Back in the 1980s the idea of being gay was NOT something that was openly accepted in America. You could be attacked, or worse, if the right crowd decided you needed to pay for your lifestyle.
Around this same time, Reagan had completely changed how prisons were funded. Before, it mostly came out of the pockets of the government. And after Reagan, we got what we have now. Prisons for profit.
Which meant conditions went way down, almost overnight, and prison populations started to boom. Because before, prisoners were a burden on tax dollars. If you arrested someone for jaywalking, you now had to convince a judge why a jaywalker belonged in prison.
But now, with megacorporations footing the bill, the expansions of the prison systems could explode. If you paid for prisons to be built and you made profit on each prisoner, you wanted them full.
Which meant…THE WAR ON DRUGS!
So, now you have massive populations of prisoners, all being held for crimes that shouldn’t carry a long sentence, and in many cases, never even happened.
What this meant is, these prisons became almost a community among the prisoners. And as such, you inevitably had gay prisoners.
So to signal to the other prisoners that you were gay, and wanted to get fucked in the ass, you’d wear your pants a little loose, and a little low. The look became known as “sagging”. And for about 10 years, nobody outside of prisons knew about it.
Then the 90s came, and these prisoners started getting released. And they continued sagging outside of prison, even though it no longer carried the same weight. It just became a fashion sense among urban communities without a trace of its former meaning.
So when I see this picture…it’s like…TOO on the nose. Thats not pants sagging, that’s pants dropping. The ironic thing is, if you told him that look signaled him as the bitch of the group, he’d probably be very angry. Especially since in the 90s being gay STILL wasn’t socially acceptable.
Do you have a source on sagging pants as a gay signal?
Cause from what I read, it was simply prisons offering only one size of pants and not allowing belts.
Naw, you bought into an urban myth. Why would prisoners put up with such an inconvenience just to signal homosexuality? Especially when you already had signals used outside of prison like having an earring in the right ear, that system of handkerchiefs they used in the '70s, and so forth. It would be like signaling your sexual preference by walking around with your shoelaces untied.
Children in poor families often inherit clothing from siblings when they grow out of them. That pair of pants was too small on your brother, but it’s still too big on you. What was originally an inconvenience becomes fashionable because everybody in your neighborhood was doing it. This is so common that it’s caught on and now people are doing it on purpose.
Something similar happened with soul food. Enslaved people were given food that used to be thrown away. They found a way to make it taste good, and it became a cultural marker.
It’s fascinating to me how social norms can be so radically warped from one society to another. From my “normal” of not wanting others to see what’s under my pants, to this, to having a huge disk pierced into your bottom lip like those African tribes… There’s just so much diversity among us. It’s pretty cool. And sometimes weird. 😆
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Back in the 1980s the idea of being gay was NOT something that was openly accepted in America. You could be attacked, or worse, if the right crowd decided you needed to pay for your lifestyle.
Around this same time, Reagan had completely changed how prisons were funded. Before, it mostly came out of the pockets of the government. And after Reagan, we got what we have now. Prisons for profit.
Which meant conditions went way down, almost overnight, and prison populations started to boom. Because before, prisoners were a burden on tax dollars. If you arrested someone for jaywalking, you now had to convince a judge why a jaywalker belonged in prison.
But now, with megacorporations footing the bill, the expansions of the prison systems could explode. If you paid for prisons to be built and you made profit on each prisoner, you wanted them full.
Which meant…THE WAR ON DRUGS!
So, now you have massive populations of prisoners, all being held for crimes that shouldn’t carry a long sentence, and in many cases, never even happened.
What this meant is, these prisons became almost a community among the prisoners. And as such, you inevitably had gay prisoners.
So to signal to the other prisoners that you were gay, and wanted to get fucked in the ass, you’d wear your pants a little loose, and a little low. The look became known as “sagging”. And for about 10 years, nobody outside of prisons knew about it.
Then the 90s came, and these prisoners started getting released. And they continued sagging outside of prison, even though it no longer carried the same weight. It just became a fashion sense among urban communities without a trace of its former meaning.
So when I see this picture…it’s like…TOO on the nose. Thats not pants sagging, that’s pants dropping. The ironic thing is, if you told him that look signaled him as the bitch of the group, he’d probably be very angry. Especially since in the 90s being gay STILL wasn’t socially acceptable.
mech@feddit.org 1 day ago
Do you have a source on sagging pants as a gay signal?
Cause from what I read, it was simply prisons offering only one size of pants and not allowing belts.
FalschgeldFurkan@lemmy.world 1 day ago
In this case they just wanna show off their expensive brand underwear, though I’m not sure how anyone can walk like that
seathru@quokk.au 1 day ago
By showing everything BUT the waistband? The one part that actually displays the branding.
FalschgeldFurkan@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Fair enough, idk why they don’t show it here, but it’s definitely a thing in the hood
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Naw, you bought into an urban myth. Why would prisoners put up with such an inconvenience just to signal homosexuality? Especially when you already had signals used outside of prison like having an earring in the right ear, that system of handkerchiefs they used in the '70s, and so forth. It would be like signaling your sexual preference by walking around with your shoelaces untied.
Children in poor families often inherit clothing from siblings when they grow out of them. That pair of pants was too small on your brother, but it’s still too big on you. What was originally an inconvenience becomes fashionable because everybody in your neighborhood was doing it. This is so common that it’s caught on and now people are doing it on purpose.
Something similar happened with soul food. Enslaved people were given food that used to be thrown away. They found a way to make it taste good, and it became a cultural marker.
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s fascinating to me how social norms can be so radically warped from one society to another. From my “normal” of not wanting others to see what’s under my pants, to this, to having a huge disk pierced into your bottom lip like those African tribes… There’s just so much diversity among us. It’s pretty cool. And sometimes weird. 😆