Ok, maybe its a Californian thing, and I just find it weird because I’m from Maryland. But I was walking around a mall in the Riverside, CA area and I see countless teenage boys dressed like this:
What is going on with our society when the boys feel like they need to wear stretch pants? I’m not old, I’m 22, and I find this absolutely repulsive. When I was a teenager (ages ago 🙂 ) we would pride ourselves in wearing slightly baggy jeans. The girls wore the stretch pants, and we were the normal fitting jeans. Is its a gay thing? I don’t know, but things like this make me more certain that I will never raise my kids in this state. Pretty soon the guys are going to start wearing halter tops.
I struggled over whether I ought to comment on this blog entry.
As I don’t know you personally, I want you to know I am not trying to come down on you or push an agenda. But as someone that respects you in your goals and your devout faith, and as a fellow Christian, I felt that I had to say something here.
It is entirely possible that this has been blown out of proportion in my mind, but I was bothered a great deal by this post. The way it is written, it could be inferred that you are making assumptions about people, especially their sexuality, based on their clothing. We all have our clothing preferences and while many can be considered questionable from a modesty standpoint (I for one have more of a problem with young men wearing jeans so baggy that their boxers are fully visible – like I see here in Maryland where you are from – than with the denim pictured in this post), I think we need to be careful about making assumptions about people based on the local fashion trends.
Again, I prefer to assume that your comments were intended as far more innocuous but I just caution extra care here. Teenagers will be teenagers and many dress specifically to annoy their parents and elders. But in most cases it doesn’t really say anything about what kind of person they are. I would hate to see you alienate people based on a difference in fashion preference.
Ok, I’m done now, and if I’ve overstepped my bounds or offended you, I apologize, as this is not my intent. I respect you and your goals a great deal and wish you all the success that God has in His plans for you!
Hey LS. I’m not offended at all, and I hope you weren’t either. My comments were made in jest. When I was in Maryland, back in high school, I didn’t really wear baggy jeans, but I was tall, black, and I had cornrows, so I would be followed in whatever department store I entered. I know pretty well that looks can be deceiving, and I didn’t mean to convey in my post that all men with tight jeans are gay. I must admit that I am not quite socially sensitive to the gay community, and often not politically correct when talking about them, but its because I have no experiences with them, not because I hate them. I hope I cleared up some things.
P.S.- Too bad we didn’t end up at the same school. I would have liked to be back home but I guess I was lead elsewhere.
Ok, now I feel like I overreacted. Curse you internet with your lack of sarcasm-implying emoticons and air quotes!
I’m glad to hear that things are going well for you. Keep on-keepin’ on!
I would go the opposite direction. It is completely legitimate to draw assumptions about people from their clothes, which always carry a message of some kind, quite often deliberately. It is a common lie in our culture that one cannot judge people by their appearances. To some extent, yes; but one ought to take care what messages are conveyed by one’s clothes. Clothing was ordained by God to cover the body, not to draw attention to it; which is something that our culture has completely forgotten.
I would not disagree that choice of clothing can be made in such as way as to project a certain message. I cautioned against making broad assumptions about clothing choices that could be regional or cultural. As an extreme example I was in Malawi this summer and you’d have a hard time convincing me that the many women I saw baring their breasts in public were immodest or “loose” – they were all breastfeeding mothers and doing so in that context is is socially acceptable there.
On a more local level, I find nothing obscene or offensive in any of the pants/jeans pictured above.
You’d have a hard time convincing me that God wants to you make assumptions about people based on their clothing. That may happen, but I don’t believe it is what God would want of us. I think God would rather I get to know someone and draw my opinions of their character from more than their clothing.