Put a lock on it

Several readers have asked me to write about the latest insult to women everywhere: the anti-rape underwear. It's such a ridiculous idea, I thought it might be a prank. So I did some research on this 21st-century chastity belt, already

knowing what my opinion would be if it turned out to be real.

Turns out it's an Indiegogo campaign. The designers are still trying to raise money to fund prototypes of the product. That means you can't run out to your local Walmart and buy a pair to wear on your blind date Friday night. My apologies to women everywhere for getting your hopes up.

I had the same reaction many people did to the idea that women should buy special underwear or shorts to prevent a sexual assault. Maybe when my daughter Elvira was a teenager I might have considered forcing her into a pair of these, but just the idea sends a seriously wrong message.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but let's make sure we're all on the same page: Rape doesn't happen because women and girls forget to lock their vaginas up when they go out. Rape happens because some men choose to commit sexual violence on those who are unable to defend themselves for some reason -- lesser physical strength, fear, alcohol or drug consumption, mental incapacity, physical incapacity, you fucking name it because it's about power and control. It's not because women aren't wearing the anti-rape underwear.

This cuts too close to home for many women, and I'm one of them. The people who want to produce the anti-rape clothing line certainly make an attempt to defend their product. They posit that it's a choice women can make when they're going into a potentially dangerous situation, "such as going out on a blind date, taking an evening run, 'clubbing', [sic] traveling in unfamiliar countries, and any other activity that might make one anxious about the possibility of an assault."

I'd like take that further and suggest that since most women are targets for sexual assault, we should all wear anti-rape clothing all the time. From Pampers to granny panties to thongs to Depends .... all made of anti-rape technology. Why not?

I hope I'm preaching to the choir when I say the product targets the wrong audience. It's not women who should have to wear panties with a key. It's men who should have to wear locked-up tidy whities, and the only key to open them is the word "yes."

I really think I'm onto something here. I'm going to call it my Lock Up the Cock campaign. Anybody want to invest?

Seriously, the real problem is men who rape though, not the clothes women -- or men -- are wearing. The real problem is that we live in a rape culture that actually encourages and supports treating women like objects -- the very thing that leads to many rapes. (I'll have more to say about rape culture in at least one future post this month.)

The real problem is that women aren't responsible for the fact that men rape us (and each other), so our putting on special underwear isn't the answer. Men don't rape us because of what we are or are not wearing, and to suggest that a woman can have control over the situation when a man intends to rape her is both naive and dangerous. We don't.

Rape is an act of violence, so I worry that anti-rape underwear could give women a false sense of protection. You'd have to be an idiot to think that a determined rapist couldn't breach those special underwear. If a man beats a woman long enough or shows her his gun or his knife, or threatens her kids or her friends, she'll likely take the underwear off for him. Special underwear will simply not protect a woman from a man who is determined to commit sexual violence. It could, in fact, incite him to worse violence. (The video claims that resistance to rape prevents attacks and doesn't increase the likelihood of violence. I'd like to see those studies on a topic that's almost impossible to study.)

Let's not forget, the vagina isn't the only place a woman can be raped. Are they going to come up with a special mask to cover our mouths too? Because if a rapist can't get into one orifice, what's to stop him from going at another one?

I'll admit, an argument could made that if the underwear prevents just one rape it's worth giving women the choice to wear it. Maybe so.

I can just imagine what my dad might have said if these had been available when I was a teenager going out on a date. "Reticula, you march right back upstairs and wipe some of that makeup off your face. And I want to see that your panties are locked before you even think about getting in a car with that boy .... " Kinda creepy, huh?

The whole thing rubs me the wrong way like a pair of scratchy wool panties. It's the other side of the "she was wearing a short skirt so she was asking for it" coin. Only in this case the rapist could claim that she was asking for it because she wasn't wearing her special "I said 'no' and I mean no" underwear.

I won't be contributing money to this campaign, but I see almost 1000 people have. Maybe they liked the video, which shows thin young models twisting and turning and pulling at their skimpy shorts. And some disembodied hands gently trying to pull those shorts down. It's unexpectedly sexy. Not rapey at all. Rape is not at all sexy and it's a lot more violent than the gentle tugging shown on the video.

On the scale of rape culture horrors, this is barely a blip. Lock your vagina up. Don't lock your vagina up. Either way, rapists are going to rape. The problem is far more complex than what can be covered by a pair of Kevlar panties.

What do you think? Would you buy them? Would you buy them for your daughter? How about your son?


(Photo credits: AR Wear)

Panties

Update: Several people sent me messages and asked what happened to last night's post. Earlier today I sent it back to my muse Dolores as a draft. One of the problems with writing daily is that I rarely get a chance to let a post sit for a few days and mature. Last night's post was one that needed a little more time. My daughter Elvira called me this morning and said it didn't really represent who I am very well, and then she threatened to hide Coraline's poopy diapers all over my house if I didn't agree. I'd share the conversation and might later, but on the Facebook page for Reticulated Writer I promised vaginas, not more navel.

And yet Dolores wasn't interested in vaginas. She was interested in what we put over vaginas. She wanted to write about panties. And so, in no particular order, I offer a collection of panties you may not have seen before. These aren't your mother's white cotton briefs.

Camelflage

An insert, which is meant to hide a woman's camel toe and wick perspiration away from the lady bits, is sewn into the work area of these panties. I guess it's something like a little fabric board or something that prevents the seam of the garment from cuddling up with a woman's inner labia. How do you think they wrote that on the patent application?

I know you'd like to see the panties themselves, but this is not a porn blog yet, and I really love before-and-after photos. See if you can tell which is which.

Why, yes, I did notice the difference in how these two photos were posed and lit. Interesting....

Well, what do you think? Number one or number two?

Hairy Panties

I'm not sure what purpose these panties serve. Maybe they're an accessory for the forward-thinking woman who knows the fashions of the 70's always come back and doesn't want to get caught with a Brazilian wax when they do.

Or maybe they're meant to be lingerie a woman can put on to get out of sex when she's used the headache excuse 5 times already and it's only Tuesday.

Or maybe we should imagine a middle-aged man lying in bed, a penis-size tent rising up under the covers. His lover struts out of the bathroom and stops with her hand against the door jam. She's wearing nothing but the Hairy Panties, and she says, "Remember when my cookie monster didn't look like Barbie's, in the days before waxing and Camelflage? I thought maybe you'd like a little nostalgia sex......"

Not a redhead.

What do you think? If you received a pair of these for Christmas, when would you wear them and why would you? Don't be shy now. We're all friends.

Thingthong

Men have underwear needs too, which is why I'm including a selection for the penile crowd. The thingthong (if you're a gay man and you're offended by the lisping quality of this product, just know that I neither named nor invented it) is a pair of flip flops that turn into a thong. On those occasions when ..... ummmmm ..... you know, a rabid dog tears your pants off and all you have left to cover your dick while you run is one of your shoes.

Or let's say you're taking a shower at your married girlfriend's house, wearing your flip flops as you would in any strange shower because you never know where athlete's foot is lurking, and her husband comes home. There's a window in the bathroom, but your clothes are in the bedroom. If your flip flops were thingthongs, you'd be able to hop away on one clad foot and hide your shrinking ding dong at the same time. The neighbors wouldn't suspect a thing .... thong.

The urge to snap that thingthong would be irresistible.

 
That's all the panties we have time for tonight, boys and girls. I hope you found something you liked.

(Just a reminder that this blog is not monetized. I received no compensation for writing about these products, although if someone were to send me a check, I would cash it in the morning.)