Prehistoric Spanx turned women into mer-creatures.
So yesterday I tried Spanx for the first time. Now I’ve heard about Spanx for awhile—for the uninitiated into the rites of female body modification, Spanx are a combination of industrial strength pantyhose/bicycle short that function as a smoothing and sucking foundation garment—but I became convinced that I should purchase a pair because of the recent New Yorker profile of the inventor of Spanx, Sarah Blakely, proving how totally nerd-bourgeois I’ve become. I don’t know what I was expecting. I think my expectation can best be articulated as the possibility that the device would work like some kind of butt-corset and magically reduce my comfortable rump into something taut and yoga-fied resembling Madonna circa 1993. I’ve heard horror stories of not being able to move once enveloped in these sheaths of vanity and that they take up to 30 minutes to shimmy into. Is it a tribute to the current state of female body dysmorphia in America that these obstacles somehow made the Spanx that more appealing? If I was looking for some good ole’ fashioned masochism, I was disappointed. The Spanx were ….basically bike shorts. I mean, they were tight and made the bridesmaid’s dress I just bought hand smoothly over them, but any butt-magic I had hoped for evaporated in the two minutes it took to put them on. I’m pleased with my purchase, but it won’t sate my desire for a magic bullet for those of us who are too bootylicious for standard sizing. I guess I’ll just have to wait until Coco T’s clothing line is launched later this year.
Calamity Blog 