The permission slip specifically noted “no thong bikinis” for the annual field day.  A friend asked me if we received the same letter at my son’s school in the same district which, amazingly, we didn’t.  A few other heads turned in the social skills class, prompting a mass cry of abject horror over who would dress their elementary school age daughter in a thong.  What purpose did a thong serve a young girl? It wasn’t to smooth out unsightly panty lines from showing in a snug, sheer skirt or tight pair of pants.

As a child, I thought Jeannie from “I Dream of Jeannie” embodied glamour.  Both she and Cher wore midriff-baring, outrageous outfits.  I pretended to be them, wearing conservative two-piece swimsuits paired with furry winter boots.  In kindergarten, I was warned not to wear wooden clogs that, apparently, resulted in noise pollution and potentially dangerous, slippery falls in the hallway.  Confusion struck me at age seven when, before picking up my dad at the train station, my mom made me wear clothing over my swimsuit.  Sixth grade brought me run-ins with the clothing and cosmetics police.  In that year, I not only was summoned to the principal’s office for wearing a modest pair of blue culottes, mistakenly determined to be shorts; but I also borrowed two cool baby blue and mint green eye shadows from my mom who promptly insisted I wash them off my “grown-up” eyelids.

However, I was horrified hearing about girls’ thong bikinis and further puzzled by the need for padded bikini tops that my mother-in-law shockingly spotted when out shopping.  As my friend G exasperatingly says, “I’m tired of the ‘Little Hooker’ lines for girls!”  Pair that with the “Little Thug/Pimp” lines and you have a disastrous combination of innocence and sleaze. [Read more...]