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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And the reason

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Speaker 1: why we're talking about thongs today is because a listener

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Speaker 1: wrote in genuinely curious about the origin of thong underwear

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Speaker 1: the most controversial piece of clothing one can have in

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Speaker 1: their chest of drawers, I would argue and easily flicked

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Speaker 1: at someone like a rubber band. Yeah. And also, let's

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Speaker 1: not forget the most famous, while in my mind at least,

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Speaker 1: sex tip from Cosmopolitan magazine, which was to use your

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Speaker 1: thong as a scrunch. Everything is wrong with that, yes, hopefully,

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Speaker 1: I mean I'm assuming it's a it's a clean one,

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Speaker 1: straight from the dryer. Um. And also because of this podcast,

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Speaker 1: a certain song by a certain former brief pop star

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Speaker 1: named Cisco has been stuck in my head because when

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Speaker 1: I was in high school, early high school, the thong

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Speaker 1: song came out. I remember it from freshman year of college.

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Speaker 1: I think it was a year two thousand. In the

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Speaker 1: year two thousand, there was a thong song um, and

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Speaker 1: I remember jamming out to that and also being like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is gross wym my singing saying this songs are

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Speaker 1: so infectious. They just get up in there, don't they. Uh. Yes.

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Speaker 1: But long before Cisco, people had been wearing thongs. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the earliest songs. This comes from the origin of everyday things,

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Speaker 1: a little book, and the earliest thongs were made of leather,

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Speaker 1: which has to be more uncomfortable than cotton, right, depending

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Speaker 1: on how they were made, I guess right. And African

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Speaker 1: tribes and Egyptians were among the first thong wears, which

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Speaker 1: makes complete sense because they were in warm climates, right,

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Speaker 1: and they needed some some breathing room. But I mean,

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Speaker 1: they obviously did not think about their leather loincloth thongs

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Speaker 1: the way we think of thongs today, which are provocative

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Speaker 1: their lingerie. They're used to prevent visible panty lines. I

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Speaker 1: don't think the Egyptians were worried about panty lines. I

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Speaker 1: think they were just like, it's hot, it was utility, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: But I just want to point out a one one

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Speaker 1: thong fan with King tut More than a hundred thong

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Speaker 1: type garments were found in his tomb. Hey, what are

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Speaker 1: you gonna wear in the afterlick, you've got to have

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Speaker 1: a change of underwear even in the afterlife. Absolutely, African

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Speaker 1: tribes and Egyptians were certainly not the only ones. Greeks

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Speaker 1: and Japanese people wore them. Also, the Japanese thong style

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Speaker 1: now correct me, is it fundoshi or fundoshi? I think

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Speaker 1: it would be fundoshi. Fundoshi was originally the only type

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Speaker 1: of undergarment in Japan and later became associated with warriors

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Speaker 1: like samurais and Suma wrestlers. And if you're into the

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Speaker 1: Suma wrestler scene, they still wear traditional garments like that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And according to Elizabeth Ewing's nineteen seventy six book Underwear

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Speaker 1: a History, there's a Roman mosaic from four eight that

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Speaker 1: shows several women also wearing what looks like bikinis or briefs.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of funny that that really thongs as

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Speaker 1: we would think of them, start out more as a

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Speaker 1: dude thing before it became more common for women. But

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Speaker 1: Westerners and Europeans were just really turned off by this

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Speaker 1: whole loincloth. I do, but it really offended our nostagi

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Speaker 1: sensibilities that, you know what, didn't offend people crotchless underwear.

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Speaker 1: This is very true, instead of bearing our buttocks, which

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Speaker 1: according to you Professor Otto Steinmeyer from the University of

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Speaker 1: Malaya near qual Umpur, who studied loin cloths in Borneo. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he said that that Westerners really hated loin claus because

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Speaker 1: of a secret homophobic fear of the bear buttocks. YEA, interesting,

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Speaker 1: but they're a little squeamish. Westerners pretty squeamish about that,

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Speaker 1: but not squeamish like you said, Caroline about this, uh,

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Speaker 1: crutchless underwear, right, because we didn't always have the idea

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Speaker 1: in our heads that everything needed to be covered up

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Speaker 1: and that pantylines needed to be prevented and things like that.

