Design and Variety

Types of thongs include the traditional thong, the g-string, and v-string. There are many other styles available:

Traditional thong: This style is generally the most common and involves a strip of fabric in varying widths on the rear of the garment connecting the front or pouch to the waistband.
G-string: This style consists of a string of fabric - as opposed to a wider-than-thick strip - connecting the front/pouch and the waistband in the rear. It is also called a Rio thong.
V-string: Similar to the g-string, this style connects via a single string along the rear that separates into two strings just at or before the waistband or into a small triangle of fabric above the buttocks but below the waistband.
T-back: A thong that makes a straight line of a strip of garment in the back like the English letter "T".The sound has been causing some confusion among Japanese speakers with a tea bag, which is also common in today's Japanese dictionaries. In the dialects of Chinese language, the G-string is commonly called dingziku (丁字褲/丁字裤) which literally means "丁 character pants" (or roughly, "T-letter pants"). In Korean it is called 티팬티 ("T panty").
Dance belt: This is a type of thong designed specifically to be used in the same manner as an athletic supporter for male dancers, especially in ballet. Its purpose is to protect and support the male during athletic/dance activities without being seen through outergarments such as tights or a leotard.
Cheeky: This style covers a little more area, but exposes the bottom part of the buttocks. Some cheekies are used as undergarments while others function as bikini bottoms.

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History of Thong

Thongs are descended from the earliest form of clothing, the loincloth, which were generally a male's clothing item, the reverse of modern western culture where the thong has more acceptance among women. In modern clothing, thongs first became popular as a swimsuit style in Brazil. The origin of the word "thong" is from the Old English thwong, a flexible leather cord.
The first direct descendant of the loincloth, in the direction of thong, was the jockstrap, created by Chicago sporting goods company Sharp & Smith in 1874. The first historical reference to the thong in post-1900's is in 1939 New York City when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia ordered nude dancers to dress more appropriately. Jacques Heim's and Loius Réard's original bikini from 1946 — that introduced the term "bikini" — had a culotte with a thong back. Fashion designer Rudi Gernreich was credited with introducing the modern thong in 1974 which grew in popularity in South America, especially in Brazil. In the 1990's, the thong began to gain widespread acceptance and popularity in the United States of America (U.S.), amounting for sales of more than $2 billion per year in 2006. More recently, men's thong wear has begun to gain popularity for fit and supportiveness, especially for activities such as running, exercising, at the gym, or as daily wear. Thong underwear for males are similar to an athletic supporter, as they both provide support while using minimum fabric. Nevertheless, the typical athletic supporter is not a thong as the straps at the rear are not at the garment's center.

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Thong (clothing)

Thongs as underwear — a traditional thong on the left, a G-string on the right
The thong is an undergarment and swimwear, worn by both genders, in a style characterized by a thin strip of material along the center of the garment's rear designed to sit between the wearer's buttocks cheeks connecting the front or pouch to the waistband behind the wearer. Thongs come in a variety of styles depending on the thickness, material, or type of this rear portion of fabric and are available for both men and women throughout the world. It is known as the "tanga" in Brazil. The term originated from the Kimbundu term "ntanga", meaning loincloth.

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