verging_on_random

In praise of the thong

July 4, 2008 on 4:12 pm | In Uncategorized |

Thongs seem to spark intense emotions in a lot of people; I’m not sure why. Many enterprises think they are an unacceptable form of footwear, banning them along with singlets. Maybe that’s a clue to the distaste they inspire in some people: they reek of K Mart and the working class and are defiantly non-aspirational (despite occasional attempts by innovative manufacturers to take them up-market).

Nevertheless I’ve always loved them and since I moved away from the cities I spend most of my time either barefoot or in thongs. It’s a real pain in the butt to have to put proper shoes on when I have to teach a class or go to a meeting. Having been comparatively shoe-less for 15 years now I can happily state that I have never suffered any of the dire health problems frequently predicted by those who want us to engage in the thoroughly unnatural practice of covering our feet with chunks of leather or plastic all the time, and I can only assume that these health warnings are covertly subsidised by the footwear industry.

As far as I know Australians are the only people who call them ‘thongs’, a name that inspires great hilarity in other countries. However I like the name; it’s punchier than the cutesie ‘flip-flops’ and less confusing than the Asian ’slippers’. For a long period in the 1990s they were practically unobtainable in Australia. A few surf shops used to stock outrageously overpriced Brazilian Reefs and I managed to find enough in my size (12) to see me through the drought.

Now of course they are ubiquitous, with souvenir shops and newsagents having racks and racks of the things and even chemists getting into the act with thongs that are allegedly better for your feet. Presumably we’re experiencing the end of the fashion cycle and in a few years time they’ll be hard to find once again, so I’m like a castaway rescued on the brink of starvation who compulsively hides food all over the place. I have a cupboard full of new thongs to see me through the lean times, although I can’t find any of the nice chunky ones that I used to be able to get. I think I’ll pick up another couple of pairs of the thin ones next time I’m at the shops, just to be on the safe side.

All this reflection was prompted by accidentally stumbling across a site with a vigorous discussion about the evils or otherwise of thongs. It was an American site, so it goes without saying that the comments thread was full of faux expert opinions about the alleged health problems. However, my favourite anti-thong flip-flop comment was along these lines:

You shouldn’t wear flip-flops because anyone who was wearing them in the World Trade Centre on 9/11 wouldn’t have been able to run fast enough to get away when the buildings collapsed.

Yes folks, even our choice of footwear has to be driven by our fear of an imminent terrorist attack. And the yanks wonder why so many people laugh at them as they huddle in their bunkers, clutching their Smith & Wessons and trembling at the thought of all the monsters in the closet who are just busting to do them harm.