It Takes Balls For Men To Wear Women’s Jeans

SAN DIEGO (TNA) – It takes a lot of balls for a guy to wear jeans made for women – but some guys are doing it.

It’s all due to the recent resurgence of skinny, tapered jeans that were once the hallmark of 1970s-era punk rockers.

Now, they’ve been revived by the skater and emo set and retailers such as Diesel, Lucky, Urban Outfitters, and Levi’s are currently selling skin tight denim pants with a tapered non flare for as much as $200 per pair.

However, guys who want to be stylish for much cheaper are simply reaching into their sister’s or girlfriend’s hamper and purloining their pants. Bobby Hanson, a struggling band member in San Francisco, never goes to the store to buy a pair of jeans.

"Girl’s jeans rock. I always wear them," Hanson said. "My girlfriend and I are thankfully both skinny so I don’t even have to go any further than her closet. No one can tell they are girl’s jeans and, if they did, I wouldn’t give a shit.

"All my band members wear girl’s jeans but I am the only one lucky enough to have a girlfriend I can steal them from."

As you might expect, these female-jean fashionistos are coming under fire from females like Amy Van Dyke, a sales associate at an Urban Outfitters store in Hollywood. She is one lady who isn’t exactly panting for guys who can fit in her jeans.

"I remember watching David Bowie as a youngster and wondering why he couldn’t decide if he was a man or a women," Van Dyke said. "Seeing men wear our jeans brings me back and it’s not a place I wanted to go to ever again.

"I know men here in L.A. and even Europe always have to fit in, but do they have to fit in to my jeans? They look shitty enough on women and, for God’s sake, where’s the mystery?"

In recent years, many top designers have brought the look of tighter jeans into their collections. The jeans that were showcased offer a unisex appeal that has traditionally been uncommon with major retailers.

Noel Polomo-Lovinski, an Associate Professor at Kent State University’s School of Fashion Design and Merchandising in Ohio, has a favorite designer whose unisex cuts translate into both sexes wearing the same pants in the family.

"If you look at Hedi Slimane, the designer and trend setter for Yves Saint Laurent, he spearheaded the trend for super skinny unisex type jeans and everyone else copied," Palomo-Lovinski said. "It’s all about Hedi Slimane. He’s the guy."

Society also plays a major role in what type of clothes are worn. From early childhood, little girls and boys are segregated and taught which toys to play with and which clothes to wear. In American culture, a tomboy is a girl who plays with boys and dresses like them.

Society often refers to this as "cute," and doesn’t assume a tomboy is automatically lesbian. However, if a boy wants to play with dolls, learn to bake, or wear his sister’s clothes, he might be construed as a sissy.

This double standard frustrates Francis Herbert, a design student in San Diego.

"I used to work at the GAP not too long ago," Herbert said. "I always saw women trying on men’s jeans, because they liked the way they fit. With my discount, I wanted to buy a pair of women’s jeans but at the time I was afraid of being mislabeled as a cross dresser or gay.

"Since then, it is more accepted to wear women’s jeans, but if you step outside of the hipper communities, I bet you are still stared at and thought of as a homo."

A lot of men have strong feelings against testicle-tightening trousers, including Brooklyn resident Jimmy Petrulo.

"If I see a dude wearing tight-ass butt hugger jeans, all I can think is he is one of those Emo motherfuckers," Petrulo said. "If my boys saw a group of those dudes looking like ladies at our bar, there might be a brawl."

But what’s fashionable now could be bad for fertility down the line, according to Dr. Richard Petty, a men’s health expert at the Wellman Clinic in London.

He says men who wear tight jeans – whether they are styled for men or women – risk of hurting their chances at fatherhood.

"Testicles hang in the scrotum to keep cool -- they need to be four degrees cooler than the core body temperature. If men wear tight trousers, the testicles become too hot and both testosterone and sperm production decrease -- a common reason for male infertility.

"Wearing tight pants also puts pressure on the testicles, pushing them up against the body or into pouches within the body. This can cause sore painful testicles."

If you’re a guy who wears women’s jeans and are concerned that your sperm might not be so spunky, there is a simple test. Dr. Petty says healthy testicles "feel smooth and oval shaped. They may vary from each other, but the size, shape and feel of each individual testicle should be consistent."