Audrey Ference on how people freak out at the sight of panties:

It’s so 101 that it’s tedious, and yet the fact that women’s bodies are not the problem never quite sinks all the way in with some people. The response always seems to be like, but panties! What if I saw a girl’s panties, I can’t be held responsible for driving if there are panties around! When there are billboards full of women in panties all over the highway, but more importantly, grow up. Women are people, people in bodies, bodies that need to get from place to place, in public. Clothes shift. Shirts gap. Skirts blow up in the wind. Clothes that are culturally normative don’t cover every inch of skin from every possible angle. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been “corrected” by some stranger when I’m in a skirt (and not a short skirt, not that it matters, but I’m talking knee length plus, here) because someone below me on the subway stairs could see my underpants up my skirt. Here’s a thought: instead of me wearing only loose-fitting, long pants and long sleeved, high-necked shirts, maybe don’t look up my skirt while I’m on the staircase! Or if you do, fucking deal with it! It’s just underpants! You’ve seen them before! They’re not going to kill you!