Sag Bashers
Exposing the misguided war on saggy pants
What else is the law but a metaphorical belt designed to uphold proprietary and keep us from exposing our inherent baseness to each other? This, at least, is what an epidemic of legislative tailors seem to believe: Each month brings news of the latest effort to crack down on saggy pants. In December, the Jasper County Council in South Carolina passed an ordinance making it illegal to wear your britches three inches below your hips and expose your underwear—or worse—to innocent bystanders. In January, South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford introduced a bill that would make saggy pants a crime throughout the entire state. Earlier this month, Joe Towns, Jr., a state representative from Tennessee, took up the call against the surprisingly long-lived fashion crime, which started in the early 1990s and continues to be popular despite—or perhaps because of—repeated efforts to criminalize it over the years.
Sag-bashers object to the style on more than just aesthetic grounds. A hallmark of hip-hop culture, saggy pants are considered an homage to prison garb, where belts aren't allowed because of their potential utility as noose or weapon. To wear saggy pants, critics maintain, is to reject authority, embrace criminality, and visually assault the world with the garish plaids and bold patterns of fashion boxers. Also, critics assert, saggy pants make it easy to conceal knives and guns within their droopy, voluminous folds.
The ascension of President Obama may be one reason for the surge of anti-sagging evangelism in recent months. "You know, some people might not want to see your underwear—I'm one of them," he exclaimed during a November 2008 interview with MTV. But while Obama made it clear he wasn't interested in trying to criminalize the style, calling laws against pants-sagging as "a waste of time," politicians like Robert Ford and Joe Towns, Jr., apparently don't watch much MTV; the former even presented his anti-sagging legislation as a kind of tribute to the new president. "You've got an African-American president," he told the Associated Press. "You don't have to emulate prisoners no more. You can emulate somebody like Barack Obama."
According to the Associated Press, Ford doesn't believe his bill will pass—apparently he "just wants a spirited discussion" on the taxpayer's dime. And even in cases where such political theater blossoms into genuine law, it often remains, well, political theater. In Delcambre, Louisiana, for example, saggy pants have been punishable by a fine of up to $500 and six months in jail since June 2007. When I called Delcambre's mayor, Carol Broussard, to ask him how many people the town has cited for that offense since the ordinance went into effect, he said he didn't believe any had. "There have been some warnings, though," he offered.
Even if enforcement is rare, however, the number of places in America where, say, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton might end up with lifetime sentences just for walking down the street is somewhat alarming. Along with Jasper County and Delcambre, Lynnwood, Illinois, Mansfield, Lousiana, and who knows how many other municipalities now have specific ordinances that make it illegal to expose anything more than a three-inch swath of underwear. In addition, as Radley Balko has documented at Reason, zero-tolerance vigilantes like Flint, Michigan police chief David Dicks and Jackson, Mississippi mayor Frank Melton seem more inclined to follow the strong arm tactics of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy-style bullies than our Founding Fathers when it comes to making over their fellow citizens. "I certainly respect the Constitution, but we have some issues that are much bigger than the Constitution," the mayor declared, as he announced his intention to issue an executive order against saggy pants even after the Jackson city council voted against such a measure on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
As the number of elected officials willing to moon the Bill of Rights increases, one can't help but wonder if their efforts are terribly misguided. Indeed, if saggy pants are such a sure indicator of criminality, why do we want to eliminate this easy identification system? Perhaps we should even pass laws that require ex-cons and other suspicious types to wear saggy pants—after all, if you're going to get mugged by someone, wouldn't you rather it be by a guy who stands a good chance of tripping over his Sean Johns than someone sporting a pair of Nike's latest performance-enhancing compression tights? As Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino recently observed about a burglary suspect who was apprehended by his own pants while fleeing from law enforcement officers, saggy pants can function as "trouser Tasers."
In addition, if the appeal of saggy pants is their criminal connotations, how does criminalizing them make them less glamorous? Instead of passing a bunch of ridiculous laws that will merely clog our legal system even further as every First Amendment ambulance chaser lines up to cash in on the Frank Meltons of the world, why not just convince a few civic-minded belt designers to start giving away free product to some trend-setting rappers? Or perhaps all our armchair sartoria engineers could hire a bunch of paunchy, middle-aged white guys to start wearing their slacks shockingly low, thus destroying the cool factor of pants-sagging once and for all. Or to put it another way: Finally, at last, here's a way for Joe the Plumber to truly help make America a better place.
Contributing Editor Greg Beato is a writer living in San Francisco. Read his Reason archive here.
