Yep. I still check my gig line also.
Things are not always as they first seem. I rechecked the wording of my second paragraph. Although I have been compiling this list (a not particularly long one yet) over a period of several years, it isn’t an activity that has taken up much of my time. It is a minor byproduct of another activity which has consumed most of my evening hours.
For someone who grew up within 3 miles of the MGM Studios in Culver City, CA, I had spent little time after my childhood going to movie theaters. I had little awareness of what are generally called “classic movies”, nor did I know much about the movie industry and its history. All that changed a number of years ago when I discovered I could get large numbers of classic movies on VHS at thrift stores for a pittance. So, instead of watching the latest spinoff of CSI (CSI Boise , CSI Omaha, or CSI Cleveland!), I have filled my evenings watching some of the greatest movies of all time (as well as some not so great ones) with actors who could really act.
Now, for an abrupt change of topics: I am gay and I have a belt fetish. Hence, some (not all) of the movies on my list contain scenes I find arousing. I actually made these lists for someone else. I ran across a story someone had posted on the Internet, and it was evident from his story that he was gay and had a belt fetish uncannily similar to my own. I contacted him via Email and we exchanged ideas and thoughts about our common interests.
He was about 15 years younger than me, and he was totally unaware that there had been a time (late 1950s and early 1960s) when wearing one’s belt buckle off-center was a fairly common fad in the general population, especially among teenagers. TV shows and movies often reflect pretty accurately the clothing styles and fads of the time period they were produced in. And that includes the wearing of belt buckles off-center. I thought by viewing some of these TV programs and movies on my list, he could have a “vicarious” experience of a time when wearing one’s belt buckle to the side was a socially-approved behavior (at least in some social circles).
So, when I was watching old movies, whenever I happened to see one that would qualify for my list, I would record the name of the movie, the relevant actor, and the timing (from my DVD counter) of the relevant scene so I wouldn’t encounter the problem the originator of this thread (Mean Mr. Mustard) had.
So you see, there is a method to my madness (or is it, there is a madness to my methods?)
There is a book titled “Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever”. It is a guide to movies on DVD and VHS, and I believe an updated version is released each year. Part of the book is devoted to lists of movies that fit into many different categories. A selection of those categories follows:
(1) Cockroaches
(2) Dental Mayhem
(3) Eyeballs
(4) Flatulence
(5) Incest
(6) Killer Appliances
(7) Killer Pigs
(8) Nuns With Guns
(9) Renegade Body Parts
(10) Women In Prison
If these categories represent the interests of “normal” people, then I guess my interests might seem a little odd.
(Just having a little fun with you.)
Please read my reply to TriPolar dated 8/8/2015 for a more straightforward reply to your comments.
In my last reply to you, I inadvertently omitted my response to your implied question. I don’t mind you putting a link to my post in the Quirky Hobbies/Pastimes thread.
However, the intention of my previous reply was to indicate that compiling these lists did not require a major investment of my time, nor a re-prioritizing of my other activities. So, in my opinion, it does not qualify as a substantial hobby or pastime. A quirky interest, perhaps, although, from my perspective, it is perfectly normal and logical.
I imagine there are people who would consider many of my activities and interests to fall into the Quirky category. I am, however, not unaware, that some, if not most, of my interests are seen by these people (or would be seen if they knew about them) as odd, weird, deviant, or downright perverted. What a boring world it would be if everyone was “normal”. Actually, it isn’t and they aren’t!
Glad you came back. I don’t think the hobby or pastime category requires a large amount of time devoted to it. As for odd, weird, deviant, or downright perverted, you came to the right place.
I’m curious, if you don’t mind my asking: what exactly is a belt fetish? Do you enjoy looking at attractive people wearing different sorts of belts? Do you collect them and wear many different types yourself? Are they incorporated into sex or foreplay somehow? All of the above?
Naturally, I don’t expect an answer unless you want to clarify. If you don’t, I’ll just use my imagination. 
Thanks!
All I can tell you is what behaviors of mine I pigeonhole under the term “belt fetish”. Whether that is consistent with the clinical definition of the term “fetish”, I wouldn’t know. I’m a gay male. When I first see a “person (guy) of interest” in public, often, one of the first things that will catch my eye is the belt he is wearing. This is not an easy thing to do these days with the current men’s fashion of letting their shirt tails hang out, completely hiding their belt! And if the guy is wearing a wide belt, maybe 1 3/4" or 2" wide (something that was more common in the 1960s and 1970s), that’s a definite plus. Or if he is wearing a garrison belt, that’s likely to arouse me too.
