Word: thong
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...grasp that one couldn't be seen in the girls' locker room sporting those packaged bikini underpants from Jockey or Hanes? Granny pants is what some kids call them. "Mom," my daughter wearily explained, "basically, every girl at school is wearing a thong." The only viable alternative, one that my daughter favored, was an item called boyshorts, a low-riding pair of short shorts loosely, or should I say tightly, based on Britney's stagewear. Either way, it was going to be 8 to 20 bucks apiece, not three for $9. "But who sees them?" I sputtered. My daughter explained...
Where this thing for thongs comes from is obvious: Britney, Beyonce, The Real World, even PG movies like Freaky Friday. When a 12-year-old wears a thong, "it's not about rebellion against adults," says child therapist Ron Taffel, author of The Second Family: How Adolescent Power Is Challenging the American Family (St. Martin's Press; 2001). In Taffel's view, the adult establishment has become too weak and weary to inspire rebellion. Getting thongs or tattoos or body piercings, he argues, is actually a "statement to other kids that they are part of this very, very intense, powerful...
Adult forces--parents, schools, churches--find it hard to compete with pop culture. Some schools have dress codes that outlaw visible underwear, but enforcing a ban on something as subtle as a thong isn't easy, as a vice principal at a San Diego high school learned to the detriment of her career last year. Her methodology left something to be desired: she was demoted after she lifted skirts for an undies inspection before allowing girls into a school dance...
...underwear battle worth picking? Those who think so are worried that the thong is a blatant sexual advertisement or, at least, a tempting tease for the opposite sex. This may not be so, according to developmental psychologist Deborah Tolman, author of Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality (Harvard University Press; 2002). "Kids are engaged with their sexuality at younger ages, but they're not necessarily sexually active," she says. The tween thong is, in a sense, the perfect symbol for the schizoid way that girls' sexual role has evolved. On the one hand, Tolman observes, girls are expected...
...girls will have no problem wearing bikinis. The scar will not be seen." Joan Thong, Singaporean doctor who led the operating team that separated four-month-old conjoined twins from Korea...