Dear Mr. Thong Inventor,

I would like to preface this letter by saying that your work has made a large yet incredibly skimpy contribution to my adolescent years. And while I do believe in the nobleness of your cause, I am rather puzzled by the method to the madness of such an invention. As I hold up the tiny piece of fabric that is my underwear, several questions come to mind, such as:

Which came first: The thong, or “The Thong Song”?
The first time I heard The Thong Song, I was 11-years-old. Try explaining to a sixth grader, still under-clad with flower-print Hanes granny panties, the concept of a thong. Watching a leprechaun of a man do cartwheels on the beach doesn’t really do that good of a job of explaining the exact science behind the thong. In fact, I’m pretty sure I thought he was singing about summertime footwear up until 2001, when I realized I needed to wear this contraption to be socially acceptable.

Where the devil did you get this genius idea?
Was it a public service project? Did you see one too many VPLs (Visible Panty Lines, for you not-in-the-knows) and proclaim “I’ve had it! I’m inventing buttless underwear!” To you, Mr. Thong Inventor, going commando just wasn’t an option. Now that point I can understand, as I probably have not washed my jeans since the opening night of “Sex and the City.” And who really likes walking around with that, “I’m wearing the pant equivalent of dirty underwear” feeling all day? Yeah, neither do I. So really, Mr. T.I, you were the answer to my laundry-lazy, VPL-phobic prayers.

How the hell did you get it to catch on?
No seriously. It takes pure skill to get a woman to try on a permanent wedgie, let alone make it a long lasting trend in the sexy lingerie industry. Think about it: it’s a tiny scrap of cotton, satin, silk, or pearls (hey, I dunno what kinda stuff you’re into…) that is designed to chill between your butt cheeks all day. But women still go crazy for them! They even tease other women that don’t wear their underwear up their ass.

I remember my friend Emilie was the first of our 8th grade “group” to wear a thong. She finally caved in after much ridicule from her older sister regarding a tragically obvious VPL in a tacky polyester skirt (honestly, can you blame the older sis?). The day of her thong debut, she literally screamed in agony every time she bent down to open her locker. Even after witnessing her shriek six times before the end of third period, I still thought “Man, I gotta get me one of those!”

Even now, as a “mature” college girl, I will not be caught dead touching a pair of grannies, let alone wearing them during a hook up. You didn’t just sell them to the women of the world, you fooled guys into thinking they were the sexiest form of underwear. Yeah, I get the whole “more is better” thing when it comes to women’s asses, but that still doesn’t really explain to me why butt floss is an attractive option. You must have had to have some pretty solid endorsements to sell this baby to the masses. In this case, I think this product would even be a toughie for the OxyClean man (and that’s saying something – that guy could get me to buy anything). Was Sisqo dancing around a few lubed up beach babes really all it took?

Please find time in your busy pants-dropping schedule to get back to me as soon as possible. Seriously, we need to talk. I have a great idea for an invisible lingerie line that could really use a boost…

Yours truly,
Miss Thong Investor

[This story was originally posted by Elizabeth - UC Berkeley]

Likey? Don’t worry, there are plenty more faves where this came from.

Bubbles Bodywear has come up with “The Double-O Push-Up Thong,” which is basically a bra for your butt. It’s supposed to tone and shape your ass while slimming your thighs and holding in your stomach — all the while shoving itself up your butt crack.

The best thing about The Double-O is that it costs $64!! Nothing makes a girl smile like spending loads of money on an item of clothing that no one will see (and those who do will have so. many. questions.) and which will also be needlessly uncomfortable. Seems like Bubbles Bodywear totally understands the need for women to strap themselves in to point of asphyxiation.

I would like to preface this letter by saying that your work has made a large yet incredibly skimpy contribution to my adolescent years. And while I do believe in the nobleness of your cause, I am rather puzzled by the method to the madness of such an invention. As I hold up the tiny piece of fabric that is my underwear, several questions come to mind, such as:

• Which came first: The thong, or “The Thong Song”?

