Sylvie’s Underhanded Wonderland

I hate the word “panties”. I find it patronizing and, in a way, perverse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude, and this isn’t about people’s underwear being yucky. It seems like one of those personal, pointless hatreds until you realize there’s no male equivalent to the word. Why do we need two different words for men’s and women’s underwear? Why, when we’re talking about women’s knickers, do we even need a special word at all? In the end, they’re the same thing as men’s underwear, they serve the same function. Giving them the name “panties”, then, seems to have the aim of adding some other function to the garment. And, since we’re talking about women here, in my mind it’s a sexualizing function.

Think I’m being a knee-jerk feminist here and that “panties” exists only to make a necessary distinction between the male garment and the female garment? Then why do we accept “underwear” for both genders? In common speech both men and women refer to their boxers and bikinis as underwear. When I tell you that George is putting on his underwear I don’t think there’s any confusion that what we’re talking about is going to be men’s underwear of one kind or another and not women’s. If it _is_ women’s underwear he’s putting on, we usually say it’s “women’s”, “his wife’s”, or “his sister’s” that he’s wearing.

The “-ties” ending of the word especially calls to mind a recent article in Netscape’s cyber-fluff news that advised new parents against giving their daughters names ending in “ie” or “y”, as surveys found those names to curse their bearers with an easy, party-girl association. What reputation does it give our underwear? Kristi, Stephanie and Lindzy are happy to show you their panties. The real proof that the term serves a sexualizing function comes in the standard argument for its use: that `Underwear’ is just too clunky. Too utilitarian. Too boring. Not exciting (titillating, risque) enough. Not sexy. Which means we think that women’s underwear has to be sexy, and we call it “panties” to make it so.

The term is patronizing at best. “Panties” is a diminuitive of “pants”; it to me it seems best used in a sentence like “You just go put on your little panties, hon”. Anyone wearing panties is not to be taken seriously. How can you be taken seriously when what you’re wearing under your clothes sounds like the name of that girl who had a loose reputation in high school? None of the guys treated her with much respect. And think about the fact that panties sounds ridiculous when applied to what men wear. CEO George has on Calvin Klein panties under his Hugo Boss suit. Again, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t even about me wanting to deny that underwear can be sexy. It’s the next step away from naked, it can even be better-than-naked sometimes. Men and women can both be sexy in their underwear, but men don’t have to use a patronizing, diminuized term whether they’re talking about throwing theirs in the wash, lazing around the house in them, or gettin it on in them. Neither should women. And neither do women. I don’t get much of a thrill out of calling my underpants panties. I don’t hear women using it very often. So the word really does exist just for you, you man who really really wants there to be something naughty about my knickers, whether my approval is involved or not.

I’d like to give women’s underwear the right to not always be sexy, to just be underwear. Especially when I hear the little six-year-old girl in the toilet-training doll commercial proudly tell her dolly (and, by association, her toddler sister) that soon she’ll be able to wear “real big-girl panties”.

I propose the term “manties” to make things a little more even. These are what guys wear. Use it when needed, or just cut it out with the “panties” business.