Why shopping for such a fundamental item is so hard

Why is it so hard to find something that we all wear? I'm talking about underwear. Not panties. I really don't understand who the heck came up with the term panties. Ugh. Just the thought makes me cringe. I mean, who the heck calls these things panties, besides a) clueless guys who think that panties sounds sexier than underwear (it doesn't), b) possibly the older generation--the same generation that owns blouses, or c) companies like Victoria's Secret that think women feel sexier if they called underwear panties (we don't).

To all that, I say blegh.

No grounded female that I know calls underwear panties. (Though no offense if you either wear panties or have a spouse or SO who wears panties.)

But this was not the point of this posting.

My question is, why can't I find simple functional underwear?

I don't want sexy. I've tried the lacy, satin/silk things, back in the day, but they are functionally impractical, probably because they are not meant to be on for long. Thus, they are also uncomfortable and slide around a lot, which is extremely annoying. Granted, I am basing this on a minuscule sample size, but it was enough to learn that I don't like these. These lacy, satiny things also have very flimsy elastic, so they don't really stay on securely. If I wanted my underwear off, I would simply not wear underwear.

Nor do I want frumpy.

I used to do my underwear shopping at VS. They had cotton underwear in a style that I liked that were comfortable, functional, and (well, to me) not frumpy-looking. Then they changed the style of their cotton line. Whereas before, the cotton underwear had a sturdy elastic waistband, this new line comes with a very flimsy one, which I already mentioned I do not like. After a few washings, some of them already feel rather loose.

Thus, I've decided to leave VS for a while and tried Macy's.

Macy's has two types of underwear: frumpy and sexy.

What I'm looking for is something in between.

I do not want underwear that is 7 inches thick. That would come up past my belly button and perhaps up to my waist. Unfortunately, most of the cotton underwear was of this sort.

I do not want microfiber or silk or satin or nylon or all of these other fabrics that many underwear were offered in. Microfiber is useful for travel, so I own a few of these, but I am a creature of habit, and for me, cotton works best. Thus, cotton or bust.

I do not want underwear in bright pink, or turquoise polka dots, or flourescent stripes. I do have my share of brightly-colored fare, but it turns out that in warm weather, I wear a lot of light-colored skirts and pants, and patterns and dark colors show right through. I don't know why anyone didn't think of this when they came out with the color line. Today at Macy's, other than the huge 7-inch high (wide?) cotton underwear that only came in well, the boring colors that I wanted, actually, there was nary a pale-hued undergarment in sight.

Not to be picky, but I also do not want white, which I think is the most utterly useless color for women's underwear. Though in general, I don't think white is a terribly useful color for any clothing.

And I certainly do not want a cutesy little bow secured by a bead at the front of my underwear. Actually, if I found underwear that fit all of my criteria except for this, I'd happily buy it, but this was not the case. What is the point of this tiny bow, anyway?

This might sound like a lot of demands, but it's really not. I want functional non-frumpy underwear that is made with cotton, has a decent-quality elastic waistband, and comes in light (but not white) colors. And yet, I could not find anything like this at Macy's, even though they had a whole corner devoted to just underwear. How could a store have hundreds of different types of underwear and not have the kind I want? Guy underwear is always functional. Other than the boxer vs. briefs divide, there are not 100 different types of guy underwear to choose from, because they only carry functional guy underwear. Why can't we have only functional types of underwear? Why are we the ones with pretty useless little bows or satiny straps? I mean, I'm not suggesting they add bows to guy underwear. The male equivalent might be spoilers or something on their underwear. But I have never seen such a thing. It turns out that this is b/c any such thing would be utterly absurd. So would offering guy underwear in 200 different colors and 10 different fabrics.

And yet, with females, this is the norm.