Althouse: "The designer Willie Norris said she was interested in 'why the short inseam vigor is so strong with straight men.'"

July 8, 2024

"The designer Willie Norris said she was interested in 'why the short inseam vigor is so strong with straight men.'"

"Gay men, Mx. Norris added, have long chosen their inseam lengths without the same sort of heated debate: 'This type of granular sartorial stance is something I see straight men participating in far more than gay men.'... Zach Pollakoff, 39, remembered when, as a college student, it seemed like a 'big statement' if someone was wearing super short shorts. 'It was like, OK, he’s not a frat dude, he’s not an academic. That’s an indie music kid.' But... 'The rules about things like inseams have become a moving target,' Mr. Pollakoff said. 'And it makes it sort of irrelevant to have a rule in the first place.'"

From "Men Wear Short Shorts. And Long Shorts. And Everything in Between. Micro-inseams are trending, but almost any length goes" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see all the pictures of hairy legs and decide for yourself).

45 comments:

Ann Althouse said...: Shorts on men (or women) may be a matter of taste, but "as a college student, it seemed" violates a real rule, a rule of grammar.

"It" was never a college student. And don't be telling me that Pollakoff might use the pronoun "it," so "it" could be a college student. That "it" doesn't stand for Pollakoff. It stands for "a big statement."; 7/8/24, 11:38 AM
tcrosse said...: Who wears short shorts?; 7/8/24, 11:39 AM
phantommut said...: Nary a straight man pictured in the article.; 7/8/24, 11:47 AM
Joe Smith said...: Short shorts are for '80s basketball players and Tom Selleck.

No exceptions.; 7/8/24, 11:57 AM
n.n said...: Sometimes men feel gay, while other times they feel somber, and other times yet they dress in the clean pair to go with the flow.; 7/8/24, 11:58 AM
Joe Smith said...: The gay dudes are advertising the goods so it makes sense...; 7/8/24, 11:58 AM
CJinPA said...: There are no straight men debating inseams.; 7/8/24, 12:29 PM
effinayright said...: Fffft! Everybody know this is how real men are supposed to dress:

https://tinyurl.com/bdh9v2h7; 7/8/24, 12:29 PM
Lucien said...: Nothing captures the zeitgeist like a 39 year old dude talking about his college days.; 7/8/24, 12:31 PM
NKP said...: Baggies and extreme baggies, popular at times in surfing and basketball, always looked stupid to me.

OTOH, shorts in the world of track & field have now approached thong territory.

I think our hostess has expressed contempt for men in shorts a time or two. However, one should not dismiss the power of shorts.

Many Springtime Saturdays ago, most international high schools on the Kanto Plain met at beautiful Kinuta Park to compete in day-long running and jumping and throwing competions between individual teams.

At the final meet to determine individual and league champions, the woman coaching the large girl's team of our arch-rivals approached me.

She said, "Michael, don't tell your son before we leave this place, but yesterday, at practice, my girls voted his legs the best looking of all the the high school boys in Tokyo - it was almost unanimous."

Those were the days, my friend...; 7/8/24, 12:32 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: I used to regularly break out my "barely cover the mullet" 1976 corduroy short shorts to embarrass the daughter when she was a teenager. These days she just rolls her eyes and tell the granddaughter Grandpa needs professional help and a sartorial intervention. I like my cord board shorts wayyyy better than effing cargo dufus shorts.
The MILFS approve anyways, so there's that.; 7/8/24, 12:35 PM
Anthony said...: I think all of mine are 9" and have been for years. Wait, scratch that: Dockers Perfect Short is 8" (I live in these from late February to early November here in AZ), but my workout shorts are 9". I'd rather work out in spandex shorts m'self -- much less intrusive/encumbering, especially when doing leg work -- but whatever.

Never did get into nor understand the capri pants that some referred to a 'shorts'.....; 7/8/24, 12:41 PM
JustSomeOldDude said...: I have general shorts for walking around, and those typically have a long inseam. Relatively speaking. My shorts for working on projects around the house are shorter because I don't want the leg to get caught in my knee pads and to elminate the need for hiking them up if I'm stooping a lot as well as to keep them from getting caught in things. Gym shorts are short for the same reason.