The first time I heard the thong song, I was 11-years-old. Try explaining to a sixth grader, still under-clad with flower-print Hanes grannie panties, the concept of a thong. Watching a leprechaun of a man do cartwheels on the beach doesn’t really do that good of a job of explaining the exact science behind the thong. In fact, I’m pretty sure I thought he was singing about summertime footwear up until 2001, when I realized I needed to wear this contraption to be socially acceptable.

• Where the devil did you get this genius idea?

Was it a public service project? Did you see one too many VPLs (Visible Panty Lines, for you not-in-the-knows) and proclaim “I’ve had it! I’m inventing buttless underwear!” To you, Mr. Thong Inventor, going commando just wasn’t an option. Now that point I can understand, as I probably have not washed my jeans since the opening night of “Sex and the City.” And who really likes walking around with that “I’m wearing the pant equivalent of dirty underwear” feeling all day? Yeah, neither do I. So really, Mr. T.I, you were the answer to my laundry-lazy, VPL-phobic prayers.

• How the hell did you get it to catch on?

No seriously. It takes pure skill to get a woman to try on a permanent wedgie, let alone make it a long lasting trend in the sexy lingerie industry. Think about it: it’s a tiny scrap of cotton, satin, silk, or pearls (hey, I dunno what kinda stuff you’re into…) that is designed to chill between your butt cheeks all day. But women still go crazy for them! They even tease other women that don’t wear their underwear up their ass.

I remember my friend Emilie was the first of our 8th grade “group” to wear a thong. She finally caved in after much ridicule from her older sister regarding a tragically obvious VPL in a tacky polyester skirt (honestly, can you blame the older sis?). The day of her thong debut, she literally screamed in agony every time she bent down to open her locker. Even after witnessing her shriek six times before the end of third period, I still thought “Man, I gotta get me one of those!”

Even now, as a “mature” college girl, I will not be caught dead touching a pair of grannies, let alone wearing them during a hook up. You didn’t just sell them to the women of the world, you fooled guys into thinking they were the sexiest form of underwear. Yeah, I get the whole “more is better” thing when it comes to women’s asses, but that still doesn’t really explain to me why butt floss is an attractive option. You must have had to have some pretty solid endorsements to sell this baby to the masses. In this case, I think this product would even be a toughie for the OxyClean man (and that’s saying something – that guy can get me to buy anything). Was Sisqo dancing around a few lubed up beach babes really all it took?

Please find time in your busy pants-dropping schedule to get back to me as soon as possible. Seriously, we need to talk. I have a great idea for an invisible lingerie line that could really use a boost…

Yours truly,

Miss Thong Investor

[photo from www.environmentaltalk.com]

I don’t remember most of these people so I hope that I don’t have to hear them talk. I wish that Jay had missed his flight out of Jersey.

Everyone is out on stage except for Chad, Bo and Kristy. I guess Chad has to be kept away from Bo, especially if there’s some lawsuit lurking.

We’re treated to clips of everyone making fun of Jay because he sucks, Glitter because she’s crazy and George for being nocturnally creepy. What’s up with staying up all night to watch everyone sleep?

I wish that someone would fill a tube sock with silver dollars and smack Jay in the mouth to make him shut up. You are NOT a bad ass; CHAD had to fight ‘for’ you, little man, because you can’t head butt anyone in the face unless they’re too short to go on the upside down roller coasters at the county fair.

I don’t know who’s calling Jay out, but I like her. Who threw a chair at him? Haaaaa!!!!!! Do it, Jersey girl Lauren!!!

Please interview Lisa now; this ish is draaaaaagging. Oh, Britanny’s up and she was always pretty, but she’s gotten prettier. I didn’t know that she’s a “gold star” lesbian – meaning that she’s never done anything with a boy.

We are then treated to the Glitter Montage of Tears. I feel really badly for laughing at the tears but I will say that she looks good on this reunion show.

