Ein Gedi Botanic Garden

Ein Gedi Botanic Garden
Seek the serenity of a Judean Desert sky in Autumn at the Ein Gedi Botanic Garden

Monday, June 27, 2005

Urban Thong

There is a new fashion flaunting flesh in Arad this summer -- a new version of The Thong. The way it works is this:
First, you have to wear a thong (you know, those underwear (panties) that really aren't and cover nothing but divide your tush so the cheeks are well defined and prominent to streetside viewers. (I believe this applies primarily to the ladies... then again, you can never tell....) It should be a colorful "garment", one that catches the eye, so to speak.
Then, you wear skin tight hip huggers with the "waistline" as low as possible -- this creates a casual but daring appearance. You really can wear looser hip huggers if you wish; the issue here is "how low can you go"...
Finally, the real crux of the matter: you hike up the thong and you schlep down the hip huggers, so that the top of the thong shows above the "waistline". This is a fashion that has clearly been stolen from American hip hop artists (no pun intended, really!) and rappers, who some ten years ago began to wear loose, low-slung pants with at least two inches of underwear showing above the pants, so that it looks like the pants are falling down but the underwear are still hanging in there (oh gee, that was REALLY terrible, but i just couldn't help it). It was that "come hither and let's pull our pants down together" kind of look. A little sloppy, a little ghetto.
The Urban Thong is the height of fashion here in Israel. Some girls even manage to hike the thong so high and schlep the pants so low that you can actually see not only the top of the thong, but the stringy part too.
In my day, this would have been referred to as "indecent exposure". Now it is "cool". Of course, there are limits as to what constitutes flaunting this fashion in good taste. (No comment.)
For example, a woman over a certain age of maturity looks, um, a little saggy in the back. And females with more than ample glutei maximi have given new meaning to the word plump. (Sigh.)
But the average lady sporting this look here in Arad generally falls into the 16 - 30 age range, Occasionally you get an old bag with a bod with dyed hair or a young wannabe complete with belly and brows pierced, trying to strut her stuff. But it makes me wonder why they bother -- let it all hang out!
Ah, summer in the city..........