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To be fair to Sen Ford, once he has eradicated baggy pants and those fake testicles that hang from your pickup truck hitch, SC will really be the utopia we’ve all dreamed about.
Ah, stupid fashion trends–America’s answer to, well, something. Why people worry about what silliness the children are up to is beyond me. I’m just saddened that kids aren’t toga-clad, as would befit a classically educated populace.
To wear saggy pants, critics maintain, is to reject authority, embrace criminality, and visually assault the world…
…and to tell the world that you’re an illiterate loser. Not that that should be illegal.
I’d love to blame ignorant redneck southern yahoos for this utterly stupid crusade.
But, I can’t. I think the original saggy pants windmilll tilt happened right here in Michigan.
Sons and daughters of the confederacy, feel free to blame Michigan for this imbelicic bullshit.
When I was in high school, a kid came to school once wearing nothing but boxers and a robe. And they didn’t try to stop him. He proved his point and didn’t dress like that again.
Go ahead, wear your pants around your knees. But if you’re going to dress like a criminal, don’t whine because no one will hire you.
So if they wear their pants the ‘right’ way, the kids will straighten up and denounce all of the things we dislike them for? Genius! Maybe we should set up some ‘timeout stations’ throughout or metropolitan areas too! Think about it! Little stools on street corners that cops could make unruly teens sit on for 10 minutes while they think about the detrimental effects of loitering!! It would change the world!!
Excuse me while I go write a letter to my Congressman.
I think the original saggy pants windmilll tilt happened right here in Michigan.
Then you haven’t traced the genealogy back far enough. Every stupid yahoo crusade in the last several centuries has started in Massachusetts. This one is too stupid be the exception.
The more adults complain/give a shit about what the kids are wearing, the more they’ll do it. It always astounds me that so many adults, who were once kids themselves, have absolutely no idea how kids think or behave.
Not to start a race war or anything, but when I look at that picture, I see human chimps.
In case you were wondering, Jasper County is a shit hole with a serious crime problem.
This fad too will pass. About the time their peers start ridiculing wearers for looking like they are so poor they have to wear big brother’s hand-me-downs.
In case you were wondering, Jasper County is a shit hole with a serious crime problem.
Compared to Flint, Michigan?
Sorry, my peeps. I sag. When women stopping thinking it’s attractive, I’ll change my evil sagging ways. The market has spoken.
Nobody is surprised to learn this, Naga.
Anyway, it’s good to know that state legislatures have dealt with all the BIG problems.
Kansas City, Mo, is considering a ban not only on saggy pants, but on “size of jewelry, types of headgear, and the length and fit of trousers” in a downtown entertainment district.
Some claim this ban is aimed at a certain racial group.
Xeones,
True. 80% of my bad habits can be traced to women in some form or another.
The upside to saggy pants is that you can taunt these dipshits with impunity because they can’t chase you without having their pants fall down.
Jordan,
Guns. Nobody seems to get a beat down anymore. They get shot.
Saggy pants: +2 for rebellion, -100 for looking like you just shit out 40 pounds of come in your pants
The librarian is giving out advice on coolness? 😉
Status, food, sex, so long as these little urchins can get one or more of these three things by sagging their pants, and exposing whatever, then the fashion shall remain alive.
I may not be personally fashionable, but at least I have the skillz to research how to be. 😛
To me, it isn’t the saggy pants (like someone said upstream, if you want to look like a moron don’t be surprised that you can’t get a job) it’s the obligatory hand fondling the wedding tackle that’s really stupid.
Saggy pants: +2 for rebellion, -100 for looking like you just shit out 40 pounds of come in your pants
Saggy pants: +2 for rebellion, -20 for conformity, -8,000,000 for looking like you got pantsed and discovered that you liked it, -infinity for complete and total lack of style awareness
SugarFree,
Sounds a bit square to be researching coolness. lol!
steve,
Correct. Though it really seems to always come down to the opposite sex. Some birds build elaborate nests, some place shiny objects around to attract a mate, some attempt to offer a meal, etc.
Someday old man pants pulled up to the sternum will be fashionable.
Damn you Jeff P!!! That comment was almost to full of win!
Stores in my inner city neighborhood are now selling jeans which have a couple of inches of plaid at the waistband. I see them on the older (25 y.o. and up) members of the community.
That way they have the saggy look without the saggy pants!
Thug life is it’s own reward.
Addendum: As an inner-city dweller I’ve just got to say that folks who sag, walk in a way that reminds me of how a three-year-old walks about an hour after he’s pissed his pants.
