G-string

It has been suggested that it represents a euphemistic abbreviation of groin,[7] or else that it is short for girdle; the term girdle-string is attested as early as 1846.

[8] The G-string first appeared in costumes worn by showgirls in the United States in Earl Carroll's productions during the 1920s,[9] a period known as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties.

[10] Before the Great Depression most performers made their own G-strings or bought them from traveling salesmen, but from the 1930s they were usually purchased from commercial manufacturers of burlesque costumes.

The Chicago area was the home of some of the largest manufacturers of G-strings and it also became the center of the burlesque shows in the United States.

In New York City, G-strings were worn by female dancers at risqué Broadway theatre shows during the Jazz Age.

"Strong" shows usually took place only when the police were not present, and they became rarer after 1936 when Fiorello H. La Guardia, the Mayor of New York City, organized a series of police raids on burlesque shows[13] and closed strip clubs in the city for the first time in its history.

[19] In Africa the G-string has become a fashionable item of clothing for young women, and they are often visible above the back of low-rise jeans as a whale tail.

[3] The constitutional legality of such regulations has been upheld in two cases by the US Supreme Court, when it had to rule on whether First Amendment rights were being infringed.