I especially get turned on when I see a guy wearing his belt with the buckle to the side (an admittedly very rare occurrence these days). And sometimes, I like to wear my belt that way too. I even have a theory about how this interest arose in me. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the fad of guys wearing their belt buckle off-center was quite widespread. This was when I was in junior high school and high school, and, coincidentally, right when I was reaching puberty and “discovering boys”. And many of those boys were wearing their belt buckle to the side at that time, and that might have conditioned me to make a sexual association with wearing one’s belt that way.
To answer your other questions: Yes, to some degree, I’ve incorporated my belt fetish into sex/foreplay. I have an interest in BDSM which is perhaps more essential to my having a fulfilling sexual experience than my belt fetish. And what can be more convenient and accessible for spanking a guy with than a wide leather belt? When I assume the “bottom role”, I especially “get off” if the other guy takes off his belt and uses it on me.
And I have picked up a fair number of belts over the years, especially at thrift stores. Where else can you buy wide belts these days and cheaply? And they’re already “broken in” too. I buy them either because I like the way they look and intend to wear them which means they must fit me, or because I think they’d make a good “spanking belt”.
I think the world I grew up in when I was reaching puberty may have influenced my sexual preferences in other ways too. I have a definite sexual preference for (non-Hispanic) white guys. I grew up in a “white world”, very different from today’s world. It’s not that I’m a racist. It’s just that my sexual preferences were formed around the only world I knew.
Interesting! Thanks for the clarification.
I wonder sometimes how fascinating it would be if we could go back to our childhoods and observe our interaction with unusual objects that have some sort of emotional or sexual resonance with our adult selves, but that we’ve forgotten (or nearly forgotten) why.
Oddly, I’ve never seen anyone wearing their belt buckle to the side. Maybe it wasn’t a thing in California.
Just re-watched 12 ANGRY MEN (1957) on TMC last night - and due to this thread noticed Lee J. Cobb wore his buckle to the (left) side.
Maybe was belated middle-finger to detestable McCarthy who died that year, maybe Cobb put his pants on sideways, maybe he had gas and the off-set buckle didn’t press so hard on his fart-button.
I know it was a movie set; but can you imagine a closed jury room full of a dozen irate, sweaty middle-age and older white men letting loose all at once? Would have blown the windows out and the poor kid would have been fried.
On such small hooks are fates hung.
Oh, buckles on the side - just a fashion thing is my best guess.
Oops
I sense the beginnings of the Internet Movie Belt Database. There’s already one for planes, one for light bulbs, and one for cars (plus trucks, buses, motorcycles, etc.)…
Since I grew up in California, I know it definitely was a “thing” here, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
I can think of several possible reasons why you never saw (or noticed) anyone wearing his belt buckle to the side:
(1) You’re fairly young and didn’t attend high school until the 1980s. Since 1980, I’ve seen very few guys wear their belt buckle off-center, although it was somewhat common at various times from the 1930s through the 1970s.
(2) You’re straight and pay more attention to what girls wear rather than to what guys wear.
(3) You’re not very fashion-conscious (sartorially-oriented) and don’t pay much attention to what anyone wears. When I was growing up, I paid little attention to what other guys were wearing (with the singular exception of their belts, of course).
(4) You lived your entire life in one of the smaller towns in Yolo County, CA, and the fad never made it there! (only joking with this one).
When I read your remarks about the film “12 Angry Men”, I was surprised because I had re-watched the movie within the last couple months and apparently not noticed any of the actors (let alone Lee J. Cobb) wearing his belt buckle to the side, or I would have put it on my list (see my other posts).
Having the advantage of owning the movie on DVD, I just fast-forwarded through the movie to see if I had somehow overlooked what you reported. However, I didn’t see anything new.
Shortly after the jury enters the jury room to deliberate, there is a frontal view of Lee J. Cobb which clearly shows his belt buckle is in the middle. However, his tie is loosened and swung over to his right side. Since one usually expects a tie to be hanging straight down toward the zipper line, I can see how one might infer that his belt buckle was being worn on his left side.
However, I didn’t stop there. I have seen quite a few movies where some detail of an actor’s clothing has been changed although, following the story line, there would have been no opportunity for the character to have made any change to his clothes. Whether this is intentional or just due to carelessness, I don’t know.
Later in the movie, Lee J. Cobb’s belt buckle is actually about 1/2" to the left of the zipper line. So you are technically correct here. It is such a minor displacement that it was probably accidental. When I refer to a guy wearing his belt buckle on his left side, I generally mean that his belt buckle is to the left of the first belt loop to the left of his zipper line. In other words, it didn’t get that way by accident. It was worn that way intentionally.