“Someday old man pants pulled up to the sternum will be fashionable.”
The Misses likes ’em.
Really, Naga? I’ve never met a woman who thought this was attractive. Hell, most women I’ve met try to clean guys up, not make the guy with them look like a retard.
“I’m just saddened that kids aren’t toga-clad, as would befit a classically educated populace.”
TOGA!
TOGA!
TOGA!
I thought saggy pants went out in the late 90s…
I haven’t seen all too many since then
Hell, most women I’ve met try to clean guys up, not make the guy with them look like a retard.
Nick – to give him credit, women like to think that they’re fixing up something that’s rough underneath. To some of these women, if you’re already cleaned up, how do they know you’re not a wuss?
To wear saggy pants, critics maintain, is to reject authority, embrace criminality, and visually assault the world…
OK, maybe I will start sagging, but just for these reasons, not because I think it is comfortable or looks cool. If I actually thought these guys were sagging for this reason, I’d applaud them. I don’t think it’s the case.
Where do you put your gun if your drawers are falling down?
Good point, Moose. But, I just don’t think I want the woman who is attracted to retards. Eh, what do I know, I met my wife in college where she made fun of guys who walked like they dropped a deuce in their shorts.
“The upside to saggy pants is that you can taunt these dipshits with impunity because they can’t chase you without having their pants fall down.”
That’s why I strongly support saggy pants. They can’t run with their pants falling down.
If they’re going to outlaw stupid fashions, they should do something about those balding guys who think that combing their seven remaining strands of hair over their shiny scalps fools ANYBODY who is not legally blind.
Ah, Senator Blutarsky. I miss him!
back in 92 when i’s doing my cantones time, wearing yo britches down around below yo ass meant that you’s a bitch witout a booty bandit, but you’s lookin fo one
hey, officer krupke, krupk you
Please don’t make this illegal. It’s such a useful tool for spotting idiots.
I wish every idiot wore a sign that said: “I am a moron.”
When I was in high school, a kid came to school once wearing nothing but boxers and a robe.
This sound remarkably similar to a dream I’m sure I had in high school. Only the robe and the underwear eventually disappeared entirely.
“Where do you put your gun if your drawers are falling down?”
In the waist band of your boxers.
I ask myself, was P Burress saggin’?
I am officially starting a new trend:
Saggy kilts.
You’re welcome.
Nick – to give him credit, women like to think that they’re fixing up something that’s rough underneath. To some of these women, if you’re already cleaned up, how do they know you’re not a wuss?
Apparently, the important thing is not that she has an emasculated boyfriend, but that she gets to emasculate you personally.
“Sorry, my peeps. I sag. When women stopping thinking it’s attractive, I’ll change my evil sagging ways. The market has spoken.”
Sorry, Naga – I’m a woman and I’ve always found saggy pants repugnant.
Personally, I always preferred guys in tight jeans.
Jeff P,
Humor aside, I’m surprised that kilts haven’t made it into teen wardrobes (it happens in the UK from time to time). The best part about boys wearing them is that they get a lovely lawsuit handed to them when they’re forced to go home to change. Equal protection, biotch!
Yeah. I remember when wearing a white T-shirt was gangland-style, and the flattop the bad-boy haircut.
To wear saggy pants, critics maintain, is to reject authority, embrace criminality, and visually assault the world…
I.e. act like most teenagers throughout history.
Also, critics assert, saggy pants make it easy to conceal knives and guns within their droopy, voluminous folds.
Bogus answer. I routinely conceal a Glock 30 while wearing slacks and a dress shirt, even during 110-degree summers.
“I certainly respect the Constitution, but…
Any such sentence should be instantly terminated, along with the career of the politician uttering it.
Since we’re on a banning slew.; How about wife sloppy wife beaters on distended beer bellies?
Or Clam diggers? Who thought THOSE where a good idea.
The real issue here is a race issue. The largest population to drop trowel at the sac level is young Black males, and their counterpart white males. (Some ladies too)
It’s a war on culture, race and idealism. And when was it a crime to show distaste for authority? I remember very clearly that’s what our founding folks did… hence the feather in the hat!
Ever heard of the mini skirt? Do we need a fashion hx from our country? Less then 60 years ago women weren’t allowed in Disney land if they weren’t wearing a skirt.
Priorities people.
Maybe if they spent those wasted tax dollars on education, people would be more inclined to wear a belt, and tighten up their look.
Because they want to, not because they where told to do so.