And FINALLY Lisa is up; she’s the only one I care to hear. If you’re reading this, you looked smokin’ and you’re totally not manly to me. And it’s appropriate that Lisa’s mini interview closes with Glitter working the pole since the two are such good friends.

Chad comes out in a blue blazer like he’s on “Miami Vice” and I laugh at Glitter saying he looks like a douche because she’s right. I really liked him until what he did to Bo; I could have over-looked the Jay friendship. I don’t even know how that dumb fight started.

After the Chad clip medley, Ryan the Host points out the frequency with which Chad referred to his penis size. Polish guys have huge wang bones? I never heard that. Like I think that every other nationality is known for their penis size in some way except for the Polish guys. Chad’s shoes were clearly stolen from Crockett’s closet. Why would you call Bo’s mom a whore? That’s stupid, totally lame and wholly unoriginal.

When it’s Bo’s turn to come out, Miami Wang Bone has to be put in a cage. Ryan Stout, the host, asks Bo why everyone was annoyed by him and Bo turns the question to the other contestants. Lisa talks about how Bo was in love with Tila the celebrity (hah) and someone tells Bo that he sucks for not calling Chad out for calling his mom a whore…And that’s when the throw down begins.

Chad goes from Miami Vice to shirtless “Fight Club” and they have to take it to commercial so that (possibly fake?) fight doesn’t turn into an explosion of blood and more liability for MTV on stage.

After the break, we see that Chad’s been escorted out and Bo is seated again with the host. Then Kristy comes out – and Sirbrina and Britanny are making out on stage? I’m sure that you’re proving a point to someone.

Bo/Brandon and Kristy clip show and then Kristy makes the Ryan knead her ass to prove that it’s real.

So that was a waste of an hour.

I am grateful that the finale is next week. I’m going to call Kristy for the win because it seems that no one can resist that ass.

Both the Huffington Post and the New York Times have recently gotten really interested in girl-on-girl action (but don’t worry, this has nothing to do with Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson. Absolutely nothing. Seriously. Nothing). They’ve gotten so interested, in fact, that they’ve dedicated whole columns to trying to figure out why it seems like chicks dig other chicks.

Let me break it down for them (and you, if you really don’t know): chicks dig chicks because we’ve been taught to dig chicks.

Why do women seem to have a more fluid sexuality than men – at least that anyone will admit? Because since we came shrieking out of the womb, we’ve seen images of women in every stage of undress – including naked. Advertisements for razors with long, leisurely shots of legs. TV shows that have a mandatory wardrobe of tight clothes and short skirts. A bajillion movies where tits and ass flash across the screen so often that we eventually forget guys even have body parts. Music videos full of bling and boob. Reality TV where hot tubs are as mandatory as microphones. Porn (who could forget porn?). I mean, it’s not an old argument that the media is saturated with the female form.

So why are we all puzzled that girls get a little aroused when they see other naked or semi-naked girls?

I’m no scientist, but if all I saw were images of broccoli strewn over the airwaves for 25 years, I’m sure I’d think pretty differently about broccoli. The media would have formed my appreciation of broccoli. Broccoli would be part of my daily life.

See what I’m getting at?

And in the same way, if tomatoes were also all over the airwaves, but not as prevalent as broccoli, I’m sure I’d be more comfortable around broccoli (in this analogy, tomatoes equal the male form). Sure, chiseled chests and naked guys are around, but brocc – I mean, the sexualized female form – is more prevalent.

Vegetables aside, it’s obvious to anyone with a brain that society tells most of us what to do and how to think, and for 25 years, I’ve been taught to equate the female form with sexuality, pleasure, and beauty.

So don’t get all surprised if my pulse runs a little quicker when I stumble across a nip slip on the internet. It doesn’t mean I’m gay.

It just means society is working.

The tease, in my opinion, may very well be the purest form of foreplay.

So why not participate in some online foreplay? Everything else these days is online. You trust your bank account online. Your private emails. Your social security number. So why not your sexy legs?

