Pants, by definition, are: an outer garment covering the body from the waist to the ankle, with a separate part for each leg. One cannot have one pant, although I suppose if one has only one leg and removes the extra part, one might have a pant? My dashboard dictionary doesn’t suppose, it just defines, and pant has only to do with heavy breathing.
According to this definition then, pants cover the entire lower half of the body. Unless you live in the land of hip-hop, of course, where all bets are off and pants cover the lower half of the legs – no guarantee for anything on up.
Personally, I find it ridiculous. It looks stupid. It makes normal movement less than . . . fluid, shall we say. I’ve watched the boys try to run around my neighborhood with the waistband of their jeans around their thighs and their pantlegs bunched around their ankles, and I’ve laughed out loud at the visual. I watch boys hold their pants up by grabbing the crotch and swaggering, and I’ve wondered if I should allow my daughter to wear tops that require her holding her breasts in order to keep said top from falling off. I’ve decided that no, I shouldn’t.
I’ve heard the stories of this fashion trend originating as an act of solidarity with “the brothers in prison” who’ve had their belts taken away. Which strikes me as ridiculous for two reasons – first, because when belts are taken away, usually one is handed a jumpsuit or drawstring pants to replace one’s streetwear. Been awhile since I’ve been in prison, so I can’t say for sure. Secondly, I find it troubling that kids look to “brothers in prison” to emulate. Sure, some are there unfairly, but face it, most are not. They are there because they are criminals, and the culture has moved from sympathizing through clothing to eyewitnesses not talking to police about crimes simply because one shouldn’t be a rat. Sixty Minutes did an interesting piece on that not long ago. But that is whole ‘nother post for a more serious time.
Today I am speaking only of pants, because now, a Louisiana town has determined that we must put an end to this wearing of pants incorrectly. Thank God someone is finally taking action.
Supposedly this is about indecency. Somewhere in the aforementioned article, a councilperson is quoted as including butt cracks in what mustn’t show. Private parts in general should not show. OK, but since when did sagging pants show private parts? They look stupid, they show underwear, they make walking a whole different act – but I have yet to see actual private parts. I see a lot more skin and the edges, shall we say, of a lot more “private parts” on women who wear bikini tops and ultra-lowrise jeans and mini shorts . . . but they aren’t deemed illegal. Except for butt cracks. God save the plumbers of Louisiana.
The town has implemented $500 fines and possible jail time for this. Oh my. This is what is important? This is how we should be spending the time and energy of our local governments? I guess the school system in their town is in excellent condition, as well as all the municipal services, street conditions and common areas. Whew.
Or wait, maybe they aren’t. Maybe they are going to create the “Sagging Pants Fund,” and use all SPF money to improve the quality of life for everyone by planting flowers in the medians, buying new books for the school libraries and lowering taxes. Perfect. Now there’s a plan we can really get behind. And the pants will return to their rightful position, covering the body from waist to ankle. Ahhhhh . . . order. We just needed more order.
That could be seen as discrimination against rappers, plumbers, and crash-dieters. Anyway, some people just can't afford to buy fancy luxuries like belts, and others much prefer having easy access so they can scratch their frank and beans, an inalienable God-given right. Also, some people's waist is bigger than their rear, rendering belts unusable. Still others have developed large guts which sag below the belt line.
Sagging pants (and the oversized t-shirts that often accompany them) started in LA about twenty years ago. Most young, poor black boys wore their brothers' hand-me-downs. The bigger your clothes, the bigger your brother, the logic went, and size of clothing rapidly became a status symbol. Then ill-fitting clothes became the desireable look, as those that couldn't afford the look of wealth could at least feign the look of strength.
Now even those who can afford new clothing may opt for oversized pants or shirts, as it has become a surprisingly long-lasting fashion trend. Detached white people make up all manner of explainations- you can hide weapons and stolen goods much more easily in those garments, it serves as a sign of unity with the blacks in prison, it makes it harder for someone shooting at you to land a successful shot. But those explainations all reflect a frightened ignorance. Harmless suburbanites dress that way, too.
