Coming to a bottom near you: pantorexia

[bemildred]

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Lovely readers, if I have distressed you with how much you have just learnt of my underwear predilections, then it is, I’m afraid, matched only by how distressed I have been to learn of the underwear predilections of others. In 2008, knickers are no longer a secret.

Pencil skirts, skin-tight jeans and leggings – they all allow us to witness an exact outline of the wearer’s pants; rather like “Geo-Phys” print-out on Time Team, but for undies.

And what these results tell us is that there is scarcely a woman in Britain wearing a pair of pants that actually fit her. Instead of having something that, sensibly and reassuringly, contains both the buttocks – what I would call a good pair of pants – they’re wearing little more than gluteal accessories, or arse-trinkets. They’re all in briefs, demi-briefs, bikinis, strings, midis, hi-legs or thongs.

These tight, elasticated, supposedly saucy partitions across the mid-derriere are, in terms of both comfort and aesthetics, as cruel as the partition between India and Pakistan. There is catastrophic physical displacement. Entire body parts are split asunder, and undertake vast migrations. With my own eyes, I have seen women walking around out there with anything between two and eight buttocks – and placed anywhere between the hip and the mid-thigh. This enforced deformity is not the fault of the pants. They are little guys, simply overwhelmed by the task that faces them. They are outnumbered. They are the Alamo. They are, indeed, often in terrible danger – many look like they’re on the verge of being absorbed by their owners. A&E departments must have had a few emergency admissions for “emergency admissions” in their time.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/caitlin_moran/article3141104.ece