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Speaker 1: Once upon a time in Victorian England, people wore a

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Speaker 1: lot of clothes. They had creneline and petticoats and all

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Speaker 1: this stuff, and it was very hard. If you've ever

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Speaker 1: worn a wedding dress or a prom dress and needed

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Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom, so many of both of

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Speaker 1: those many you are the twenty seven dress of the girl. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's it's hard to go to the bathroom. You you

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Speaker 1: need help, and so to make it easier to pop

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Speaker 1: a squat, Victorian ladies would wear bloomers that were kind

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Speaker 1: of baggy and um, they didn't have anything covering the crotch.

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Speaker 1: So you know, it served two purposes, uh, maybe three

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Speaker 1: if we get technical. One making it easier to go

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Speaker 1: to the bathroom too, it prevented things from getting to um,

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Speaker 1: it kept airflow going, yes, breathable right. And three well, uh,

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Speaker 1: they didn't take them off to go to bed, so

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Speaker 1: it made some other things very easy to like sex.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm saying, provides sexual access. Uh. It

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Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of back in the day when

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Speaker 1: they had uh, this is more like an eighties thing.

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Speaker 1: Remember Leotard's that had the snap crotches. Yeah, I've worn um.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to get too personal. I don't. I

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Speaker 1: mean a lot of you just don't know me. But

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Speaker 1: I have Warren spanks. If anyone's ever worn spanks dot

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Speaker 1: dot dot do they have a no cross? Oh I didn't.

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Speaker 1: I had no idea. It took away my dat dot

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Speaker 1: dot I had. But I would like to briefly touch

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Speaker 1: on the etymology of g string. This is coming from

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Speaker 1: William Sapphire and it goes back far, far earlier than

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Speaker 1: a lot of you might assume he found the earliest

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Speaker 1: instance of G string, and it was spelled g e

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Speaker 1: string all one word mentioned in the book Western Wilds

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Speaker 1: and the Men Who Redeemed Them by John H. Beadle

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventies seven, and it was used to describe

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Speaker 1: a loincloth worn by some American Indians and some American

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Speaker 1: settlers who did not have that latent homophonic good for them. Um,

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Speaker 1: now after you've really interrupted me of talking about my

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Speaker 1: Victorian history, and now I mean it's it's interesting the

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Speaker 1: G string because well, I just wonder do you think

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Speaker 1: that's what carried through to the current gy string or

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Speaker 1: do you think there's a different reason that we call

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Speaker 1: it a string? Do you think it's all I guess

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Speaker 1: it all comes from the same place. Well, according to

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Speaker 1: that the New York Times article that WILLIAMS. Sapphire wrote,

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Speaker 1: looking at the G string, he seemed to think that

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Speaker 1: it goes all the way back here, there's a there's

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Speaker 1: a basic continuum. Interesting. I would like to point out

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Speaker 1: that just how common these crotchless bloomers were, and that

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Speaker 1: is that Queen Victoria had monogrammed crotchless bloomers and apparently

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Speaker 1: they were huge because she herself was not petite. But

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Speaker 1: in two thousand eight, a pair of her I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: say crotchless again, a pair of her crotchless bloomers went

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Speaker 1: for more than nine thousand pounds at auction, crotchless and monogrammed,

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Speaker 1: very fancy Victoria talking about Victoria's secret um. Now moving on,

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Speaker 1: Edwardian ladies wore longer pentaloons flash bloomers with strings tied

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Speaker 1: at the waist and knees, and they had loose crotches

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Speaker 1: and were made of cotton, so they were very loose

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Speaker 1: and breathable, didn't didn't constrict you in any way. And

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Speaker 1: moving even further forward into the nineteen twenties and thirties,

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Speaker 1: undy's in silk wall or very fine cotton had crotches

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Speaker 1: low enough not to get caught between your buttocks or labia,

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Speaker 1: so no one in the Roaring twenties was worried about cameltoe.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen forties, underwear starts to get a little

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Speaker 1: more close fitting, as clothes do. The female silhouette starts

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Speaker 1: to making our glass shapes with my hands right now. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then in nineteen forty sorry, in nineteen thirty nine,

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Speaker 1: New York Mayor fear Ello LaGuardia requested that the city's

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Speaker 1: exotic dancers dressed in a more appropriate manner. And so

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Speaker 1: they then, and this is ninety nine, they adopted the

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Speaker 1: thong as there as they're more acceptable stage garb because

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Speaker 1: they were still showing a lot, but not too much.