The Medic
I think dressing stupidly, like, where you can’t walk fast without your pants falling down, is a little, well, stupid. I say that with a full appreciation that kids exist to drive their parents nuts. But are these kids stupider than the Boomers? Probably not–that’s a really high standard.
JB…” Here’s yer sign”
Kilts and togas, of course, are totally functional and convenient.
“Someday old man pants pulled up to the sternum will be fashionable.”
There was a MST 3000 one time where the movie they were showing featured 1950s hipsters with their waistbands up around their nipples. Daddy-O it was called.
Joel and the Robots sang a song about it.
“Bogus answer. I routinely conceal a Glock 30 while wearing slacks and a dress shirt, even during 110-degree summers.”
So where do you pocket your gage?
first they came for the baggy pants, but I didn’t speak up because I wore a belt….
Cool factor? Moron factor is more appropriate. No, we don’t outlaw stupidity or obnoxious behavior. Shunning would be more appropriate and constitutional.
seperate, and so obviously unequal. That is society’s judgement of saggin, imho.
or maybe I’m just a hate filled racist fuck.
Another retarded fashion trend is the
“skirts with pants” thing that you see hippie chicks doing.
It’s because if your wearing pants, there’s no flipping reason to wear a skirt on top of it. The only conceivable reason to do so is because you think it’s hip, or something.
Hence the retardedness. I realize a lot of hipsters like to violate mainstream fashion trends by (say) dressing like a bag lady, but actual bag ladies dress that way for practical reasons, not because they think it looks cool.
Let’s stop calling them ‘hipsters’. I recommend ‘hiptards’ or ‘anklesters’.
I think the original saggy pants windmilll tilt happened right here in Michigan.
There was a state legislator down south who got this idea sooner than that. Can’t remember his name, but he was a democrat black church bible-thumper type.
-jcr
Oh, how I long for the conservative, refined and erudite look of the backwards baseball cap.
But would the suggested return to high trousers have enough aesthetic appeal to offset the loss of testicular circulation?
Thanks for this article. Sometimes we get wrapped up in all the seriously, dangerously, and frighteningly retarded things lawmakers get up to and we forget about the small, day-to-day retardation they discover when they aren’t looking for a country to destroy.
Man what the hell are they going to do when our generation gets in power and decides to start banning hair plugs and suspenders?
Former Flint Police Chief David Dicks was recently indicted on Federal felony charges and resigned from office. Perhaps this was divine intervention intelligently designed to allow Dicks to pursue his mission against the sag. If the sag is truly derived from prison garb, Dicks may now have an opportunity to personally crusade against its creators. It would be interesting to hear the ex Police chief’s try to convice his cell mates why it was a good idea to criminally charge and jail saggers.
Please don’t make this illegal. It’s such a useful tool for spotting idiots.
I wish every idiot wore a sign that said: “I am a moron.”
I feel the same way about vehicle testicles.
No one wears saggy pants anymore. No one has for years. Why the bleep is this news?
hahah… In art school I made a labia/vagina version of those stupid nuts ( out of a casted rubber latex) and hung it off the back of my truck.
It only lasted about a day before someone stole it.
I made boobs one years too. Got pulled over for them. the cop tried to tell me that they were a “distraction”.
I left them on.
Until someone stole them.
So if you are ever in San Diego, watch out for a vehicle with a runnaway vagina and boobs.
🙂
You guys don’t get it.
Ghettowear is promoted by COPS.
Think about it. If YOU were expecting to have to chase someone, wouldn’t you want him to have his pants down around his knees, a bunch of chains on neck and wrist to hook on stuff, and sneakers which flash lights with ever step down that dark street?
And what’s the best way to make sure they keep wearing this stuff? Tell them they aren’t allowed to!
It’s all part of a plan . . .
“I feel the same way about vehicle testicles.”
When you see fake testicles hanging from the bumper, you know there’s a real p***k hanging onto the steering wheel . . .
I did a blog post on this issue a year ago. And I agree with Obama… making laws to deter this sort of thing are just a waste of time.
I worked at a prison at one time. One of the inmates there had been busted for dealing crack. He got caught because the big, gold dollar sign medallion we was wearing at the time got caught on a fence he was trying to jump over while the cops were chasing him.
Freedom is such a curious thing.
I want freedom from living near the kind of idiots who think walking around with saggy pants is a good thing.
He should be able to do whatever he wants in his town — he’s the elected leader.
If that includes rounding up the saggy pants people and dropping them off in Mexico or Canada, so much the better.
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