All of the above. lol Good boning will help to form your figure but holding your body erect, holding in any extra 'body' you may have and and highlight your figure. Steel boning is best but not many have it, most are plastic which does not do as good of a job.

Great answer, ToyTime!!

Yep, Tim's pretty much nailed it. The boning is supposed to hold you in, shape and support but plastic boning just isn't strong enough to achieve the results you want without bending and poking.

There are actually many corsets with steel boning, but they're not sold on sites like this one because they're either really expensive or just custom jobs. The corsets sold here on Eden are technically considered fashion corsets and will almost always have plastic boning.