselves through submission, surrendering their power in the hope that someone else will dissolve their fear.

Between us, we are always doing one of two things:
either we remind one another of our sufficiency,
or we push one another into the deepest, most complete helplessness.

Learning the social, then, is not simply learning rules.
It is learning to dwell in our vulnerability without turning it into power over another.
It is learning to care for ourselves without placing ourselves above.

And perhaps, in the end, true care for the other begins there:
in the tending of one’s own embodied dignity—
not through imposed force,
but through the shared regulation we build together.