Men in Skirts as a Social Movement

[SkirtDude]

deleted

[Milfmog]

I'm not going to attempt to answer this for anyone else but, speaking personally, I am not part of any social movement. I'm just a regular guy who was smart / lucky / odd* enough to discover that skirts are comfortable and fun and self-confident enough to let others see me wearing them.

For me skirt wearing is nothing more than a matter of comfort and choice.

Others may have very different views.

Have fun,


Ian.


* delete as you see fit.

[Since1982]

Or any other kind of "Movement".

Are we really a "social movement" yet or are we a just a bunch of guys with some unique ideas yacking on an internet forum?

If we are a social movement who are our leaders?

Has the time come when we can make real changes in western society?

Do we have a long term strategy to get there?

What are our short term tactics to start moving in the right direction?

I think we are
just a bunch of guys with some unique ideas yacking on an internet forum, that SOMEDAY MAY become a relevant social, political, psychological movement.

[cessna152towser]

Some of the purely kilt forums have a social aspect in that there are enough members living close enough together to meet up and go out as a kilted group on the occasional Friday or Saturday night. Men in skirts does not seem to have reached that critical mass yet, except possibly in some of the European cities. I think the internet has done a lot to bring those of us with a common interest in skirts/kilts for men as a clothing choice into contact and hopefully through lurkers the movement will grow stronger as men gain confidence in knowing they are not alone and will not be ridiculed when they finally wear that knee length denim skirt in public and may go on from there to experiment with other styles and lengths. Certainly I have been able through this movement to expand my own clothing choice beyond the traditional wool kilt.

[Stu]

as men gain confidence in knowing they are not alone and will not be ridiculed when they finally wear that knee length denim skirt in public

Ridiculed? I don't get ridiculed when I wear a denim skirt in public. I get no reaction whatsoever. I have just arrived home having been to a garden centre and a DIY store so attired and with masculine gear on and hardly got a second glance. Cessna, have you ever been ridiculed in a denim skirt? If you have, I'd be astounded!

Stu

[cessna152towser]

Cessna, have you ever been ridiculed in a denim skirt? If you have, I'd be astounded!

No I haven't. On the contrary the very few reactions I have had to a denim skirt have all been positive and all have called it a kilt rather than a skirt. But if I had never read on here about the success others such as yourself have had with denim I would probably have stayed with the traditional kilt and never had the courage to buy and wear an unpleated denim skirt.

[Departed Member]

This opens a few interesting questions:

• Are we really a "social movement" yet or are we a just a bunch of guys with some unique ideas yacking on an internet forum?
• If we are a social movement who are our leaders?
• Has the time come when we can make real changes in western society?
• Do we have a long term strategy to get there?
• What are our short term tactics to start moving in the right direction?

Interesting indeed!

Certainly, there is no "Social Movement" as such (which is a shame?), because there is, even on this forum, no commonality of purpose. Sadly, there exists such a widely disparate spectrum of opinion that it would be difficult to find sufficient 'common ground' for such a cause. As for strategy, it's still 'horses for courses', depending in individual circumstances, location, etc.

Eulogies about what 'should' (or should not!) be 'acceptable' (to Joe or Jill Public) tend to be counter-productive. Such Utopia is not going to happen, I'm afraid. My own stance is very much on the side of 'invisibility'. I do not want to stand out in crowd, to wear bright 'look at me!' clothing. I have physical problems wearing bi-furcated clothing, which have worsened as I've got older. Swopping tr*users for a suitable skirt is all I ask. Kilts are fine, but they are, well, 'noticeable' (even though I ban the colour, red, from mine!) and not really 'all-weather' (too hot in extreme, 65F+ temperatures, though still not as bad as bifurcation!). The "Denim (or similar) Phenomenon" seems to work quite well in the UK (& Austria, from personal experience!) and, if a strategy were called for, then that's what I would recommend.

Example:

My 'other half' used to be reasonably OK with the concept, 'til others maliciously intervened. It's taken a lot of hard work to (re-)convince her that I ain't going to 'go further' (she reads the same old cr*p in the magazines, etc., etc.). To be fair, she's more bothered about some fool setting about me when I'm out (as I'm sure other's doubting spouses are). Nowadays, she perfectly OK with the denim - at home. She's OK when she needs a 'taxi ride' in a hurry, too! So, that's my 'short term' strategy. Long term? That's to convince her that nobody else cares!

[SkirtDude]

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[SkirtDude]

OK, I have been toying in my mind with what my ideal Skirt 'Con (tm?) would look like .

I. Networking / Bonding / Fun

1. Mass descent on the local Contra Dance (because it is a ton of fun and they are about the most MIS positive group out there)
2. Group trips to local places of business and cultural events (restaurants, fabric stores, concerts etc)
3. Significant time and space to informally meet other MIS'ers in person, chat with them and get to know each other better.

II. Workshops

1. Skirt sewing
2. Effective use of colors and patterns

III. Round table discussions (these are more tentative ideas that the others)

1. Discussion of how to advance our cause, future directions etc
2. SO's forum
3. Skirts and gender.

Are there things others would add or delete?

This is mostly my personnel flight of fancy at this point but if there is enough interest maybe we can make it happen?

[Peter v]

This very same discussion is started by me, on our Dutch forum, http://www.rokvoormannen.nl/
one of possibly many more, of which I am unaware.

