# Old men and high pants, why?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-men-and-high-pants-why/151579>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 30, 2003, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-men-and-high-pants-why/151579 "2003-01-30T10:12:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rhinostylee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc79bd/32.png) [@rhinostylee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhinostylee)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-men-and-high-pants-why/151579/21 "2003-01-30T21:25:30Z")

</div>

The answer is quite simple . . . older men wear their pants as highwaters because it rules! I can’t wait until I can wear my pants that way.

I guess I don’t have to wait . . . pulling my pants up way higher . . . oh, that’s nice!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![23skidoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/f04885/32.png) [@23skidoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/23skidoo)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-men-and-high-pants-why/151579/22 "2003-01-30T22:02:08Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by World Eater \*  
> \*\*If you shrunk a few inches, wouldn’t the pants look longer? \*\*

The pants would, unless you pulled them up to your armpits and cinched 'em with a belt.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Davebear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Davebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Davebear)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-men-and-high-pants-why/151579/23 "2003-01-30T22:13:41Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Philster \*  
> \*\*It really has to do with inseams and waist size in pants.
> 
> As pants get larger around the waist, the inseam gets bigger. Combine that with the pot belly and lack of an ass that comes as men get older and the only way to keep pants up - even with a belt- is to hunch them up to the gut, well above the hips, and hope friction keeps them there.
> 
> The extra inseam capacity means the pants can be hunched up further than normal before the insame invades the family jewels living space.
> 
> Just 1-2" of hunching up the pants can make pants look like “floods” or “high waters”. \*\*

So close, and yet so completely wrong! 🙂 The inseam is the measurement from the crotch to the hem of the leg. Extra length in the inseam would help avoid the dreaded high waters look, but would do nothing to prevent auto-castration if you tried to pull a pair of normal-rise pants up to your waist. The measurement that allows for more room for the family jewels is called the rise, and is defined as the distance from the crotch seam to the waistband.

Jeans have relatively low rises, especially the low-riders they’re selling to young women again, these days (bless their hearts! ;)), sometimes as little as 4 inches in extreme cases. Typical men’s jeans range from about 6 to 9 inches, depending on style (classic, straight-leg versus relaxed fit, for example). Dress pants range up to about 12 inches, though this also varies with the style. The “armpit” pants you folks have been talking about I would guess to have a rise of 16 inches, or more.

I wouldn’t advise it, but you can test this out easily enough, should you be interested. Go to a store and pick out a pair of jeans in your waist size, but with the longest inseam you can find. Take them to the fitting room, and try to (gently! :eek: ) pull them up to your armpits. Ain’t gonna happen, no matter how long the inseam is.

Manufacturers also tend to make the rise higher (longer) in proportion to the waist size. So, a larger waist size will have more rise than a smaller pair of the same style pants.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-men-and-high-pants-why/151579.md?page=1)