Why All the Strange News Clippings?

[Bob]

I admit, I've been posting a number of news clippings that don't seem to bear directly on skirts and kilts for men. Why?

It's because I believe that skirts and kilts for men, and fashion freedom in general, brings up a whole host of issues. Those issues in particular include our concept of gender, gender relations, feminism, body image, our sense of self. Should men have paternity rights equal to women's maternity rights? How do people feel about shorts in the workplace on women vs. men? If not our trousers, what IS it about us that makes us men? Is it OK to love your masculine body? Do you feel different inside wearing a skirt or kilt? What does this mean (or not mean) with respect to our sexualities?

Those outside our community also from time to time bring up another set of peripheral issues including homosexuality, transgender issues and random other unusual kinds of sexuality. Sure, we know they don't have much to do with skirts and kilts for men. But since others WILL bring them up, we have to talk about them too; a good defense is a good offense. Why do you want to wear woman's clothing? Are you a cross-dresser? Does wearing a skirt make you gay? Are skirt-wearing men a danger to minors? Is this just a stop on the way to a sex change? Sexuality in particular is a big, divisive issue in our society these days, and I'm afraid we can't always steer clear of it.

It is these "deeper" issues that I believe are ultimately most important to us, not just the fact that we might wear a skirt on Tuesday. A certain other kilt-only board has made it very clear they want to discuss only kilts. Not skirts, nor any of the deeper issues. I find that somewhat tedious; you can only talk about sporrans and tartans for so long.

So... any comments? If people really don't want to discuss these kinds of issues, I will stop pressing for them, I promise. But I think it would be valuable for many of us if we could (and we have in the past, to a certain extent).

[The Satirist]

Geez, Bob... You think too much. :rotfl:

[Steven]

I agree, there are deeper things, no sense in hiding them.

Steven

[iain]

Sexuality is clearly a fluid element in personality, and it should be reflected in fashion. But sexuality is more useful to the media if it appears inflexible, thus some people can be parodied or lusted after or whatever else relies on some kind of image already fixed in the minds of the public.

Women experienced this when the sexualisation of their bodies which seemed liberating at first became so fixed in the minds of men that their sensitivity and other needs were ignored, even within relationships. Men's desire to be the conquerors and constantly "wearing the pants" has also now backfired badly in that they have other elements in their personality which must be acknowledged. the media continues to parody skirts for men because the image of men being clothed for assertion has become fixed in most people's minds.

Fluid sexuality and fashion is a stimulating area for talk but cases where the rights of others are horribly abused and their lives ruined are not really suited to be a talking point for pleasingly wordy intellectual waffle. I think there are some topics so obscene, not that they can never be considered, but that they ought to be out of bounds to casual armchair discussion.

[Since1982]

What iain said sounds good to me. I think.