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Speaker 1: And that was one thing that I wasn't able to

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Speaker 1: find was the link between exotic dancing and stripping and

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Speaker 1: UH and thongs in the general public and sort of

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Speaker 1: how it grew out of that because a lot of

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Speaker 1: times there's that now it made the leap, Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: that's the explanation for like it started out thongs for

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Speaker 1: women at least, not the loin cloths for men. Thongs

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Speaker 1: for women started out in UH and strip joints. Well. Um,

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Speaker 1: there was a little bit written about how the thong

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Speaker 1: was adopted by and I don't know if this has

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Speaker 1: anything to do with its popularity now, but how it

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Speaker 1: was adopted by Brazilian dancers but for their festivals. You know, Um,

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Speaker 1: you see in like Carnival, you see pictures of these

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Speaker 1: women who were just you know, just gorgeously all dolled

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Speaker 1: up with feathers and glitter, and they're wearing like next

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Speaker 1: to nothing basically, and they wear thong. They tend to

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Speaker 1: wear thongs, so they have heard of them as tanga

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Speaker 1: tanga tanga and um. Fashion history would attribute the modern

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Speaker 1: thong to ru D gern Reich, who was a fashion

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Speaker 1: designer who introduced a thong as we know it today

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four. And I believe this is also

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Speaker 1: attributed to the origin of everyday things. And he was

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Speaker 1: an Austrian fashion designer, very edgy, who invented the mono kinny,

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Speaker 1: which is a topless bakini, which is basically rudy underwear.

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Speaker 1: Just you reinvented underwear, you're brilliant. He clearly was just like,

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Speaker 1: how else can we get women on the beach not

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Speaker 1: wearing much? Oh no, those on that's not underwear, that's

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Speaker 1: a mono key And that's the closest I can get

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Speaker 1: to an Austrian accent. That's not at all anyway. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean other people who popularize the thong, for better

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Speaker 1: or worse are Britney Spears, who I think it's blamed

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Speaker 1: for everything in society. Brett Britney Spears, there's a picture

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Speaker 1: of her horrifically wearing um a thong under leather chaps. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I'll never you can't unsee something, but it is not

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Speaker 1: just Britney Spear rs H. Scully. Julian Anderson was seen

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Speaker 1: on the Red carpet. If you google it, there's a

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Speaker 1: there's an image of her she wearing. She's wearing this

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Speaker 1: low backed dress with a the V A K A

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Speaker 1: whale tale sticking out prominently like it was obviously part

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Speaker 1: of It's like halfwere her back. I mean, yeah, her

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Speaker 1: dress is low cut, but I mean I I felt

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Speaker 1: on my back. I was like, okay, where is her thong?

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Speaker 1: Where is my Now? My underwears way below that, so

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Speaker 1: I think she pulled that up just for show. UM

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Speaker 1: and Victoria's Secret also had its first fashion show in nine,

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Speaker 1: which also helped launch the thong into prime time because

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Speaker 1: suddenly the undergarment fashion shows weren't anything new, but they

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Speaker 1: were usually private and an all female affair. But with

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Speaker 1: the Victoria's Secret fashion show, anybody could check out the

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Speaker 1: ladies stretting their stuff in thong underwear and whether that

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Speaker 1: is appropriate yet, I am not wont to say. There

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Speaker 1: are arguments over feminism and thongs, which are interesting. I

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Speaker 1: don't think there is an argument about you know, why

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Speaker 1: are you wearing certain types of underwear? Is it to

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Speaker 1: attract a man and be more sexually attractive, or is

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Speaker 1: it to make yourself feel better, et cetera. Well, especially

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Speaker 1: with the U, with the rise of the thong came

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Speaker 1: the lowering of the waistline. We have the muffin top. Yes,

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Speaker 1: we we have these super low rise jeans and your

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Speaker 1: and your thong that went with it, and the I

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Speaker 1: don't know, I guess trendy among certain groups. Trendy thing

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Speaker 1: to do was to to show flash or thong, and

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Speaker 1: I could see how something like that might not sit

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Speaker 1: that well with feminist ethics. Writer Natasha Stag posits that

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Speaker 1: it's okay for a feminist to wear a thong, but

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Speaker 1: is it okay for a thong to be representative of feminism?

