Playing Panty Pretend

I'm watching 'Victor Victoria' for the second night in a row, a movie that causes me to marvel in so many ways. Firstly, can you believe that Julie Andrews was 47 when she made this? I thought she was under 30 – but there you have it. Nextly, the concept of a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. What madness! Still, it reminded me of you, men in lingerie.

Many of you men are pretending to be a woman when you put your panties on, aren't you? Slipping those silky scraps over your thighs transforms you into a beautiful, delicate, vibrant creature. Woman.

As a woman it's taken me a while to get my head around this fact. After all, being a woman isn't nearly as super as it looks on television. There are the mood swings, the cramps, the monthly onslaught of agony you're supposed to grin and grit through in site of the fact that your insides are melting. (Seriously, who the hell thought that up? The result of design by committee I would guess.)

But to the casual male observer, being female probably appears to be a sweet deal. Women have it easy. They are pretty creatures that flit about being charming and having doors opened for them. They look nice, they smell nice, they smile and giggle their way through life in a way that a man could never hope to.

If you have that sort of outlook on what being a woman is like, there's no wonder that pretending to be a woman would be a great escape from the mundane masculinity of the every day world where you're supposed to lift the heavy thing and happily get shot if push comes to shove.

Maybe that's why some women don't like it when men pretend to be women, or behave in more feminine ways. If you guys start getting the female perks, who knows what might happen? Will we be expected to lift the heavy things? I sure hope not.

So then for some men, wearing women's lingerie may be a tactile thing, in other cases it's a case of the lingerie drawer being silkier on the other side and in still others, its a chance to escape to a lacy day dream land where he is woman, hear him roar.

There's nothing wrong with playing dress ups, and there's nothing wrong with playing pretend. They often tell children that imagination is their greatest gift, but I would argue that imagination can be an adult's best friend too.