panties

when i first started teaching, boys did not wear their pants down low. or maybe my boys, a cluster of strange, disturbed, angry little fifth and sixth graders simply hadn't grown up enough for that. but over the years i've spent more time than i care to contemplate saying, "i don't want to look at your panties!" to a generation of preteen and teenage boys.

here's what i know. boys do not refer to their undergarments as "panties". i do because it amuses me and it tends to elicit all sorts of defense of boy panty exhibition, which also amuses me. boys who wear their pants down low wear boxers. generally, they're pretty boxers, fashionably matched up to sneakers, jackets, belts, t-shirts or bandannas. boys spend a lot of time trying to look fierce, the way girls spend time trying to look pretty, only more so. i have had boys tell me they can't get out a sheet of paper until they finish brushing their timberlands. i'm not making this up. boys have pretty little brushes like shoeshine guys have and they spend copious time brushing their boots. boots intended to go hiking, logging, onto construction sites. rugged boots. brushed and brushed and brushed. soft. pretty.

but we should get back to the boy panties. we don't have all day and i'm not writing a book here. when i started working with the high school children the low hanging pants were certainly the way to go in harlem. more than anything they just look silly. boys staggering around unable to walk with a normal gait because the crotch of their pants sits just below the knee. a big puddle of denim slouches over those pretty boots and shoes, all but obscuring them. side note. being all but obscured does not in any way diminish the amount of time and money spent on the foot gear. boys who wear their pants like this, especially the skinny ones, look like pulled teeth lurching around. those tiny root legs don't seem sturdy enough to carry around the wedge of bulk sitting on top of them.

it has always been more a source of bafflement than annoyance. i wonder why people would look in the mirror wearing their pants halfway down and actually decide to leave the house the same way i wonder how anyone can talk seriously about the music of, say, michael bolton or the jonas brothers. but it's not just a harmless fashion faux pas. there are dangers. very real dangers. a few years ago i was sitting at my desk between classes. a very exuberant child came leaping into the class and stood in front of me, raving passionately about something. his skinny legs and generally buttless self riccocheted like a pinball. and as he spoke and leapt around his pants rebelled and i found myself staring smack into the face of mickey mouse, as represented on a pair of long, shiny boxers. the child's pants had fallen clear off. without missing a beat he grabbed them by the belt, which was circling his very finely brushed boots, and whipped them back up to a level somewhere between hips and knees. it was immediately evident this sort of thing happened to him often enough for him to be good at swooping his pants back up.

and over the last ten or fifteen years i've managed to learn to live with the constant, oppressive inundation of boy panties. they fit snugly up at the waistline and because they're boxers, the legs tend to cover all the things i don't want to see on children i'm trying to teach. as long as they don't fall off. but today i saw something that changed everything. i hopped off the train and was walking the twelve or so blocks to home. a teenage boy walked in front of me, chatting on a cell phone. he looked like my own little babies, decked out in a cotton hoodie that couldn't possibly be keeping him warm. but it was purple and black striped. and purple is what the boys are wearing these days. who knew? the hood was up and partially covered a gray and black striped knit cap. the child's jeans were low, held to his body by a deep purple belt and hope, i suspect. his sneakers were three colors of purple, matched neatly to the belt, the hoodie and... his boy panties. but here's the thing. here's the problem. this dear child didn't get the memo about how boy panties for lowrider jeans have to be boxers. or even boxer briefs. this boy was trying to rock the whole low pants scene with tighty whities. except in purple. beautifully matched to the shoes, hoodie, etc. but in no way capable of covering everything that might hang out when the pants hang low.

as a result, each time the child (maybe 17, maybe 18 years old) took a step, the leg stepping forward flashed a slice of skin, and not at all a small slice. i should mention here that today i walked home in 36 degree weather. as did purple panty boy. which means he had to know his lower butt/ upper leg was flashing each time he walked. this, of course, means one of two things. thing one: he didn't know how to fix his pants/panty debacle in public and hoped nobody would walk behind him and mock him. if this is the case, i didn't mock him out loud at the time, at least. then there's thing two: he genuinely thinks his lower butt/upper leg region is so fantastically desirable that he needs to bare it in 36 degree weather when outside and completely alone. i cannot imagine that this is the case. having walked behind these flashing parts of him for five blocks i can say that although i found the whole thing pretty amusing, it certainly wasn't pretty. in fact, i'm pretty confident that even teenage girls would giggle if they saw him. but he strutted on, chatting overly noisily on his phone, his pants slipping lower with each step. he'll be pretty cold when they finally fall off.