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Speaker 1: And can a thong be representative of anti feminism? Well,

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Speaker 1: first of well, of course it's okay for a feminist

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Speaker 1: to wear a thong, because feminism is all about choice,

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Speaker 1: So you should be able to wear boy shorts, a

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Speaker 1: G string, a C string, even um, which I did

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Speaker 1: not know existed. No, there are no strings, but it's

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Speaker 1: just it's kind of like a large Maxi pad. That's

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Speaker 1: exactly what that's exactly what it looks like. Um. But

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Speaker 1: this whole issue of of whether we need underwear to

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Speaker 1: represent feminism, it seems also far reaching, right. Zoe Williams

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Speaker 1: of The Guardian in two thousand seven wrote that, in short,

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Speaker 1: just because you're a woman and something makes you feel good,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily add up to feminism. So yeah, I

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Speaker 1: guess she was. She had a big column about undergarments

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Speaker 1: and girdles and spanks and things like that that suck

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Speaker 1: you in and make you look better, and people who

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Speaker 1: say that you're not a feminist if you wear certain

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Speaker 1: types of undergarments to change your appearance. Well, there is

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Speaker 1: the whole thing of that that Stag points out about

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Speaker 1: how we feel the need to hide our panty lines

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Speaker 1: by creating the illusion of going underwear less. So we're

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Speaker 1: wearing underwear to make it look like we're not wearing

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Speaker 1: underwear and is it all that comfortable? And why are

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Speaker 1: we even doing that? Should penny lines be such a

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Speaker 1: big deal? Well, I mean, I think that argument is

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Speaker 1: kind of silly, just because when I wear a thong,

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Speaker 1: because I'm wearing nice pants to work or something. It's

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Speaker 1: not because I'm trying. I'm not trying to look like

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Speaker 1: I'm not wearing underwear. I'm just trying to make you

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Speaker 1: not look at my butt and see panty lines and

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Speaker 1: be like there is for underwear. I just, you know,

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Speaker 1: stop looking at my butt anyway. Jeez well. Jennifer Baumgartner

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Speaker 1: and Amy Richards, in an essay Feminism and Femininity or

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Speaker 1: How We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Thong,

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Speaker 1: wrote that they positive that the thong is symbolic of

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Speaker 1: young people's relationship to feminism, meaning that the relationship is

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Speaker 1: often personal, okay, invisible, sure, and uncomfortable. Okay, yeah, because

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Speaker 1: feminism We've talked about before on the podcast Feminism is

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Speaker 1: a is a tricky um term for some people to

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Speaker 1: self identify with because of all the baggage that might

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Speaker 1: come with it, correct and and perceptions of of or

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Speaker 1: fear of perceptions from other people of what's Saying that

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Speaker 1: you're a feminist will make you look like to other people,

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Speaker 1: maybe in the way that a visible bandylion or a

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Speaker 1: whale tale might make you. I might spur assumptions from

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Speaker 1: other people, But again, it's I just wonder when I'm

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Speaker 1: reading analysis like this, if we aren't putting too much

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Speaker 1: weight onto clothing. I think we I think we are.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in my opinion, I think it's a feminism argument.

