The NY Times published an article recently about a new trend: men wearing women’s sexy lingerie. We’re not talking Tim Robbins wearing Susan Sarandon’s garter belts playing baseball in the movie Bull Durham. We’re talking full on Frederick’s of Hollywood teddies with provocative cutouts and mesh inserts. And we’re not talking just queer identity, non-binary and transvestites, although those segments are driving the bus. One company makes boxers of sheer lace that are so popular that they now have a wait list for their orders.
Suddenly, it seems like men are willing to do anything to get into women’s pants. And sadly not just metaphorically. “Men’s lingerie is one small part of a bigger movement,” said Francesca Muston, V.P. of a trend forecasting company. “You’ve got a whole generation… embracing the inclusivity and diversity within gender.” Well, I guess that’s one way to describe it.
The trend might have begun with Spanx, but men have legitimate functional reasons to wear those. Here are some companies that are hopping on this. Leak NYC is a men’s lingerie brand that makes sexy bodysuits from fishnet and other see-through materials. They purport to have the marketing savvy to allow ample room up front. This of course has me wondering if “ample” comes in sizes, the way women’s bra cups do. Then there’s Cosabella, an Italian lingerie brand. They began selling lacy men’s briefs, semi-sheer thongs and colorful G-strings on their website last year.
Some men with more traditional tastes are also becoming enamored with the new lingerie. Steven Green, a photographer and plus-size model from Kansas City, had a gig walking the runway in the 2020 Savage x Fenty show. He claims that he never thought of lingerie for men until he worked with them. Before, he only wore briefs by Calvin Klein or Polo Ralph Lauren, but he has since expanded his undergarment wardrobe. I wonder if “expanded” means he selects styles that have “ample room up front.” I appreciate that tighty-whities can be boring but that’s no excuse for full on misappropriation.
OK. Enough about the sexual misappropriation of women’s lingerie. There are other far more serious areas where men are misappropriating issues that should be exclusively the domain of women. I’m talking about a woman’s right to control her own body.
Women are now at risk of having mostly male justices decide whether Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land. I’m not taking a position here on what decision a woman should make about continuing her own pregnancy. That’s personal and it should be private. I’m simply saying that what that decision is should be hers to make, not that of a group of men who know nothing about her. That includes the predominantly male legislators who make the laws of our states that regulate what a woman can or can’t do with her own body.
The men who believe they have a right to make those decisions for us are as guilty of sexual misappropriation as the ones who are now wearing lacey teddies and see-through thongs. If men could get pregnant, they would likely have a different opinion about a lot of these issues. If they want to appropriate parts of the birthing process, how about they start with developing birth control pills for men. (We’re still waiting for that.) Here’s a novel idea: sperm wranglers. (Like cats, but even more squirrely.) It’s one way to have men help prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Women have to live with the consequences of all these decisions, so they have the right to be the sole deciders. Until men are forced to live with similar consequences, they haven’t earned the right to be a party to those decisions, no matter how sexy they feel wearing our lingerie.
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