I’m not saying that you need to go off and buy a “(your name)inherunderwear.com” domain. However, if you’ve got an appetite at all for building on sexual chemistry between yourself and someone else, why not restructure your approach to the traditional tease? Lets face it: nothing else is traditional anymore, so this doesn’t need to be, either.

Far too many girls, in my opinion, really need to sort out their bunched up panties over matters like this.

DEAR GIRLS WHO ARE AFRAID OF SENDING YOUR DESIRED OTHER SEXY PICTURES OVER THE INTERNET:

You have boobs. You’ve got a vagina. You’ve got an ass. And so does every other girl in the whole wide world. Considering the fact that so many girls in the whole wide world are naked on the world wide web, believe me when I say that you won’t be making headlines IF your pictures ever “get out”. And that’s just an IF.

Don’t get me wrong…being a good Catholic girl can be hot. But ACTING like a good Catholic girl and then surprising your potential or current lover with naughty pictures is even hotter. The internet is making everything easier…and that includes foreplay. So why forgo a prime opportunity to make someone’s morning at the office just a teeny bit sexually frustrating?

It’s only a click away.

It didn’t really occur to me at all that I should have been jealous or angry or even concerned, and my girlfriend seemed just about as intrigued as I did when I told her about the tall, silent, fairly attractive guy in the corner of my Shakespeare class.

Ogling is a tricky little subject. The problem is that just because you now have a girl doesn’t mean every other gal and/or guy instantly ceases to be attractive. Hot people still exist (thank God), and there isn’t some magical on/off switch that makes you think your girl is the hottest one on the planet (not that this is a bad thing to think).

It also kind of complicates matters that ogling when you’re in a girl/girl relationship is one of the things that’s VERY different from the way it is in a girl/boy relationship. It depends all on your significant other’s personality, of course; I’m not gonna say that ALL girls are okay with ogling and ALL guys are against it. For me, though, I’ve never had a boyfriend who entirely appreciated me leaning to the side and checking out that one guy’s amazingly shaped ass or that girl’s near perfect rack. My girl now is totally okay with it. So what’s the big deal?

The key, the most important, the most VITAL thing you need to have in your relationship is mutual understanding and respect; and that doesn’t just apply to checking out other attractive members of your species. It applies to everything. If you’re worried that your girl is upset because you peeped at that one guy’s oh-so-pretty eyes or you’re worried because your girl did the same, for God’s sake, talk to her!

The best part about being in a relationship with women is that you don’t have to scramble up the gender wall to relay messages back and forth. She’ll understand, especially if she and you both know that neither of you mean any harm. If she doesn’t – and this applies to my straight girls, too – there is a very legitimate chance that you may not have the strongest of relationships.

In closing? Yes, I do think it’s okay – and healthy – to check out other birds’ plumage when you’ve already got your own mate.

Just be careful.

Why then, are so many people interested in breaking down celebrities who aren’t frighteningly thin?

Jennifer Love Hewitt is the most recent victim of badly angled paparazzi photos, and I have to say, I feel every inch of her pain. Sure, the girl isn’t skinny, but she’s not fat.

So there are a few instances of cellulite. So she has a waist thicker than a pencil. So she’s not wearing a ton of make-up at the beach. How many average women does this describe?

I’m happy that JLW isn’t thin. Even though I don’t watch her show (I mean, if we’re being honest here…it’s totally boring), I think she’s a good role model for girls all over the country who have boobs and an ass.

She’s on TV and she’s not a size 0. There’s hope for us all.

Like most women who see unflattering pictures of themselves posted online, JLW is pissed off that the photos are being used to cut her down.

“What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles.” She posts on her website. “I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.”

“To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong.”

Bad angles or not, I’m glad she allowed herself to human and hurt by public scrutiny, and was brave enough to post something online.

It’s an old, tired, worn-out argument, but why being a size 2 or lower is so important to our society still doesn’t make sense to me. Aspiring to be fat isn’t something we teach our kids, so why does it work the other way around?

