If you're ever feeling bad for yourself, I want you to remember one important and semi-inspiring thing: No matter how dark life gets, you are better off than the thong at the bottom of my underwear drawer. Neglected, unloved, and forlorn, it has been gathering dust there for some five years now, and has probably given up on seeing the light of day. Everyone has to work hard to find the best underwear for them, but I know that thongs are not it for me. So that one thong has to endure the constant presence of the rest of my underwear, knowing in its spandex lace soul that no butt will ever keep it warm. That thong is doomed to sit in the forgotten recesses of my underthangs drawer until the day I finally give up the ghost and throw it out.
Honesty hour? There were two reasons I bought this thong at the tender age of eighteen: One was that I was curious, and owned exactly one tight dress that I thought it might go well with. The other was (ugh) a boy. Hey, I said it was honesty hour, so I'm being honest: I bought a thong for a boy. I had this massive crush on a guy who, to be fair, I did end up eventually dating. But even before we were dating, he was totally aghast at the fact that I didn't own a thong (no, YOU'RE over-sharing) and basically made me feel like a total weirdo. (The happy ending to this story, I feel the need to clarify, is that before our relationship began, he grew up, realized he was being a doofus, and never talked about thongs while we were dating again. So there's that.)
Now that you know my awkward history with The One Thong I Own, I will tell you the story of the first time I wore it: It was exceedingly uncomfortable. I felt lied to by the media, lied to by my friends, lied to by the picture of the smug butt on the packaging it came in. I totally respect that some people find thongs comfortable and prefer them, but my butt is just not hardcore enough for it. Ripping them off at the end of the night was a relief that I imagine vampires feel when someone finally pulls a wooden stake out of them. I CAN'T DO IT, GUYS. I JUST CANNOT. The same goes for boy shorts, while we're on the subject. Like, maybe my butt is just not shaped in the boy short-savvy way, but never have I ever put on a pair of boy short underpants without it immediately riding so far up my butt that it went from "cheeky" to "I might as well be undergoing a surgical procedure against my will" in five seconds flat.
I think my point is, at the end of the day, you just gotta do you when it comes to your undies. I personally will wave my granny pants flag high and proud, because there are so many reasons why they are my butt's favorite place to be:
They are so much more expressive
I love weirdly patterned underwear. It is both a celebration of my butt and a celebration of my obsession with Tangled. (I'm not exaggerating, you can Rapunzel emblazoned on your boob and butt for the low, low price of $8.40). There's so much less fabric to get jiggy with on thongs, and unfortunately for everyone who has ever called me their friend, subtlety is not in my nature.
You get significantly fewer wedgies
WHEN YOU PAY FOR A THONG, YOU ARE PAYING $7.50 FOR A PERPETUAL WEDGIE. You are literally handing somebody money so you can shove fabric up your butt. Elementary school bullies in nineties cartoons could have made a killing if they'd capitalized on this masochism earlier in life.
They provide a landing pad for your...well, pads
It probably doesn't come as a shock to anyone at this point that I am not at all into tampons. (Come on: There is an object physically in your vagina all day. How can I find my chill when my chill is stuffed up an orifice?!) So yeah, I'm basically the conductor of the sanitary napkin train. And you never have to worry about it ~traveling~ when you've got a pair of trusty granny panties on.
They're a lot more forgiving of your "mishaps"
Even if you're on birth control, you have never be a hundred percent certain about when the blood rain will begin. Granny panties buy you at LEAST an extra half an hour on the embarrassing-stain-on-your-butt front. Thongs are like, "You're on your own, honey."
You don't have to shave/wax as often
Just shove all them hairs up in there, girl! There's plenty of room for the whole gang!! (That, and I'm not really a big fan of shaving anyway.)
You can totally get the kind that doesn't have visible panty lines
Granny panties get such a bad rap for having panty lines, but THIS IS 2015!! WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!! It's not just Spanx who has their own line of them, but pretty much every department store on the planet. Go forth and free your butt crack from the thong's tyranny, my bold fashion-forward friends. Panty lines be damned.
Granny panties are less likely to give you UTIs
I'm not trying to cheap shot the thong. It's just a fact of life, particularly if you wear them while you exercise. You can buy an "exercise thong" to minimize risk, but ultimately it's still rubbing all up on your happy area.
They're hip and fashionable!
Isaac Mizrahi knows fashion things. I don't know much about fashion, but I have shopped his line at Target and watched enough episodes of America't Next Top Model over my little sister's adorable head to know that he does the fashion well. And when he launched his first lingerie line in 2013, he said in an interview with The Cut, "It’s hard for it not to have a je ne sais quoi — I mean that for real. Little panties can be sexy but so can big [granny] panties."
(You can buy this svelte pair in three colors here.)
They are sooooo much easier to wash
What are "delicates"? My underwear is like a hearty wilderness warrior. I can throw it into the wash with a pair of studded jeans without fear! (Note: I do not own studded jeans, but if I ever did, I would sleep soundly at night knowing they wouldn't harm my rugged granny panties.)
They're basically a hug for your butt
Somebody always loves you when you're wearing a granny panty. The waistline comes up to your belly button because that's how much it cares.
You are only as sexy as you feel
I think the idea that granny panties aren't "sexy" is ridiculous. Clothes aren't "sexy". People are sexy. No matter what you're wearing, you bring your own sexiness to the table. If, ultimately, you feel sexier in a thong, then GO for it. That's AWESOME and you should own it. But if you're totally uncomfortable in a thong and you're wearing it to "be sexy," then boo on everything. You'll feel so much more comfortable in your own skin when you wear something you are actually comfortable in. Granny panties do not make the person—the person makes the panties.
SO GO GET SOME SEX IN YOUR GRANNY PANTIES, Y'ALL! OR DON'T! Just be happy with whatever you put on your butt, because butts deserve your kindness just as much as any other part of your human self.
