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| Pettipants or Mennonite lingerie |
Sondaboa oon fe’dreit
With the recent change in sentencing of Canadian Mennonite
James Duerksen of Rosenort, Manitoba, (25 April) to four years in prison, rural Mennonite
teens and women can again visit church in peace, knowing that their bedrooms
and their undies will remain safe in the interim.
In a Mennonite story straight out of fable,
Duerkson, married and father of two, has been convicted of 92 counts of
breaking, entering and theft over 21 years and across two Canadian provinces –
the object of this criminal activity – Mennonite women’s lingerie.
In researching this essay, I actually
learned that Mennonite women actually have access to a peculiar, old-fashioned form
of undergarment called pettipants or Mennonite lingerie (see photo) – a sort
of cross between bloomers and a slip. Though, according to the Winnipeg Free Press, the lingerie in this story tended to be of a more conventional Victoria's Secret style and type.
Duerkson, however, was not motivated by
mere curiosity – according to court documents, Duerksen has been diagnosed with
transvestic festishism, which
according to the Winnipeg Sun, is a form of transvestitism whereby the sexual
interest in cross-dressing, (possible repressed?), results in a significant psychological distress or social impairment (Winnipeg Sun, see below).
