Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas,
Speaker 1: and we are continuing our multiple front assault on Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: taking it down from from different directions, hopefully pushing right
Speaker 1: to the core and dismantling the command center. We've already
Speaker 1: talked about Pink and now we're talking about Lingerie. Full disclosure,
Speaker 1: both of us are sitting here wearing Victoria's Secret Lingerie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well we had to get into character, right, So anyway,
Speaker 1: we alternately wanted to call this episode, Leonardo DiCaprio explained, because,
Speaker 1: as you may or may not know, this guy is
Speaker 1: seems to be obsessed with Victoria's Secret Lingerie models and
Speaker 1: dates them quite a bit. Yeah, I was reading, in
Speaker 1: particular one of the articles we're looking I'm talking about
Speaker 1: this selection for Victoria's Secret Models or angels as they're called,
Speaker 1: and there was there was at least one who had
Speaker 1: dated Leonardo DiCaprio and therefore kind of on their their blacklist.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, because it's a careful balancing act choosing exactly
Speaker 1: who is going to represent the product, because you have
Speaker 1: a product that is for women, that is, you know,
Speaker 1: for women, but it's also kind of for men, and
Speaker 1: then men offer off sometimes purchasing it, but also women
Speaker 1: are so you need that that model that is appealing
Speaker 1: to both but without seeming a threat to the like
Speaker 1: that's their reasoning. You don't want want this model to
Speaker 1: be a threat to the female customers, so they steer
Speaker 1: away from models who have appeared in men's magazines or
Speaker 1: have any kind of even slight celebrity gossip kind of tinge,
Speaker 1: such as you know, dating Leonardo DiCaprio. I guess that's right,
Speaker 1: because I remember reading something about Kate Upton and the
Speaker 1: reason why she wasn't selected as a Victoria's Secret modeled.
Speaker 1: I think because of the men's magazine. She was already
Speaker 1: everywhere in all these different magazines and and and also
Speaker 1: probably comes down to just complete image control to like
Speaker 1: these these are the women representing their product, and the
Speaker 1: more control they have over them as ultimately spokes people
Speaker 1: for their product, the better. Right. Yeah. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this in terms of potato chips, because you know,
Speaker 1: a potato chip is what we call would call a
Speaker 1: super normal stimulus, right, Yes, the kind of food that
Speaker 1: is not just like hey, that's food. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: look I am full of fat and salt, and you
Speaker 1: want to crave me because I'm gaming the rewards of
Speaker 1: some of your brain. And I was thinking about the
Speaker 1: machinery that's brought in for potato chips, that dollar piece
Speaker 1: of machinery that actually is calibrated to simulate chewing a chip,
Speaker 1: perfect sort of um acoustic pitch to a chip, And
Speaker 1: I was thinking, the same sort of thing is at
Speaker 1: work in the launch array arena. I mean, nothing is
Speaker 1: is put up for chance here. And we'll talk a
Speaker 1: bit more about that, and they may even bring in
Speaker 1: the chewing machine for the edible varieties, oh dear, yeah,
Speaker 1: But but anyway, Yes, so we're talking about stimuli. Were
Speaker 1: so we're in we're inevitably talking about the reward system
Speaker 1: of our brain. If you've listen to the show long enough,
Speaker 1: then you've you've heard us go through the reward system
Speaker 1: of the brain and talk about dopamine many times. Uh,
Speaker 1: basically getting down to the just core genetic mission of
Speaker 1: any organism to breed and reproduce, to eat and power
Speaker 1: the body and uh and stuff. For so when you're
Speaker 1: engaging in in stuff of this nature, you're engaging the
Speaker 1: dopamine pathways. And uh and and when you start tweaking it,
Speaker 1: when you start changing your expectations, your your repro reprogramming
Speaker 1: a very very complex reward system. Yeah, and that's why
Speaker 1: addiction happens right so very easily with different things in
Speaker 1: our lives, because, Uh, there's a couple of things that
Speaker 1: work really well on the reward system. Food, as we say,
Speaker 1: the potato chip, and sex. We're wired to want to
Speaker 1: have sex to propagate our genes. Therefore, when we see
Speaker 1: that piece of lingerie and they act as a kind
Speaker 1: of potato chip of the mind. Yeah, And like the
Speaker 1: potato chip, it's constantly marketed at us constantly, but especially
Speaker 1: around Valentine's Day, because this is the idea that this
Speaker 1: is a season of of of love, or this is
Speaker 1: marketed that way towards this some season of love, a
Speaker 1: season of sex. And then here is the official garment
Speaker 1: of for play in romance, if you will. That's right
Speaker 1: in Victoria's Secret. The Emporium of supernatural or super normal stimuli.
