Stealing women's underwear

[ArabeIIaScott]

An article on Andrew Miller talking about his history of fetishistic and paraphiliac behaviour.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/10715569/trans-butcher-andrew-miller-stealing-knickers/

Andrew Miller was well known locally for stealing underwear.

'“Searches of Miller’s home recovered numerous items of female children and teenagers’ underwear.”'

Looking into theft of women's clothing as apparently a fairly well known paraphilic behaviour, I can't find mention of it as a specific disorder or fetish in medical literature generally. There seems to be very little in the way of research/writing on it.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26849134_Fetishism_and_Kleptomania_A_Case_Report_in_Forensic_Psychiatry

Seems this is enough of a commonly recurring behaviour to raise red flags?

And surely it should be treated as a sex crime rather than simple theft?

Gah you beat me to it

Not so many people remember the Madness song, but it's a good one.

I remember my mother having her underwear stolen off the line once as a child and she always used to insist underwear was hung up in the middle of the whirly line.

I suspect one reason we hear less about it is because a little more people dry their clothes inside these days so less opportunity for pervs.

I think Laura Richards mentioned on one of her podcasts that there had been a report(s) of underwear being stolen from washing lines in the area where Madeleine McCann was abducted.

Didn’t Kaitlyn (then Bruce) Jenner steal his daughters’ underwear?

The fact that big Bruce kept a career and relationship with his daughters after putting that in his book amazes me

This always seems to be one of those "low level" crimes that is an indicator of a much more serious and dangerous crime. Much like flashing.

It should be treated as a sexual crime.

The only thing I'd be careful on is always linking it to transvestic purposes. A lot of these criminals have other perverted reasons for stealing it and not for wearing. Of course there are others who steal to wear.

It's amazing how boxers aren't being stolen across the land.

Oh wait....

Not always linked to transvestism, no. But as both can be paraphilias (transvestic fetishism), and paraphilias tend to cluster, there will be overlap.

I’m another who remembers the days when stealing women’s underwear off washing lines was quite common and against which people took precautions. As others have said, tumble driers and the Internet have both reduced the opportunity for such theft and increased the opportunity for purchase, but the sad and possibly dangerous men who do these things will always be with us.

I remember, when I was a young woman visiting my grandma. The news was on in the background - a man had been convicted of raping a baby. She spoke to me about the absolute depravity of some men. That paraphilias tend to cluster must have entered her mind, as she then warned me to never put my underwear on the washing line and to never leave my washing out overnight "because a man might steal it".

Most times I have read or listened to trans identified males telling their stories of how they knew they were trans they pretty much all involve stealing and hoarding the clothing, especially underwear of unsuspecting female family members, mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, even wives and daughters. It is always framed by them as an indication they were "always really women" and that this was one of the few ways these poor souls could explore that identity.

They never frame it as a horrible transgression of boundaries of their supposed loved ones, they never call it out for the abuse or trust of the sexual exploitation that it actually is and that it is the expression of a paraphilia, an aberrant sexuality. Its always about them, always. Much like how access to women's spaces is always about them and women and what women want is meaningless to them. The trans identified male is one of the greatest manifestations misogyny and male supremacy visible in western societies today.

Yep 😐

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/19/court-police-officer-property-search-underwear/

Jailed.

Good. He should be on the sex offenders register too.

Just fyi, foxes also steal people's underwear. If anyone's has been disappearing they may have turned up chewed at my allotment.

I just saw this and was coming on here to post it. It’s a long time since I’ve seen any stories about underwear theft as a crime and I doubt this would have got any attention in the media, at least, if the guy were not a cop. It only tends to be mentioned as part of a catalogue of crimes committed by someone who went on to do something worse.

I wonder if it happens less, or is less reported?

I suppose people have more options for indoor drying than they used to.

My memories from childhood is that there was a divide, not really on class lines, between the younger women who went out to work and wanted to seem 'on trend', who would laugh, and the older, more experienced women who talked to and listened to each other, and who took these thefts, and exhibitionism, and voyeurism, seriously and who (with hindsight) knew all about escalation.

There was also a thing in junior school where there was a strong warning among the children, sometimes quoting their fathers, never to go near the school caretaker. I wonder what ground-level lore there was there (among people who might well have been at school with him)?

The entertainment industry schooling us to be cool and to never ever clutch our pearls has made safeguarding more difficult.

Nobody warned me, but I was somehow aware and never hung my underwear out. I think I dried it over the bath.
Men can be very weird, can't they?
Someone posted about foxes. It used to be well known that red kites nicked stuff from washing lines, centuries back. I wonder how often they were accused falsely.

It’s still the case in some places, but many dwellings in cities used to have communal areas to hang washing out. I’ve lived in at least two like that. You kept an eye on your undies (or dried them indoors) as well as on your decent sheets etc.

If the subject is really neglected as this thread implies is there a dissertation waiting to be written?
It is serious enough but is it "deep" enough?