NORWEGIAN SCIENTIST SOLVES FASHION MYSTERY
"Ass pants," the clothing craze that started in urban ghettos among teenaged males and then spread like a staph infection to middle-class white boys in the suburbs, have long puzzled the scientific community. Ass pants are baggy blue jeans with extra room in the seat, worn below the waist, exposing the wearer's boxer-shorts-covered buttocks.
The question asked by scientists when contemplating ass pants has always been, "WHY?" Why would someone voluntarily wear clothing that gives people the impression that they have the IQ of toenail fungus? Now, thanks to a Norwegian researcher, an answer may be at hand. Torvil Huskon, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Oslo, has discovered cave drawings of leather garments worn by Viking warriors nearly 1500 years ago that closely resemble ass pants. Apparently, these pants were worn on long marauding and pillaging expeditions in the brutally cold winter months, when lowering one's trousers to relieve oneself could result in frostbite to the buttocks. With ass pants, Vikings could tend to their bowel needs without risk of weather-related injury; you simply "did your business" in your roomy ass pants, and waited until spring to take them off. A smelly solution, to be sure, but a safe one. According to Huskon, the modern innovation of wearing ass pants below the waist originated with the Hanes company, a major manufacturer of boxer shorts. In the words of Hanes spokesman Todd Cofax, "We make good-looking underwear, and dammit, we think people should see it!"
Professor Huskon's research will be published in the October 2008 issue of the prestigious scientific journal, Nature.
"Ass pants," the clothing craze that started in urban ghettos among teenaged males and then spread like a staph infection to middle-class white boys in the suburbs, have long puzzled the scientific community. Ass pants are baggy blue jeans with extra room in the seat, worn below the waist, exposing the wearer's boxer-shorts-covered buttocks.
The question asked by scientists when contemplating ass pants has always been, "WHY?" Why would someone voluntarily wear clothing that gives people the impression that they have the IQ of toenail fungus? Now, thanks to a Norwegian researcher, an answer may be at hand. Torvil Huskon, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Oslo, has discovered cave drawings of leather garments worn by Viking warriors nearly 1500 years ago that closely resemble ass pants. Apparently, these pants were worn on long marauding and pillaging expeditions in the brutally cold winter months, when lowering one's trousers to relieve oneself could result in frostbite to the buttocks. With ass pants, Vikings could tend to their bowel needs without risk of weather-related injury; you simply "did your business" in your roomy ass pants, and waited until spring to take them off. A smelly solution, to be sure, but a safe one. According to Huskon, the modern innovation of wearing ass pants below the waist originated with the Hanes company, a major manufacturer of boxer shorts. In the words of Hanes spokesman Todd Cofax, "We make good-looking underwear, and dammit, we think people should see it!"
Professor Huskon's research will be published in the October 2008 issue of the prestigious scientific journal, Nature.
posted by Mike | 8:30 PM
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