I am not gay.; 7/8/24, 12:41 PM
PM said...: There's a heat wave in SF, so the boys are wearing everything you showed, only shorter.; 7/8/24, 1:08 PM
retail lawyer said...: In the 90s I bought Sportif backpacking shorts, but only use them for backpacking, so they are still serviceable. They looked normal back then, but now they are too short and I look like that cop on Reno 911. I think that is now a gay look but I'm not sure. I'm not going to buy new shorts just to not look possibly gay in the wilderness.; 7/8/24, 1:17 PM
Joe Smith said...: 'There's a heat wave in SF, so the boys are wearing everything you showed, only shorter.'

You're lucky they're wearing anything at all...; 7/8/24, 1:18 PM
JK Brown said...: I remember the short inseams on shorts in the '70s. Mostly because you cut to much of the legs off your worn out jeans.

My brother's best friend, both born in '54, tells of when they were at the lake and some girls came by to talk. When the girls left, he discovered that his jeans shorts had revealed more than he'd intended by laying an egg out for all to see.; 7/8/24, 1:38 PM
tcrosse said...: Jack Paar had a tuxedo with Bermudas.; 7/8/24, 1:49 PM
Wilbur said...: I predict the Mirt will not catch on.; 7/8/24, 2:02 PM
MadisonMan said...: I think short shorts are fine for runners. (Part of the Althouse rule for shorts, I seem to recall). I had very short jean shorts as a twentysomething kid.
No one now wants to see varicosity in an oldish man.; 7/8/24, 2:10 PM
Hassayamper said...: When I was in college, half the guys in my fraternity were Spicoli-like surfer dudes from California. I heard quite a lot of hardcore California punk bands before they became well known. Black Flag, Circle Jerks, TSOL, Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion, Offspring, Public Image Ltd., and so on.

At that time and place, your board shorts had to be grazing your knees if you did not want to be perceived as a crypto-homosexual. A reaction to Richard Simmons, I suppose. Cutoff jeans were NEVER worn.

At one point Op (Ocean Pacific) and Hang Ten were hot brands, but then too many kooks and wannabes started to wear them, and soon all the cool kids would be seen only in Rip Curl, Quiksilver, Billabong, or Da Kine.; 7/8/24, 2:16 PM
n.n said...: What are the guys in gay Paris wearing?

Who's more fashion forward, gay Paris or trans DC?; 7/8/24, 2:38 PM
rhhardin said...: I've worn 5" inseam cargo shorts for over 25 years. Maximum cooling and pockets.; 7/8/24, 2:41 PM
hombre said...: If the NYT would confine itself to this kind of article, the world would be a better place.; 7/8/24, 2:42 PM
Floris said...: Sky's out, thighs out!; 7/8/24, 3:05 PM
Aggie said...: Could this be a new thread tag? Short Inseam Vigor !; 7/8/24, 3:10 PM
Omaha1 said...: Posts like this one make me miss Titus. (Obscure reference for long-term Althouse commenters). I feel that the Clumbers would appreciate the aesthetic of short shorts on men.; 7/8/24, 3:47 PM
bagoh20 said...: OMG! Tell me more.; 7/8/24, 4:01 PM
Hassayamper said...: Speaking of shorts and Richard Simmons, can anyone name an article of unisex clothing that looks more attractive on a woman (Hooters girls, Mariel Hemingway in "Personal Best") and worse on a man (Simmons) than the famous Dolfin athletic shorts?; 7/8/24, 4:05 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: For me the sight of any man's hairy legs is the equivalent of a woman (or man) who yaks unceasingly. I can't tolerate them for any length of time, too repulsive. If you are a man who has shapely legs and wants to show them off, then shave them first. Why are women with hairy legs considered repulsive but not men? Why do men get to decide what is socially acceptable or attractive?

I always thought the topic of inseam length was code for penis length. (probably something I picked up from movies) So the issue of inseam length for shorts is irrelevant imo. But then I don't know anything about menswear.; 7/8/24, 4:12 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I think our hostess has expressed contempt for men in shorts a time or two."

My position on shorts was always to advise men that they should avoid the big shorts/boxy T-shirt combo that makes them look like enlarged toddlers. I don't participate in "contempt." I just would like men to present themselves well.

