As a wise man once said: “All night long, Let me see that thong.”
Yes ladies, for many people, the underwear phenomenon that consists of nothing more than a piece of floss is still the chosen choice of under garment.
It may come as no surprise that the much loved and hated thong isn’t the most pleasant piece of underwear.
Speaking to SELF, Doctor Leah Millheiser, director of the female sexual medicine program at Stanford University School of Medicine said that thongs are one of the main causes of chaffing and discomfort.
If your skin is irritated by the thong, Millheiser advises taking a break for a week or two to let your skin heal inside some regular underwear.
She recommends using Vaseline or a similar ointment to protect the skin and reduce friction but advises against talcum powder.
If you’re experiencing pain while wearing the thong at all then it’s a sign that you’re wearing a size far too small.
As for hygiene, Millheiser says while the garment being so close isn’t ideal, ultimately “there’s fecal matter around the vagina all the time.”
“That’s why women get UTIs—E. coli is often present around the opening,” she says.
So the string between the cheeks isn’t making things that much worse.
“To get that area [of the underwear] touching the anus all the way to the opening of urethra you’d have to pull it all the way around and really rub it around,” she says.
So yeah, as long as you don’t do that you’re grand. Just do yourself a favour and get the right size.
