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May 24, 2005
You Have Got To Be Kidding Me
Update: Oh, darn it. It turns out that this is a hoax. I was hoping some low-life would waste a hundred bucks or more on granny panties, and find out that his wife wasn't cheating on him after all.
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A commenter had alerted me to this. Apparently, a Japanese company has created a set of panties, "Forget Me Not" panties that have a tracking device for their wives and girlfriends that have a tracking device in them. The tracking devise is in the little flower embedded in the panties. That way, they can monitor their wives or girlfriend's activities, since these guys who buy them may think the women are cheating on them. What an invasion of privacy! Of course, control freak abusive guys often think their women are cheating on them when they don't know where they are every second of the day. These panties are insane.
They're not cheap. The "basic" pair costs $99.99. The "advanced" pair with heat and heart rate sensors (!!!) costs $179.99. Seven basics cost $650.00. Seven advanced pairs costs $1,190. Now rich men can violate their wive's and girlfriend's privacy by spending a wad of cash on these panties.
I don't know how well they sell.
Here's the blurb from the web site.
protect her privates
Ever worry about your wife cheating?
Want to know where your daughter is late at night?
Need to know when your girlfriend's temperature is rising?This amazing device will answer all of your questions! These panties can give you her location, and even her temperature and heart rate, and she will never even know it's there! Unlike the cumbersome and uncomfortable chastity belts of the past, these panties are 100% cotton, and use cutting-edge technology to help you protect what matters most.
make sure you will never be forgotten
forget-me-not panties™ have built-in GPS and unique sensor technology giving you the forget-me-not advantage.
I'm just speechless. This is way over the top. If any women get a pair of white panties with a little flower embedded on them as a "gift," beware.
Posted on May 24, 2005 at 09:11 AM | Permalink
Comments
Although this type of marketing is a blalant appeal to the basest male instincts, the sad truth is that I saw an ad for this years ago for "catching your man in the act". Proving that both sexes are crazy.
Posted by: That Girl at May 24, 2005 10:03:44 AM
it's just a matter of time before someone comes up with a version for guys. considering how much more common it is for women to buy men their underwear than the other way around, this is sure to bite a bunch of people in the ass.
so to speak
Posted by: upyernoz at May 24, 2005 11:03:06 AM
Well, if you're married to or dating an abuser type, you can just about figure that any sudden "gift" is suspect or has some twisted motive behind it. I've heard of some abusers who shower their women with gifts. Mine never did. Especially anything that had anything to do with me or my interests. If he had suddenly given me ladies lingerie, it certainly would have made me wonder what he was up to.
Posted by: silverside at May 24, 2005 11:28:47 AM
Geez, if someone really wants to catch a cheater, a private investigator is cheaper than the panties.
Posted by: trish r at May 24, 2005 11:49:45 AM
Oddly, I first saw something similar to this a couple years ago in Japan, marketed in the other direction, for wives to track their husbands. It came with a semen detection kit.
Men were complaining that they were being accused of infidelity when they were only masturbating in the office. I kid you not. It was one of the strangest things I ever read.
I have something of a cynical take on all of this, though: if you can't find a sense of trust and a way of communicating with your partner, maybe you shouldn't be partnered. Infidelity detection kits, hidden cameras, tracking devices, and private investigators are merely symptoms of larger social diseases.
Posted by: Zed Pobre at May 24, 2005 12:24:11 PM
Any evidence that this is a hoax? Some lines (e.g. "Unlike the cumbersome and uncomfortable chastity belts of the past...") just seem too outrageous.
Posted by: sarah irene at May 24, 2005 1:56:53 PM
Just a couple of things that make me go "hmmm.." I wonder about the current technical feasibility of making something like this at the advertised price...the tracking mechanism mentioned in the ad sounds like "active" GPS technology, not passive RFID (radio frequency ID "microchips"), so in addition to the temperature and heartbeat-sensing mechanism. A device like this would need to be small and waterproof and would at least need a battery, but even a small capsule would surely be felt as an annoying "bump" in a woman's underwear. Wouldn't she suspect something's up? Also, the knickers would have be washed at some point. I'm not sure a telemetry/GPS tracking device this small, sophisticated - and laundry-proof - exists yet? If it does, heaven help us! IMHO if this product is for real, it sounds like a great way to part chauvinist fools and their paranoid money.
