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This post is for and about women. Men you may divert your eyes if you choose. If not, you have been warned. 

 In these days of “Corona Junk,” as one of my middle school students so accurately named it, we are often left to our own devices and our own personal demons. From what I’ve been reading and from my own personal musings, I have found that a lot of our demons are the same. They lurk in our pantries and reside quietly in our refrigerators and freezers. They only make themselves known when we are tired and bored and our will power has gone on vacation, lingering somewhere else when we need it most. And what do we do at those times? We cave. We eat. Sometimes we eat a lot.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, though times have changed there has been a “resurrection” of sorts a “reintroduction,” if you will. Ladies, I reintroduce you to the Shaper Panty!  Why “resurrection” and “reintroduction”? 

Well, let’s start with a brief, no pun intended, history of women’s underwear. 

Once upon a time, someone thought that women should have a buxom bosom an almost non-existent waist and so the corset was invented complete with whale bone stays. Suddenly women everywhere could sport an hourglass figure whether they had one or not.  When women began to realize that corsets were the bane of a their existence and the cause of women’s oxygen levels to be precariously low, a new contraption, that I tend to think was created by a man, made its appearance. It was called the open girdle at first and then evolved into the panty girdle, thus killing two birds with one stone. Though they did not inflict whale bone on a woman’s body some of them were made of rubber and, eventually, women decided to shed even these devices. Women everywhere were choosing to be accepted for whatever shape they were. Like beautiful flowers in a garden, some were bigger, some were smaller, but beautiful nonetheless! I attribute this freedom to female hippies and here’s why. 

At about this same time, in the early 1960’s, women also decided to burn their bras. When you realize what bras looked like right before and around that time,  you can understand why. Bullet bras, like the one in this picture, were all the rage. I personally think that by burning them, women were protecting people of a shorter stature from accidentally getting their eyes poked out. That, and the fact that no woman I know has a bosom shaped quite like that. 

Fast forward to the 21st century and the introduction of Spanx! I admit to owning a pair of these. They are pretty horrible. First, they come in a package about the size of deck of cards. It doesn’t matter what size you buy, that’s the packaging. Putting them on does help considerably with weight loss not because they suck you in so much, though they do; as much as the high-intensity aerobic exercise it takes to get them on. Once on, you feel like a stuffed sausage in its casing. While your panty lines have disappeared and your curves are much smoother, your ability to go to the bathroom is non-existent. Nobody has that kind of time.

Lately, there’s been a new panty in town. It’s called Shapermint and contrary to its name, it has nothing to do with mints of any kind. I know I, too was thinking of a magical “mint” that would somehow give me the “shape” I longed for. But, alas, it was not to be. Back to the panty, though the Shapermint panty may look like Spanx, they are much easier to put on. How do I know? Because their advertising shows videos of women of all shapes and sizes easily pulling up their panties and instantly smoothing out their curves. Not only that, this panty comes in lengths! Too many cookies making your belly protrude? There’s a panty just for you! Placing your pizza directly onto your hips bypassing all of the work involved in chewing? They have a boy-short panty to minimize your maximus! Chubbiness drifted all the way to your ankles? Leggings! What more could we ask for? Only this…the Shaper Bra! No danger of poking someone’s eye out with these things. They are shaped like most of us and without the discomfort of wires! 

And so, ladies, it seems we can eat what we want and still be shapely and smooth in our comfy, all encompassing underwear. Because as long as we have that, everything else is really not that big a deal!