Brazilian women wearing black thongs

The thong, a garment worn as either underwear or as a swimsuit by both women, may also be worn for traditional ceremonies or competitions such as Japanese sumo wrestling. It is worn as everyday wear in many indigenous societies, particularly in Africa, South America and Asia.

In some parts of India, just a strip of cloth (an ancient Indian version of the thong called a ‘Konaan’ or ‘Konakam’ made of any strip of cloth) used to be tied from a thread around the waist by men of all ages while bathing and changing in public ponds or indigenous swimming pools, just to cover the male genitals and it was considered perfectly within the limits of decency.

The origin of the word thong in the English language is from Old English ‘thwong’, meaning a flexible leather cord, and a commonly used name is tanga (or string tanga), like the German tanga. In Lithuanian language, it is ‘siaurikės’ (narrows), Italian ‘perizoma’ or ‘tanga’, in Turkish ‘ipli külot’ (stringed underpants), and in Bulgarian as ‘prashka’ (slingshot). In Israel the g-string thong is called Khutini. In Iran, it is called ‘Shortbandi’ (شورت بندی) in which ‘short’ (English: shorts) means ‘briefs’ and ‘bandi’ means ‘with a string’. A Puerto-Rican Spanish term is ‘gistro’, and interestingly, Australians refer to the g-string as a g-banger or simply banger. In Chinese dialects, the T-back is commonly called dingziku,

Thongs are accepted to some degree in most western countries, including most of Europe, North and South America, Australia, and parts of Asia. But thongs are banned in some countries in the Middle East. In some U.S. locations such as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Kure Beach, North Carolina, though there is no national law specifically relating to nudity, thongs, or toplessness in the United States. At least one U.S. city passed an anti-nudity ordinance in 2007 which however did not ban thongs.

In South American countries thongs are more widely used than in USA. In Brazil the thong bottoms with different levels of coverage is used by vast number of females of all ages. In Argentina, thongs are used by many teenage and young adult women but it is not the general type of swimsuit, it's acceptable but edgy.