Wearing corsets was not done in Western society to induce pain or for men to assert dominance (as has been pointed out, men actually wore them sometimes themselves) but to produce a certain fashionable shape which could not be attained any other way. Really well-made corsets were hand-made for the wearer and fitted without pinching or hurting, and tight lacing was disapproved of (although happened if the wearer wanted to be thinner). For real fatties, like Mary of Teck, they gave a shape if not slimmness, as has already been mentioned. Although much has been written about extremes of tight lacing for fashion, and things like removal of ribs, there does not appear to be any genuine evidence for this. Maud of Norway, who had a really tiny waist, seems to have produced this just by having a very petite figure, which stayed with her all her life. What the corset did achieve for less inately slim women, was pushing most of the flesh down to the hips or up to the bust - redistributing it rather than eliminating it. Hence the really sad look of grand Edwardian ladies when the 1920s demanded genuine slimness - they then paid for all their heavy eating which had been concealed by a corset and all their flowing draperies which gave them a smallish waist, a large bust and large hips - to Edward VII the perfect figure. His former mistresses Daisy Warwick and Mrs Kepple, for example, looked sadly lumpish and not at all elegant once their heyday had vanished and their hour-glass, corset-produced figures were no longer fashionable.
Just a note - Japanese women did not bind their feet, and in fact neither did Manchu women - the last Empress of China was extremely proud of her tiny feet, produced by nature and not by binding.