What do you think? Are you on JLW’s side? Or is being skinny really the only way to go?

But isn’t there a point when all this narcissistic pampering goes a little too far? By all accounts, the answer is a resounding no. Want proof? Apparently, the hip new trend to hit spas across the country is the butt facial. Yes, you read that correctly. The Butt Facial.

Now, I’ve never gotten, or even born witness to, an actual facial, so I’m not exactly the resident expert here. From what I can gather, the method for facializing (is that a word, and if not, can we make it one?) the butt is almost identical to that of getting an actual facial.

There’s quite a bit of cleaning (ultra-important where the butt is concerned) with a dash of detoxifying (not sure at all what that does, but it sounds healthy enough).

But I guess the real catalyst behind the butt facial craze is the second half of the process, which involves a type of electro-shock therapy designed to reduce cellulite and increase butt firmness.

The deafening silence you’re hearing now is the sound of every one of my readers jetting off to the nearest spa.

Unfortunately for the “regular” people among us, the procedure is running customers upwards of $800 a pop. Heyyy…welcome back everyone!

Now, I’m left with any number of questions upon reading this article, as clearly I’m in the wrong profession. For instance, how does someone go about becoming a butt facialist? Do the qualifications extend beyond having strong hands and a major affinity for the female ass? Methinks I need to conduct some in depth research on this one… maybe even try to score an internship.

But more to the point, isn’t this idea just a tad ridiculous? To me, this is just another example of our society desiring the quick fix as opposed to putting in hard work in the form of exercise; while not at all comparable in size or scope, this sounds to me like a very innocent form of liposuction. As a close friend pointed out to me, training for a half marathon and then showering has produced exactly the same result as would a butt facial.

Hey… if you’ve got an extra $800 laying around and feel like pampering your ass, who am I to stop you? But college gyms are free, and my bet is, there’s no shortage of guys on any college campus (other than maybe Bryn Mawr) who’d be more than willing to give your ass a nice rubdown if you simply asked them to. I’m sure every one of you could find a better way to spend the cash.

That being said, I have watched a few freaky films in my time and totally appreciate their craft and originality. Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens, The Exorcist, Sixth Sense (come on, the first time you saw it…you were kinda scared), are some of my favorites, although I may still have to watch them from under a blanket.

But here’s the thing. I’ve been noticing a trend when it comes to horror movies these days. A trend that doesn’t make me want to watch from behind my hand, but turn the damn thing off all together. We’re not just making horror movies anymore, we’re churning out torture flicks.

Newsweek explains my argument in a much more eloquent way. According to them, since last fall, seven horror movies have topped the box office, the Saw franchise, Hostel, and The Hills Have Eyes leading the pack. And what do all these movies have in common? Blood. Gore. Tits. New York Magazine’s David Edelstein is even quoted as saying the trend verges on “torture porn”.

Sex and violence have been wrapped up together since the Greeks wrote their tragedies, but today’s filmmakers seem determined to push the limits of both as far as they can possibly go. Every once in a while we get a movie like Neil Marshall’s The Decent, which stays away from heavy sexuality, but more often than not, today’s horror movies aren’t complete without play-by-play disembowelments and heavy female objectification. Sure, nearly naked or naked chicks are a major component of the genre, but I can’t help wondering; as the violence becomes more and more graphic, what happens to our opinion of the sexuality that juxtaposes it? Are audiences going to be hungrier for something more? Something worse? Where do we, as strong women, draw the line in Hollywood’s slasher portrayal of us?

What do you think, girls? Got an opinion? Why are audiences so eager to watch scenes that could be labeled as sadistic? Wes Craven, master of the horror genre, claims our current appetite stems from a post 9-11 world, a world full of uncertainty and violence and manifests itself in lots of different ways, from “people drinking a bit more to kids going to hard-core movies.” And seriously, who else was scared shitless by E.T?

How do you feel about T & A in torture flicks?