Fashion & Wall Street Sag

You know that saying, “What goes up must come down?” But shouldn't jeans that sag below your butt crack be hoisted back up?” .

Apparently, the city of Albany, Georgia agrees with Sam and me. That city banned saggy pants and skirts that droop more than three inches below the top of the hips, exposing the skin or undergarments. A citation for a first-time offense costs $25; further offenses cost as much as $200. Albany’s new law reportedly has generated $3,916 in fines in less than a year. According to the Albany Herald 187 citations have been issued since the ban in Nov.23, 2010. associatedpress.com

“Sagging,” as it’s known and as it’s defined by Wikipedia, is a manner of wearing one’s pants hanging below the waist area far enough to reveal underwear and or naked skin that we’d rather not see. Sagging is said to be predominantly a male fashion. Women who wear low-rise jeans to reveal their g-string underwear (known as the whale tail) are not generally considered saggers though they certainly should be. Albany, Georgia considers them saggers and so do Sam and I.

If Sam and I had a dollar for every time some overweight girl bent over in front of us and revealed her whale tail (whale being the totally appropriate word here) or hung her butt-ugly tattoo out there for all the world to see –quite often with an arrow pointing to you know where – we would have enough money to buy ourselves some new jeans.

Lee D. Baker, Dean of Academic Affairs at Duke University states that it is widely believed that sagging was adopted from the United States prison system where belts are prohibited. Belts usually are prohibited to keep prisoners from using them as weapons or in committing suicide by hanging themselves. According to Wikipedia, the style was later popularized by hip-hop artists in the 1990s. It has since become a symbol of freedom and cultural awareness among many youths or a symbol of their rejection of the values of mainstream society.

Sam and I suppose it wouldn’t be kindly to wish a few saggers would trip over their pants and fall in front of a moving car or something. No, probably not. Can you imagine St. Peter saying to one of those kids, “Sorry, but I can’t let you into heaven until you pull up your pants. You might trip on a cloud or something and try to sue God. Not that we have many attorney’s up here to help you. Besides, if you ever read the Bible you know God is just a wee bit prudish about certain things.”

This whole sagging saga reminds me of the mini-skirt bans of the ’60s. Many schools banned the short skirts, calling them immodest or indecent. At my high school, a girl’s skirt could not be more than three inches above her knees (a long way from three inches below the waist). Flashing back to that time, for awhile it was theorized that the shorter the mini-skirt the higher the stock market and vice-versa.

Boy, times have changed since then. I asked a teacher not too long ago how he could keep his mind on education when girls now think nothing of wearing short shorts and halter tops or practically nothing to school. He grimly said, “It ain’t easy.” Yet we prosecute teachers as sex criminals because they dare taste the smorgasbord students are offering them.

Sam and I say down with sagging! So to speak. And put some clothes on young ladies.