April 14, 2022

"We’re entering a new age where male-presenting bodies are feeling comfortable wearing effeminate shapes, effeminate fabrics that did not exist when I was growing up."

"It feels like a very brave new world. We’re really trying to explore and push and question the binary that has limited us for so long.... This was born on the dance floor.... Everything was so curated and wonderful and beautiful.... I needed to step up what I needed to wear, whether it was a soft harness instead of all the leather, or the metal on the market, or a body-con bodysuit that would accentuate my features as a male-presenting person."

Said Louis Dorantes, 30, who founded the men's lingerie company Leak NYC, quoted in "Sexy Lingerie for Men Is Here/Lacy thongs and sheer undergarments designed for men’s bodies are shaking up the traditional lingerie market" (NYT).

I note the term "male-presenting person." It appears the NYT for the first and only time in that article:

 

Keep an eye on that. It may become the new standard term.

73 comments:

Kai Akker said...

---"“It feels like a very brave new world..."

Peak of cycle!

Except we're probably past the peak.

Joe Smith said...

First, 'Leak' is a terrible name for a lingerie company.

Second, I've lived near San Francisco my entire life. I've seen things that cannot be unseen...

Joe Smith said...

Btw, I am Brad Pitt-presenting.

Deal with it, bitches...

PM said...

All of it, friend, not just the garments.
"This was born on the dance floor..."

Critter said...

Sounds like a hustler! Buy at your own peril, but only after reviewing those jumpsuits from the 70's & 80's that John Travolta got you to buy.

chuck said...

Male presenting means not a male.

Dave Begley said...

This is totally and completely fucked up.

Men buy this stuff? What the hell is wrong with them?

Enigma said...

No new age, just the return of a periodic fashion and fad. Androgyny lasted 10 years in the 1960s and 1970s. "It is the dawning of the age of Aquarius. Age of Aquarius."

https://lizslaterblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/androgyny-in-the-1960s-and-70s/

People honestly like to look different from the opposite biological sex. Yes, there are two biological sexes and fashions that even eunuchs and intersexed people can choose to adopt. The male French kings wore long tights, fur cloaks, and huge wigs. See Louis XIV.

Fashions change, reproductive methods don't. We finished the metrosexual fad a while back. About 10-15 years ago some young women dyed their hair gray. We finished the urban-guy-with-a-beard-and-lumberjack-shirt era too. The next generation always rejects old fashions, so they eventually cycle through old ones and simple functionality.

But, this story fills the publication's white space.

Scott Patton said...

"very brave new world"
or a ho-hum run of the mill kink. NTTAWWT.
"felt like a godsend" - heh - they say He works in mysterious ways.

gilbar said...

Boxers? Or Briefs?
Nope, choose a soft harness instead of all the leather, or the metal on the market, or a body-con bodysuit that would accentuate my features as a male-presenting person."

I'm kinda thinking that the answer here will be: The Dogs Don't Like The Dogfood
As a male-presenting person, i feel little need for a soft harness instead of all the leather, or the metal on the market, or a body-con bodysuit that would accentuate my features as a male-presenting person

Temujin said...

Precisely what New York needs to cure the things that ails it.

I dunno. If I cannot take a subway without getting pushed into an oncoming train, or if I survive that, get shot once in the train; if I cannot walk down the street with my groceries without getting attacked; if I cannot leave my 390 square foot 'apartment' to go anywhere without wondering if I'll make it back that night, or if my apartment will be cleaned out when I do, then my next thought inevitably goes to men's lingerie and how we're working to "push and question the binary that has limited us for so long."

Seems to me a case of misreading the marketplace. But then I missed on Manzier as well.

Amadeus 48 said...

Like Kramer’s man bra, right? As usual, Seinfeld (probably Larry David) got there first.

This is why we need unconstrained comedians.

R C Belaire said...

"...men's lingerie..."? Seems like two completely incompatible words. Where the hell are we headed?

Kai Akker said...

---"It feels like a very brave new world. We’re really trying to explore and push and question the binary that has limited us for so long... This was born on the dance floor.... Everything was so curated and wonderful and beautiful.... "

You have to love his quote. What ecstatic, rarified revelation.

It belongs in a time capsule.

Jupiter said...

Time to bust out the old codpiece, I guess.

Mark said...

Apparently the author missed the 60s.

Mark said...

Apparently the author missed the 60s.

Will said...

Male presenting person?


I prefer Front Hole on a Pole

Anthony said...

I predict it will be as popular as the romp-him.

Howard said...

What a tease, Ann. You are really winding up your patients.

Michael K said...

I understand that there is a big market for this among Democrats. Who knew ?

rhhardin said...

T-shirt, Bermudas, white crew socks and crocs is out.

Ann Althouse said...

If I search the NYT archive for "male-presenting" (leaving off "person"), I get this article plus 6 more articles, *all* of which are about the TV show "Mr. Robot"!

Ann Althouse said...