Speaker 1: Supernatural stimula would be pretty great, it would be need
Speaker 1: if they if they had ghost panties that would be
Speaker 1: a nice all guaranteed to be haunted. Uh, some of
Speaker 1: them maybe all right. In two thousand thirteen, Vicki's Secret
Speaker 1: breaked in six point six billy in dollars, And according
Speaker 1: to Forbes magazine, Valentine's Day itself is an eighteen point
Speaker 1: six billion dollar event, and Lingerie represents a pretty decent
Speaker 1: piece of that pie. Yeah. I mean, and they're really
Speaker 1: hacking into us with this, with this holiday. So it
Speaker 1: makes sense that the figures would be that high because
Speaker 1: you're you're cracking into our relationships, into our sexual desires
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, it's Valentine's Day, we created it, but
Speaker 1: you've got to live with it. So here's the list
Speaker 1: of things you need to purchase. Here a list of
Speaker 1: experiences you need to have so that your life can
Speaker 1: it all be in keeping with what you see on TV.
Speaker 1: That's right, and what you see on TV and what
Speaker 1: you see on the internet that none of that is
Speaker 1: like willing really stuff that they just paste up there.
Speaker 1: They don't just take a couple of pictures of you know,
Speaker 1: thin women that are gorgeous in a couple of pieces
Speaker 1: of material on their body there's a lot of thought
Speaker 1: put into that and h professions converging to see this
Speaker 1: product brought to market. Yeah, and according to a Fast
Speaker 1: Company article by Rebecca Greenfield, the company adore Me does
Speaker 1: some really rigorous A B testing. Okay, a B testing.
Speaker 1: This is the general do you like a R B?
Speaker 1: Do you like this one or that one? And if
Speaker 1: you answer enough of these questions, then you you provide
Speaker 1: insight into your wants and desires. It's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing you see on Netflix. Uh As famously used A
Speaker 1: B testing. You see like two titles, which one do
Speaker 1: you prefer? Air B? You go through enough of that,
Speaker 1: then the system will have some sort of general idea
Speaker 1: about what you like. Yeah, and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: collections of some really rigorous statistics taken here. Now, a
Speaker 1: lot of companies do this, and Google does this. Take
Speaker 1: We've done it, how soforths dot com has done it right.
Speaker 1: Whenever we change your homepage, we do a B testing.
Speaker 1: So right we click, we we look to see what
Speaker 1: people are clicking on the most. Now, adore Me the company.
Speaker 1: The way they do this is they shoot multiple versions
Speaker 1: of images to run on its website, so the distinctions
Speaker 1: between the pictures might include different models. Again, the models
Speaker 1: being really important. Who you pick right wearing the same
Speaker 1: set of underwear in the exact same position or the
Speaker 1: same model in the same set in a different position
Speaker 1: for example. Then, like you know, any company that's A
Speaker 1: B testing, it tests the options to find out which
Speaker 1: one sell better. Now you think that something that might
Speaker 1: fetch the most dollars and clicks would be, say, a
Speaker 1: blonde woman languishing on a bed to say, a feather
Speaker 1: at her side. Yeah, that's what comes to mind when
Speaker 1: you think of Victoria's secret catalog. Right there are rose,
Speaker 1: there's some sort of you know, sexy looking prop or whatever.
Speaker 1: But this is completely the um erroneous thinking of Apparently,
Speaker 1: according to their A B testing, blonds do not sell lingerie. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, um, having a model pose on a
Speaker 1: couch instead of a bed is better, and props are distracting.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised by that one. And touching a the
Speaker 1: face or hair instead of say, putting your hand on
Speaker 1: your hip is much more lucrative in terms of seeing
Speaker 1: the sale of lingerie through. Well, you know, the couch
Speaker 1: bed thing definitely makes sense because you were you were
Speaker 1: selling a product that is different and exciting, right, like,
Speaker 1: this is not this is not every day underwear. You
Speaker 1: don't wear your your lingerie to the gym. You wear
Speaker 1: it to fancy date night or Valentine's or something of
Speaker 1: that nature, right, so, or you know, to record a podcast.
