A challenging analysis of the difference between thongs and g-strings

I stumbled across this intellectual gem some time ago, and - since my last post was on the subject of knickers and other knick-kacks - the time seems right to share it with you. Pay attention because things get complicated. 

Weren't you thrilled to hear she'll blog later on writing and poetry, and might even read out a poem? Makes you glad to be alive in the digital age, doesn't it.

 

Concealment

I had two revelations in Buenos Aires last year. One concerned knickers, the other make-up.
Despite my mature years I am, as I've remarked before, a cosmetics novice.
In my teens, once I could escape my mother's oversight, I plastered on foundation, white lipstick, and all manner of eye make-up, including blue shadow, thick black liner and false lashes. Yes, I'm sure I looked awful. But it didn't matter much because in my early 20s I dispensed with the whole make-yourself-pretty-for-the-boys routine when I discovered feminism. Or it discovered me.
For the next couple of decades I wore no make-up at all. Not a skerrick. Until a doomed love affair made me reach in desperation for Shiseido tinted lip gloss and Dove SP15 tinted moisturiser. I felt glam with a subtle shine on my lips, and liked the way the moisturiser took the shine off my nose without caking me in gunk, while also protecting me from the worst of the sun.
A few years more and I had graduated - or been lured, if you like - into real lipstick. Just once - when I had to do an onstage gig under strong lights - I bought and applied some Revlon foundation. Otherwise I stuck to the Dove, which I still buy in the supermarket. 
Then in the last two years tango has enticed me once more into eye make-up, though thankfully to nothing like the extent that I slapped it on in my youth - mascara and, from time to time for special occasions, subtle liner and real grown-up foundation. If I suffered the odd zit I would dob on a spot of extra foundation and hope for the best.
Until S demonstrated, as we getting ready to go out to a milonga one evening, the wondrous powers of concealer.
So the other day I bought some in the Kirk's sale - Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Ultra Lift and Firm Concealer, reduced from around $45 to $29. (The EA website claims it was "Voted Best Undereye Concealer in Parents Magazine's first-ever 'Mom Knows Best Beauty Awards'!". I'm glad I didn't know that before it reached my bathroom shelf or it probably wouldn't have got that far.)
I'm almost sure that the sweet-faced young woman who used my own face as the stuff's selling point had perfect dewy skin. Sadly she'd smothered it under layers of pancake. Why do young women so often do this? Because, like me when I was that age, they don't feel good enough as they are. It's sad. And it's also a horrible commercial conspiracy, and not for a second do I regret the years I did without it, and faced the world naked.
Anyway, she sat me on the stool, made a few dabs under my eyes, worked at them conscientiously with a nifty little soft-bristled brush and handed me a mirror.
My wow alarmed her - for a moment she thought I didn't like what I saw. I  was so smooth, so blemish-free. I handed over my EFTPOS card.
I will  never apply the stuff as liberally as she did. Admirable though the effect was, it was an effect only, it wasn't me. They might not be de rigeur but I like my age-related freckles. And I don't want to get to the stage where I can't go out of the house without concealing them. I can't say I've been aware of the product's vaunted "ultra lift" properties, but I'll keep an eye out.
I wanted to conclude this blog with a close-up of skin bearing too great a load of make-up. There are plenty of images on the internet of people we're meant to have heard of caught wearing no make-up, but I failed to find even one example of what I was looking for. Significant? I think so.
You wanted me to wrap up with the knicker revelation, though, didn't you. Sorry. Another time.

Bulge-enhancing male underwear arrives

You heard it here first ... well, second, actually. This morning's Dom Post reports that that retail shrine to British commonsense, Marks and Spencer, is about to thrust onto the market something called a "frontal enhancement garment". For those whose first language isn't M&S, this translates as knickers that make your package look bigger. Thirty-eight per cent bigger, according to reports, although god knows how they arrived at this degree of precision. 

I couldn't find this exciting item on their website - the closest I got was a bunch of dudes in vests http://www.marksandspencer.com/Bodymax-Underwear-Underwear-Mens/b/332652031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=17EGAD9TBG995YHNEP6G&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=43593030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2 Bodymax vests. Which, claim M&S, "shape" your body. It seems likely the new undies will emerge under this label. 

They'll sell for around NZ$21. And you'll also be able buy bum-lift knickers. I can imagine some men being eager for both enhancements, but the only way to get them will be to wear two pairs of undies at once. Why didn't M&S design them as one?

Women routinely buy and wear wired, push-up, padded bras. Not to mention those stretchy cast-iron garments that "control" you from from mid-thigh to chest. Men just want the same, it seems. Or M&S hopes they do. Which is the way of our glorious capitalist system - create the thing and desire for it will follow.

It once more raises the question of who we dress for. Men dressing for other men will possibly flock to M&S for both products. Men dressing for women might too. They'd be misguided, though, in any belief that this will make the difference between pulling and not. When, lady readers, was the last time you decided it was all on with someone by sizing up their crutch? Their arse, now ... that's another story. 

But then, so the argument usually runs, women buy underwear to make themselves feel good, not primarily to attract a mate. Perhaps it will prove the same for men. A bigger-looking bulge equals more confidence equals more success.  Why do I feel like sighing?