Breathable Not-Actually-Shapewear Shapewear For People Whose Thighs Touch
The world is full of secret thigh chafe amelioration tech blog posts, which is wonderful. There are sticks made for runners and powders and lace thigh bands and even a Monistat product which, if you can brave that aisle of CVS, will reward you with a silicone-based gel that can function as a slightly more busted version of Smashbox photo finish primer. In some cases it is available in pink packaging which costs slightly more than the exact same product when marketed to men. (Although there's a quirk to that in Bodyglide's case because the men's and women's versions aren't sold in the same weights so you can't compare it directly, BUT basically the men's version comes in a 1.5 oz version that is $3.40 cheaper per ounce than the only size lady version they offer, 0.8 oz. Business digressions!)
However, if you're worried that you can't cross your legs aggressively enough on the subway to avoid all doubt that someone can see your box, there is always the shapewear option.
And for years, I wore various kinds of shapewear underneath whatever elementary school art teacher/fifty-something women's studies professor-looking outfit I threw on for work. These garments are almost never breathable and grow increasingly oppressive the hotter it gets outside, and they're terrible for Lady Health. Obviously, there are some occasions in which you need to strap on the Spanx but I guarantee that if you wear them every day your vagina will straight up explode.
So this summer I decided to look for an alternative. My criteria were:
Breathable fabric for box health
Non-synthetic fabric (cotton, wool, linen, silk, hemp, etc) so that the garment would be end-of-life biodegradable and relatively environmentally responsible to produce
If the fabric is from a plant fiber (cotton, linen, hemp), the plants should be certified organic.
If the fabric is from an animal fiber (wool, silk), the animals should be humanely/sustainably raised.
Made in America or Europe (basically a country with fairish labor practices)
At first I looked at the various performance wool offerings from companies like Ipex and Icebreaker. Wool can absorb 30% of its weight in water, and its structure encourages quicker evaporation than most other fabrics, meaning the feeling next to the skin is less clammy than with synthetics or even cotton. But these unfortunately tended to either be too thick to wear under business clothes, or they included biking tech features like chamois, which are essentially butt pads that one does not need to wear while formatting Excel spreadsheets.
Ultimately, the best I could do was this pair of 88% organic cotton/12% spandex yoga shorts sold by a company called "Pure Karma" whose name obviously made me anxious. The product is called "Organic Power Cotton 7-Inch Bike Short" because of course that is what it is called, #namaste.
You can buy them from the company directly or you can be spoiled and order them on Amazon Prime, which is what I did. They fit exactly like you would expect cotton bike shorts to fit, and they are less oppressive than off-brand Spanx.
Going forward, I might try to track down some old-timey pettipants for use under my many shapeless garments, because I intend to push muumuu wearing in business settings as far as I possibly can. Here's an Etsy listing for a pettipants pattern, to give you an idea of how you can attain breathable comfort while doing a pretty good job of performing your gender (at left contemplating the Sylvia Plath poem "Mirror," probably):
NAMASTE