Speaker 1: But aside, so that's from that, it's it's specialty where
Speaker 1: and so it would make more sensitive, be more appealing
Speaker 1: out of out of the bedroom text right, right, because
Speaker 1: the bed is wrote right like you would assume that
Speaker 1: there would be sex going on there, but the catch
Speaker 1: is a little bit more exotic. Maybe yeah, it means
Speaker 1: like maybe the kids aren't home at all. No bonds, Uh,
Speaker 1: It kind of makes sense to me because they only
Speaker 1: represent like six of society, right, natural bonds, Right, and
Speaker 1: you're you're ultimately buying this to where yourself or for
Speaker 1: a special someone in your life to wear it, and
Speaker 1: so therefore they're likely not blonde, right, they're probably brunette. Right,
Speaker 1: So that would make sense that there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of blonde lingerie models. Um, But through its researcher, Dormy
Speaker 1: has found that the right model really matters even more
Speaker 1: than price, so that this person could be blond, it
Speaker 1: just has to be a person who is accessible. And
Speaker 1: according to that Fast Company article, if customers see a
Speaker 1: lazy push up on a model they like, they'll buy it.
Speaker 1: Put the same thing on a model they don't, and
Speaker 1: even a ten dollar price cut won't compel them. That's
Speaker 1: how important it is that that model have some sort
Speaker 1: of connection to the consumer. Yeah, and and again it's
Speaker 1: complex because you're you're trying to appeal to both the
Speaker 1: female and the male fan base. It's not just like
Speaker 1: you know, Maxim magazine or something where if that's still around,
Speaker 1: where where basically one type of model could do and
Speaker 1: there's no question about who you're appealing to. Of course,
Speaker 1: it would be really interesting to do this a b
Speaker 1: testing in Norway, right, We're like the population is blod Yeah,
Speaker 1: how does it breakdown? I'm sure there's a there's a
Speaker 1: separate there's probably an office there, right, I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: on the there probably is, you know, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: just people in Norway, or they don't even do the lingerie.
Speaker 1: They're just like, we have sex all the time. We
Speaker 1: don't need to be routinized into it via some sort
Speaker 1: of symbolic garment. All right, The point of talking about
Speaker 1: all this A B testing is just to let you
Speaker 1: guys know that this that's a lot of money because
Speaker 1: basically they're not just doing one underwear shot. They're doing
Speaker 1: maybe up to three different versions of that shot. And
Speaker 1: that's a lot of production and post production dollars to
Speaker 1: to put into their system, into a B test to
Speaker 1: figure out what's going to be most lucrative for them.
Speaker 1: All Right, on that note, we're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're going to discuss
Speaker 1: more about the science of law gae and yes, rats
Speaker 1: wearing lingerites. Alright, we're back. We're getting We're gonna try
Speaker 1: to attempt to answer a million dollar question why lingerie
Speaker 1: even exists, which I think is going to be really
Speaker 1: obvious after this discussion of rats. Yeah, this is you
Speaker 1: know this, This this study is pretty uh, it's pretty wonderful.
Speaker 1: I mean, any study in which you have animals wearing clothing.
