I am now thinking seriously about the meaning of the male thong, its relative place in the world of thong. Is it possible that our women will begin to demand the thong as we have demanded it of them? Will the male thong express the same type of putative sexuality? Will men also make the thong a visible yet highly secretive under-apparatus? Or will we shift the thong’s symbolic potential by hiding it completely and thus making it the more desirable? 

I believe we have yet to realize the thong’s true potential as a bridge across the gender divide. 

I remain ambivalent. The thong seems a most uncomfortable way to go, though I admit to never having tried it myself. The question in my mind seemed clear, then. Who is this thong for? Are all of these young women thong wearers out of personal choice? Did they come together in a kind of thong congress and decide that they would be the bearers of the thong standard, a revolution of ass? Or, were these thongs simply the manifestation of their boyfriends’ preferred choice of undergarments? If so, who could blame the boys? What college sophomore, hormonal and obsessed with ass, wouldn’t want his woman to go with the thong?

But all the time? In class? Wouldn’t the thong become a distraction for the wearer? Wouldn’t it ride up in the most penetrating, searching way? 

One of my male students couldn’t get enough. He was fascinated with the thong sitting next to him, bared for him and the world to see. He failed in the day’s lesson. But he learned, perhaps, a more valuable wisdom: that there are mysteries yet to be explored–by him, and by us all. The thong will lead the way.

And yet, I ask again: whence the thong?