Now we’re talking!
Even worse are the long, long shorts that go to midcalf or past and they wear tube socks. So there ends up being about 1/2" of leg showing. It makes you look short! I only have a 29" inseam, if I wore that (discounting the shorts and long socks faux pas) I’d look like a midget.
It’s not my thighs I’m trying to hide.
You’re right. Back in the day we would have called those just “shorts”. “Short shorts” were the very short shorts that girls and women wore, and much like they often wear today. Oddly enough, just as today it was the case then that men’s shorts were longer and women’s shorts were shorter. But the length of the men’s shorts was more to ensure that the “fundamentals” were covered, and that the hems wouldn’t rise up to but level when sitting down. They sometimes ended less than two inches below bun level. Workout shorts, of course, could be much shorter.
I don’t remember much in the way of “garment malfunctions” in regard to guys wearing shorts and sitting with their knees apart. It’s not the type of thing I look for. But in the early 1990s I sure did as it was unavoidable. People used to wear those baggy Mossimo “M” shorts at the gym, and while still fairly short, they were also baggy, as men’s clothes were starting to be at the time. All I can say is if you wore those, you’d better be sure you wore matching underwear to minimize the damage.
Hm, maybe there’s been some confusion on this thread. By short shorts, I mean the little bitty ones. Regular ol’ shorts would hit about mid-thigh, and long shorts go to the knee or longer.
I agree about the “shorts” that go to mid-calf. They do make guys look short, especially with socks.
My legs are fairly muscular. More than once, athletic trainers have expressed envy of my leg muscles.
Perhaps for this reason, I prefer to wear my short gym shorts. They give me more freedom of movement, especially when I’m doing squats, leg presses, deadlifts, or heavy cardio work. They also feel a heck of a lot cooler than my longer shorts do.
Heck, for a couple of years now, I’ve been wondering why most men at the gym wore the longer, baggier shorts. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I learned it was a fashion issue.
I never heard this interpretation before. Small boys today generally wear smaller versions of the down-to-the-knee leg curtains that their older brothers and fathers wear.
They remind me of Hank Hill’s dad!
The combo of those extralong/oversize shirts that come way down past the hips, plus calf-length shorts conjures up the impression of a certain body type…
Come to think of it, so do those baggy pants worn with the crotch dangling down to knee level. Hmmm…
I’ve always thought that this fashion choice makes the wearer look like a giant toddler, because it makes the legs appear short and stubby.
dangermom, to clear up a point, I think any shorts on a guy that hit at mid-thigh or higher are considered short shorts by most people these days. In the 1970s the term was used differently (links are to a commercial website (but IMO a very worthy one)):
This style was very popular among guys at UCSD, and elsewhere in SoCal, way back in the day. They are also essentially same ones worn by the “Jack Tripper” character, who was mentioned upthread. We wouldn’t have called those short shorts; they were simply shorts. Tennis shorts, and most swimming trunks were about that length as well.
Short shorts were usually worn only by women, and were more like these, or even these.
Nowadays, I’m sure most people consider all three pictures above to be short shorts. The fine company which my links point to does market the first pair of shorts to both men and women, but one has to admit that the style is pretty much marginalized for men these days. I’d be surprised if most their sales in this style aren’t to women.
Tons of women’s shorts today are about as long as the Jack Tripper shorts. I’d say that seems to be about the preferred length, judging from my observations living near a large urban university, and it being summer.
To those who say you don’t like short shorts even on women, do you mean more like my third picture?