You know what I hate? When girls wear pants a few sizes too small. In a desperate attempt to seem thinner, young girls let the fat around their waists spill over the sides of their pants, and allow their pants to cling chaffingly to their bodies in an unflattering and uncomfortable way. Shall we outlaw that, too? How about high heels- as we've already discussed here, they don't make much sense. We could attach fines to a slew of hideous fashion trends.
But somehow I doubt this law has anything to do with odd fashion choices. It has to do with scared white people trying to rid themselves of the appearance of thuggery, even where actual thuggery doesn't exist. Let the suburban wannabes wear their silly pants.
Part of the impetus for the sagging pants style is the fact that each generation of adolescents must find at least one thing that the previous generation simply cannot comprehend, and exploit it to the max! No matter how stupid.
Whether it's flappers doing the the Charleston (deemed obscene in its day…and in a way I guess it WAS!), to greased back pompadors, leather jackets and doo wop in the 50s, long hair and rock and roll in the 60's, terrycloth short-shorts, tube tops and disco in the 70s followed by punk rock with its spiked hairdos or today with an excess of tattos and peircings and hip-hop…it's all the same. It's all demonstration for two specific reasons. To attract the opposite sex and to piss off the parents.
Hey Erika – your explanation makes a lot more sense than the solidarity with prison thing. I didn't research that part of it – just happened to be the only explanation I'd heard. I just found the whole idea of legislating fashion – regardless of what it stands for or how silly one looks – to be utterly preposterous. I totally agree with the too-small pants on girls – it looks so hideously uncomfortable, asde from the fact that it can make a perfectly normal-sized girl aopear overweight.
And yes, gatom, you are spot on with regard to the need to piss off the elders. Wouldn't be much fun to be a kid if you couldn't do that! I guess the sagging pants don't impede movement any more than 5-inch heels and pencil-thin skirts do on a woman. Just try to get into an SUV dressed like that!
Louisiana is giving the term "fashion police" a whole new meaning . . .
Mindy: when I see people walking around with their pants half-falling down, I often think of possible ultimate explanations for their behavior. What this means is that I often wonder why a particular behavior, cognition, emotion or morphological trait has evolved to its current form in a Darwinian adaptive sense.
I believe that this ultimate approach (see below) fits in nicely with this post and with the comments above.
It is clear that wearing pants is a fashion statement. In a deeper sense, complying with unspoken fashion directives is a display, a badge that one belongs to a particular group as opposed to other groups. Like all group badges, wearing pants that tend to fall down is expensive. It is not expensive in terms of the money it takes to buy the pants that fall down. The pants themselves don't cost much at the store. The "expense" is incurred in another way. Wearing such pants is socially expensive. Wearing pants that fall down is laughable, annoying and uncomfortable and it draws funny looks. Adults scoff and children point.
As you mention in the post, wearing such clothing makes some people suspect that you are from the underclass and that you can't be trusted entirely. They might think that you are violent and that you belong to a gang. These are big prices to pay for wearing pants that fall down, especially when you could wear pants that don't fall down and you would not incur any of these social expenses. If you wore "normal" clothes, you could fit right in. But then again, you wouldn't have proven anything to that group of saggy-pants-wearing friends by wearing normal clothes
The bottom line is human beings are incredibly group-ish. When we group together, we partake of the benefits of being networked. We are much more powerful when we are assimilated into groups than when we walk around as loners. On the other hand, groups don't want to give away their benefits willy-nilly. That would ultimately destroy a group to allow just anyone to partake of the group benefits without proving loyalty. The number one thing that any group needs to do, then, is to set up defenses to keep out those interlopers who want to partake in the benefits without paying any price. In short, any group worth its salt needs to keep out cheaters.
To keep out cheaters, groups demand displays of loyalty. There are two main ways of showing loyalty. One is to give the group something of value. Churches require weekly contributions. Other organizations expect their members to show up to do volunteer work. See "Shopping for Sex."
