To think bums should be covered in a public pool?

If your farts exit in a straight line from your arsehole I congratulate you - and commiserate on your poor understanding of how gases behave. 🤓

If they’re so comfortable why don’t you see older women in thong bikinis? Surely when one’s older it’s even more about comfort, no?

Back in reality, the vast majority of women aren’t that keen on wearing damp stinky buttfloss made out of plastic, that gives faecal bacteria a nice route down to the vagina. It’s uncomfortable and unhygienic. Women do it because they think it’s “sexy”.

You must have been very advanced! Did you send off for them? In 1994 someone gave my mum a black G-string as a cheeky 40th birthday present; and aged 15 I had never seen one before - thongs simply weren’t sold in any of the lingerie departments of the several big department stores in our city, and I knew this quite well as I was a fashion devotee, and spent my time reading Vogue and Cosmo and looking at all the clothes I could. The underwear styles that were very much in then were very minimalist tencel boyshorts and bikini knickers with lace - not a thong to be found anywhere (unless it was “sex wear”).

Admittedly, I did grow up in the grim north; so maybe things were just a little more backward there, and all the young teenagers in Guildford were down at Ann Summers for their scanties?

Hear hear

It’s extraordinary how comfy these are for women, yet men don’t seem to want to wear them

Yes, this tacky look has been normalised by shows like Love Island. Along with lip fillers etc.

I'm in my 40's too and it was very much a thing when we were teens, I started wearing thongs in about '94. None of my peer group wanted big knickers showing in our leggings or cycling shorts.

@PurpleDiva22 I’m afraid you imagine wrong if you think nobody notices. And, as this thread demonstrates, there’s plenty of judging too. I’m not saying that’s right, but it’s definitely happening.

It’s not the style for me but each to their own. I see so many of them at the gym that I’m inured to them now. But I must admit they don’t look like they are serious swimmers in them. That’s my only thought.

There is nothing disingenuous about saying they're comfortable! It is entirely subjective, I find jeans comfortable but I have friends that live in leggings because jeans are uncomfortable..other friends can't wait to get their bra off as soon as they get in the house, I don't even notice I'm wearing one.

If young women want to show off their bodies then good luck to them, make the most of youth and fantastic collagen whilst it lasts.

It's no different to what my age group (45) did in our late teens/early 20's with our bikini tops and mini skirts that barely covered our butt cheeks when out clubbing, tiny string bikinis on holiday etc.
I remember my parents were horrified at the time, older people will always be outraged by the fashion choices of the younger generation. My DM admitted to me when I was about 35 she was envious that I could wear tight/fitted tops/dresses, short shorts etc as she couldn't.

Nobody is suggesting that children should wear them but an adult woman has every right to if that's what she chooses

I’m only in my forties but I can remember a time when absolutely no-one cared about “VPL” or even knew what it was. It became a “thing” as a marketing tool in the very early 2000s when shops all went in on selling thong knickers as the new trend.

In the 90s we all just wore ordinary pants and didn’t stress about it at all.

I get dancers underwear for this problem! The kind that goes under leotards. Absolutely no VPL at all

Slight deviation from topic, but a few posters have mentioned wearing thong underwear to avoid VPL. Thongs are often visible under trousers, you just have VTL instead. If you prefer them fair enough, but they aren’t a solution to VPL. It isn’t difficult to buy underwear which doesn’t show at all.

Yup Tis true

I work in a heavily male-dominated environment, and men do nothing but judge each other. They just don’t discuss it - they formalise it as hierarchy, and all the men know who are the alpha ones and who aren’t, and what their status in the pecking order is. That’s how men work. And they all judge women — all the time, consciously and unconsciously.

If you think men don’t judge each other, I have a bridge to sell you. Just take a look at what Trumpites say about other men (and women) they don’t like. Or football fans, or terrorists, or religious sects, or boys at school in the playground bullying smaller boys, or any male-dominated profession.

You really need to deal with other people's choices and to look away from things you don't like.

So presumably this is the case for flashers in the park too? He's just choosing to wear (or not wear) what he feels comfy in and he believes he looks good in - and if any woman objects when she can clearly see intimate/usually private parts of his body, she needs to learn to look away and mind her own business?

In my experience men and women are equally judgmental, albeit about different things, the main difference being there are more pejorative terms for women who do it - funny that

Some truth in that.
But it isn't just choices that could have been influenced by porn.

So many women judge other women for choices around being a SAHM, childcare going back to work.

Across the board women just judge each other more than men.

I wear thong underwear and have done for 30 years because I genuinely find them more comfortable under clothes and don’t have to worry about VPL.

However I wouldn’t dream of wearing thong swimwear in public. Nobody needs to see that much of my arse in a public environment. For me the comfort argument goes out of the window if it’s the only item of clothing you are using to cover (or not!) your bare bum cheeks.

Literally if older women suddenly started wearing them there would be calls everywhere to ban them to spare the eyes and blushes of the youth.

I feel like buying some for my saggy, dimply and spotty size 16 middle aged arse, and swanning off down David Lloyd to see what the people think - I bet there would be plenty of eye-rolling and gasping about how indecent it was 👍

Not really no.
Women judge other women far, far, far more than men judge other men.

Oh no! Now I've got a picture in my head of a man's hairy arse in a thong!

Love this 🤣

Maybe that’s because it’s women who get sexually objectified; and most women don’t like going to a public space for swimming, and then being confronted by porn culture outfits that are all about women displaying their arses for men and how that’s increasingly normalised everywhere?

Because the women who wear them aren’t wearing them for other women, are they? And the comments are largely about how porn outfits aren’t a good thing for women and children generally.

And, hell yes, I’m judgy about porn culture. It’s all about getting women to provide what men want, and normalising the exploitation and sexualisation of women’s bodies as pretend “empowerment”.

If they're so ok... why don't they sell children's thongs, young girls, boys and men's thongs. Maybe they'll start doing shorts with buttcheeeks cut out??
Think we may have stumbled on a new fashion here!

Even though it's more comfortable and a perfectly normal way to express your physical self in a completely non-sexual way according to so many on here, you can't buy thong underwear or swimwear for children. Poor kids suffering with full bum coverage 😞