Thongs, pantyhose, girdles, and all those other "shapewear" items are meant to give a woman the appearance of complete smoothness under her clothes. I mean, girdles and shapewear also literally force women's bodies into more socially acceptable shapes. Covering up panties or making them so tiny you can't see them anyway is part of that. None of these things are comfortable.
Panties are sexy, though. AND comfortable. I mean, god forbid we don't make women contort themselves to look beautiful. Then they'd have time to think about, I dunno, equality and shit.
Why shouldn't the visible bit of the edge of a pair of panties under a tight pair of pants or skirt be sexy, though? Maybe its lack implies that she's wearing no underwear. Mmmm, implied sexual availability, sexual objectification, I guess men love that.
I find that even men tend to like lingerie better than no lingerie, though. A lot of them have made jokes to me about unwrapping "the present." I've noticed that when I wear a very low-cut shirt or dress, it's sexier if I have a pretty bra showing underneath it. Maybe changing what we eroticize is a little compromise, a step towards letting women do whatever they want regardless of what men think.
And frankly, what they think doesn't matter that much. Let's forget it for a second and have a little agency in our own lives and clothing choices. I feel sexy when I'm wearing a nice pair of panties. Especially if they're pretty AND comfortable. It makes me feel good.
So why not? This can be sexy:
And it's a whole helluva lot more comfortable. I'll take my cute cotton underpants over a stiff, lacy thong any day.
7 comments:
I think that people do eroticize visible lingerie - I was under the impression that visible 'sexy' underwear was supposed to = trashy. Ordinary panties, though, are 'boring', and indicate an prudish/unadventurous woman - thus, if they are visible, they are not supposed to be sexy! (Although, some people do seem to have a panty fetish... just like everything else, I suppose.)
I agree with you, by the way - that photo is sexy!
I think that if people just forget about society's standards of 'sexiness' and just wear what makes them happy, whatever that is, then they will look sexier and more attractive than any amount of following the standard will.
I also kind of wonder why panty lines aren't eroticized. Tan lines are, and I think they're gross.
We do eroticize lingerie, but it is kind of funny that we don't eroticize it more. Quite frankly, very few people really look attractive buck naked; much more often it's the interplay of clothes and skin that's interesting. This is especially true because nudity isn't such a giant taboo any more, especially with Internet porn.
As a cultural note, coming from a culture where nudity isn't all that exceptional in the first place, I always found people wearing something sexy far more hot than the same people naked.
Colin Dexter has Inspector Morse tell us that the sexiest word in the English language is "unbuttoning", and for my money he's right.
Brianna J said: "I think that people do eroticize visible lingerie"
And yeah, that photo is very sexy, at least to me. Not so much for the pantilines as for the hips... call me weird :D
Along with panty lines, I think visible hair should also be eroticized. I think this phenomenon of shaving all body hair(underarms, legs and pubes) is a very recent thing and probably quite unnatural. Personally, I find natural unshaven women a lot sexier and I think women with hairy legs and armpits would probably look a lot sexier even on the beach even in the tiniest bikinis. Nature has probably given women hair to make them look better than pre pubescent girls and I think nature probably made the right choice which today's society is trying to fight.
I don't think I wrote this post as well as I'd have liked. I was trying to emphasize the idea that our eroticization of something uncomfortable (like thongs and lace and synthetic materials in panties) is negative for women. I ended up, though, still encouraging objectification, which wasn't my intent.
I know that visible panty lines can be sexy (I think they are, especially on men!), I've just heard them mostly referred to as something to avoid. I've been with other women when they point out and laugh at someone else's VPL. It's that criticism I dislike.
I think brianna's got it right when she says people should just wear whatever the hell they want (or groom their hair however the hell they want) and that feeling sexy as a result will be sexier than anything else.
In the late 1970's VPL's WERE heavily erotic - at least in Europe. Women were deliberately wearing panties with different cuts to "place" the lines in different places on their buttocks.
Mohamed - try Italy. Italian women love to show a bit of hair from their bikinis and armpits.
Just some thoughts three years too late!
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