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Speaker 1: Really did two thongs that sort of stilly? I understand

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Speaker 1: how you can look at a woman like, let's say

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Speaker 1: you're in a club or I don't know, on the

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Speaker 1: street even and a woman's underwear is purposely hanging out

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Speaker 1: to look provocative. I mean, I can see how maybe

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Speaker 1: there's an argument about like, but your underwear back in

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Speaker 1: your pants in respect yourself. But you know, if she

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Speaker 1: wants to wear underwear out and you know she's not

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Speaker 1: around small children whatever. Uh. I have mentioned whale tale

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Speaker 1: a number of times now, um, and would like to

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Speaker 1: offer this little little trivia nugget for you, Caroline us

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Speaker 1: Is reported an MSNBC. In two thousand five, the American

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Speaker 1: Dialectical Society voted. They did vote for truthiness that year

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Speaker 1: as the word of the year, but whale tail was

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Speaker 1: the most creative, beating out narrowly muffintop. Yeah, but it's

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Speaker 1: sort of funny that whale tail one most creative word

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Speaker 1: of the year. In two thousand five, since in two

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Speaker 1: thousand four the New York Times declare the thong passe

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Speaker 1: I can I just I want Okay, Look, I think

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Speaker 1: fashion discussions are ridiculous. I think I'm sorry if I

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Speaker 1: offend someone who is really into fashion. But I think

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Speaker 1: the way people talk about clothing, especially insiders. If you

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Speaker 1: call pants a pant, if you call jeans a gene,

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Speaker 1: I just think it's ridiculous. And so the this two

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Speaker 1: thousand four New York Times article is hysterical to me

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Speaker 1: because they take this discussion of the thong so seriously. Well,

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Speaker 1: because no one really from the articles that we read,

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Speaker 1: no one really wanted to get on board with the thong.

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Speaker 1: No one was like, hey, you know what's really cool

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Speaker 1: these days, thongs. It's New York Times, just from the

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Speaker 1: tone of the article already seems to think that thongs

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Speaker 1: are a touch trashy. And they quote Adam Lips, and

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Speaker 1: this is in two thousand four. He's the founder of

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Speaker 1: the lingerie line Adam and Eve, and he's as women

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Speaker 1: got tired of it, and they got sick and tired

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Speaker 1: of seeing string hanging out the top of every celebrity's jeans.

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Speaker 1: It's just gross. I think it went too far over

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Speaker 1: the edge and enough is enough, which I know so

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Speaker 1: much anger directed at one piece of cotton and elastic.

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Speaker 1: It's incredible, right, And then, uh, let's let's not leave

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Speaker 1: out Cosmo from this discussion. They joined the dialogue in

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Speaker 1: a couple of years later, they declare the thong dead.

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Speaker 1: And they say that with the invention of m v

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Speaker 1: p L's, which is I guess, non visible pantiline underwear,

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Speaker 1: there's no need for thongs. Stop sticking string up your

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Speaker 1: butt when you can wear a laser cut underwear, which

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Speaker 1: I have a pair, and they are fantastic, and they

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Speaker 1: are actually laser cut boy shorts, which all of these

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Speaker 1: articles mean crazy over boy short, love the boy short. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They thought it was a great alternative to the thong

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Speaker 1: because it didn't ride up and give you a perma

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Speaker 1: weggy and um. And I think that people were more

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Speaker 1: comfortable with it because it didn't have the same sexual

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Speaker 1: implications as a thong did. For instance, going back to

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Speaker 1: that epic New York Times article, they wrote, the thong

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Speaker 1: underpant became a cultural touchstone, the very symbol of teas

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Speaker 1: and perhaps because of that, that's one reason why the

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Speaker 1: sale of thongs to tweens, which just skyrocketed in the

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Speaker 1: early and mid two thousand's, was very concerning for parents. Right.

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Speaker 1: I would like to point out that according to it

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Speaker 1: was It Time magazine, Yes, UM, sales of thongs to

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Speaker 1: tweens have quadrupled since two thousand to one point six

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Speaker 1: million according to n B n p D Fashion World.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot of underwear, a lot of stringy, shany

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Speaker 1: small underwear. Two young girls. And I don't know how

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Speaker 1: many of you have seen the YouTube clip about the store.

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Speaker 1: I cannot remember what's idiots in, but there was a

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Speaker 1: tween and teen store selling crotchless panties geared towards young girls. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there was. I think it was a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago. Abercrombie and Fitch had to pull UM a

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Speaker 1: line of tween targeted underwear. I believe there were thongs

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Speaker 1: UM that had very provocative sayings on them because it

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Speaker 1: was just it crossed, It crossed the line. And I

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Speaker 1: remember sites like Jezebel and other feminist blogs UM raising

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Speaker 1: a big stink and they pulled it UM. Consumer consumer

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Speaker 1: outrage can can actually make things happen sometimes. But the

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Speaker 1: boy short, seems like it's the new it's the new thong.

