If you want to know the secrets of the universe, you have to use string theory. Incredibly, the same holds for Victoria’s Secret.
I am no theoretical physicist like Dr Michio Kwaku but I found out that it does not take an Einstein o discover the universal enigma about the lingerie leader or a Newton to find out the gravity-defying truth. I stumbled on it in Britain’s Mail Online. Victoria’s Secret is that she is no longer wearing a “G-string” but has graduated to a “C-string”.
A “G string”, in terms of attire instead of music, originally referred to the string which held up the loincloth worn by Native Americans but was then used to describe the loincloth itself. Since nobody threatened to Sioux, the term was in Vogue and Harper’s Magazine.
The view was that the “G” probably stood for “groin” rather than “gigantic” except in the case of the Watusi and that led to the saying, “Watusi is wat you get”. In fact, in the book The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, both Tarzan and his son Korak, being the swingers that they were, set a new fashion trend by wearing “G- strings”. Later striptease artists like Gypsy Rose Lee kept the garment in the public eye by lingeringly and lasciviously losing their lingerie.
The “G string” eventually evolved into the fashionable thong underwear. One description is, “A G-string (alternatively gee-string or gee string) is a type of underwear, a narrow piece of cloth, leather or plastic that covers or holds the genitals, passes between the buttocks, and is attached to a band around the hips . . . It is also a style of thong swimsuit whose rear area can become so narrow that it would disappear between the wearer’s buttocks.” This type of humour is known as thong-in-cheek.
There are some other interesting things that are outside the box which Victoria is still keeping secret. For example, we have the “I-phone” panties with the appropriately-placed instructions “slide to unlock”. In Ireland, according to a Reuters report, “Boxer shorts and G-strings sporting the slogan ‘I’d rather be screwed by the IMF’ might be the top stocking filler this Christmas in Ireland as anger over a financial bailout and frustration with the government mounts.”
Given the way things are going in some Caribbean countries, there is a growing market here as well. In France there is a new set of flimsies with a small capsule hanging from the front. The description reads, “The French are always thinking of new ways to be more romantic. With this pair of barely there panties, you can leave a love note inside the holder for your significant other.”
My wife is undoubtedly on the hunt for Christmas gifts for me and instead of the Joe Boxers she normally buys there are options for men like the “sac-free” which, according to the vendor, “will bring a pleasant feeling of liberty”.
Like the French, I say, give me liberty or give me death – and in cold climes that can happen from exposure to the cold. If you tend to eat too much during the holidays, there is the “Underease Flatulence Filtering Underwear” which has an activated charcoal filter that deals with what is described as “bad human gas (malodorous flatus)”. And if you live an interactive lifestyle you can let your underwear do the talking by buying a Velcro thong. It comes with a pack of 40 consonants, 16 vowels and many punctuation marks so you can practice your Scrabble or say simply, “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”
• Tony Deyal was last seen suggesting he has got to the bottom of Victoria’s Secret – the backless underwear which is supposed to show your assets (not your underwear) with comfort and style.