Anyhoo, if a woman is actually in throes of hanky-panky, might she not probably take said panties off before the deed's done? (Monicagate excepted) ;)
Posted by: Lenka at May 24, 2005 2:27:08 PM
No offense to Trish or Jessica at Feministing, but MY GOD, how dense and humorless do you have to be to not realize that this site is a hoax, and a funny one at that? Did you not take the two seconds to click on an "order" button to figure out that it doesn't take you anywhere?
Seriously, stop perpetuating the notion that feminists take things too seriously.
Posted by: Adrienne at May 24, 2005 3:24:51 PM
I checked the web site, and I don't think it's a hoax. I also don't think those panties are very practical. They're too expensive, and how do you know she'll be wearing them? I'm sure she has other, normal, panties in her dresser. The suspicious guy would have to be really persistent to get her to wear them, and she's end up suspicious.
If you think your partner is cheating on you, I figure most people would go for a P. I., like Trish R. said.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at May 24, 2005 3:44:40 PM
It's a hoax, an entry in the Contagious Media competition.
After all, if the panties were really supposed to "protect what matters most", the men would be the ones wearing them. ;-)
Posted by: Kate at May 24, 2005 7:18:25 PM
Oh, darn it, i was hoping it was true, and some idiots paid a hundred bucks for granny panties.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at May 24, 2005 8:17:42 PM
It was pretty much debunked as a hoax on feministing -- http://feministing.com/archives/001358.html
The fact that so many feminist sites jumped on this treating it as "gospel truth" makes one wonder if this a case of the other other internalized sexism?
Posted by: b at May 24, 2005 10:04:02 PM
This post reminds me of a series of forwards I received from a friend a year or so ago, all of which dealt with awful things Jane Fonda had supposedly done during her trip(s) to North Vietnam. While visiting the friend, I finally got so exasperated that I phoned a prominent Vietnam Veterans organization to prove that the allegations were baseless. Thankfully this community is not so stubborn, but it is off-putting that the forgetmenotpanties site was blogged at all. Those commentators accross the blogosphere who embraced the notion with cynical expectation or righteous indignation did a great disservice to anyone who works for anything under the banner of 'feminism', exposing it to charges of groupthink and lazy intellectual wish fulfillment.
The crux of the proof that this site is a hoax can be found here. It turns out (as mentioned above) that the site is an entry in a contest put on by a webart/agitprop group. All entries went up May 19 and will come down June 9, and the site with the most unique viewers wins. forgetmenotpanties is currently in 9th place, thanks to yesterday's massive wave of misguided credulity.
Posted by: Pope Awesome VI at May 25, 2005 2:00:23 AM
I never clicked the link. It did make me recall a vending machine in Osaka that sold panties (no GPS in 'em, though). It also made me think of love hotels. My school put teachers up for a month while we looked for a permanent place to live. The apartment they had for us was in the middle of love hotel central in Osaka. I was surrounded by hotels called 69, Joybox, etc. There was a public bath nearby I'd go to (love those jacuzzis). Down the street from it was a new hotel had been built--one with a Christmas/Santa theme. It had Santa statues all around the place.
Posted by: Sheelzebub at May 25, 2005 9:14:16 AM
Whenever it comes to allegedly Japanese trading websites, the fact that there is no interface in Japanese (nor anything at all written in Japanese) is a major hint that it might be fake.
Posted by: Jimmy Ho at May 25, 2005 2:44:15 PM
Huh. Good way to encourage girls with overprotective parents and women with crazy boyfriends/husbands to just go commando.
Glad it's a hoax. On the other hand, psychos already have plenty of technology to abuse. Like that device that lets someone know where your car is, and so forth.
Posted by: Kyra at May 25, 2005 11:52:35 PM