The other major way to show loyalty is to inflict a disadvantage upon one's own self, thereby demonstrating that one is serious about joining the group. Wearing pants that fall down, an activity that draws ridicule from many people, is a powerful display. It is this very disadvantage of wearing such clothing that demonstrates to other group members (those other people who wear pants that sag) that one is willing to pay the high price of membership. In this way, wearing saggy pants is very much like displaying body piercings. Both of these things involve some discomfort and some ridicule, at least to many people in the mainstream, thereby satisfying other group members that one is loyal to the group.
You probably thought I was an end up discussing religion, and I am. Another basic way to inflict a deficit upon one's self is to stand up and say things that are nonsensical. standing up in the middle of a church and loudly proclaiming that virgins have babies is a lot like a wearing saggy pants. It is not true that virgins have babies, with of course. It is silly to say that virgins have babies. When others hear you saying that virgins have babies, you suffer a loss of credibility. Ironically, it is this very same loss of credibility that signals to others (others who also proclaim that virgins have babies) that you are willing to pay the price (by suffering the attendant social scorn) necessary to become a trusted member of the group. This discussion is full of ironies. It is this general loss of credibility that increases one's credibility among members of one's group. I discuss this idea of the value of oxymoronic religious proclamations more fully here.
Another irony results when a fashion statement that was originally embarrassing becomes mainstream. If we were all to start wearing saggy pants, doing this would no longer be a "price to pay" that would serve as a display of loyalty. It would still be a signal, of course, but it would be a relatively mild signal that one is trying to be part of a larger and less cohesive mainstream society.
Therefore, I have a suggestion for communities who want to stop underclass kids from wearing sagging pants. Pass a law that everyone in the community should go around wearing sagging pants. If that were to happen, the underclass kids would figure out a new way to annoy "regular" folks, such as gluing tin cans to their heads, wearing shoes on their hands or butting their heads against mailboxes.
Well, I must come clean, as a loose pants wearer for years! It just made no social sense to wear properly fitting pants! I can't explain it except that you were seen as a "prude" or something if you wore a belt. Tight pants were immediate fuel for ridicule in my school days. Although, I never took it to the extreme, with underwear showing on purpose like plenty of kids. It was correlated somehow with the basketball culture too, like a handicap, the better you were at basketball, the baggier you could let your pants get, because you could play with just one hand while holding up your pants with the other. Kids!
I think they're going to have a really hard time with that law, and upset a whole lot of people (the ones who dress like that).
However, I do think that it does look rather silly wearing close that big. I understand wearing baggy clothes – they can be comfortable – but they can be baggy in the legs but still fit at the waist.
But I will admit, I am amused everytime one of those boys is walking by and his pants just fall down (even though everyone knew it would happen eventually).
But then again, everyone is their own person and everyone likes their own things. I'm into all kinds of fashion, from the 'normal stylish' fashion to the funky punky harajuku street fashion.
LOL – I like the shoes on hands concept, particularly in light of my youngest daughter, who loves running "on fours;" she could pick up speed when the pavement gets rough instead of having to stop and revert to upright, humanoid movement!! Ah, to be that flexible . . .
I also love that you can equate sagging pants to fundamentalist religion – because, of course, you are exactly right! Pretty funny, really.
Sagging has become much more mainstream – my lily white, extremely Christian 16-yr.-old nephew sags and wears his baseball cap sideways. Now of course he only sags a little, just the waistband of his boxers would show if he didn't wear the long shirt, which, naturally, he does because he's a good Christian boy. Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly and he is, overall, a very good kid.
But the mere fact that he and his cohorts sag at all is why the boys in the 'hood down here where we live don't merely sag anymore but now wear their waistbands around their mid- to lower thighs. You suburbanites gonna mimic us??? We'll show you saggin'!!!!! So there. And it isn't only the black boys, although around here at least, they take it to the lowest extreme. So, yes, the point is to set themselves apart from the mainstream and thus declare their loyalty to a group culture of their own. Cool. We all did whatever we could when we were kids to set ourselves apart from at least the boring adults in our lives. And I'd sure rather have impractical, silly fashion making the statement than commiting violent crime as a way to "prove themselves."