Distances to cover, critical mass, are the big problems. Having the time and then the finances to drive or ride hundreds of miles / Km's to meet other skirt wearers is just not done. Even in a small country as the Netherlands, we have go from the north to the south, 250 km's or meet each other somewhere in the middle, to meet a handfull of other wearers.

Getting into cotact with all willing openly wearing skirt wearers is the first thing to be done, there are enough out there to be seen. But how to get them all together. There should be only one skirt wearers forum for each country, so that all that seek info on the net come to the one site. As it is now, there may be dozens or more other sites, dividing the little mass that we have into smaller chunks. Only the people that know about events can participate.

As the Dutch forum I am on is only recently started, there are only a few members, 55 men who have listed themselves at one time, of which I think no more than ten at the very most are actually wearing skirts out in the open. And of that ... ten or maybe less, the most are not allowed to wear more than a few times per year by their loving wives. Some men wear a skirt openly when their wives are out, which requires precise timing, and is just mad man's work.

Although they do wear occasionally, once or a few times per year, that really doesn't count in my vision. But That is where and why I am so active in the defence of men wearing skirts, I think that in the most cases, it is the wife that ticks the hussie on his fingers, and she does not allow him to wear a skirt openly, often not even in his own home.

If we werre to crack that problem, there would be an enormous surge of men wearing skirts on the streets, as wearing a skirt in the open rarely leads to any problem at all.

So who would make up the members of that group?
Men who think about wearing, but don't? Or actual wearers? If it is possible to get groups of men together who live in short distances from each other, making it practical and not costly to meet on a regular basis, and the men have enough time apart from their jobs, family and clubs, sporting activities, then there are possibilitys. I must assume that there are many men who wear skirts and it is integrated in their life, the most I think. And those who make it a hobby, an actual happening of wearing a skirt are very few. Thus making it the more difficult to organise anything at all. As I have found out here. Although the listed members are very many more that on the relatively new dutch forum, they are spread out over practically the whole world, me being one of them, so unless some one gives me a ticket to a meetiong place in the US, then I won't be able to attend, even though it would be great to.

So, someons should therefore look at the addresses of members, if they have given them which they may not have, and without intruding on their privacy, send them an invitation to attend a virtual meeting, at first, and then see what the possibilities are for a real physical meeting.

What did I hear? "dream on", yes well some of us have to dream, so that something positive may come of it.

One thing is sure, the more "freelancers", men in skirts that are actually out there openly wearing, day in day out, the more chance we will have that others will join. With the biggest problem being the way the first person in men's lives, apart from himself, his wife, thinks and acts upon the revelance of his skirt wearing pretences.

Enough said,
Best regards,
Peter v.

[SkirtDude]

Peter - I have been part of other boards that got together over much greater distances (All of US + Canada) for much less significant reasons (they would get together and just socialize on somebody's porch). Where there is interest and a will there is a way.

[cessna152towser]

I make a round trip of over 100 miles about once a month to attend a kilts night which is arranged through one of the kilt forums. Held in the south of Scotland we often have attendees from across the border in northern England, and also from Ireland as they can fly from Ireland to Scotland cheaply for the weekend with low cost airlines.

[AMM]

100 miles round trip (=50 miles one way) is not much by our standards.

Last Saturday night's Contra Dance was 107 miles round trip for me. Granted, most dancers don't drive that far, but then most don't have to. The Scottish "balls" I go to are in the Philadelphia area, and are roughly 150 miles one way. I've been known to drive home the same night, although that's probably not smart.

As for the SkirtCafe regulars: of those whose location I know, crfriend in Rhode Island is the closest, at 100-150 miles (one way), and imadube (? Wash. DC area) is about 250 miles from me, in effectively the opposite direction.

[crfriend]

100 miles round trip (=50 miles one way) is not much by our standards.

[...]

As for the SkirtCafe regulars: of those whose location I know, crfriend in Rhode Island is the closest, at 100-150 miles (one way), and imadube (? Wash. DC area) is about 250 miles from me, in effectively the opposite direction.

There just may be something approaching a critical mass in the Northeast. It's certainly not enough to make a lasting impression on the locals, but it might be workable for a get-together, probably in New York (easiest, and simple to get to via public transportation).

I'm just north of Worcester, MA (Providence comes up all the time because that's where my computer-history group is located, and at 50 mi represents pretty much my limit nowadays), and Sapphire and I have met one of the other "locals" who's in Boston and shall remain nameless unless he wants to speak up. A run from Boston into NYC by train is a breeze, as is a run from the DC area where SkirtDude (Da Burbs) hails from if I recall correctly. There's another chap in the Philly area who we haven't heard from in a while, and I'm sure I'm missing a few.

It's such a shame that the last time I was in NYC (January, 2007) I froze my keister off and that took one heck of a lot of the enjoyment out of the visit (layover, actually, in case Amtrak blew the connection from Orlando to Boston). I'd like to do the run again, but it'll have to be a warmer time of the year than a New England winter!

[knickerless]

I tried to arrange something similar on another Forum and got nowhere. Distances to us in the UK are quite different from those in the US. Although I used to reguilarly commute 75 miles each way a day. I think I have several other members of this Forum within 50 miles of me - I never met any of them. If someone in the UK can find a convenient point to meet up - I am game for it - providing I am not working.

Nick