Be forewarned. This post isn't about athletic tights or the Mel Brooks movie.
It's about mantyhose.
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In recent years, there's been a rising trend in buyers of pantyhose being mostly men. As pantyhose recently started to phase out of fashion and popularity, men have been buying them for excuses like warmth or circulation. Some companies have decided to capitalize on this and market control pantyhose for men.
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But it doesn't stop there. There've even been attempts to market tights and fashion hose to men with a straight face. Like it'll ever come back in style.
Men used to be the ones who wore the tights in the middle ages but I sure as hell wasn't born then. When I think of nylons, I want to think of nice legs on a sexy woman. Seeing it on a man makes me uncomfortable the likes of well...
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Girls always talk about how pantyhose is annoying, but the last thing I'd want to see is guys wearing them. The day it becomes regular to hear some dude exclaim he has a run in his stockings, that his pantyhose is giving him a wedgie in his jeans... the day that I'll see the waistband strap of pantyhose instead of boxers peering from just above the waist of a guy's pair of pants, you can count on me to go shoot myself dead in some corner somewhere.
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Comments (28)
I wore two pairs of green mantyhose for Halloween once... It sucked. I don't see why a guy would wear any other than for a costume or something of the sort...
I wonder if you should design mantyhose with a fly.... hmmmmm -- can't imagine it being comfortable at all.
the founding fathers wore tight stockings, i see this as just another variation. bring on the mantyhose!
I don't know... I've always thought of stockings and tights and pantyhose as mainly a feminine sort of thing. Is it possible to one day look at a man in tights (like in the first picture) and think "Now THAT'S a MACHO man" (as in the same reaction you'd get from seeing a manly man, not as in "that dude's got balls" kind of macho)? That's a million dollar question there.
Mantyhose scares the hell out me! *shudders*
If the man is wearing mantyhose under his jeans, he's got some serious issues. The least of which isn't the mantyhose.
A straight man in mantyhose? That definitely isn't a straight man.
"Stupid sexy Flanders..."
Sounds like an excuse for guys curious about cross dressing.
So, first it was the man-purse, then super skinny jeans, and now we have mantyhose? At what point do they just start making maxipads for men? I wonder how that marketing meeting would go:
"See, look guys! Gender roles are SUCH a thing of the past. We can do and wear whatever we want! You can wear a pad too! Just like your girlfriend that you use as an obvious cover for your sexuality."
"Wait, wait. If a guy buys these, isn't it going to blow his cover? We're going to need to make up some half-assed, phony excuse, just like those nylon guys did."
"Hmmm, you're right. I know! We can just say it's mainly for putting inside your jock strap, you know, in case you're in the middle of a game and you happen to pee a little. Seriously, who doesn't do that? It's totally common... right?"
"... I can't be a part of this anymore *blows head off*"
ahahahahahaha. Yeahhhhhh....the day I see pantyhose instead of boxers...I'd drop that guy like yesterdays.
OMFG, my eyes..... I second, even if they "look good" in them.... like spandex and drain pipes.... Ewwwww... And the thin ones are a pain. =P
@MissPixieGlitter@xanga - Agreed!
WHY?
No. Absolutely not. 110% NO.
Just no.
What a pack muppets. I wear pantyhose made for men, they're very comfortable. The support type really do help with circulation problems in legs. How many guys who read this have earrings? It wasn't long ago that they were queer too. As for the waistband I'll show you mine, and you can remove your stupid hide from the gene pool.
@Lorelei - You really shouldn't mock something that you have no idea about. Clothes do not make you gay or straight but words can make you look like a fool.
There are lots of men who wear tights or pantyhose who are straight. In fact most of us are. Some wear for style, some wear for support but most just like the way they feel.
To keep myself warm in the harsh winter cold, I just wear thin sweatpants underneath my regular pants. Not pantyhose or any of that tight, see-thru stuff. That's what I like to see on women.
Eh-h, if I noticed my guy friends wearing "mantyhose" it'd throw me for a loop. I personally don't really care, I mean given our generation I'm mainly expecting gay males to wear them. Unless the fashion industry is deciding to go back to the 18th century, then I'm fucked. I would not give up my jeans for a cage and an overdone dress that makes me look like a cake. Fuck that!
YIKES.
We generally fear, or mock, that which we don't understand. So let's look at what 'mantyhose' IS and what it's NOT (generally speaking):
In general, it's NOT what's pictured on the guy standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. That is definitely something that's out there on the fringe of things.
It's also NOT a gay thing. From what I've read on a variety of blogs & forums, gays for the most part feel about the same way about pantyhose as the stereotypical woman does. They don't like them.
It's NOT an attempt to revert back to fashions of the 1700s. If it's sometimes pointed out that men were the ones who wore the tights in the Middle Ages, it's only to illustrate that they're NOT exclusively a female garment.
It's NOT a secret desire to cross dress, either. Guys who are wearing the male hosiery on the market today (which does come with a fly, BTW) aren't typically combining it with other female items to start looking like a woman.
It IS a recognition that men are as likely as women to have tired, achy legs due to poor circulation, and that support hosiery provides relief if worn consistently. Sometimes they're worn under jeans or other pants--sometimes they're worn with shorts. Sometimes they're in virtually invisible colors that closely matches skintone--sometimes they're worn in more visible colors like black or dark grey.
It IS a way to attain added warmth beneath outer clothing without the added bulk of long johns or sweatpants. Some guys can live with long johns, others prefer the thin fabric that moves with them.
