July 12, 2023

"Professor Barry said that men wearing crop tops comes at a time of 'shifting dynamics of gender' and an 'openness in masculine fashion to truly embrace a variety of aesthetics.'"

"He added that the trend is relatively affordable for most men, requiring only a T-shirt and a pair of scissors. To some men, Professor Barry said, crop tops can be more than just a fashion statement. He said he has seen crop tops embraced by men with larger bodies 'as a way to really kind of affirm their bodies and challenge stigmas against their bodies in public spaces.'"

Barry ≈ Ben Barry, "the dean of fashion and an associate professor of equity and inclusion at Parsons School of Design in New York."

He's not really encouraging this is he? Just grab the scissors and snip off the part of your T-shirt that is covering your belly whether it's in good shape or not and you'll be in fashion. No, it seems more as though he's observing a social trend, and the trend is something more like what used to get called "anti-fashion." 

42 comments:

robother said...

Anti-fashion or just "room to grow?"

rhhardin said...

I don't see any of this, though for decades groups of bicyclists have been dressing colorfully, I always assumed because they were gay. Real men bicycle alone.

madAsHell said...

Just wait until the fratty Bud Light crowd starts sniping their mid-riff open.

Oh, wait......that never happened!

Triangle Man said...

Chris Farley walked so that we could run.

Sydney said...

I seem to remember this being a thing in the 1970’s

RideSpaceMountain said...

Will we be present for the birth of a new tag? "Men in crop tops"? Don't know if a "feminine beauty" tag already exists, but that would work here as well.

tim maguire said...

Shifting dynamics of ..what? Has this guy never heard of the 70's

Jersey Fled said...

We are truly living in the end times.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

New York

Saint Croix said...

Professor Barry said that men wearing crop tops comes at a time of 'shifting dynamics of gender' and an 'openness in masculine fashion to truly embrace a variety of aesthetics.'

This is a dean of fashion?

I've seen men wearing crop tops my whole life. I think I had a crop top shirt when I was a kid. Male fashion shifts all the time, throughout history.

This is like a professor seeing some man wearing an earring and he writes some thesis about "shifting dynamics of gender."

Men have been wearing earrings for centuries. Pirates wore earrings. Obviously it went in and out of fashion, and lots of men would call men "pussies" or "sissies" or "girly men" for their fashion sense. But all of this is empty rhetoric because clothes are just clothes.

It's why Cary Grant and Bob Hope and any number of comedians would wear a dress in a movie in the 1950's. It was a disruption of norms and it was funny!

What's new and different is the way people are taking fashion and pretending like it's some sort of innate biological thing. If I'm wearing a crop top or a bra or a dress or an earring or whatever, it's irrelevant to my biological status as a man.

Fashion is fantasy, our bodies are reality. A penis or a vagina is not "fashion." You can't take one off and put on the other like it's easy to go back.

Children who don't know any better are caught up in a fad and they don't see the horrific long-term consequences of swallowing steroids like they are candy. Or cutting your balls off!

Saint Croix said...

Authorities (i.e. doctors and lawyers) are normalizing castration, like they normalized infanticide for 50 years. I think this elite class -- whether they realize it or not -- are trying to curtail human reproduction.

If I had to give my best guess for what's going on -- at a subconscious level -- it's that a huge number of highly educated people have been indoctrinated to believe that the world is in crisis from overpopulation and excess carbon dioxide (i.e. people breathing) and feel a need to stop normal human reproduction, or at least curtail it. Hence the popularity of abortion and castration among the elite class.

What will change (obviously) is the fashionable idea that changing your sex is a normal part of medical practice. That fucking fad will die -- just like Roe v. Wade -- but a lot of innocent people will be hurt by this very human madness disguised as ideology.

Lance said...

Professor Barry said that men wearing crop tops comes at a time of 'shifting dynamics of gender' and an 'openness in masculine fashion to truly embrace a variety of aesthetics.'

Don't we see these articles every couple years? Pink preppies and metrosexuals and such? And then we get a wave of faux masculine styles, lumbersexuals, blah blah blah? Ken doll for grown women.

Narr said...

Dean of fashion/man of fashion, OK, but professor of equity and inclusion?

We.Are.SO.Doomed.

Gusty Winds said...

...don we now our gay apparel...

Ralph L said...

I need guidance on the amount of underboob to be visible this summer. Don't want to look dated. Help!
Trim, shave, or neither?

ga6 said...

"dean of fashion and an associate professor of equity and inclusion"

If my son I know I failed

Dave Begley said...

What about a wife beater undershirt that is clipped off at the bottom?

re Pete said...

“How does it feel

To be such a freak?”

mccullough said...

Bring back the wife beater undershirt look.

“Stella!”

AtmoGuy said...

I wore a "crop top" nearly every day in the late summer and early fall when I was in high school in the late 80s. Because I played football, and that was what you wore under your shoulder pads so they didn't chafe, and you wanted to wear as little as possible in the heat. It was associated with athleticism and masculinity.

Yancey Ward said...

"Shifting dynamics of ..what? Has this guy never heard of the 70's"

Most of those guys were gay, too.

wild chicken said...

High school football players were wearing crop top jerseys years ago. Football is kinda gay anyway.

Saint Croix said...

What's so strange about "Drag Queen Story Hour" is how oblivious people are to the idea that transvestites are engaging in fantasy. Specifically, they are engaging in sex fantasy.

Why is it considered normal or important or a good idea to have adults (strangers!) share their sexual fantasies with your children?