Speaker 1: And I have a by the way, I have a
Speaker 1: list little gallery that I'll link to on the landing
Speaker 1: page for this episode at Sceptable in your Mind dot com,
Speaker 1: which which features a few different studies, some of which
Speaker 1: we've discussed in the past, some of which we have
Speaker 1: not been involved animals wearing some sort of a garment
Speaker 1: or clothing item. And this was inspired by dung beetles
Speaker 1: wearing hats, hats and little boots yeah, little booty glove. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're on there twice. But in this case we're talking
Speaker 1: about rats and uh and uh. And you'll have to
Speaker 1: see a picture of this too at the full feeling,
Speaker 1: because when when you look at the rat in this experiment,
Speaker 1: this is a two fourteen University of Montreal study, Um,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like lingerie. It doesn't look like a
Speaker 1: rat wearing some sort of victorious secret kind of garment. Uh,
Speaker 1: it looks like they're wearing a little vest. Because essentially,
Speaker 1: what you're trying to test here is, you know what
Speaker 1: happens when you have some of the female rats wearing
Speaker 1: a garment, wearing something that is not their own skin,
Speaker 1: and then what happens when you try to attach certain
Speaker 1: expectations to that garment. Yeah, so I guess you could
Speaker 1: say that this isn't exactly lingerie in the way we
Speaker 1: think about it, but for rats wearing a vest will
Speaker 1: call it rat lingerie. I mean it gets down to
Speaker 1: the question is lingerie sexy in and of itself or
Speaker 1: is it sexy because of its relationship to sexual activity.
Speaker 1: Um so, what they did is they put these vest
Speaker 1: like garments on the rats and these are uh in
Speaker 1: the experiment, female rats war these wild deflowering male rat virgins. Okay, fowering, flowering.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to be gentle in this description. So
Speaker 1: when the when the scientists later gave the same male
Speaker 1: rats a chance to mate again, the rodents preferred sex
Speaker 1: with vest wearing rats because that's I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: they know, right. They have associated getting to have sex
Speaker 1: with rats that are wearing vests. And the researchers follow
Speaker 1: this up with with brain analysis and confirmed that the
Speaker 1: rats are in fact learning to associate sex with closing
Speaker 1: with clothing textures in the same way that they can
Speaker 1: also associated with odors and other contextual clues. Yeah, after
Speaker 1: they are deflowered, they were then killed so that their
Speaker 1: brains could be split open and they could figure this out.
Speaker 1: I just want to add that. Um so, what does
Speaker 1: this tell us? It tells us that if a rat
Speaker 1: can learn to associate sex with a variety of contextual clues,
Speaker 1: including the texture of clothing, so too can humans. If
Speaker 1: you think about it. I mean, if someone comes out
Speaker 1: and you know, baggy pants and a t it's not
Speaker 1: communicating a lot of like, hey, let's let's have sex.
Speaker 1: But if someone comes out in fire engine red lace, uh, lingerie,
Speaker 1: that's communicating an all together a different message. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: but then the baggy pants could just say, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: really relaxed and I'm chill right now. That could also
Speaker 1: be the message here's my sexy baggy pants. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the things to give in mind
Speaker 1: about about lingerie too. As we discuss all this stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: Dr Christina to Sali a lecture and Marketing and Consumptions
Speaker 1: at the University of Leicester School of Management to do
Speaker 1: it a lot of time to researching lingerie and Dutch
Speaker 1: and as she really drives home the fact that you
Speaker 1: have numerous factors that are gonna influence any individual's personal
Speaker 1: underwear choice. Um, even though the media tends to market,
Speaker 1: you know, one sort of western, tiny and uncomfortable standard,
Speaker 1: she still dives home that for most people, comfort is
Speaker 1: often as important as sexiness when it comes to the garment. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's the truth, because even if you're clad in
Speaker 1: some sort of fire engine red lingerie. If it is
Speaker 1: going up into your privates and causing discomfort, that there's
Speaker 1: nothing sexy about that. Yeah. If you can't wear it
Speaker 1: comfortably at dinner, when you go out to dinner on
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day, then what's the point, right, right, might as
Speaker 1: well just go commando. Yeah. Actually, I'm not suggesting anybody
Speaker 1: do that. I say at some point I need to
Speaker 1: find out where that comes from, that term going commando.
