User: NickZ

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Nick

Thanks for posting this poll. While I don't think I'd be up to wearing the ultra-low jeans much, I think there should be a choice, and as for the notion that girls look good in them but guys look bad ("gay"), that is only because of the change in styles since the early-mid 1990's. In the 1980's, guys normally wore well-fitting jeans and there was nothing "gay" about this (straights and gays alike did it; my classmates in grade school never wore baggies and would have made fun of anyone who did). It was baggies which would be the ones seen as strange. The norm as I saw it until c. 1990 was for pants to fit normally, not too tight and not baggy either (sensible). Briefs too; the fad for oversize boxers bunching up and hanging out of one's oversize pants is just weird. And how practical is it to wear pants which are constantly falling down and have to be hiked up? That's attractive?

I think a lot of it is due to prudishness and it is not limited to jeans. A lot of bathing suits and shorts being sold today are only a few inches above the ankle, and guys are being socialized to think that's the norm. What's so bad about wanting to wear real shorts when it is warm out?
Runners often still do; in many other sports we're going back in the direction of Victorian bloomers, perhaps for the same reason.

The most practical all-around shorts are cutoffs and gym shorts -- unfortunately, sometimes the only place to find the latter is on eBay. Cutoffs and other shorts should be cut above the knee because the whole purpose of shorts is to allow the knee freedom of movement (below-the knee pants for guys used to be disparagingly-called "floods").

Bike shorts are also good for a number of sports, and of course for biking, since the close-fitting spandex prevents bunching fabric from causing chafing on long-distance rides. Which is not lost on many athletes who wear baggies but put on "compression shorts" underneath, though for long-distance biking that would still be uncomfortable.

And what's the deal with all those pockets on cargo pants; does the average wearer of them actually use more than one or two of the pockets? All that wasted, heavy fabric.

It is also amazing to see women going to the opposite extreme -- no, I would not want a zipper to be "dangerously close" (as one poll put it) to the genitalia of either sex; that's not practical either. To each her own, but I wonder how much of that is due to designers', peer and boyfriends' pressure and how much of the extremely lowcut clothes would still be worn in the absence of that (e.g. the fad for letting bellies and buttcracks hang out for the general public to see whether they want to or not).

It's ultimately a matter of taste, but neither do I like it when the selection at a store is so limited because designers think that guys only like one ugly style. I don't want to wear women's jeans because (1) I'm a guy and like to look like a guy; (2) guys' and girls' anatomy are obviously different, especially around the pelvis which is relevant to the fit of any pants.

Still, there's a difference between comfortably well-fitting (low-rise and snug but not overly tight) and what many would consider $%!@ty also. The lowest-rise would be something I'd think would belong more in a club setting (regardless of gender and orientation). But mildly low-rise is something which looks and feels good for all-around use.

I should also note that I've got a 28" waist and low bodyfat (I'm an athlete), so that even standard-rise jeans end up "low rise" for me if one goes strictly by zipper length (5") or the equivalent for button-fly jeans like 501's. A "high-rise" length would look clowny on me.

And really, on the subject of clowny, look at current basketball uniforms. In the 1970's and 1980's they were practical and fit well. They looked good, and no one thought that was "gay". Now that we are used to the clowny, garishly overdone bagginess in basketball, the former style seems strange to some. But why "gay"? Why are some guys so concerned that women (and some men) might admire their butt if they wear well-fitting clothes? Is that such a bad thing? And if a guy wants his girl to wear tight, revealing clothes, it is not fair to his girlfriend (and all the other oglers!) for him to wear dorky, baggy clothes himself -- that's a double standard.

Same with speedos vs. the bloomers that often pass for bathing suits today. When I was a teenager and young adult, speedos were the norm, and they were not seen as strange (they are still the norm in lots of other countries). They let you move around. Those who didn't wear speedos back then wore short trunks which were shorter than street shorts but gave you almost the same freedom of movement.

With clothes worn in the water, less is definitely better, because a baggy waterlogged short gets much heavier, and the folds sloshing around create a lot of inertia. If no one cared back then if they saw guy's thighs at the beach, why is that supposed to be bad today?

Ultimately I think it is due to the same prudishness which caused TV stations to be fined huge sums of money because of a split-second of breast appearing during the Super Bowl, and of course we have Ashcroft's spending thousands of tax dollars to cover up the breast of a statue also, and before that, Ken Starr's detailed sexual report posted on the Net (the same kind of content which the Communications Decency Act sought to prohibit), paid for by tax dollars. It is not limited to the U.S.; let us not forget all the female athletes from Middle Eastern countries who could not attend (or even train for) the Olympics because of the legislated prudishness in their own countries. The Taliban was a good example of the most extreme prudishness, where both men and women (but especially women) were forced to wear baggy clothes because of legislated prudishness. Men and of course women could not even play soccer because they would (gasp) have to wear shorts to do so. Same with bodybuilders of either sex (when the Taliban fell, male bodybuilders proudly resumed showing off their lats, pecs, and yes, glutes, and I didn't hear any criticism that there was anything "gay" about that). And in Saudi Arabia, women can't engage in athletics in public for the same reason. All for a misguided idea of "decency". If that's decency, give me "indecency" any day.

Even though I'm 39 years old, I often end up shopping in the boys' jeans dept. because it is difficult if not impossible to find adult jeans in my size (due to designer assumptions about adult obesity, male butt-phobia and the baggy-jeans fad -- no, we don't all want to obscure our entire lower body in endless rolls of fabric). At least the boys' jeans are cheaper (same with briefs).

I find baggies to be impractical as well as ugly; just because some designers are prudes about men (and the opposite about women's wear), doesn't mean I'll wear their styles. When the style changes again, people will scratch their heads once again when they look at pictures of the older style.

Nick