Children are not old enough to be ready for sex or to understand sex at all. They are young and their brains are forming and growing in order to understand reality.

Ironically it's people who are not serious at all -- comedians -- who are pushing back the hardest on this dishonesty. Here's John Mulaney on drag queens.

What I love about his bit is how he treats them like human beings, which is how every human being should be treated. "I'm sorry, but those Tenderloin Drag Queens aren't even fucking trying."

Aggie said...

This is the part I really like: "He said he has seen crop tops embraced by men with larger bodies 'as a way to really kind of affirm their bodies..."

What - 'larger bodies' meaning beer bellies? Affirming their achievements? If they really want to show their assets, let's show the ladies those hairy flaccid man-boobies, come on guys! Affirm !"

Halter tops are next, just 'Men Working' on the self-images here.

Lawrence Person said...

This part of the "three strange people in new York" make a trend tripe that the NYT excels in.

gilbar said...

serious Question..
Is there ANY evidence of this ACTUALLY taking place? or is more manufactured crap?

Barry Dauphin said...

Wait until they return to 1970's men in short shorts. AA will have a heart attack!

PM said...

It's not a 'variety of aesthetics'. It's teh gay. And it saves cloth.

Michael K said...

Just another day in the war on masculinity.

Maybe this will clear things up.

https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1678873144201818115

MikeD said...

This Republic is doomed, "cruel neutrality" not withstanding.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

That and manbun.... and a "them" pronoun - you're all set.

walter said...

My belly. My choice.

Michael said...

I keep thinking we have reached peak stupid, but noooooo...

Saint Croix said...

I wore a "crop top" nearly every day in the late summer and early fall when I was in high school in the late 80s. Because I played football, and that was what you wore under your shoulder pads so they didn't chafe, and you wanted to wear as little as possible in the heat. It was associated with athleticism and masculinity.

When I was a kid, football players, wrestlers, body-builders and all other males were warned about the dangers of steroids.

Kids would take steroids to build up body mass, to be more "manly" and have bigger muscles. (And win more competitions and all the rewards that go with that).

We were warned, constantly, that steroids were bad and would give us cancer. I seem to remember a warning that steroids would shrink my balls, too. They were highly dangerous.

Professional athletes were fined and/or banished for using steroids. People were kicked out of the record books for using steroids. It was definitely a thing.

And today, our medical and legal "experts" are giving out steroids like they are candy. To 9-year-old girls.

Ann Althouse said...

"What's so strange about "Drag Queen Story Hour" is how oblivious people are to the idea that transvestites are engaging in fantasy. Specifically, they are engaging in sex fantasy."

Sex fantasy? Define the category. Define it in a way that includes cis women. A woman who goes out in public in stilettos and a tight-fitting dress -- is she doing a sex fantasy? Is Dolly Parton engaging in a sex fantasy?

I think you mean gender fantasy? It's not about having sex but about looking very feminine and appealing to the sexual desires of others.

tim in vermont said...

We don't put a kid who commits murder into prison for life. Why is this? Because we know that children cannot understand fully the consequences of their actions.

Enigma said...

Not new at all. Male gays and the idle rich have routinely focused on appearance, as it either matters very much to them or they are bored and looking for something novel.

See half of the ancient Roman emperors, to include Caligula, Nero, etc.
See French king Louis XIV with his furs and wigs and tights and heels.
See 1970s androgyny, per David Bowie, Lou Reed, Elton John, Mick Jagger, and many others.

Is your de facto purpose in life to reproduce via fertile mating to make new humans, or to enjoy the moment per artistic expression and hedonism? Every generation decides and the fertile ones win the long game 100% of the time. Males plainly do not need to focus on appearance to breed...they historically found mates through achieving financial stability and adopting the 'provider' role. A well-to-do man in a dirty T-shirt and jeans with a butt crack showing will suffice for many women...

But please eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die.

Howard (not that Howard) said...

"I think you mean gender fantasy? It's not about having sex but about looking very feminine and appealing to the sexual desires of others."

Fetishism.

Tina Trent said...

Aesthetically, the opposite of wife beaters.

glam1931 said...

Drag queens don't dress to attract sexual partners. They dress to impress other drag queens by mocking real women.

Saint Croix said...

I think you mean gender fantasy?

I hate the word "gender," probably because I love sex so much.

I know there's a whole world of gender enthusiasts in academia, and they write all kinds of shit about gender. And they've gone so far down that rathole, many of them have now gotten to a place where they think sexual biology isn't a fact.

Sex fantasy? Define the category. Define it in a way that includes cis women. A woman who goes out in public in stilettos and a tight-fitting dress -- is she doing a sex fantasy? Is Dolly Parton engaging in a sex fantasy?

Maybe. You'd have to ask Dolly Parton. A lot of fashion is based on fantasy. "I look good in this dress!" People use fashion to bring attention to parts of their body and hide other parts of their body.

I suspect that drag queens are motivated by sexual fantasy, but I couldn't prove it, of course. People like sex fantasies because they remind us of the fun we have when we have sex realities.

Maybe the librarians who thought Drag Queen Story Hour was a great idea are simply approaching it from a fantasy perspective. Like Pirate Story Hour. But I'm not on board with the idea that drag queens are asexual, or that this is normal fantasy play appropriate for children.

JK Brown said...

A return of the late '70s, early '80s jock (football crop top).

I think there's a photo of Tom Cruise in some movie where he played a high school athlete in one.