It IS a way for athletes (especially runners and cyclists) to keep the chill off the legs when they first go outside--yet avoid overheating after their body temperature rises with exercise.
It IS also a way for those athletes to enhance stamina somewhat with the moderate muscle compression provided by support styles of hosiery.
It IS a garment worn for fashion in some cases, in that guys are recognizing that they can actually add to a masculine outfit if properly coordinated (i.e., not as shown in the photo by the Eiffel Tower).
However, for the most part, it IS something that is generally worn for more functional purposes. For my part, I initially started wearing tights or sheer hose for leg support. But after a few years I recognized that I didn't want to give up wearing shorts for good, just because I needed to wear support-style hosiery to keep my legs from aching. I've been wearing them openly among friends and colleages for years now, and nobody questions my manhood because of it.
If you're a basically masculine guy in the first place, wearing legwear doesn't detract from it. Yet, if you're an effeminate guy it doesn't matter if you wear a Rambo outfit--you'll STILL look like a girly-man. (anybody hear old enough to remember Michael Dukakis wearing the tank commander helmet during the 1988 presidential campaign?)
Hopefully, this will shed a bit of light on the subject, so some will stop and take a more reasoned approach to the "mantyhose question". Stop and see my blog, The Nylon Gene (www.nylongene.com) for more on this.
Mantyhose? O_o LOL
What's next? Thongs?? Or should I say "Mongs"?
It is rather unfair that society has such a double standard for men.
Many women can wear anything they want & when they wear men's
clothes their just called a tomboy and no one cares. Whereas a man who likes wearing
anything feminine, (pantyhose, lingerie, a skirt/kilt ) is labeled as gay, Transvestite, or otherwise not normal.
This article asks you to Learn more about the mantyhose trend
So check out the sites I've listed.
http://www.nylongene.com
http://www.e-mancipate.net
SMH
I am a 100% straight man, who has never entertained a homosexual thought in his life.
I have gay and straight friends of both sexes.I like wearing tights, I love the way they feel against my legs.
I have no sense of gender dysphoria; I am a masculine man who loves being a man and engages in “manly” activities (watching/playing football, drinking beer, working out in
the gym, admiring the female form in all its many glorious manifestations)
I also like wearing tights.
Does this make me any less of a man? Does this make me a danger to society? Is this a reason for me to be ostracised by society and classified as a “weirdo”?
Historically, many items of attire that are now considered in Western society to be “feminine”, including skirts, high heels, hosiery and make-up were everyday items of male attire.
You think women look good in jeans & pants? Up until the middle of the 20th Century it was
almost unheard of for a woman to wear bifurcated garments vis-a-vis trousers. Can you imagine the public outcry if anyone dared to suggest in a public forum that women should not be allowed to wear certain items of clothing because that means "they must be lesbians"?
With regards to the "gay" comments, you will find that, with the exception of transgendered males and drag queens, the vast majority of gay men have no interest in wearing feminine attire. These men want to attract other men who like men, not pseudo women and so they dress in a masculine fashion. As one of my gay male friends once commented on the subject of cross-dressing, "Oh God, everyone in the gay community knows that is strictly a straight man's thing!"
Why is it that women are allowed to wear "masculine" clothing with fear of redress, yet men who wear "feminine" clothing are derided? From a sociological standpoint, society sees women wearing "masculine " clothing as aspiring to a higher ideal, whereas men who wear "feminine" clothing are seen to be demeaning themselves.
Women will never achieve true equality with men as long as this mentality pervades our society.
So, why should I have to fear the derision of narrow-minded bigots who need to overcome their own sense of inadequacy by belittling others for having proclivities and tastes that they perceive to be “abnormal”?
If you have a problem with men wearing tights/pantyhose, believe me....... you have a problem!
@Silkylegs4me - LMAO
You can wear any tights you please if you are a man. Wear purple tights with daisies if you want but don't ask for my number with those on...
@Vanagloria@xanga -
@Vanagloria:
Of course if you were wearing "men's clothes" like pants, do not expect someone who does not like their women dressing in "men's clothes" to ask for your number. After all, you must have mental issues or be a closet butch lesbian because why would you wear "men's clothing" otherwise? If you doubt me on this, find any period prior to the 1950's where it was acceptable for a normal woman who liked men to wear pants. Men by contrast wore silk stockings going back hundreds of years (hell, they even wore make-up and sometimes wore heels and a wig too particularly if they were in the aristocracy).
But women wearing pants? Phuleeze, the whole "tomboy" claim is a ruse: y'all are just women wanting to be men and therefore are deranged and probably closet butch lesbians. I recommend electroshock therapy to "cure" you of this affliction -and it is indeed an illness. Otherwise, you would wear dresses all the time like a good heterosexual girl. Oh and fetch me a beer while you are at it -actually forget about it because I do not like women who are incapable of thinking for themselves and who buy the sort of unsubstantiated idiocies which parade around in a given age as "truth." Y'know, like the gem from the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries that purported as "scientific fact" the genetic mental inferiority of African-Americans. Lucky for you, there were people like me back then who did not accept that stuff uncritically. But it was people of your uncritical unquestioning mindset who did not -so there is some food for thought for you to ponder.
I would hope you would see how STUPID these kinds of "arguments" are (not to mention blatantly hypocritical) but then again, I know that reason and logic often escapes the feminine mind. For that reason, I would not be too optimistic about you actually taking a moment to "worry your pretty little head about it" and actually seeing the stupidity of this double standard