Joe Smith at 11:58 AM, implies — as many men do — that women, unlike men, don't respond to superficial beauty. Maybe women are too polite or diffident to speak up against that self-serving notion. I'm trying to restore the balance. It's not "contempt." I'm a dispeller of illusions.; 7/8/24, 4:22 PM
God of the Sea People said...: I'm more concerned with how bad most of their legs looked.; 7/8/24, 4:24 PM
Hassayamper said...: For me the sight of any man's hairy legs is the equivalent of a woman (or man) who yaks unceasingly. I can't tolerate them for any length of time, too repulsive.

Hah, you'd love my hairy back then. My wife thinks I'm part gorilla.; 7/8/24, 4:44 PM
Oligonicella said...: CJinPA:
There are no straight men debating inseams.

Seconded. I'd never heard of this topic until this post.; 7/8/24, 5:48 PM
Mikey NTH said...: On inseams I say the question is comfort versus leg movement. Too high and no comfort, too low and hampered leg movement. And most straight men are not too concerned with being fashionable.; 7/8/24, 6:09 PM
Art in LA said...: I play a lot of tennis and my shorts were very short in the late '70s. Stayed short-ish until the early '90s when the Michigan Wolverine Fab 5 hoopers wore their super baggy shorts.

I have been longish since then for everything -- sports and casual out and about. My sons, early 20s, have started wearing shorter shorts ... ultimately just a style thing. I can't go as short as they do. They're young, "conform or be cast out" (Lyric from Subdivisions, Rush song from long ago.; 7/8/24, 6:12 PM
Mikey NTH said...: Gym shorts are short in the leg but otherwise loose and comfortable for range of motion. Otherwise my choice in shorts are something the British 8th Army would consider appropriate.; 7/8/24, 6:17 PM
Mikey NTH said...: Art in LA: Kudos for refrencing "Subdivisions".; 7/8/24, 6:22 PM
rhhardin said...: Here's me (left) long ago in 2005 in what I believe are my still-current 5" inseam shorts pic eat your hearts out, ladies.; 7/8/24, 7:18 PM
Ampersand said...: Art in LA -- "conform or be cast out".

I recently read Lionel Shriver's sendup of political contagion, a novel called Mania. The protaganist endures a nightmarish campaign against cognitive excellence called the mental parity movement. She manages to survive the insanity and see it begin to reverse. At the conclusion, she mentions, a bit sheepishly, that her prominence in opposing the mental parity movement might not have been very astute. She says:

"Deeply held convictions are a ball and chain. Ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The only reason my own story came right in the end was lucky timing, because most people who stick by their guns in a merely metaphorical sense end up in debt, in jail, or dead..... [B]elieving in absolutely nothing aside from what everyone else believes in the present is a huge evolutionary asset. " (p. 275)

Shriver's mordantly cynical observation has enough truth to it that I am left wondering just how much of the population has already come to this conclusion and is living their lives in this way, conforming to the herd view on everything from inseam length to abortion. Democracy thus devolves from self expression to a series of toboggan runs on the preference cascades.; 7/8/24, 8:23 PM
mccullough said...: The inseam is the length from the bottom of crotch down.

What’s the term for the length between the waist and the bottom of the crotch?

I’ve seen too many dudes with short length on those.

They are nut huggers. The male Camel Toe.; 7/8/24, 8:39 PM
NKP said...: I don't participate in "contempt."

Don't worry. Be happy... :-); 7/8/24, 10:15 PM
Achilles said...: If you are doing anything serious you wear pants. Knees, ankles and groin needs to be loose fit. You should show off muscularity in the butt, thighs and calves as a proper signal of health.

Shorts are for working out.

Kinda boring discussion.

The more interesting discussion would be about yoga pants. I have just flat out told my wife and her friends what those do to men in the Gym.

Especially if you really suck into the cracks which seems to be the thing to do now.; 7/8/24, 10:58 PM
Rusty said...: I am convinced that this is extremely important to someone who cares.; 7/9/24, 10:53 AM
Art in LA said...: Thanks, MikeyNTH 🙏. And & 🤣, thanks for the book tip!!; 7/9/24, 6:56 PM