Speaker 1: I've never heard anything about soldiers, particularly special forces teams,
Speaker 1: making a point of not wearing underwear. That just seems
Speaker 1: like some foolery in the middle of the night, you know,
Speaker 1: and in the forest. And I don't know where I'm
Speaker 1: going with that. Oh, let's get that study back, okay,
Speaker 1: Bikini clad women and impatient men. Oh yes, this is
Speaker 1: a fun one. This is a two eight Belgian study
Speaker 1: published in the Journal of Consumer Research that found that
Speaker 1: the near sight of a bikini or lingerie model can
Speaker 1: can take a serious toe on mail willpower. Now, this
Speaker 1: this ties into some of the experiments we've talked about
Speaker 1: in the past dealing with willpower. And we've talked about
Speaker 1: willpower as it's essentially like a like one of those
Speaker 1: life meters you see in a video game. It can
Speaker 1: get knocked down. There are things that can build it
Speaker 1: back up. But when it's depleted, um, your your little
Speaker 1: character dies essentially, And things that can deplete it are
Speaker 1: resisting urges to other things being being basically having super
Speaker 1: normal stimuli thrown at you, be it a lingerie model
Speaker 1: on a Victorious Secret catalog or a piece of chocolate cake. Well,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of it has to do
Speaker 1: with the short term versus the long term as well,
Speaker 1: which we've talked about quite a bit with addiction and rewards. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: the study is called Bikini's instigate generalized impatience. I love
Speaker 1: that generalist, an intertemporal choice. And this is published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Consumer Research the two thousand and addition,
Speaker 1: I believe it was June, and the authors look into
Speaker 1: what they call the bikini effect, which is, as you say,
Speaker 1: it's this kind of impulsive behavior as a result of
Speaker 1: men exposed to lingerie or scantily clad women. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: discovered in the the in the study that heterosexual men
Speaker 1: who watched sexy videos or handled lingerie they sought immediate
Speaker 1: gratification even when they were making decisions about you know,
Speaker 1: it could be a decision about what so did a
Speaker 1: drink or candy to sample, or even like serious money decisions.
Speaker 1: It just bites into their ability to control that. And
Speaker 1: and it ultimately is kind of zen because the researchers
Speaker 1: are arguing that this this bikini effect causes a shift
Speaker 1: in time preference, forcing the mail gazer to live in
Speaker 1: the moment. So there's no future, there's no past, there's
Speaker 1: only the here and now. And your genetic programming is
Speaker 1: just saying breed. But since you can't actually mate with
Speaker 1: a Victoria's Secret catalog, uh, you end up just and
Speaker 1: you have tried, many have tried. Instead, you just gobbled
Speaker 1: down a donut or you you binge purchase something on
Speaker 1: Amazon and call it a day. Yeah, and that it's
Speaker 1: the present thing, right, the short term um Bram Vanderberg,
Speaker 1: who is one of the studies author says that after
Speaker 1: they touched Abram, men are more likely to be content
Speaker 1: with a smaller immediate monetary reward. Nothing to say of
Speaker 1: the sugary sodas right as opposed to something that was healthy,
Speaker 1: like you know, some fruit, Yeah, I mean obviously sex
Speaker 1: cells if we don't even have to to underline that
Speaker 1: for our listeners. But this is one of those studies
Speaker 1: that provides a little more scientific weight to that reality.
Speaker 1: But you know, the wind, you see a scantily clad
Speaker 1: character holding a product or in some way engaged in
Speaker 1: a particular bit of advertising, Like, that's what's going on there.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's hacking your brain. It's changing your ability
Speaker 1: to think about past and future. Yeah, and I did
Speaker 1: want to mention too that in this study, um, not
Speaker 1: all of the heterosexual identified men responded in the same way.
Speaker 1: In other words, some of them were highly responsive to
Speaker 1: rewards while others were not as sensitive to it. And
Speaker 1: some of that may be in um, it may just
Speaker 1: be in whatever their personal experiences with rewards and gratification
Speaker 1: and maybe even addiction in those pathways in the brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's by no means a one thought size fits
Speaker 1: all scenario. Yeah, it's not that sort of like and
Speaker 1: this happened that ioga and their eyeballs came out of
Speaker 1: their head. And no, it was a bit different for everyone,
Speaker 1: but on the whole, they did see that. Um that
Speaker 1: then we're making choices that were not long term, you know,
Speaker 1: pragmatic choices Alright, we know what our lingerie choices are
Speaker 1: present today, but we're gonna look at a few other
Speaker 1: things that may be available. And one of the things
Speaker 1: which I don't think is a big surprise here is
Speaker 1: lingerie that could be printed on demand. Yeah, indeed, I
Speaker 1: mean three D printing and the ability to print objects.
Speaker 1: Even though it's it's very much uh still in it's
Speaker 1: it's early days. Right now, we've talked again and again
Speaker 1: about the potential future here of your ability to pretend
Speaker 1: everything from specialized parts to just complete devices, even food.
