Syrian underwear

It's truly rare for me to come up two stories in the same day that would have been appropriate for Pillage Idiot. In addition to the post below about the Raelian topless protest, I found a link at Instapundit to an interesting travelogue. The travel writer ventured into Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon in search of "Alawite underwear."

Now, you might be wondering exactly what "Alawite underwear" is. The Alawites are a minority sect in Syria, but the current leadership is Alawite. Hence, Alawite underwear:



But don't get the wrong impression: Alawite underwear is not all white all the time.

If you read the linked travelogue, you'll see that the writer enlisted a couple of locals to help him find some interesting and unusual women's underwear, not that there's anything wrong with that. He claims not to have an interest in the underwear itself, but only in the search for it. Suuuurre.

I went to the Bekaa to visit the Roman temples of Baalbeck. I'd heard that, in the shops thereabouts, one might find examples of a notorious genre of lingerie made over the border in Syria--made mostly by men for women. Elaborately arabesqued wire-bras with feathers, some with battery-powered bird-tweeting sounds; others that glow in the dark; panties with flickering lights--an entire subculture of outré underclothes flourishing despite, or because of, repression in all else. Now, to be clear, I personally have no pronounced interest in lingerie, nor did I intend to buy any, but the adventure of the pursuit in such dodgy conditions promised a bounty of revelations.

Spoiler alert: The writer eventually was successful.

Some streets away, up in a second-floor apartment, she had a large stock room. Out came the boxes. We entered a wondrous universe. On one bra, each cup was imprinted with a semi-globe of the world and large sprays of cloth foliage branched away. There was a bikini bottom made of feather boa and mounted with a toy cellphone that played "Delilah" by Tom Jones.

A top and bottom pair was designed to look like black octopuses with tendrils outsplayed. And one feathered bra was surmounted by two tweeting birds in full color, powered by batteries. We had stumbled into a splendorous Ali Baba's cave, its contents flashing a multi-sensory extravaganza of arcane Oriental delights. One bra had open glittery red lips, where the nipples were meant to show through, and a fringe of red blinking lights. Of the accompanying bottom piece, the less said the better.

Well, I'm sure you're thinking right about now, "Does the article link to actual photographs of some of the underwear?" Why, yes! Yes, it does.






The last of these, apparently, is the one with the "tweeting birds * * * powered by batteries."

Now, I didn't realize until I did some further research -- all in the name of science, mind you -- that this Syrian underwear business is old news. There was a book published last year called "The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie." In a review of the book, a writer describes class distinctions in lingerie:

Class distinctions are sewn and sequined onto lingerie design; working-class women tend to distinguish themselves from so-called ‘posh’ women who are considered boring in bed and pretentious. Most telling of the socio-economic divide comes from the views of women on who buys what in Syria. A story of a cleaning lady who loves to dress up in the bedroom comes to mind for Lena Lahham. The cleaning lady, who wears the hijab, has one with a mobile phone attached to the thong and puts it on when she wants to have sex. She would then call to her husband, “Dring, dring, dring,dring, are you going to answer the phone?”.

The husband, no doubt, replies, "I think it's a wrong number." Or: "Put me on the 'Do Not Call' list." Or, better yet: "Why do you have the phone on 'vibrate'?"

Anyway, the book has received other notices, too. In particular, the Modern Materialist has more photos.

And the BBC explains: "It stems from the Syrian tradition for brides-to-be to be given a trousseau of exotic underwear - sometimes dozens of items - usually by girlfriends, aunties and cousins, to add spice to their wedding nights, honeymoons and beyond. With a glint in his eye, Mahmoud, who's barely out of school himself, says 'some ladies keep coming back until their 30s'." There's even a video.

So what exactly do we learn from this story? We learn that we need to be respectful of all cultures, especially the ones with battery-powered, tweeting-bird underwear.

And we also learn that there's at least one thing destroying the fabric of life under Hezbollah that hasn't been blamed on the Zionists. But there's always time for that.