It’s always a treat when one is privy to seeing undergarments.  Generally, it means that something good might be on the way. Possibly you’re in a gentleman’s club; there’s just something nice about seeing undergarments…unless it’s every day in public because people cannot seem to pull their pants up.

Personal photo

John Torrey

Seriously though, the issue of sagging is now a cultural one.  As I write this, the shorts I have on are not at my waist.  But I am in the comfort of my own home; I could be nude and I’m not offending anybody (as long as I keep the blinds shut).  It becomes an entirely different issue when I have my shorts at my knees and my drawers out for all to see.  But it has become an aspect of contemporary American culture, not just black culture.  It seems like everybody is sagging nowadays, primarily because it is what everybody else does.  For me to be a part of my generation, I need to know how to dress like the people my age, not the “old folks” who use belts and have their pants at their waists.

We end up with a cultural conundrum – look like the people of our time but at the same time offend many other people.  While I may be desensitized to underwear sightings, it does not mean I think they are in any way, shape, or form a presentable look.  From a practical standpoint, if it’s cold out, it becomes a lot easier to catch a breeze (and not in a good way).  There’s only so much comfort that comes from having your pants at your knees, because now you have to walk with your legs a lot more spread out, hampering one’s mobility and (trust me from experience) it is not very comfortable.  And nobody wants to look at drawers everyday. 

There’s literally nothing fit to be seen about underwear becoming outerwear.  But again, it is a sign of the times.  This generation has its own unique style, with sagging having become an influential part of the style.  People plan out what color underwear they’ll wear so it’ll match their outfits, for example.  In a certain way, sagging could be done in a respectable manner, reforming our opinions on what is presentable.

However, what does not change is that men have their underwear hanging out, and that right now, that’s not a respectable look.  So we’re still stuck – dress “respectably” and pull our pants up, or dress like the people in our generation and keep our pants lower than our waists.  To be honest, if people sagged in order to change the status quo, and not because they thought it was the status quo, I would be all for it.  But, more often than not, we sag because it is what we see everyday, and we make the correlation that it is what we should be doing.  Maybe there’s a compromise; if we can’t have the pants at our waists, can we at least have them above the lower thigh?

John Torrey is a student at Morehouse College. He wrote this article for Black College Wire.

Articles in the Voices section represent the views of the individual writers and do not reflect the opinions of Black College Wire.