Back in the early '70s I remember being inadvertantly flashed by a guy in jogging shorts at the local McDonalds. I think I was 13 years old at the time. Boy was that an eye full :eek:
Being healthy 13 year old girls we took a good long look and spent the rest of our time there giggling over it and trying not to look again. Good times.
I agree with Hyno-Toad down to the knees or past looks goofy but halfway isn’t a bad thing and it’ll keep covered that which requires covering saving the innocence of 13 year olds everywhere.
Taking the long view, historically… (are you reading this, Tamerlane?)
In ancient times, at least in the warmer climates like the Mediterranean and Middle East, clothing was genderized this way:
Short skirts: Men
Long skirts: Women
Then sometime after the Renaissance men’s cute little doublet trunks grew longer and longer until they finally reached the ankles circa 1800. Then in the second half of the 20th century it became the norm for women to wear pants.
I was in Wal-Mart recently, looking for some item or other that no store had, and I tried as many stores as I could think of. But as long as I was there, I thought I would browse dresses. I looked all over the women’s wear as well as ladies’ wear (they have two sections labeled with these names). Nada. A store employee asked me “Can I help you find something?” I said “Does this store have any dresses?” Blank look. I explained helpfully, “Dresses are outer garments formerly worn by women, consisting of a skirt and bodice in one piece. I suppose I should look in a historical period costuming store.” (The story is true, but the conversation is obviously fiction, since no Wal-Mart employee has ever volunteered to give me information.)
So exposing more skin was in olden times considered more masculine, while long garments was a mark of femininity. Example: In the Old Turkic language spoken in Inner Asia in the 8th century, an epithet for “woman” was uzun tonlugh, literally meaning ‘the one who wear long garments’. Cite: Sir Gerard Clauson, An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth Century Turkish (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 288.
Now the trend has been reversed, so that skin is feminized and textile is masculinized. Expect it to reverse again at some time in the future.
Well I agree with you about Simmons, he was definitely pushing it too far, and he wasn’t even in terribly good shape.
Oddly enough, Howard Stern and he live not far far from each other on Long Island, or used to, and they hang out sometimes. In his autobiography Stern* said they’re actually alike in many ways, though he doesn’t hesitate to rib him over the shorts.’
*Can’t stand his radio show, but thought his story was interesting.
I’ve found the same problem. I don’t know how tall you are, but the catalogs I get (I’m petite) like J. Jill and others that escape me at the moment carry really cute dresses. It’s a shame I don’t work in an office anymore, because I wore dresses as often as possible when I did.
That is the ONE thing I hate about the fad. Kids these days where the baggy pants AND A BELT. I was like you’re missing the WHOLE point. It’s baggy pants AND BOXERS. Not a belt and briefs.
I was thinking the trend for the longer shorts started because of people (especially kids) tending to be rather fat now-a-days.
Because really, when the shorts where mid-thigh we wore tube socks which covered the calf.
Now that the shorts are knee high the socks barely cover the ankle so it exposes the same amount of leg. Just different parts.
I don’t care fore the super long, baggy shorts. But I love the ones that come to the lower thigh or just above the knee, they can be very sexy on the right guy. It’s been my experience that guys who want to hang on to the old shorties, don’t have any business wearing them.
I’m 5’11½" in stockinged feet, so I started a thread Where do tall women find clothes that fit? – in reality it isn’t hard to find clothes that fit me, there are lots of 6-foot tall women these days. I just went from size 18 dresses to 16, and from size 16 skirts to 14. I thought dresses, at least the comfortable styles I liked, were infinitely more comfortable than pants, until I realized that girl-pants in misses sizes were more comfortable too, so now I wear girl-pants all the time. For some strange reason the lengths and fit and everything are perfect for me. I’ve never felt better. I still prefer dresses. I mostly find nice ones cheap at the Salvation Army if I go looking often enough, sometimes I buy a few from Amazon or a good department store like Hecht’s if they’re on sale. The next step is to make my own. A friend who calls herself “Housewitch” is my sewing guru and she has a book full of medieval and Renaissance patterns.
Since I take an interest in history, including some reconstructionism, like Loreena McKennitt I naturally follow the old ways and wear long dresses.
My theory as to why men today are icked out by male skin including their own has to do with the gender switcheroo of textile. In the 1970s, although this was a time of some skin-baring styles for women like the string bikini, there was a bigger trend of more textile for women: maxi skirts, granny dresses, shawls, definitely a result of the earth-mother tendency among hippies. It was a time for men to show their skin (mostly covered with chest hair, etc.).
Then through the 1980s and '90s women’s liberation gradually took its effect on girls growing up in a world where feminism had had its effect, whether feminists are given credit or not, for opening more opportunities to girls than previously. Whether or not this directly influenced women’s confidence to bare more skin, that was in the background as it became commonplace for women to take on roles formerly thought fit only for men. Maybe the baring of skin was one of them. Once skin was feminized, men must have felt they had no choice but to go textile to preserve masculinity. In the great game of Shirts vs. Skins, the teams keep switching uniforms.
Judging from this ad for the recently released ATL, long’n’baggy still hasn’t maxed out. I’m not sure if there’s a word for whatever those two guys on the right are wearing.
Having grown up mostly in the 70’s i can tell all of you that short shorts and tube socks (or “sweatsocks” as we called them) were not only the norm but also required for boys - especially the tube socks. Shorts were not that big back then and many kids rarely wore them, but if you didn’t wear long tube socks you could get beat up. I remember in elementary school there was a “sock check” where if someone suspected you of wearing “party socks” (dress or short socks) they’d lift up your pant legs. If you weren’t wearing stripped tube socks you were ridiculed and could get beat up after school. Black socks were an absolute no no unless your were dressed up for picture day. I know it sounds stupid today.
There were a few exceptions. I had this one friend who usually wore mid thigh denim cutoffs and sometimes wore solid white tube socks as opposed to the stripped ones. He was pretty tough and popular so no one messed with him. In the early and mid 80’s solid white tube socks became more popular and accepted. It’s funny that today those socks are making a comeback.
The fact that I can’t imagine anybody getting beaten up for their socks probably results from the fact that there were almost no fights in the schools I attended. Fights happened once a year if that, and I grew up around the same time give or take a few years.
And yes, it does look like the zombie men are still wearing short shorts.
Six years since this thread was started, but nothing’s changed.
The paramount factor today, in choosing what to wear, has become how we look to others, at all times. Of course there were fashion trends in earlier decades, and most people did care about the impression they made on others, in most public contexts. They did dress professionally for work, according to the standards of the day, and they dressed appropriately for social occasions. But guys were permitted to drop the “uniform” on certain occasions that called for it. You went to the beach to soak up some sun which meant you didn’t want to be wearing a lot of textile. It was the same for the pool, or errands on a hot Saturday afternoon. You didn’t want to get all heated up while working out, so you wore as little as possible in the gym–and thought nothing of doing a quick bit of grocery shopping in the same attire on the way to or from. Maybe you didn’t look all that great to the other shoppers, but you weren’t expected to be an ornament to the world at all times, nor to always project a fashionable, cool, or tough persona.
I think the long baggy shorts are horrible. Shorts longer than knee length don’t look good on men or women. (Unless you’re six feet tall, cropped pants on women make you look like a mushroom.) those long baggy shorts on basketball players remind me of women’s culottes circa 1959.
There is a point, however, when they are too short. Remember OP shorts in the late seventies? I think the inseam was only 5" or so, and I would have to say most men didn’t look good in them.
Shorts below the knee should not be called “shorts.” They are male Capri’s. maybe that will stop those youngsters from wearing them, especially on my lawn.