Community dress codes enacted into law usually–not always–end up aggravating the perceived problems and leading to further "upheavals" (remember the Counter Culture?) It's difficult to ignore some things, but in the end, like other public acts that are designed to get a rise out people the best remedy is to simply ignore them. Eventually another trend will come along to sweep the offending one away and it all becomes a footnote in fashion history.
Erich:
Your analysis holds up pretty well with for baggy clothes, piercings, etc. but breaks down when you get on to religion.
First of all, religious claims of the supernatural are not randomly counter-factual, as Scott Atran has pointed out. They follow certain patterns.
Secondly, throughout most of human history, there would have been very little loss of credibility in stating one's belief that a god and a human had made a baby. The idea that there are either non-corporeal beings, or beings who can shape-shift, and that these beings have various forms of intercourse with humans, is/was a truism for most cultures. So there would have been no social cost associated with making such a claim. Is there a big cost even now, except in scientific/rationalist groups?
It's interesting that you keep bringing up the virgin birth as an example of a silly religious belief. What role does it play in your lifeworld, I wonder? Why does that theme keep coming up?
Mindy wrote: "And it isn’t only the black boys, although around here at least, they take it to the lowest extreme."
Here's my prediction for the future of this fashion trend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Jerk.jpg
I too have noticed that many young girls wear pants that are too small and tops that are too short, creating "muffin tops" of flab that bunch up and hang over the waist. This seems to fly in the face of the reports we've been hearing for years about how too-thin models and actresses are poisoning our girls' minds, causing them to starve themselves.
A large percentage of the young women I see on the Widener campus (near where I live) and at the mall are much larger than the models on the cover of Vogue and seemingly proud of it, or at least indifferent. They display their curvy (sometimes OVERLY curvy) bodies prominently. Although I am sure that there are many young women attempting to match thier bodies to an unattainable ideal, my anecdotal evidence makes me think that it is far less than reported.
Vicki: I keep mentioning virgin birth because it is quite possibly the stupidest claim I've ever heard. Yet I continue to hear it uttered by otherwise intelligent people when they are in the cozy confines of their churches.
I disagree about the loss of credibility of those who utter supernatural claims. They get this glazed-eyed look that they have left this world, then they proceed to utter the absurd with certitude. That does it for me. If your suggesting that they don't lose credibilty among fellow believers, that gets more complicated, of course. Maybe someone can develop an experiment to test this. They are seen as loyal members of the group when they utter sanctioned absurdities, but compare that "credibility" to that of someone who hesitates to go beyond the evidence, and who refuses to say things that aren't true. Those folks aren't seen as loyal members of churches. But are they more credible than those who don't (OK, I'll think of another example) claim that one basket of fish and loaves fed thousands of people? You already know where I stand.
I would mainly point to a distinction between loyalty and credibility. Those who engage in making (shall we say) oxymoronic religious assertions are buying the former at the expense of the latter, in my opinion.
"Muffin tops of flab" – – I LOVE this description! Gatom, I am officially heisting that phrase for use in my own vocabulary! That is it, exactly.
As for where those muffin-tops fit in the anorexic model culture, I think (and of course, as always, allow that I could be wrong) that this particular "look" is prevalent among teens who want to emulate fashion models and thus buy the clothes, but are also firmly entrenched in the fast-food culture so are unable to fit into said clothes as the fashion models do. They don't have the self discipline to watch their diets and get good exercise and they don't have the good taste to realize that the fat rolls do, in fact, detract from their efforts to be fashionably attractive. So they don't buy clothes that fit their body types, curves and all, they don't buy sizes that fit because they see thigh-hugging jeans as the standard, and they have no muscle tone to hold up said clothing styles even if they were the correct sizes because they sit on their collective arses and text each other all day.
