Pants or no pants

These are today's purchases: one pink pair (Triumph), a khaki-coloured pair (white lace) and a pair of black shorts. Secondhand knickers, all of them. Bought from the market for 1 US a piece.

Former finance minister Tendai Biti once announced that as a man, if your wife was buying secondhand underwear "then you should know you had failed." He said this when announcing a (shortlived) ban on the sale of used underwear in the country.
I think about his words occasionally on one of my many forays to the market. I disagree. I've never expected my husband to buy my underwear for me, for one thing. And it's not as if the underwear on sale in Zimbabwe is affordable where it is of decent-ish quality. The only time I've bought new knickers here was when I was going into hospital and I knew I could throw them out after one wearing (which I did).

I wash my purchases out thoroughly before I wear them, of course. So, I imagine, does everyone else who buys them. I always find the bra stalls slightly off-putting, all those misshapen contraptions with straps tangled together like spaghetti. But I've dug deep in the piles and rifled along those bras stranded on hangers over the wooden rails and always found what I needed: Calvin Klein, Victoria's Secret.

I'm thinking about knickers again because of an unfortunate incident picked up Zimbabwe's state press yesterday. A 21-year-old model has appeared in court for modelling with no knickers. It happened in Harare in July. Apparently other photos were deleted (and possibly the other models also had no pants) but this model's pictures got circulated.

Secondhand knickers are better than no knickers, surely.