By Ovie Azigbo
IT was a sunny afternoon at Obalende bus stop on the Lagos Island. A young man in saggy pants was among the hundreds of others waiting under the scorching sun. The top of his jeans which was significantly below his waist revealed much of his boxer shorts, bunching around the ankles.

When eventually a bus going his way came along, he made to run in pursuit of it but fell flat on his face. Not surprising, really, as his ankles were manacled by the saggy pants.

Saggy pants have become a craze which has caught up with youths of this age. They can often be unsightly especially when the wearer has nothing under thereby revealing his bare rump. This has generated a lot of furore and condemnation in several parts of the world. In the United States, for example, a few states have passed legislations banning out rightly, the wearing of saggy pants. In such places it is common to see bill boards proclaiming: “Pull up your pants or the law will do it for you.”

Originally, wearing saggy pants was a prison thing in the US. It came in states where belts were taken away from the prisoners so that they can’t make weapons with them. Their trousers were, therefore, left to sag.

Really low trousers

This evolved into which role a prisoner would have during male-on-male gay practices. The one with the really low trousers is the submissive one. Thus it showed that a person was another prisoner’s property. Such persons were forced to wear their trousers that way so that it would be easier for their masters to pull them down and make love to them. This trend has become a fashion since the late 1990’s. It is now a fashion statement.

Only the other day, this fellow walked into the living room of his family house where a few elders were seated. After greeting the people, he was about to take a seat when an elderly man said to him: “Young man, you’d better run quickly to the gents before you come to sit down.” It’s hard to tell whether the old man actually thought that the youth was under pressure to answer nature’s call because the saggy pants leave the impression of one at the losing end of a battle with acute diarrhea.

While saggy pants are essentially a male fashion trend, young ladies are often seen wearing jeans that seem to lack the strength to reach up to their waist line. Ordinarily, it is amusing when such ladies are seen trying desperately to pull down their skimpy tops to cover the distance which their saggy pants are unable to attain. Most nauseating, one must say, are those who wear saggy pants with nothing under. Did I just say nauseating? I must withdraw that, for the sight of it could be appealing to many others. It’s different strokes for different folks.

While the youths are free to choose their mode of dressing, it is not out of place to consider what statement they are making through their dresses. Saggy pants, as we have already seen, have their origin in the US prisons. Worse still, it bears a gay symbol. In many societies, wearing saggy pants identifies a person as gay and proclaims that one is available. But there again, it is a matter of choice – identifying with the life of a prisoner or that of a free man.

For ladies, they are seen to be exposing more and more of their private parts. Very soon, they may begin to walk the streets nude. Miley Cyrus is a popular female singer in the US who has won several awards in her music career. She performs without a stitch of thread on her body. Copy that?