Speaker 1: This is just going to completely change the way we
Speaker 1: consume and acquire products. Well, and in terms of lingerie
Speaker 1: and bras in particular, I think that this is something
Speaker 1: that is kind of exciting because as everybody knows, or
Speaker 1: as Oprah has educated us, all, most women are wearing
Speaker 1: the wrong bracess scenes statistics out there like of women, Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the percent is correct, but that's
Speaker 1: because the human breast tissue does not conform to like
Speaker 1: we have these neat little like cup A, B, C,
Speaker 1: D and so on and so forth. It doesn't really
Speaker 1: conform to that. So you have this company called joy
Speaker 1: Fit that has an app that could allow you to
Speaker 1: take a panoramic video of your breast um when then
Speaker 1: you choose your bra preferences and features, and this information
Speaker 1: and your video are submitted to their cloud hub. I
Speaker 1: don't see any problems with this where your video will
Speaker 1: be processed, created into a profile, and then they create
Speaker 1: the shape of the bra based on your actual dimensions
Speaker 1: and then three D printed. And this is still a
Speaker 1: kickstart venture, so the company is still raising money, but
Speaker 1: they plan to retail the braw for nine NAR. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the potential security issues aside, it just sounds
Speaker 1: great because I mean because it actually it goes beyond
Speaker 1: laundry when you get into clothing itself, like like the
Speaker 1: thick sizes of things that it's so off. You know,
Speaker 1: you you see clothing on television and without and you
Speaker 1: don't even think about the fact that every piece of
Speaker 1: clothing they're wearing has probably been customed at, like even
Speaker 1: if it's a T shirt. You know, in any kind
Speaker 1: of major production, everything's been thought out and planned and measured,
Speaker 1: and then you go when you try and buy a
Speaker 1: T shirt into the or gens or what have you,
Speaker 1: and the sizes are all wrong. Like I find that
Speaker 1: just with me buying a T shirt. It's been like
Speaker 1: a ten twenty years struggle to find a cut of
Speaker 1: a T shirt that that fits comfortably on me and
Speaker 1: allows me to to reach things over my head without
Speaker 1: exposing my middrift. Now, imagine if on your chest, your
Speaker 1: breast tissue tripled quadrupled in size, and you then had
Speaker 1: to fit some sort of garment over that, right exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's definitely engineering that goes on in bras.
Speaker 1: So this is very interesting. Um Now, what could maybe
Speaker 1: merge with this technology is better understanding the body in
Speaker 1: particular the torso to kind of get better fits in general.
Speaker 1: And in this we turn to the work of Kanzuki
Speaker 1: Nakamura of Kyoto Institute of Technology and Takio Kakawa of
Speaker 1: Osaka University, and they UH. In their study they identified
Speaker 1: body shape components critical for designing especially close fitting products, UH,
Speaker 1: such as lingerie stuff, where the contour and actual shape
Speaker 1: of the body is is really important. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just a baggy shirt. It's something that actually
Speaker 1: needs to to fit tightly with a specific body and UH.
Speaker 1: And so they kind of to a certain extent, they
Speaker 1: were kind of reinventing how we size uh these products.
Speaker 1: Um so that they were using laser meteorology to map
Speaker 1: control points at specific sites on the women's trunks, as
Speaker 1: they referred to in the study, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: uh open up the possibility to classify body shapes into
Speaker 1: more classes. So it's not just uh, you know, size one,
Speaker 1: size two, size three, or whatever. It's it's all the
Speaker 1: various variations based on the different control points. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they took five and sixty Japanese I'm an aged from
Speaker 1: nineteen to sixty three to get all of those data
Speaker 1: points to try to figure out uh, better classifications for
Speaker 1: the torso. And of course the problem and ultimately where
Speaker 1: the potential answer of the printing comes in, is if
Speaker 1: you create more and more different sizes, that's more and
Speaker 1: more different sizes that would have to be produced and
Speaker 1: kept in stock somewhere, unless it's print on demand, and
Speaker 1: then it's this information is just all in the catalog.
