Low Hanging Fruit—Drooping Pants and the Young Men Who Think They’re Cool

I have a distant relative in a distant prison. He’s been in and out of the place for all of his adult life and a few years of his childhood. Seems whenever he’s in, he cries foul. When he’s out, he always does something to break his probation and ends up in the slammer once again. Consciously or unconsciously, he seems to feel safer on the inside. But this article is not about my relative’s psychological challenges and continual run-ins with the law. He answered a question for me once that shed some light on an interesting fad currently popular among young men, particularly inner city young men, though becoming more and more established in the ‘burbs.

The question: What is cool about wearing your pants down so low that the belt is underneath your butt cheeks?

I’ve seen the young men actually having to hold the pants up to keep them from falling. They also have a way of walking with their legs stretched outward that seems to hold them up. Of course, their underwear, usually boxer shorts but not always, are in plain view.

Second questions: Do these young men think they’re sexy?

I put these questions to several young people I know, including a couple of kids who wear their pants that way. The answers were varied. The boys who didn’t do it thought it was just a gang thing and rather stupid-looking. The girls I asked, almost to a person, did not think it was sexy. The two boys I asked who actually wear their pants that low said, “It’s cool. It’s a look. Y’know, like Justin Bieber’s hair is a look.”

My relative in prison had a different answer. Seems in prison—and it may depend on which prison you’re in—the only ones who wear their pants low are either looking for a “daddy” to protect them or they already have a daddy and are telling other prisoners to stay away or there will be a price to pay.*

In other words, low hanging pants means that you are being sodomized or want to be sodomized by another prisoner. More often than not, it is a way to keep from being beaten or killed by other prisoners. Daddy is your protector.

(For those of you who do not know what “sodomized” means, it’s really quite simple: Someone is having anal intercourse with you and you are now their “bitch.”)

The fad started among young men who had been in prison and, having been released back into a frightening world, were once again looking for a “daddy.”

I wonder if the kids who wear their pants down low realize the real signal they are sending.

Some municipalities want to ban this little fad outright. What do you think?

A Side Glance: This afternoon, as I was boarding one of our local transit trains, I saw a police officer questioning a young man whose pants were hanging low. When the officer told the young man to place his hands behind his back, the pants fell down to his ankles. The officer made him pull them up, all the way, and told him to tighten his belt. If they fell again, he would be arrested on principle, the cop said, angrily. I didn’t think that was the best way for the officer to act, but the point is, when you’re in a tight situation, you really don’t want to get caught with your pants down.

*And a footnote: Since talking to my relative a while back, I have heard and read other interpretations of the low hanging pants phenomenon. But most have said that my relative's answer was about as spot on as it gets.