I can just imagine someone reading this post and thinking: “Now I see why this thread was filed under Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share”. However, one can learn something of interest from almost anything.
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I attended high school in 1979-1982, so yeah, I probably missed the fad.
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I am straight, but I’m not male. I did pay attention to what guys wore, but not a huge amount. I was a nerd and not really into the whole dating thing.
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Guilty!
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I did grow up in a small town (Ojai, CA) and it’s quite likely the fad never made it there (even if I did miss it by being born too late. :P)
Although Mean Mr. Mustard’s 12/10/2011 reply to River Hippie may have been intended as jest or sarcasm, I actually think it is one of the more insightful comments in this thread.
I may be way off-base, but I imagine many people who have visited this thread may have hoped to get some insight into what is really behind the practice (or custom or tradition or fad) of wearing one’s belt buckle off-center. In other words, what is the underlying motivation for it?
I’m afraid some may take offense if I question their favorite theories. I have seen on the Internet for many years the theories that the practice of wearing one’s belt buckle off-center arose from guitar players not wanting to scratch their guitars or auto mechanics not wanting to scratch the paint job on cars they’re working on. Now, these theories sound logical and may actually be true, but I don’t think they explain everything, especially the following.
A look through any book on the history of baseball which contains photos of the players will reveal that many, if not most, of the professional baseball players in the 1930s wore their belt with the buckle to the side. Check out any photos of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, or Joe DiMaggio. However, many other players did the same. Now, I seriously doubt that all these ball players also happened to play guitar or moonlighted as auto mechanics! Anyway, the practice seems to have largely died out among baseball players in the 1940s judging by the baseball photos I’ve seen of that decade.
While viewing old photos of baseball players, I noticed something rather odd. Many of their uniform pants had a belt loop right in the front center, making it virtually impossible (or at least extremely awkward) for the player to wear his belt in the traditional manner with the buckle in the center. One can only wonder whether the pants manufacturers were responding to the players’ preference for wearing their belt buckles to the side or whether the pants makers were deliberately trying to influence the players to wear their belts that way!
My own personal belief (doubters can substitute “pet theory”) is that the practice of wearing one’s belt buckle to the side has a sexual aspect to it. Perhaps guys have felt it enhanced their masculinity in the same way that a guy might wear a leather jacket or western boots to “enhance” (advertise) his sexuality.
Maybe, the wearing of one’s belt buckle to the side is associated with a belt fetish. If that is the case, then perhaps wearing one’s belt in a non-traditional manner focuses attention on the object of one’s fetish.
I’ve started so many profound :rolleyes: threads over the years; who would have guess my belt buckle observation would be the one to linger.
As mentioned, my teenage years were the 70s. I think we thought the off-center buckle placement was some macho statement, nothing more. Guitar players and auto mechanics sound like internet theorizing to me.
Here, beltman, this one’s for you.
mmm
If you haven’t seen it already, check out my post for 8/8/2015 where I refer to the book “Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever”.
Light bulbs(?) Could you elaborate on that one for me? It doesn’t sound very exclusive, other than ruling out biblical epics and movies about medieval knights.
Regarding item #2 in the quote, sorry for my inaccurate “sexual profiling.”
Regarding your reply to item #1, if you want to get an idea what you missed, one of the TV programs on my list is “Leave It To Beaver” - The Second Season DVD set, which is (in some ways) a surprisingly accurate reflection of what life was like when I was in junior high school and high school. Only one of the regular cast, Beaver’s older brother, Wally (played by Tony Dow), wore his belt buckle to the side. He wore a “skinny belt” (about 1/2" wide), which was very popular at the time.
If you prefer watching a macho cowboy wearing a wide garrison belt with the buckle to the side, then I’d recommend “The Texan” TV series starring Rory Calhoun. I have a 10-DVD set of the series produced by Timeless Media Group. Rory Calhoun wore his belt buckle to the side in almost every movie and TV program he was in. It was almost a signature trademark of his.
Does anyone else remember the guy many years back (pre-Web, during the Usenet newsgroup days) who was always looking for video clips of women in high heels stomping down on gas pedals? Now that’s a narrow fetish!
I was searching the Internet and found something which seems to answer the question I had posed as to why old-time baseball players wore their belt buckle to the side. It was in a blog for the website heritagesportsart.com.
Under an image of a 1908 baseball uniform was the text:
“If you notice, there is a center belt loop, which was to secure the belt buckle off to one side. Players of this era usually wore the belt buckle to one side so they could prevent injury when sliding into a base.”