Speaker 1: Oh well that changes everything, right, because now you're at
Speaker 1: home and you're uploading your own dimensions and you can
Speaker 1: um automatically print your own wonder woman inspired bra, right,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna fit great. And I'm not saying I'm
Speaker 1: going to do that, but it might and if you
Speaker 1: were just say, if you're just a guy who wants
Speaker 1: to touch some lingerie, you no longer have to go
Speaker 1: to the store and uh and pretend that you're buying
Speaker 1: it for your girlfriend. That you can just you can
Speaker 1: just print it out, just print them out all day. Well.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of this too, that we're talking
Speaker 1: about is heteronormative, right, I mean, we're talking about this
Speaker 1: is very much the assumption that that some male that
Speaker 1: wants to look at a female in lingerie, Hey, maybe
Speaker 1: a guy wants to have lingerie for himself, design it
Speaker 1: for himself. Indeed, I mean there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: lingerie four men out there. Some of it is traditionally
Speaker 1: you know, female lingerie that is then co opted by
Speaker 1: by the male wear, which is which is fine. And
Speaker 1: then there is there's male lingerie, which can also be
Speaker 1: you know, just as ridiculous as female lingerie, uh, if
Speaker 1: not more so in the sense that is not you know,
Speaker 1: bare and just not driven into our minds as much
Speaker 1: through through marketing. But I did some Google image searches
Speaker 1: before this episode, and there's some there's some pretty wacky
Speaker 1: male lingerie out there. Speaking of have you seen the
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live spoof of Justin Bieber and Calvin Klein underwear.
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, all right, Just leave it at that. UM.
Speaker 1: One thing we did want to mention before we close
Speaker 1: out today is something called fund to Wear. Now, we've
Speaker 1: talked a bit about technology and its ability to interact
Speaker 1: with us in ways that could change the landscape of uh,
Speaker 1: not just sexuality, but expressing that sexuality, and certainly funderwear
Speaker 1: that's in this category. Yes, uh, fung aware this is um.
Speaker 1: This is underwhere that's made from fungus. It's actually growing. Oh,
Speaker 1: we have different notes. Now. As much as I like
Speaker 1: the idea of fungaware funderware, we're talking about wearable technology
Speaker 1: and lingerie coming together. They would allow people to to
Speaker 1: touch each other, across space and even get even time.
Speaker 1: We're talking about as some of the same things that
Speaker 1: we discussed in the Hotel of the Future of talking
Speaker 1: about virtual sex and linked dreaming. We're talking about some
Speaker 1: of those elements finding their way into our laundery design.
Speaker 1: So that two lovers maybe on separate sides of the world,
Speaker 1: but if they're both wearing fun to wear, then they
Speaker 1: can essentially be in the same room. And now this
Speaker 1: is it's worth not even we're not talking about just underwear,
Speaker 1: would say a vibration device in it, Like that's technology
Speaker 1: has been around for a while, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's not effective, but it's not particularly nuance.
Speaker 1: This is aimed at using such similar technology to replicate
Speaker 1: actual human touch with the garment via a smartphone app
Speaker 1: and across vast distances, as you've already said, which is
Speaker 1: what I think makes the standout from the technology of
Speaker 1: just having a vibrating underwear here yea now again, in
Speaker 1: the same way that there would seem to be some
Speaker 1: security issues about sending video of your your breasts to
Speaker 1: a lingerie company online, I do have to wonder does
Speaker 1: this mean that someone could hack it and like touch
Speaker 1: everyone's fun to wear at once, that's a question. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's all these sorts of security issues. People see
Speaker 1: videos of your breasts that you've uploaded, and they hack
Speaker 1: into your underwear, and none of this is maybe so
Speaker 1: strange to think about if you live in Japan, because
Speaker 1: their technolog energy and underwear have been I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say thought about quite a bit. Yeah. Indeed,
Speaker 1: in particular, one of the the breakthrough is that we're
Speaker 1: looking at was it was the so called frozen underwear. No,
Speaker 1: not frozen underwear, but cold not cold like that's not
Speaker 1: really much of a breakthrough. We've had that let it go. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the Disney Frozen movie. Yeah, I do not remember a
Speaker 1: scene from the movie in which the two sisters touch underwear.
