You can’t sleep in a g-string.

Well, you can, but you won’t sleep well.”  You learn many things when you have dinner with a group of girlfriends. This particular observation was made by one of my friends last week over pizza and pinot when we became immersed in a vigorous debate about the post-modern relevance of the g-string.

It all began with two ex fashion editors bemoaning the fact that they now have to buy their own underwear. Quelle inconvenience. Apparently, fashion editors on magazines receive many, many pairs of freebie knickers throughout the year.

Who knew? Not me, and I worked on magazines forever. I do so love an industry where you can send someone a leopard skin g-string along with a press release about your new range of sunglasses and not only will they not take a restraining order out against you, they’ll rush into the fashion cupboard to try them on.

Anyway, I jumped into the debate immediately and controversially. “You know what? I think we’ve been sold a big fat lie about the Visible
Panty Line,” I declared sensationally. It was a bold statement, but one I’d considered for some time before throwing it down on the table. Next
to the rocket and Parmesan salad.

Look, I was always a G-string. Preferably of the Bonds hipster variety so the world doesn’t have to see your G waving out the top of your jeans every time you bend over. I was an early adopter of the G-string, back when it was just beginning its migration from strippers and sex shops to the mainstream. In the early to mid nineties I defended it from sceptics who scrunched up their faces and said, ‘But isn’t it UNCOMFORTABLE?’ ‘No!’ I insisted passionately. ‘No! You can’t feel it! Your bottom adjusts! Try it! You must!’

But then, after a decade of G-string monogamy, I fell in love with the boy-leg undie. So named for how it cuts across the top of your thigh and underneath the back of your bottom instead of across-the- buttock like a regular brief. The sides are thick. Almost like mini hot pants. Cute. Comfy. Modern.

What distinguishes a boy-leg from a nanna knicker? Where the waistband sits. Nanna knickers sit high, sometimes as high as your bellybutton. Very Renee Zellweger in that Bridget Jones scene with Hugh Grant, cavorting on the floor. In extreme cases, nanna knickers have been known to migrate towards rib cages and even armpits. Bad look.

Reassuringly, boy-leg undies avoid the nanna trap by sitting low on the hip, a bit like a seventies bikini bottom. The VPL is minimal because it doesn’t cut across the cheek and sits low enough on the hip that you don’t feel nanna-esque.

That’s how I came to my VPL conspiracy theory. The VPL isn’t nearly as prevalent as we were led to believe by G-string peddlers, I argued. “I can wear my boy-leg undies under my skinny jeans without a problem.” Cue more debate. More pizza. Here’s where the conversation meandered to from there:

Friend #1: “I still wear g-strings under tight clothes. The bigger your bum, the more problems you have with VPL. It’s a bigger surface area. More room for error.”

Friend #2: “ “I once slept in my g-string by accident after a big night and it was awful. I only ever usually sleep in boy-legs.”

Friend #1: “Do you really sleep in undies? I never do. My mother taught me that my lady garden needs to breathe overnight.”

Friend #3: “My four year old saw me in a G-string the other day and asked ‘where are the rest of your undies mummy?’”

Friend #4: “We were talking about it at home one night and my boyfriend confessed he doesn’t like g-strings. It was such a relief! I hate them.”

Friend #5: “My husband is very sad about the decline of the g-string and the rise of the big brief. He’s happy to see me in any state of undress but if given a choice, he does prefer a G-string.”

Friend #2: “Oh men, prefer no undies, let’s be honest.”

Instead of taking the second-hand word of women on the crucial subject of Which Undies Do Men Prefer, I thought I should ask some people who have penises. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Or rather pants.

“G strings are just a bit 2000 and rarely sexy,” said a 29-year-old male friend. “Only the very firmest bottoms look good in them. As a single guy you rarely get to see more than a flash of G while they’re being peeled off – think about it – and only the genetically gifted parade around in them.”

And this via email from a single 38 year old who has seen a female undie or two in his time…”The rise of the floating G back or whatever it is called, has ruined it for me. There are few public displays that can turn a bloke off more…. A G-string grappling up over a pair of too low cut jeans, trying to rest somewhere near a girl’s mid-back….that’d have to be a close second to public vomiting.”
“At least with a floating G, you don’t have to hold her hair back” I replied.

Then there’s this from a 40-something married bloke. “They look so bloody uncomfortable it’s no wonder smart girls are tossing them in favour of those more sexy low cut hipster Bonds ones with a proper bottom. Surely the G-string’s place is back in the eighties when they were worn for special occasions under particularly tight fitting outfits to avoid VPL, and coupled with shoulder pads.“

Finally, this salient observation from a newly divorced man who is dating again after a 10-year hiatus. “You don’t really see many body suits anymore. Weren’t they a treat with the silver press studs hidden somewhere between Brazil and Tasmania……”

Note: when this column was first published, I received many comments and much correspondance from men who insisted the quotes from the guys above were made up because ‘no man would prefer any other undie over a g-string”.

Of course they weren’t made up – I found several men who aren’t fans of the G, but I am reliably informed they are not the norm. Me? I wouldn’t have a clue what men like these days. Over to you. More importantly, what do YOU prefer? And has your….taste in underwear changed over the years?

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