A SHORT HISTORY OF THE THONG The evolution of the Y-shaped form known as a thong spans an inspired reversal of function: from a cord used to yoke shoes to feet, to the solitary strip meant to liberate the ass, the latter usage made popular after Austrian-American fashion designer Rudi Gernreich reinvented the minimalist garment in 1974. Nearly four centuries prior, William Shakespeare anticipates this turn from adherence to emancipation — a horse, in his play Venus and Adonis, inspired by a passing mare’s beauty, throws off his thong, this time a riding crop delivering bondage, to give his backside free rein: Throwing the base thong from his bending crest, Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast. “Free your mind..., and your ass will follow,” Funkadelic preached with the title of their second album. It’s good advice — though I’ve yet to take it. The only thong I’ve ever owned was given to me by my high school best friend Kim; it was red crushed velvet and meant to resemble Santa Claus’s stocking cap turned upside down, complete with a white puff ball dangling at the sac’s end. I never put the thong on, not even to see what my ass would look like in its frame or how free my mind would feel, still too closeted a boy to know about the pleasure of placing the thong’s strip between my cheeks. This feature, originally a part of the jockstrap, a garment since redesigned for maximal access, in the said holiday-themed underpant, suggested a rude impediment to Santa’s passage down the chimney, albeit a flimsy one. But this was the early aughts, just after Sisqó’s infamous stutter — thong-th-thong-thong-thong — which in retrospect seemed to articulate my shy refusal to don the gift, had ushered in the thong’s ubiquity. The mega-hit’s video finds the Spring Break bardo in a near trance, fixated on a rump so unfettered by the thong that the ass becomes one with the beat — da na da na, baby, make your booty go, da na da na — as if this thin sliver of a garment were all we ever needed to frame the feeling of pure immanence. For the full article, go to #gayletter.com and grab a copy of issue 15 before they are all gone! Text by @swervekotecha Photography by @abinyc