Victoria and Thongs and Kids, Oh My!

Originally published June 27, 2006

My eldest son - we'll call him "Casanova" - loves the ladies. Since he was 3, he has been connecting with the girls on a level that no 3-year-old should connect on. His cousin was the first lady he showed his moves on. I'll never forget these two little 3-year-olds, sitting side by side on the steps, and he turns to her, cups the back of her head in his hand and leans in to plant a soft kiss on her lips. I don't think he'd ever seen anyone make that move before... I concluded he was a natural and that I was in for some big trouble down the road.

Most boys go through a "oooooooh, gross, girls!" phase. Casanova apparently decided early on to take a detour around that particular stage of life. His mission from age 5 on was to get the girls naked. (At this point, I feel I should add that he has always been a natural nudist and feels better out of clothes than in.) If any girl (especially a pretty one, but they are all fair game in his book... at least he's equal opportunity) came over to play, you could bet that it wouldn't be long before you'd see them both streaking around buck-naked. Thankfully, the people we tend to mingle with aren't uptight about nakedness and have never cared too much.

The blissful days of stripping down naked in an innocent quest to check out as much girl booty as possible has, sadly, about come to an end. Casanova recently turned 9 years old. These days, he spends his days pouring over the Victoria's Secret catalogs that come in the mail. He giggles and goggles over the acres of skin and his eyes miss nothing. He evaluates and assesses and pays particular attention to their attire.

Much to my chagrin, he has turned the same laser-sharp criticism to me, these days. "Mom, why don't you wear thongs?" And then, in answer to his own question, "Probably because your butt is too big. That would hurt..." little man-giggle. (Come on, I bore his ass and both of his siblings in a labor of love... of course I don't have hips like those childless hussies.) "Hey Mom, have you ever worn one of these?" he might ask as he holds up the pages for me to see a sultry beauty slinking around the page in a lacey, barely-there teddy. "Ummmmm...." I answer, mind speeding rapidly around searching for an answer that would satisfy his curiosity yet not brand me as a complete liar should he somehow find all that dusty lingerie that hasn't seen the light of day (or night, for that matter) in years. "I don't remember..." Okay, lame, I know.

I guess I should give a little background: I grew up with the subject of sex being a pretty approachable thing with my parents. Perhaps it was watching all of that Mutual of Omaha as a kid (for those of you who aren't familiar with the Mutual of Omaha, think Nature Channel in a show with a very, very old man similar to Bob Barker as the host), but mating was just something that animals did... and we are animals, so it just never phased me. I try to keep sex from becoming a mystery... I think that is why kids are so determined to check it all out so young - because it is this big mysterious thing that no one talks about. So I try to make myself approachable when it comes to relations with the opposite sex. And it seems to be working, because they don't seem to be afraid or embarrassed to ask me anything.

So anyway, back to Victoria and her tantalizing secrets. Over a period of weeks I see Casanova's interest in Victoria's little magazine turn into an all out obsession. As a woman, I'm against males expecting women to look like cover models. I try to celebrate the variety of shapes of women in all their beauty. So to watch my son become increasingly obsessed with the crème de la crème of youthly, womanly perfection was a bit distressing. I started throwing the catalogs directly into the recycling when they arrived. Then I started burying them under all the other magazines. My attempts were fruitless. More and more VS catalogs were making their way into my house... the bathroom, his room, his sister's room (his partner in crime, I should add), the kitchen table... no area was sacrosanct. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

"Hey Cas, what do you like so much about those magazines?" I asked.
"I like looking at all the women," he answered.
"What is so special about them? You've seen women naked before," was my curious reply.
"Yeah, but not like these. I like the ones with the thongs that don't wear a bra. But it is so frustrating because you can't see anything."

Oh my. I just was not prepared to deal with this... I thought I had a good 3 or 4 years before we really got into this stuff. Over a period of weeks, talk around the house centered on thongs. Casanova and his sister were obsessed with them. "I bet that feels weird." "Oooooh, gross, I bet they get poop stains on them." and I'd hear Casanova and his little sister dissolve into fits of raucous giggling. I prudently decided that making an issue out of it would only fuel the fire, so I took the only way out I knew. I ignored them, thinking this little obsession would burn itself out in a few weeks. Ummm.... no.

I was on the phone yesterday with a friend, doing the dishes, when my daughter came into the kitchen and grabbed the scissors.

"What do you need the scissors for?" I ask suspiciously.
"Oh, Cas is just making something," she answers innocently and exits stage left.

About 10 minutes later:

"Hey Mom, look!" I go out of the kitchen, where my son is flailing a little piece of white cloth in the air over the balcony railing. "I made E a thong!" he laughs wildly as I realize that the little scrap of cloth he is waving had spent its previous incarnation as a pair of my daughter's panties.

Today they are both proudly sporting the fruits of their labor, evaluating and discussing the merits versus the pitfalls of thong-wearing. My daughter's initial assessment is that thongs are gross. Casanova, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying his quite a bit. Needless to say, I worry about him.