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Speaker 1: And after Cosmopolitan published that two thousand ten article declaring

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Speaker 1: the thong dead over its salon, Sarah Heppola wrote sort

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Speaker 1: of um a homage to the thong and also asking

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Speaker 1: men if they would miss that kind of to where

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Speaker 1: if they really thought it was that super sexy. And

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Speaker 1: this was my favorite quote from one of the men

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Speaker 1: who all of them requests to remain anonymous, and she's

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Speaker 1: sort of funny, all of them, and that she interviewed

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Speaker 1: this one guy said to me, the thong is like

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Speaker 1: finna Greek. It's a particular spice, a good one, but

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Speaker 1: only appropriate at points and rarely on its own and

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Speaker 1: never meant to dominate a dish. And so Helpless says

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Speaker 1: that the thong became boring and played out, which reminded

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Speaker 1: me of the Flapper episode where apparently too many people

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Speaker 1: were doing too much petting in the back of cars

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Speaker 1: that one flapper so that it was just over with.

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Speaker 1: But similarly, I mean, you know that that Flapper was

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Speaker 1: like petting is being played out and jazz isn't going

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Speaker 1: to be cool here pretty soon. And she was very

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Speaker 1: wrong on both counts. Because people are still making out

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Speaker 1: and listening to jazz. So it's interesting that all these

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Speaker 1: people are declaring the thong dead because they're still sold. Well, obviously, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they'll they still make up a decent percentage of the

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Speaker 1: under garments sales because there is you know, they do

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Speaker 1: have a utilitarian purpose, but we're not seeing them purposefully exposed.

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Speaker 1: The whale tale. The whale tale, I think is is

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Speaker 1: certainly uh sunk oh the good and a lot of

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Speaker 1: people would argue there is good reason for that. There

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Speaker 1: is a hygiene argument, for sure. A lot of people

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Speaker 1: are concerned about a tiny piece of string in your

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Speaker 1: crotch causing infections. And while there's no definite link, like

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Speaker 1: definite proven link between um infections and wearing stringy underwear,

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Speaker 1: they say that there there are issues. Yeah, Columbia Universities

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Speaker 1: go ask Alice Advice column said that anecdotally, gonnacologists have

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Speaker 1: reported an increasing number of thongs wearers suffering from our

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Speaker 1: current u t s and vaginal infections because they think

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Speaker 1: that the the elastic or the cotton or the lycra

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Speaker 1: in your gluteal folds, which was a phrase that I learned,

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Speaker 1: which is a fancy scientific wave saying you're crack um

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Speaker 1: that it can serve as a conduit for bacteria. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people used the subway car uh metaphor

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Speaker 1: for the thong picking up it's I mean it's close.

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Speaker 1: It's a close fitting strip of fabric and it can

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Speaker 1: easily pick up fecal matter and bacteria from the anus

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Speaker 1: and get you know, commute, it's commuting, it's on the

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Speaker 1: it's on the subway car. Here comes uh. And if

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Speaker 1: the thong moves, carry it towards the vagina and urinary

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Speaker 1: tract right, And it can also cause micro abrasions or

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Speaker 1: cracks in the skin, which you can leave those delicate

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Speaker 1: tissues more susceptible to infection. But again um web m

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Speaker 1: d points out that there still isn't any scientific proof

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Speaker 1: that there is a connection between U T I contraction

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Speaker 1: and wearing thongs. Well, the patients Encyclopedia get Ready of

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Speaker 1: urinary tract infection, sexual systietis, and interstitial systetis. It's quite

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Speaker 1: a title, recommends that you be user friendly and remove

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Speaker 1: your underwear when you were at home. So let's get

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Speaker 1: a breeze, air things out. And they want you to

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Speaker 1: be kind to your perennium. They say, keep air flowing

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Speaker 1: around it at all times. Practice good hygiene, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: take a shower. Yeah, but but yeah, the the U

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Speaker 1: T I thong connection is not not proven, right, um,

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Speaker 1: but you know, as always change your underwear every day,

