Pick up your damn pants

If you wore this outside, you deserve to be put on blast.

A version of this article, as featured in The New York Times on September 25, 2009.  Click here to see it.

In general, I make it a habit not to come in contact with men’s underwear.  I guess I’ve heard too many stories about turning dirty drawers inside-out and wearing them again to consider male skivvies the least bit desirable.  Since I’m single, this avoidance works out pretty well most of the time.  In the off chance that I do encounter a guy’s underpants, I anticipate that he’s at least showered and worn clean one for the occasion, and implore him to pick them up off the floor on his way out.  So imagine my dismay at being confronted daily with the countless men who refuse to cover their underwear with pants.

The name says it:  UNDERwear.  I know it’s a trend these days, popularized by Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, to actually buckle one’s pants under the buttocks.  Apparently it began in jail – enough reason to abandon the practice altogether – when inmates weren’t permitted belts.  Personally, I’ve spent some time in a place where belts and shoelaces were verboten and I’m in no hurry to take fashion advice from people I met there.  Anyway, now there are teenagers and men my age (who should really know better) walking around, standing in front of me on the subway where I can get an eyeful of their tighty-whities which, in many cases, have long since ceased being “white”.   I’ve also seen the backs of hairy thighs peeking out over the belt, giving me a full view of some dude’s whole entire ass.  What’s the point?  If your pants hang that low, you can walk very fast and have to do a modified waddle to keep the pants from dropping completely (I say, what’s the point?  Everyone’s already seen your stuff).  You always need a hand free to hike up your pants so you don’t walk out of them.  You have to pay lots of money for ever-longer shirts to cover your butt which, apparently, don’t really exist since I KEEP SEEING YOUR UNDERPANTS.

My dismay is not new, and tons of people have shaken their heads at the topic of pants below the equator.  Since there’s very little else I can add, allow me to list some other cringe-inducing sartorial choices for men and women alike:

1. Loose, untied shoes:  Another prison-inspired trend, best left on the yard.
2. Rompers/shortalls: The ease of a dress with the comfort of shorts, and I’m all for convenience.  But when adults start wearing items of clothing that I’ve been buying for people’s babies, something is wrong.  (See also:  baby dolls, ruffles, and any other fashion trend that infantilizes grown-ass women and makes them look like they’re on the playground.  Until they make ‘em for men, just say no)
3. Tunics w/tights:  Aah the tunic:  not quite shirt, not quite dress.  I’ll file this under the “cover up your ass” column, since I’ve seen many a tunic worn with un-opaque tights and, again, I’ve seen an eyeful of some girl/woman when it was uncalled for.  I contend the same for women’s underwear as men’s:  I don’t know you like that, so I don’t want see them and I don’t want to see what’s supposed to be under them.  Cover it up, ladies.
4. Thongs w/short skirts:  Not a fashion issue, but one of practicality.  Do you really want to sit your bare ass on the subway?  At least carry a seat cover or something.  I’m just saying…

Well, I’ve covered all the bases, for now.  But back to my original point, fellas.  Unless you’re David Beckham, and your chiseled body has been groomed and styled into some new, clean, very white Emporio Armani briefs that cleverly conceal your junk while suggestively hinting at its ample size, I don’t want to see your underwear.  And neither does anyone else.