"Foes of shorts — you may know the type of man who, despite the risk of developing heat rash and a reputation as a crank, opposes the things on principle..."

"... argue that the childishness denoted by their brevity cannot be overcome. The detractors contend that shorts are categorically unattractive on grown men, that even when they look good they seem callow. I need to guess that on some level, a significant subset of shorts-­wearers agree, given the persistence of cargo shorts. The pockets of cargo shorts, though ideally practical for a roofer or a gaffer on the job, make rather less sense as the omnipresent ornaments of weekend-­wear that they are, unless you regard them as a kind of ballast to balance puerility. Those pockets aren’t empty; they’re full of the idea of rugged work. To butch up the look in full, a fellow does not settle for the basic khaki coloring of old colonial campaigns but instead pursues a camouflage print. This is a standard streetwise look — camo cargos, T-shirt, a pair of Nikes bearing the soaring silhouette of Michael Jordan. Not for nothing, ­Jordan’s early ’90s taste in long basketball shorts is credited with steering us away from skimpiness and toward hems that swagger below the kneecaps, swishing like zoot suits."

One paragraph from a NYT Magazine essay by Troy Patterson about men in shorts titled "He’s Got Legs."