2008 - Year of the (Man)Skirt

I want to talk about something different today. It's a topic I've expressed consternation over for quite some time, but perhaps not consistently enough to make clear its importance to me.

Skirts. For men. For me.

I've long had the desire to wear a skirt and experience the airy freedom that has so long been granted only to the fairer sex, but in the last few months this desire has reached a kind of critical mass so that I'm not simply going to rue my y-chromosomed fate and save my feelings for complaints; instead I'm going to do something about it. When spring comes and it gets warm enough, I'm going to wear a skirt. I don't care anymore: I'm 27 for crying out loud so why should I?

(I'm not talking about the image above, of kilts or some other silly twist on the man-skirt. I'm talking about a straight-up, no-frills skirt. Something that isn't being belittled or undermined by ethnic or cultural excuses. Really though, I don't begrudge a man wearing a kilt, that would be hypocritical. But what I'm aiming for here is something more utilitarian, something more.......natural, something that doesn't require whatever that silly little pouch is that's always hanging in front of a kilt, that bit of added clothing doesn't much jibe with my desire to loosen things up.)

Since the epiphanic moment when I was 18 and decided that I didn't really need to wear underwear really ever, my clothed life has always been first about comfort and second about comfort. For me, comfort is directly proportional to openness or freedom. (Not Bill of Rights freedom, or Braveheart freedom, but physical, untuck and unbutton your shirt freedom.) I'm very comfortable naked, and while I understand that society simply isn't ready for unabashed nudism, I still know that I'm more comfortable the closer I get to being naked. Also--and this is probably even more important--I truly cannot stand wearing pants. I will wear shorts for as long as is meteorologically possible. True anger forms when I think about how conformity dictates that a man must wear pants, especially that he must wear them year-round in "professional" settings.

I used to feel that overcoming this pants-only social policy, in favor of a more shorts-friendly one, was the hurdle I needed to clear, but lately I've come to realize that this thinking is like ordering a Diet Coke with a Big Mac: half-assed, and missing the root cause (with McD's the root issue is not the hypocritical ordering of the diet drink but the ordering of the fat-ass food in the first place). I don't need to attack pants, I need to attack the convention that doesn't allow garments other than pants. Not just shorts but skirts should also be permissible.

I remember a line from golfer Greg Norman expressing his own frustration with the pants-only PGA Tour rule: "We should be allowed to wear shorts. God almighty, women are allowed to wear 'em, and we've got better legs than they do." And right there you have another reason to let us let em hang out: we men look good down there too. I appreciate that a woman has a more delicately appealing physique, including usually-shaven legs, but it's not like a man's legs are so hideous that they must be hidden at all times. (Aside: if you're thinking logically, no I do not also think that a man wearing a skirt should then be expected to shave his legs. While I don't really have much problem with a man doing that, bowing to standard expectation is just exactly what I'm trying to combat here.)

Assuming that most men who choose to go skirt would probably not decide to shave, and further that a man's hairy legs--while largely inoffensive--are still usually not as attractive as a woman's smooth ones, it only makes sense for a man-skirt to be of a sufficient length. I'm thinking about as long as most men's shorts are: roughly to the knee or just above, at minimum. Let's say that any brave--or, put another way, flamboyant--soul who wants to bare a bit more has my blessing but not my communion.

Now that I've gotten some of the generalities out of the way, I'd like to acknowledge the hill I'm trying to scale. Scorn and derision (and worse) have always accompanied even the stray thought of a man wearing a skirt. It's impossible at this societal moment to not at least be labeled as a homosexual for wearing a skirt; this is simply a stigma that must be either ignored or else somehow overcome. I can say with experience that when initially confronting the world with an admittedly much-less-stigmatized moustache, responses varied from shock to ridicule to repulsion, but that after some time and some confidence exhibited by myself, these reactions have unanimously disappeared. The only way to go with this is to do it and do it without irony, without embarrassment, and without hesitation.
It's not a fashion statement, it's a cultural and sociological statement. There is no good reason why a man should not be able to wear a skirt and be accepted, respected, or even applauded for it. In fact, I think that most men, if they would only give it a chance, would find a skirt so pleasant that they wouldn't ever think of going back to our current unfortunate skirtless ways.

I don't know where I'm going to find a skirt to wear. I may have to befriend a designer or someone in the textile industry. But I'm going to make it happen. The tipping point has been crossed. It's too late to have my mind changed. But it's never too late to change yours. So get on board. Man-skirts in 2008. If we can elect a black guy as president, we can do anything.