Speaker 1: But that is the idea behind this technology. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: marketed as like the little Sister and the Big sister
Speaker 1: bra and if you presumably chest thump each other, then
Speaker 1: that activates the bras to light up. Okay, nothing creepy
Speaker 1: about that, No, well not, I mean, not overtly. But
Speaker 1: it's a you know, it's a similar, similar technology we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Let's let's let's make wearable technology and our
Speaker 1: lingerie become one so that they creates an interactive experience.
Speaker 1: Let's encourage sisters to bump their breasts just like a
Speaker 1: chest bump. Right, it's it's no more. But you can't.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. You could just chest bump each other,
Speaker 1: but you couldn't tell whether or not the brawls were
Speaker 1: lighting up unless there was a shirt that was off right, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe the light truly bright. We don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it could be a thing where they chest bump and
Speaker 1: it's just it's like the sun has it like an
Speaker 1: atomic detonation within their sweaters or something. Just keep going
Speaker 1: with that, alright. So, but I'm not completely surprised because
Speaker 1: Japan has been known for a lot of different um appetites,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, and uh, especially with their
Speaker 1: vending machines and I don't even know if I can
Speaker 1: say it the selling of what used to be underwear
Speaker 1: that was worn. Yeah, yeah, this is this is fascinating.
Speaker 1: We started researching this, like I briefly went down the
Speaker 1: rabbit hole on on Japanese vending machines and the and
Speaker 1: the the idea of used underwear and vending machines. It's
Speaker 1: worth noting just right off the bat that if you
Speaker 1: go to Japan and you're to ask the average person
Speaker 1: on the street about this, they're probably not gonna know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Like, it's not it's one of
Speaker 1: these things that has been elevated to almost like a
Speaker 1: legend status in the West about Japan. But it's not
Speaker 1: reading accouncil like someone's saying like, oh, you know, they
Speaker 1: have them on every street corner. You can just like
Speaker 1: as if it's the most normal thing in the world
Speaker 1: in Japan to go up and buy used to panties
Speaker 1: out of a vending machine. But it's it's not. It
Speaker 1: might be available in a red light district. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're in a skeeezy section of town, in a skeeezy store,
Speaker 1: then yes, there might be a machine that is that
Speaker 1: that sells used or supposedly like quotation mark used underpants.
Speaker 1: And then we're talking about vending machines as well. Don't
Speaker 1: think about I'm not talking about like a fancy, super
Speaker 1: high tech vending machine like our coffee machine here at work.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about you know, those little things outside of
Speaker 1: outside of grocery stores with a little little balls and
Speaker 1: them that have like toys, that kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 1: you put a quarter, you put your gen in, and
Speaker 1: you swivel it around and it mechanically knocks out a container. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to point out that that the underwear that
Speaker 1: is now inventing machines today is not used. They just
Speaker 1: make it look they market it as though it's used. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that's really down. Yeah, However, the market for used
Speaker 1: underwear in Japan has jumped to online of course, and
Speaker 1: so it's still something that's circulated and bought. Indeed, and
Speaker 1: in the future in Japan and elsewhere, you know, we
Speaker 1: could see a possibility of printable dirty underwear. And that's
Speaker 1: that's really where I'm helping your technique. Why not, I
Speaker 1: mean you could you could get the molling kills on
Speaker 1: their right that contain um whatever bacteria it is that's
Speaker 1: contributing to a certain cent profile. Why not. Indeed? All right,
Speaker 1: if you're still with us, UM, thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us on our ride down Laing Lane and looking at
Speaker 1: what is driving the actual sales of it. The probability
Speaker 1: of sex here is what we're talking about. UM. If
Speaker 1: you want to find out more about us, you can
Speaker 1: indeed go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find all of our podcast episodes, other
Speaker 1: Valentine's Days Day episodes that we've put out this year,
Speaker 1: or the ones in the past. We did a fabulous
Speaker 1: one before about the slugs mating that was an early
Speaker 1: assault on Valentine's Day and the Valentine's Day Industrial Complex.
Speaker 1: You'll find all of our blog post, all of our videos,
Speaker 1: social media links, you name it stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com And in the meantime, if you have
Speaker 1: any thoughts on Laingerie on our rats in Lingerie Um,
Speaker 1: you can send those thoughts to us via email at
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