February 2003 - Women's Wears

Culture

Just Say No...
to panties

by Jennifer Rabin

I should tell you (because it might be hard to imagine this for yourself) that there exists an entire contingent of women who allege that g-strings and thongs are - get this - comfortable. I lump these women into the same category as people who say they never masturbate. This is the category of people I like to call Liars - people whose pants tend to spontaneously burst into flame, and whose noses grow slightly larger for transmitting such untruths.

As women, it is clear that our greatest gift is not the ability to give birth, but, rather, our impressive ability to bullshit ourselves. We are convinced that we are perfectly happy walking twenty blocks to work in three-inch stilettos (Mommy, watch me running in my Manolo Blahniks!), five pounds of makeup, and black lace, demi push-up bras. It�s one thing to suffer for beauty (e.g., bikini waxes), but when people start claiming to enjoy these practices, I become suspicious.

I tried wearing a thong once and spent the entire day reaching around to pick the self-inflicted wedgie out of my ass - only to realize that there was no remedy to this problem. I seem to remember that, in grade school, a wedgie was a humiliating punishment for something. Now that I�m all grown up, I have a hard time paying $12 for one.

I assumed only stupid, pretty girls were riding the g-string bandwagon, but, apparently, my best friend is the one driving them around. This is particularly disturbing as she is a brilliant, progressive, don�t-let-the-bastard-get-you-down kind of chick who grew up in a tee-pee, for Christ�s sake. How has this silly piece of butt thread infiltrated her once hairy-legged, love-is-all-you-need universe?

Allow me to share the highlights from a conversation she and I have had approximately four hundred and eighty-seven times to date:

�G-strings really are comfortable, I swear.�
�No, they�re not.�
�I hate when you do this. How can you tell someone that her opinion is wrong? An opinion is subjective, it can�t be wrong. Everyone is entitled to her own opinion.�
�What about the people who think George W. Bush is a totally swell guy? Or those folks who think Britney Spears makes great music. They may believe it with all their heart, but that doesn�t change the fact that they�re WRONG.�
�But I really do find my thongs comfortable.�
�No, you�re just too busy being wrong to realize that they aren�t. And would you mind explaining to me again what the need for a thong is in the first place?�
�No panty lines.�
�So why don�t you just go commando?�
�It�s unsanitary.�
�Don�t you wash your pants?�
It is usually at this point in the conversation that my poor, misguided friend walks out of the room and slams something very hard.

As far as I can tell, the situation is like this: Someone decided it was unladylike to have a line running across one�s bum. So they invented new underwear (and by they, I mean the wonderful folks who brought us eyelash curlers, electrolysis and corsets), which are excruciatingly unpleasant but eliminate the unsightly panty line and replace it with the demure, sophisticated thong line. This thong line is more acceptable than the original panty line, because women have to suffer for it. And thongs have the added benefit of sticking out the top of one�s pants every time the wearer bends over, so that the actual underwear can be seen by all. I�d say there hasn�t been an invention of this magnitude since The George Foreman Grill came onto the scene.

I remember when I first started wearing a bra - in the seventh grade - it was so uncomfortable that I could think of little else. I never made it past fourth period without taking it off and stuffing it into my gym locker with embarrassment. The idea of wearing a bra for more than two consecutive hours was anathema to me. I worried that I would never be able to endure it for an entire day and would be forced to join the ranks of the braless, excommunicated women living on the fringe of society with nothing to do but crochet hideous dresses to contain their huge, unencumbered, pendulous breasts.

Ultimately, of course, I got used to wearing a bra - keeping it on for longer and longer stretches of time until I could make it all the way home before divesting myself of it. And now, I could probably go two days without even noticing it. Is this because the advancements in underwire technology have improved the comfort factor so exponentially that it�s almost like wearing nothing at all? Nope. I simply convinced myself that it was comfortable because if something represents a standard of beauty, as women, we have an amazing capacity to trick ourselves into thinking that we like it. Swap assholes for boobs, and you�ve got the whole thong concept.

Imagine, though, if we used this power to convince ourselves of things that are altogether untrue for good instead of evil: We could wear pajama bottoms and sneakers (which we�ve decided are very fashionable) to meet our sensitive, thoughtful, prematurely balding and thick-around-the-middle boyfriend (who we�ve decided is very sexy) at the restaurant that serves only sugar-free, dairy-free, fat-free, vegetarian food (which we�ve decided is just delicious). We could spend weekends helping the homeless (which we�ve decided is way more fun than going out with friends) and having lunches with our mothers-in-law (who we�ve decided are really wonderful after all). And in our spare time, we could crochet flame-retardant pants.

NG




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