Or is that judgmental of me???
Mindy
Mindy, I don't know what age/gender your kids are, but I simply have not been able to find anything but low-rise pants for the past year in my daughter's size – she's gone from a 12Tall in kid's sizes to 1/3 in Juniors. Muffin tops aren't an issue for her but she's just as worried about boys seeing her underwear or potential crack problems as I could possibly be. The occasional thrift store find is our only salvation. So part of the problem is just availability.
Personally, I think that college-age girls should be worried about more important things than whether some guy is judging their bodies to be "overly curvy."
Mindy, if it's judgmental of you then it's judgmental of me too because I agree with you whole-heartedly!
There seems to be little or no awareness of the correlation between inactivity and muffin-tops among young people. Or maybe they just don't care and we older folks (I speak for myself) don't understand the new esthetic. Maybe the crusading of fuller-figured celebrities like Beyonce and Kate Winslet have paid off and girls no longer strive for the Kate Moss physique. As a man who never thought that skinnier was sexier, I think that would be a good thing, as long as they dress appropriately for their figures, exercise and stay healthy.
Vicki, you know that what college age girls SHOULD be worried about and what they ARE worried about have always been two very different things!
Erich, you think virgin birth is more ridiculous than rising from the dead and floating up into the clouds?
Hmmmm. Dead people coming alive or babies created without sperm? You know, gatmjp, I think it comes down to personal preference. Some people prefer strawberry jam with their peanut butter sandwich and others prefer grape.
The thing that bugs me especially about virgin birth is that it is not just another oxymoronic claim. Rather it is the springboard for all kinds of wacky and destructive sexual practices and restrictions. Good mental hygeine requires that people admit that virgins don't have babies.
But now you've got me talking myself out of my own rating. Let's just say that it's one of the top 10 silliest claims I've ever heard. I'd love for the Pope and all other relevant religious leaders to stand up and say something like this:
Vicki, I have two girls, 12 and 9. My oldest is solid and curvy, my youngest is a petite twig. They are both strong, both play soccer and ride bikes, but my youngest definitely has a "healthier" outlook – she is constantly moving and eats for fuel. My oldest craves meat and carbs and when not playing soccer or biking is happy to sit and knit or bead or read or play on the computer. My youngest does read voraciously, but between chapters will get up and leap around the room, run down the hallway on all fours, anything to MOVE.
But I know the pants issues. We buy clothes on ebay – it is great to find clothes in her size sold in lots – and since they are a year or three old, we can find jeans/pants that work. The stores are frustrating, and yes, mine also worries about showing too much skin. Thank goodness. She starts middle school in the fall, so I'm hoping that will keep up for a little while . . . !
Sometimes people mistaken for dead can become revived. Even a few centuries ago, the awakening of a "dead" individual probably seemed miraculous, yet it had a reasonable explaination. But never has sperm mysteriously synthesized itself within a womans womb and impregnated her. I'll have to go with Erich on this one– virgin birth sounds kookier.
I think it matters that Leeuwenhoek (circa 1650) was the first to observe sperm under magnification. But back whenever the bible was written, who knows what kind of "birth control" methods they thought "worked" if any. I mean, even today many people think "withdrawal" is effective. Even condoms aren't 100 percent effective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoe…
Dead people waking was still a problem as recently as Victorian times. Coffin makers offered high-end models with a rising shaft and bell for those worried about being prematurely declared dead until the end of the 19th century.
Read Crichton’s “The Great Train Robbery” to get an authentic feel for that era.
I just want to make a note that I haven't discussed divinely instigated parthenogenesis for at least several weeks.
… and how does that make you feel, Erich? 🙂
Inspired by his constituents, particularly teachers, who are tired of looking at other people’s underwear, [Atlanta Councilman, C.T. Martin] has introduced legislation in Atlanta that would outlaw clothing that shows off underwear, be it boxers, thongs, sports bras or even bra straps. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20423997/