I am ready to concede that I'm crazy, but
I want to get this off my chest. It may have a lot to do with my age (I'm 70), but this is bugging the hell out of me.
I like to solve crossword puzzles, and I'm pretty good at it. The daily puzzle in my local paper is too easy to be any fun; I have bought books of NYT puzzles, including diagramless and puns and anagrams. I sometimes am able to solve entirely the Nation's very tough crossword. I finish the Sunday Times puzzle in an hour or so. So I'm not new to this game.
Almost all the puzzles I encounter have been created by men, unless there are a lot of female puzzle constructers named Bill or John, and it really pisses me off when they use what I consider sort of *private* words pertaining to women in their solutions.
I object to the use of the word "bra" as the inevitable answer to "part of a bathing suit," "panties" in any context, and--especially--"pad" used in the context of women's toiletries. "Pad" could be the answer to any number of clues--where do these men get off using "our" word like that? Especially since I'm of a generation that talked about such things (if we talked about them at all) as "sanitary napkins."
I have to backtrack a little on "panties" because it was used in a clever way in last Sunday's Times puzzle, as part of "smarty-pants" ("smart panties" . But we called them "underpants." And pantyhose are "stockings."
I don't know what made that show up above.