I understand the term as something to be applied to a transgender male, but the article blogged here does not seem to be about transgenders but to be using "male-presenting" to reflect the idea that gender is something to be presented by everyone. I'm sensing an eradication of biological sex, to be replace by the only thing that is relevant: how you're trying to look and be thought of by others.

traditionalguy said...

He is presenting as a victim so we will owe him something. The poor guy was deprived by binary sexuality. How horrible.

Ann Althouse said...

Perhaps the term "transgender" will lose currency, and everyone will be left in the same position, as an individual choosing to define and present oneself.

"Trans-" implies movement from one place to another. That implies a person who has to *change,* while others get to stay put. I imagine that in the future, it will become wrong to think of people like that, and everyone will have to choose and present a gender.

Sebastian said...

"It may become the new standard term."

Standard prog term, possibly.

Sebastian said...

"everyone will have to choose and present a gender"

Depending on the extent of prog power and the outcome of the current culture war. To choose or not to choose, forced to choose vs. free to refuse to choose--those will be the questions of the next phase.

n.n said...

Trans-social. Social standards are set in all societies, from modern to primitive, to normalize a favorable juxtaposition of the sexes. Women looking for feminine men, are the exception, as are men looking for masculine women, and the trans/homo bands fill in that minority gap.

Sex is male and female. Gender is sex-correlated physical and mental attributes. Trans is a state or process of divergence from normal.

That said, equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. Reconcile, as virtually all humans do.

West TX Intermediate Crude said...

Worse than shorts!

wayworn wanderer said...

Hey! I'm a male-presenting person! Who knew?

John henry said...

Perhaps we need to bring back the term crossdresser.

Use it instead of "transsexual" for all these guys that claim to be women without cutting off their meat and two veg

John LGKTQ Henry

Night Owl said...

The "presenting" term is a step backwards. If you say a boy is female presenting because he chooses to wear makeup or lingerie, that's a stereotypical way to think. Many women never wear makeup and often prefer to wear pants. Are we considered to be "male presenting"? What retrograde nonsense.

rcocean said...

In this age of Gays and Trans-genders I'm sure plenty of non-straight men are buying women's underwear. But if men are going to wear women's undergarments, why not start with a girdle? Lots of men need one.

Leland said...

I don’t present. I am and have the chromosomes to prove it, because baby I was born this way.

rcocean said...

The man-bro has gone from a joke to reality.

JAFC said...

When NYU Campus Safety reports on the latest violent crimes in Washington Square Park, they now use "male-presenting" to describe the bad guy.

IamDevo said...

Deuteronomy 22:5 ESV
“A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."
The word "abomination" refers to a thing which is revolting, repugnant, disgusting. An abomination is something that you back away from with horror or dread. It is something so revolting that it causes you to vomit. This is the idea which is expressed in English with the word "abomination," which is the same concept which is expressed in Hebrew with the word "תֽוֹעֲבַ֛ת" (toebah).
And here's another little helpful hint:
Titus 2:6 ESV
"Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled."
So maybe dudes dressing in frilly, feminine garments is something to be avoided, despite any perverse desires to do so. Besides, if your mom always told you to wear clean underwear in case you were involved in an accident, think how much more she would frown on lacey underthings.

Lucien said...

What's wrong with "butch" and "femme" -- or would that be cultural appropriation from Lesbians?

Lyssa said...

“or a body-con bodysuit that would accentuate my features as a male-presenting person."

I can’t be the only person who read that and immediately thought “Stupid sexy Flanders.”

(https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/stupid-sexy-flanders)

roger said...

Hole on a pole.

Will, you should be horsewhipped on principle

BUMBLE BEE said...

Milley's ordered a production run in camo for the New Army.

tim maguire said...

chuck said...Male presenting means not a male.

Yes. Who is "male presenting"? The person in the lingerie ad seems to be an actual male, so it apparently includes everyone who goes through life as a male. In which case there is no such thing as an actual male. In which case, what does it mean to identify as male?

Liberalism: reducing language to nonsense since 1848.

tim maguire said...

Dave Begley said...Men buy this stuff?

No, much as the NYT might pretend otherwise.

minnesota farm guy said...

Drag is Drag. Someone is serving this market already regardless of today's hype.

ALP said...

New? I think French noblemen of the 1600's have that beat. When male presenting people top THAT look, I'll call it new.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Available with a menstrual shield?

madAsHell said...

My presentation isn't as glorious as it once was!!

Gravel said...

"Blogger BUMBLE BEE said...
Milley's ordered a production run in camo for the New Army."

Putting more Pink in Pinks and Greens.

Owen said...

Prof A: Let me record, not I think for the first time, my profound gratitude that you trawl the noxious cultural waters into which the New York Times dumps its wastes, so that we don't have to. It is a wonder and a blessing.

Michael K said...

"Male Presenting" refers to the anatomy of "trans" inmates in the women's prison who impregnated other XX inmates with their "presentation."

Meade said...

Joe Biden is a POTUS-presenting person.