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Speaker 1: take care of stuff down there. So I think that

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Speaker 1: the you know, the thong has seen its day, I

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Speaker 1: would say, And now it seems like we're we're in

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Speaker 1: the time of the boy short. And Helen Fisher, an

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Speaker 1: anthropologist UM who has also done a ton of research

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Speaker 1: on the the science of attraction and love, says that

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Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense that the boy short

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Speaker 1: is more popular because, in a way, keeping things more

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Speaker 1: covered can be more erotic and alluring because it leaves

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Speaker 1: more to the imagination. But by the time you're in

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Speaker 1: your underwear in front of someone, I mean, is it

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Speaker 1: gonna stay out for very long? Does it matter what

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Speaker 1: under your underwear you're wearing. Well, that's a question that

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Speaker 1: we can post the listeners, because I certainly don't know.

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Speaker 1: I would like to know from people and uh if

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Speaker 1: if yeah, I mean, does it doesn't matter? Are we

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Speaker 1: putting too much weight onto these very small pieces of

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Speaker 1: cloth that can get very expensive. Yeah, they can silly,

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Speaker 1: So let us know what you think. Experiences with thongs,

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Speaker 1: with the boy shorts, with the whale tails, all of it.

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Speaker 1: Send us your thoughts. Mom stuff at how all stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. And I have an email here in

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Speaker 1: response to our podcast Ongoing Gray and this is from Nadine,

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Speaker 1: who is living in Taiwan and studying Mandarin Chinese. Very cool,

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Speaker 1: Nadine um. She said, I was reminded of my history

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Speaker 1: teacher from high school. He was young and full and

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Speaker 1: had a full head of gray hair, and I thought

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Speaker 1: that it was so strange. I've always associated gray hair

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Speaker 1: with really old people. I asked him why he had

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Speaker 1: gray hair, and he took it really well. He told me,

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Speaker 1: in the words of King Solomon, gray hair is a

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Speaker 1: crown of glory. You get it by having a righteous life,

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Speaker 1: and that probably means you have a lot of wisdom.

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Speaker 1: Maybe if people see your gray hair, meaning mine, they'll

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00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 1: think you're very wise and live a good life. I

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Speaker 1: hope that makes you feel better about the gray hairs

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Speaker 1: that you find. Thank you. I will imagine myself a king. Excellent.

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Speaker 1: This email is from Mariah. It's about our sex ed

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Speaker 1: series or set um she says. I am a junior

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00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:42,919
Speaker 1: in high school and every year since sixth grade we

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00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: have had a unit on sexuality and HIV AIDS. These

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00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: units lasted between one and three weeks, depending on what

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Speaker 1: gray you're in. Obviously, the unit in high school is

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Speaker 1: the longest and most comprehensive, going over every STD in

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Speaker 1: great detail. We were taught back in sixth grade how

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Speaker 1: to use a condom and how pregnancy and STDs work.

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Speaker 1: In fact, abstinence was rarely discussed. The only time it

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Speaker 1: was mentioned was when at the end of the unit

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00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: the teacher would say that abstinence was the only way

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Speaker 1: to fully prevent pregnancy and disease. I didn't realize that

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Speaker 1: this was not the case for all schools. Now. The

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Speaker 1: interesting thing is our high school has one of the

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Speaker 1: highest rates of team pregnancy in the United States. There's

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Speaker 1: usually at least five girls at any given time who

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00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: were pregnant, which is really saying something considering that this

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00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: is a pretty small town. I thought this would be

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00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: something you guys would be interested in hearing. Yeah. I

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00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:32,639
Speaker 1: didn't have a chance to get back to her and

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00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: ask her which small town it is, but um, yeah, interesting.

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Speaker 1: So again, if you have thoughts to send our way.

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00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: You can email us at Mom's Stuff at how stuff

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00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: works dot com, or you can head over to our

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00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: page on the Facebook, or you can hit us up

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00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. And you can also

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00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: check out what we're doing during the week over the

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00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: blog It's stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff

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00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Be sure to check out our new

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00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Staff Work

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00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities

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00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: of tomorrow. The hou Stepp Works iPhone app has arrived.

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00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the

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