Recidivism

   Part of the reason I was in no hurry to grow up was adult  clothing of the time.  My mother wore a dress every day of her life, and that meant nylon stockings (except for rayon hose during wartime), and those stockings were secured by garters attached to a girdle.  Horrible, I thought.  When I became of age to wear stockings, the innovation to hold the stockings up was a garter belt, a welcome alternative to the dreaded  girdle, but still so many unwelcome parts, tentatively attached garters among them.  The invention of pantyhose a few years later  meant liberation from the constrictions of the antiquated trappings of feminine servitude.  Pantyhose: a smooth, non-constricting way to look presentable in skirts and dresses.  Freedom at last from the garters and belts.  Then came women's battle to wear pants in public, and don't think it wasn't a battle. But women persevered, and the acceptance of pants meant even more freedom.  Even pantyhose were no longer a daily mandate.
   And now all appears to be lost.  Women have voluntarily succumbed to the wearing of Spanx  and other compression-type body stockings.  Why, oh why, I'll never understand.  These surgical-looking things don't look good even on models.  They conceal nothing as far as I can see; wearing one is a dead giveaway; the Spanx wearer never has a waist, sometimes has telltale elasticized panels exposed, and often suffers from reflux.  Don't they realize what their forebears went through to earn the right to be free from repressive underwear?