G-strings – that little garment that has some people whistling with approval, sneering or going gaga whenever they see them peeping out of revealing jeans.

In America, where the pants command one third of the women's underwear, the sales have dropped by at least 20 percent, when in Kenya retailers say they are doing booming business.

Even some local retail outlets have now decided to import panty liners and sanitary towels, specifically designed for the comfort of those putting on G-strings when they are having their monthly periods.

Some of these originate as far as Germany and cost over Sh 300, money enough to purchase five packets of about 50 ordinary pads that can last a woman for five months.

Young women interviewed by Horizon say they prefer the G-strings because they do not show the panty lines when one is putting on thin or tight clothing.

“Although they are discomforting, I like them because they don't reveal my panty line when wearing tight jeans. I have 15 of them,” says Janita Atieno, a student at University of Nairobi.

Others say the pants make them look sexy, and usually put them on when going for a date or when they want to sexually arouse their partners.

It is for this reason traders claim some women in their late 30s and early 40s have abandoned their normal pants for G-strings.

Besides the sexual motives, there is also a group who wear them because popular artists such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Lil Kim have been sported putting them on.

A trader along Moi Avenue says she sells about 200 G-strings a month compared to 50 pieces of normal pants.

“What do you mean,” the lady wondered when I inquired how popular the pants are. “These are the in-things for young women,” she said with her eyes wide-open.

Majority of her customers are between the ages of 14 years and 35 years, with a few over 40 years.

In other countries, including Kenya, G-strings are also increasingly becoming popular among gay men.

But in the US and Europe, the excitement being experienced in Kenya is not holding-up. The fall in demand is attributed to recent portrayal of those wearing the pants as subscribing to the Chav culture as well as their potential health effects.

Chav is slang for a young person, often with low level of education, and one who follows new fashions with a passion and without raising questions about its decency.

This backlash has affected one of the US leading store chains, Harvey Nichols, which is said to have sold 43 percent fewer G-strings between April and June this year, compared to the same period last year.

Interestingly, even the biggest fans of the pants such as Jodie Marsh, who is said to have a collection of more than 500 G-strings, was recently quoted in Star newspaper of South Africa as saying:

“Showing your thong is abit old now. I'd rather have big knickers showing over the top of my jeans.”

Those who share her feelings say G-strings are discarded in Western world because women are looking for comfortable clothing like boy shorts.

Another school of thought thinks that the G-strings are being rejected because doctors say they may cause infections in the women's genital areas.

Indeed , gynecologists-doctors who specialize on women health- now warn that the health effects of the pant might outweigh its usefulness or pleasures.

Recent studies show that the friction caused by the string part of the pant can damage the sensitive part of the vaginal and anal linings.

Last May, a British gynecologist, Dr Thomas attributed the big rise in the number of patients he was seeing with genital inflammation to the friction caused by the string part of the underwear.

A gynecologist working at Medical Plaza at Kenyatta National Hospital says some of his clients consult him with inflammations as result of using certain pants, but they never attribute it to G-strings.

The two doctors advice those who use this type of underwear not sleep in it since such an act has an extra negative effect on woman's private parts.

Other gynecologists agree that pants, which are too tight or made with badly stitched materials can scrape and injure the sensitive skin around the genital area, resulting in fungal or bacterial infections.

These include Candidiasis and vaginal irritation that among other things makes a woman feel discomfort or pain when urinating.

If left untreated, some of these infections can result in other serious conditions such as infertility.

Women who wear cheaper G-strings, which are made of nylon material and go for Sh 50, may cause more health problems.

G-strings made of expensive clothing that doctors are advising women to wear cost more than Sh 1,000, far above what an average Kenyan can afford. Otherwise, gynecologists like Dr Thomas are appealing to women to wear bigger pants to avoid complications.

Young and unemployed women however say they cannot ask their parents or relatives for such amount money, and instead have to content with cheaper G-strings despite their health effects on the private parts.

Their older counterparts on the other hand seem less comfortable with such pants.

While some say the act of pulling the pant between the bums is disgusting and discomfiting, those with sagging bottoms find it less attractive as the pant does not appear well on them.

To the general public, the pants have remained controversial with those opposed to them arguing that they are sexually suggestive or exotic items, worn with hidden motives.

Although young women have brushed such statements as rubbish and gone ahead to expose their G-strings without fear, this would land them in jail if they did the same thing in the USA, form where they have acquired this culture.

A few years ago, States such as Virginia passed a law outlawing the exposure of underwear, arguing that young women do so deliberately and thoughtlessly, and need to be dealt with legally.

Similarly, several municipalities in the US have legislation outlawing the wearing of swimsuit G-strings and thongs in public.

In 2002, in southern California, a vice-principal of a high school, in a crackdown on those wearing the pants, forced female students to lift their skirts before entering a school dance.

Despite G-string culture continuing to generate uneasiness in modern times, nobody really knows where the name, which has been in existence since 1800, came from.

Some people say it might have been derived from the thickest string on the violin, or groin string, or just a word in American language that sounded just that.

What is however clear is its origin. The underwear was initially worn in night-clubs by exotic or strip dancers, who gradually removed their clothes when performing, for purposes of sexually arousing their male audience.

The Khoisan of South Africa- remember The Gods Must Crazy movie-were also among the first people to wear G-strings as a form of their clothing for many centuries, before the pant acquired its modern form.

They called it tanga , which, in the present times, is a name used in some languages such as Spanish to mean G-string.

While the underwear was initially confined to night clubs and few tribes, literature shows that it gained wider usage in 1970s in Southern American, particularly in Brazil, where ‘beach babes' used it as a swimsuit.

From Brazil, it found its way into North America and Europe in the 1980s, becoming popular in 1997, when a Gucci model wore it on the catwalk.

During the same period, Victoria Beckham, the wife of the football star, David Beckham, is said to have indicated that her husband enjoyed wearing her G-strings around the home.

From 2000, hip hop and rhythm and blues music stars too popularized the pant by not only wearing them when performing, but also composing hip hop songs about G-strings. A case in point is the “Thong song” composed by Sisgo.

By the 2003, the G-string had become the popular underwear of choice for many women, and even among gay men. At that time, one in every three underwear on sale in Europe and America was a G-string.

Like any other fashion, the underwear are now being discarded in the USA and some European countries, with women preferring to put on other alternatives which do not show the panty line. Will this be the next move for Kenyan women?