The Femail Face-off: Hotly debated on Woman’s Hour, now it’s got the nation’s knickers in a twist… Should you wear pants with your pyjamas?
- Whether we should continue working from home is debated in a Femail face-off
- Sophia Money-Coutts says going commando under your PJs is ‘unacceptable’
- While Marion McGilvary says pants under pyjama is ‘unnecessary and odd’
YES
By Sophia Money-Coutts
This is mostly about laundry. If you’re not wearing knickers under your pyjamas, presumably you’re wearing a clean pair of pyjama bottoms every night?
Putting on a nice, fresh pair of flannels each evening, just as you’d put on a clean pair of pants every day — that makes sense.
On the other hand, if you are going commando under your PJs, and wearing that same pair of pyjamas for several days or, dare I say it, even a week, then you should be in prison. Life sentence.
Sophia Money-Coutts (pictured) argues that you should you wear pants with your pyjamas as going commando under your PJs is ‘unacceptable’
Sorry, I don’t make the rules, but wearing the same pair of pyjamas night after night, knickerless, is equivalent to getting up in the morning and putting yesterday’s pants back on. Unless you’re a five-year-old who pulls them over their pyjama bottoms, jumps on the bed, sticks a fist in the air and claims to be Superman, it’s unacceptable.
Big, comfortable pants prevent those uncomfortable pyjama seams from riding up into places where they have no business.
Of course, it does depend on the type of knicker — I’m not suggesting a thong or anything made from Lycra or nylon. Cotton only, please. Those who argue knickers in bed are wrong — the ‘Let it air!’ brigade who seem to believe we’re hiding some sort of live animal down there — will still rail against this, but cotton is breathable enough.
It’s much better to have a pair of cotton pants against your bits than a pair of pyjama shorts that are meant to look slinky and silky but are, in fact, made from polyester.
Others claim wearing a pair of bloomers under their PJs makes them too hot. Too hot? It’s an item of clothing the size of a dishcloth. How can that make you too hot?
If anything, take off your pyjama bottoms but keep your knickers on. That way, you’re always prepared if you wake to find an intruder in your house. You don’t want to stumble across one of those pants-free.
I suspect my beliefs about night-time underwear stem from boarding school where, as a 13-year-old sleeping in a dormitory with seemingly much cooler, older girls, I used to wait until the lights were out before slipping my bra off underneath my pyjama top. Bodies were embarrassing then, and laundry was done only once a week, so it was definitely a ‘knickers on’ situation.
These days, I can’t wait to fling my bra off in the evening, but remain firmly pro pants. Keep your knickers on, as they say.
The Wish List by Sophia Money-Coutts is published in paperback today (HQ, £8.99).
NO
By Marion McGilvary
Pants with pyjamas? Why? Are you planning on wearing them to the office as a style statement? Or maybe expecting to have an accident on the way to the bedroom that demands paramedics cut off your jammies to find day-of-the-week briefs reminding them it’s a Tuesday?
Personally, I think it’s unnecessary and odd. If you are worried about meeting the Sandman without underwear, then why just pants? Why not don the coordinated bra, too?
As someone who sleeps in nothing other than her birthday suit, keeping pyjamas as mere loungewear for eating breakfast in (or, let’s be honest, as all-day pandemic-wear), I feel pants and pyjamas are akin to bathing in your leggings. I am aghast.
Meanwhile, Marion McGilvary (pictured) says pants under pyjama is ‘unnecessary and odd’ and asks why should we wear pyjamas at all?
And why wear pyjamas at all? Are you afraid that the sheets will be shocked?
Of course, some people want to sleep like an American sitcom star, in full sweatpants, singlet and socks. Socks, for goodness’ sake! As if bed were the Arctic Circle and you suddenly needed a layer of wool, as well as a high-tog duvet, to stop you from getting hypothermia during the night.
Are one’s privates also in danger of freeze-drying and dropping off without an extra layer of cotton? I cannot understand why anyone would feel the need to wrap them in more fabric to sleep. They are not going to catch a chill.
Do they not need to breathe? You know, shoot the breeze, hang loose and chillax? There’s the idea of keeping the PJs clean, but what do people think is going on down there during the wee small hours?
Nothing below the belt is up all night doing a spin class, or clearing out the garage.
It’s called resting. I don’t understand what could be so troublesome as to require another barrier between your body and the bedsheets.
Then there is the further question of that quaint thing called comfort. There has to be one safe haven where your body can cast off the nip of elastic, the torture of seams, and the itch of lace, and just be free; one place where the old girl can get out of captivity and frolic truly unfettered.
If not bed, where? Neither the supermarket nor the beach are places to go commando.
Under high-thread-count sheets is surely the one area you can let both your guard and your pants down.
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