Consider This

By LC Van Savage

Please tell me when it became OK for people to walk around with their undergarments showing. Did it begin with Madonna when she started to dance with her undies outside of her clothing---that is when she was wearing clothing?

To digress a bit, Mongo and I always enjoyed Madonna. She reminded us of a kid chalking dirty words on a sidewalk and then running away, harmless, just getting away with what she could. She was and still is a hoot, outrageous and fun to watch altho let’s face it, she just never had the singing chops for “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina!”

But back to today’s publicly visible underwear. I can recall when seeing a woman’s slip hanging a fraction below her hemline was scandalous. Today women’s bra straps show not accidentally but by design and ladies please, some of you ought to give a bit more thought to laundering with maybe a soupcon of bleach. If you insist on treating us all to the view of your undies, could you please maybe keep them clean?

And lest you think I’m not an equal opportunity curmudgeon, males too allow us to know what sort of underpants they’re wearing by having the tops of them sticking 6 inches above their belts, the legs on them hanging below the ends of their sporting shorts. More than once I’ve seen a cool guy’s low slung britches fall around his ankles as he rushed somewhere. There comes a point of no return, you know, where low can be just a bit too low for gravity to ignore, and down they go. Awkward at best. Everyone has a middle upon which to secure waist bands, but it appears this utilitarian part of the human anatomy has vanished like bustles and spats, no longer useful.

It seems women today purchase tops with spaghetti straps to show their underwear with lasagna straps. And no one cares. Why are people so eager to show the world what their underpinnings look like? Oh well, I’ll wager underwear businesses across the land are overjoyed at this new wrinkle so some good is coming of all these displays.

A week ago I was stopped at a red light when a young damsel biked past me. Pretty thing, but perhaps a little larger than she should have been, meaning she probably shouldn’t have worn pubic- bone britches and a cut-off shirt showing her midriff. At the risk of sounding thoroughly prudish, I think those of us with more avoir du poir than we ought should probably not display jiggling belly rolls, but this is America and anyone, with rolls or sans, can do as they wish and those who are offended can just cross the street. But hey, you got a hard body? Show it proudly, if that’s your bent.

Anyway, this young lady was hunched over her handlebars, her jeans forced down to plumber’s butt level and a bit beyond, altho that particular part of her anatomy was modestly covered by a thong, a painful looking sling-shot sort of underpants thing, narrow, brilliantly colored. I didn’t know whether to stare at that weird nether garment or at the elaborate tattoo she’d once paid to have burned into the small of her back and which pretty much looked like one of those impossibly undecipherable graffiti hieroglyphs sprayed on the sides of subway cars. Yes those underpants were quite a sight, if that small, awful garment showing above the girl’s lowered jeans could be called underpants, her strange tattoo casually displayed above that. I honestly felt I knew way too much about this young lady who was obviously into pain.

At least Madonna, when she wasn’t stripping and parading around in the altogether, kept her outer lingerie displays to pretty much to boustieres and fishnet stockings etc. But she only did that on film where it’s expected and not on public streets.