O my gawd, gag me with a spoon! You're not seriously equating birkenstocks with flip-flops?

Valley girls wear flip-flops. Girls in Newport Beach and Venice Beach and Santa Monica and English girls out in the snow in London wear flip-flops. Maybe the Great Birkenstock/Flip-Flop divide isn't important in Florid'oh, but it is in California.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

Oh, and I didn't even go into what gay panic means for the unspoken dress code for the average American male.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

Uh, that's expensive. The flip-flops I wear between the locker room and the tatami when I go to karate class cost me €2 at a local supermarket.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

Why, yes, yes it is, and, so far as I can see, entirely off-topic to the subject of the post.  Do people act stupid and shitty and behave badly in innumerable ways?  Indisputably.  Are dress codes sometimes necessary?  Probably.  (am I permanently doomed to feel I'm channeling Rumsfeld when indulging in this sort of communication style?  absolutely)...

BUT!  What I'm talking about is more a CLIMATE than the specifics of who wears what in individual circumstances.  The climate which 1) makes an issue of women's sexuality no matter what and 2)  makes an underlying assumption that we need to be TOLD how not to make these sorts of "mistakes" or create these sorts of "problems" even if we're not doing ANYTHING and 3) that the CLOTHES (or underwear) in and of themselves is in no way the issue -- the clothes as SYMBOLS and SYMPTOM of the cultural problems we women are experiencing is the problem I'm trying to shed some light on here.  Perhaps I'm failing.  

But this part of your comment is a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about:

So without a well-defined dress code, it's not so much that women 'might be using their wiles, or some such', but that a good proportion of women will certainly try.

You're identifying women as the problem, not human behavior.  What you're saying is that women NEED an enforced dress code or they'll "certainly try" to behave badly.  Where does it say in this article that ANYONE interviewed was outside the bounds of a dress code?  If I follow your reasoning, then a lot MORE rules would stop these pesky women.  Maybe they should just all kneel in the foyer every morning and measure the space from their hems like schools do, right?  Are you seeing the problem here?

To my eyes, the closing paragraph of the article is the pertinent bit (bold mine):

Almost all the women in the Tulane study who said they used sexual behavior said they did so infrequently. But executive coach Debra Benton, who has long asked business leaders about the pros and cons of sexuality in the workplace, said that if a similar survey were given to men, they would say that women use sexuality "all the time." Women need to be aware that when they say "It's a nice day," men will often conclude "She wants me," Benton says.

What should we make the men wear or not wear to put a stop to this outrageous behavior?

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes