#PantyChallenge. If you don’t already know what this strange new hashtag is trending on Twitter for, I invite you to guess. If you also thought it challenged women to keep their panties on – which let’s face it, in a city like Delhi, isn’t much of a challenge – you’d be wrong. #OhSnap #BurnOnDelhiBoys
According to Unilad, #PantyChallenge essentially involves women of all ages taking pictures of their underwear just after they’ve slipped ’em down to their ankles. The challenge bit is for them to show off how their delicates are free from discharge or any other kind of stains.
This trend, wildfire-ing first on Snapchat, Instagram and now on Twitter, is however complete bullshit and here’s why.
This challenge endeavours to suggest to women and young girls everywhere that experiencing vaginal discharge is not a normal, healthy part being a woman.
Encouraging women to take pride in having discharge-free lingerie is blatantly misleading. Discharge is an entirely normal, safe and healthy part of everyday life as a female.
In fact, contrary to how this trend seems to project it as ‘dirty’, a healthy amount of regular white discharge indicates that the vagina is cleaning itself.
What’s worrying, though, is how this trend among other body-shaming tools that the dark side of social media wields, is driving young women to indulge in unsafe vaginal detoxes to rid their vaginas of this ‘grossness’.
Thankfully, a significant part of the internet has responded with some warranted outrage at this joke of a trend.
Let us put an end to this and all other forms of cyber-shaming, ladies. Don’t you dare apologise for this or any other natural part of your existence. Let us reject this and all other trends that aspire to keep us from celebrating the female form for what it is.
Masthead source: Cosmopolitan, Feature source: Unilad