Gravel said...

"I gotcher presentation RIGHT HERE!"

Josephbleau said...

The only question here is, does wearing this shit get you laid? Probably, for 2.5% of the population.

Iman said...

"'male-presenting person"

much as the female bonobo presents her red ass to her “community”…

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I am getting tired of people using "brave" when they mean "edgy fashion." It is a type of self-congratulation for the people obsessed with being the cool kids. They are smarter, they are prettier, they read the room better, and now they are braver, too. They aren't any of those things.

Mikey NTH said...

Like getting people to eat bugs, the stories about how the big trend is men wearing dresses is an evergreen.

wildswan said...

I honestly think that if a man had issues it would be better to wear specially tailored shirts than a bra.

Yancey Ward said...

Howard, you can now wear panties openly- this should make you very happy.

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

Who cares?

I don't mean that dismissively. I mean one of the points of this article is to shock people, and, well, good luck with that. Louis, you go girl!

Anyway, nothing can be stupider and uglier than the stupid, ugly male jumpers that came out (oh, no, you di-n't /snap) a few years ago.

Rollo said...

He's calling his own products effeminate?

Not exactly a marketing genius.

My sales pitch would have been "Are you man enough to wear sexy, silky, slinky, luxurious lingerie? A real man can put it on and pull it off. Again and again."

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Male-presenting" is abso-fucking-lutely destined to become a slam among hetero men and women. The inherent snark is too perfect to resist. The people that float this shit seem to have lost all connection to the rest of society.

gilbar said...

Rollo said...
He's calling his own products effeminate?

Well, he's calling his underwear company; the Leaky Urine Stained Underwear Company (LEAK, for short)

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

What do they have for someone whose pronouns are "Your Galactic Overlord"? Something with shoulder wings in kevlar, maybe? Stainless steel undergarments?

How about a hat with a whirling light, like a beanie, maybe?

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

New oxymoron, curtesy of the NYT: "men's lingerie." Men don't wear lingerie, women do. "Male presenting" means a woman passing as a man.

walter said...

Leak, indeed.

Jamie said...

I thought this - freedom to dress and act in non-stereotypical ways - was kind of where we were headed, before the trans movement decided that if you were born male but prefer stereotypically female stuff, you are "trapped in the wrong body."

StephenFearby said...

Wikipedia: Codpiece

"...From the ancient world there are extant depictions of articles of clothing designed to cover just the male genitalia; for example, archaeological recovery at Minoan Knossos on Crete has yielded figurines, some of whom wear only a garment covering the male genitalia.[1] However, the codpiece, per se, appeared in everyday European fashion for men only many centuries later, associated with hose and trousers.

In fourteenth-century European fashions, men's hose were two separate legs worn over linen drawers, leaving a man's genitals covered only by a layer of the linen drawers. As the century wore on and men's hemline fashion rose, the hose became longer and joined at the centre back, there rising to the waist, but remaining open at the centre front. Further shortening of the cote or doublet fashion resulted in more prominence of the genitals, so the codpiece began life as a triangular piece of fabric covering the gap to disguise that. Most of what is known about the cut, fit, and materials used for Renaissance codpieces is through portraits, clothing inventories, receipts for payments and tailor cutting guides.

As time passed, codpieces became shaped and padded to emphasize rather than to conceal, mostly the penis.

Such excessive codpieces became an object of derision showered on outlandish fashions. The Renaissance author, François Rabelais, refers satirically to a book entitled On the Dignity of Codpieces, in the foreword to his 1532 book, The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel.[4]

This fashion reached its peak of size and decoration in the 1540s before falling out of use by the 1590s."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codpiece#:~:text=A%20codpiece%20(from%20Middle%20English,%2C%20folds%2C%20or%20other%20methods.

Rosalyn C. said...

"Male presenting" in this case is a euphemism for having a penis and proud of it (gay men). "Male presenting" in the trans community means having ones mammary glands, i.e., breasts removed and growing facial hair.

What's ironic about this story is that "male presenting" transmen would not want to dress up in effeminate clothing and lingerie that would make them appear more "feminine." They want to look as stereotypically straight men as much as possible, certainly not as gay men. Although who am I to say what might happen in the future? I have seen porn online of transwomen with breasts and without the bottom surgery (they still have their dicks) and they are catering to men obviously, so what the heck do I know about what men want?

Tina Trent said...

I believe we will still be able to tell the difference between men and women as men adjust to lace underwear on a humid day.

ccscientist said...

Fashion types are always trying to start a trend by claiming that people are doing something, when in fact it might be 10 people. Men are not wearing lingerie and there is no trend.

David-2 said...

I am a "middle-finger extended presenting person".

Joanne Jacobs said...

I thought "male presenting" meant "is trying to look male but doesn't have male genitalia." Otherwise, we could say "men." This "lingerie" is designed for people with penises. Lingerie for women doesn't fit their male bodies.

What percentage of fashion trends announced in the New York Times actually become trends? Not many.