Why do women’s underwear always have white crotches?

In my life, I’ve probably owned hundreds of pair of underwear, well, not PAIRS but single ones. Wait. Why do they call them a PAIR of underwear when you wear only one at a time? I digress.

Ever since I shed my diapers for the real thing, I’ve been through the many life changes my female body can experience. First, non-descript little kids underpants that survived countless washings by my dedicated Mom. Then, with my adolescent 12-year-old body, I burst into womanhood by splotching a red blob onto my underwear while I was having fun at a friend’s sleepover. I showed my Mom my underwear and she sighed, “Yep. Looks like you just got your period.”

From there, I progressed to underwear that I wore for 5 days of the month while on the rag which had wide enough crotches to stick my maxi-pad onto or that I dared to wear while dancing around a tampon inside my virginal vagina. Yes, I kept some underwear separate because no matter how well I planned to keep them blood-free, they inevitably got stains on them.

In my 20s, I did the thong thing (which I really didn’t like but sure nicely showed off my ass), but they definitely didn’t have enough fabric in the center to hold onto ANY maxi-pad or mini-pad for that matter. They stayed in the drawer for those 5 special days of the curse until the 6th day when I could go back to showing off my ass again. My underwear, er, panties from my super sexually active days were panties that fell into the “fuck and chuck” category: wear ’em once then toss ’em and yes, they looked especially nice on the floor.

So now, at age 62, I’m ten years post-menopausal which means I no longer have to put up with that pesky monthly bleeding that I had to endure for the majority of my life and, for me, happily did not result in childbirth. That monthly period bloodletting… the one thing that ruined at least half of the underwear I’ve owned and countless sheets and I sure don’t miss it one bit.

But now, and undeniably, ALWAYS, I have had a normal female discharge that unfortunately, carelessly, stains the center of my underwear: aka crotch, aka gusset for you underwear designers out there. Yes, women will have a relatively scentless, natural discharge from a healthy vagina despite what modern media tells you.

So what’s up with that? I always thought discharge is when I wanted to return something on my credit card but no. Why don’t we just call them sexy secretions instead? Discharge. It sounds oh so negative.

According to the pharmaceutical manufacturer of Monostat, the manufacturers of various treatments for those bothersome yeast infections, “Vaginal discharge comes from glands inside your vagina and cervix. These glands produce small amounts of fluid also known as vaginal secretions. The fluid flows out of the vagina each day, cleansing old cells that have lined the vagina. This is a completely natural process — it’s your body’s way of keeping your vagina healthy and clean.”

That sounds pretty good to me! I like having a clean and healthy vagina!

But something has bothered me for a long time. I think of it daily as I shimmy into my underwear in the morning. It is this: Why do underwear manufacturers insist on making underwear with a lining in the crotch made of white fabric? Is it some kind of dirty joke to promote virginal crotch purity? Is the whiteness supposed to reflect back on my body’s natural attempt at cleaning out my vaginal lining? “Keep it clean, girls!” my underwear seems to be screaming at me. “Remember, if you get hit by a bus….” and I know you know that line.

Every year or so, I purchase new underwear so they won’t cause me spastic levels of embarrassment when I drop them in front of complete strangers. Before my morning coffee, I have to run through my schedule to try to remember if I have a doctor’s appointment, a date, or even a chance encounter with a Mr. Right Now. I have to ponder, “Is someone going to see the crotch of this underwear I’m putting on? Will I have to delicately scramble out of them so no one sees my daily vaginal secretion?” I shouldn’t have to do this and I have an idea for those underwear manufacturers out there.

Why not line the crotches of your underwear with fabric of a discharge-compatible color like ochre, or cinnamon, or some sort of light brown. Yes, light brown. I can hear you squirming this very minute. But let’s face it. These are the colors of what our underwear looks like even after wearing and washing them for the first time! These are natural bodily function colors that I am sure so many women can understand and relate to after having their secretions grace their underwear even after wearing them once. These panties are no longer virginal white. They are no longer pure. They are stained with the cells that have provided us with vaginal health. There’s gotta be a better way than dealing with white crotched underwear that slathers on the guilt by forcing me to wear a panty liner so I don’t have to look at yet another pair of underwear with a sexy secreted, light browned white crotch.

I thought I’d be done with this after I jumped over the menopause hurdle. But no, my secretions still gently evacuate my vagina on a daily basis which reflects my good general health and well being. So I guess I’ll just have to keep buying new underwear for as long as I live and yeah, I STILL have super sexually active days.