I’ll admit it: I’ve never worn a thong. Ever. And I’ve never wanted to. While other girls were singing their praises because you can wear anything with them and no one will ever see a panty line, I was more concerned with wearing comfortable underwear. Good thing granny panties are making a comeback!
- Thongs are overrated. OK, so maybe the back of my leggings would look better in my regular barre classes if my underwear didn’t show and I wore a thong, but who’s staring that closely at my butt? Hopefully no one (even though that’s probably the point of the workout…). Thongs are totally and completely overrated. There’s literally no reason to wear them. If I can wear underwear that actually feels good to put on and doesn’t make me feel like something is, you know, stuck up there, I’m going to. No question.
- Thongs weren’t even originally made for women. For some reason, we tend to think that we only look good if we’re wearing thongs and not granny panties, but thongs were made for men at first. In 1939, an NYC mayor came up with the thong for male dancers who performed totally in the buff. So why have we felt that we had to wear thongs for so long? It sounds like women are feeling this and refusing to spend money on thongs and it’s been that way for the past few years. From 2014 to 2015, thong sales were down by 7 percent and boy shorts and brief sales were up by 17 percent, according to NPD, a company that focuses on market research.
- Millennial women care more about comfort, as we should. Just consider the title of this New York Times story from 2015: “Young Women Say No to Thongs.” The fact that we’re wearing more granny panties than thongs is actually a trend, and it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. In her August 2017 piece, “My Love Affair With Granny Panties, Now Finally in Fashion,” a writer talks about “lingerie for the female gaze” and how we’re no longer not into wearing uncomfortable undies. Maybe we’re just sick and tired of the whole “beauty is pain” lie that we’ve been sold for decades because come on, that’s pretty messed up. There’s nothing beautiful about wearing a pair of underwear that hurts but supposedly looks good.
- Guys really don’t seem to care what underwear we wear. When I recently told my boyfriend about the typical millennial male response to lingerie (you know, the whole “it’s coming off anyway so it doesn’t matter” thing), he wasn’t surprised and said that’s what men have always thought. Since guys really don’t seem to give a crap about what we’re wearing under our clothes, why are we stressing out so much? It doesn’t seem like there’s any point. Any guy that loves us will love whatever we wear or don’t wear. After all, what’s more important: being intimate with the guy that we’re madly in love with and feeling close to him… or wearing a thong that looks sexy but hurts a ton?
- I’m going to wear what I want. Sure, I’m not about to wear underwear that’s falling apart or looks gross, but I’m definitely going to keep wearing the cotton underwear that I’ve loved for years. I would do this regardless of whether it was trendy or not. But I’m definitely glad that granny panties are popular these days. It’s comforting to know that other women feel the same way that I do.
- Higher-waisted undies can definitely be cute. There are a bunch of designers out there who are embracing this trend and making granny-inspired panties that are actually really pretty… and that’s the greatest news ever. There’s something adorable and retro about higher-cut underwear that I really like. Plus, let’s face it, most of us don’t have six-packs abs (and hopefully most of us don’t even care about that fact), so granny panties are great in that sense.
- Granny panties are a total feminist act. And we need as many of those as we can get. Instead of focusing on what guys want us to wear and look like, we’re taking back that power and embracing what we actually want. That’s a really cool thing. We should definitely take this attitude and apply it to other aspects of our lives, like dating (focusing on what kind of person we really see ourselves with instead of who looks perfect on paper) and our careers (going for our dream job, no matter what anyone else thinks). Granny panties can be a gateway to owning our entire lives and getting the most out of them. Who knew that a (large) pair of underwear could do so much?