Under where?

by tess

Fundamentals you learn in all-girls Catholic high school:
1. The girls at the rival Catholic schools are all ‘hos.
2. The boys at the “brother” Catholic schools are all dorks, but not geek chick a la Bill Gates, just plain old regular nerds.
3. You must buy all new underwear whenever you have a new boyfriend; it would be super-slutty to wear the same panties with one boy that you wore in front of another.

Boys may know instinctively who’s a dork and which girls are destined for late curfew on Friday night, but rule #3 doesn’t pertain to them. Cases in point: The Hubs has worn the same skivvies since I started doing his laundry 15 years ago. And I am almost positive that my father still has the shorts that were issued to him during the war. The Korean War.

Do you know any woman who wears undies that old? I mean, we may own lingerie that is ten years old, but it’s in the back of the drawer, on the bottom. And we may keep it for any variety of reasons: just in case we lose that extra 60 pounds we gained during the Clinton and Bush administrations, on the off chance we ever want to "get jiggy wit' it" again, or even a remembrance of a long ago kinky afternoon, but we don't actually wear it.

Essentially underwear represents something different for women than it does for men. We think of it as experiential, even costume-like. Remember the sleek, red, shiny bikinis that revved the engine of the race car driver? How about the animal prints that brought out the tiger in the otherwise-nerdy zoology student? And who could forget those Lolita-pink, ruffled, cotton briefs for the Lit professor?

So setting aside the warped Catholic school education, why do we dispose of (or at least hide) our old undies while men continue to wear theirs? Are men more frugal on the jockeys front? Is lingerie more fashion forward and thus must be updated more frequently (like women's shoes versus men's shoes)? Are panties simply more accessible and top-of-mind than boxers/briefs? Do men not wear theirs as frequently and so they last longer? Might it be that we women simply wash ours into an early grave?

Now that I’m an adult, I wish I had some XXXL underoos. Not because I think I’m Batman of the Bedroom or even The Shadow of the Sheets, but wouldn’t you just feel more invincible if you were wearing Superman underpants? I know that I would. And there are so many classic superhero catch phrase opportunities to make a real statement with your ‘roos.
He-Man: “I haaave the poowwwerrrrrrr!”
Wolverine: “I’m the best there is at what I do.”
Radioactive Man: “Up and atom!”
Venom: “I’ll eat your brains.”
Spiderman: “With great powers comes great responsibility.”
General Zod: “Kneel before Zod.”

See? I’m thinking cottage industry here … adult-sized and -themed superhero knickers! “PluckyPants for the Provocative Plus Size Gal! Be Tantalizing yet empowered; flirtatious and defiant; coy but courageous. Collect them all! Now at a store near you!”