Men’s Rompers: Thigh Meat, Gender Roles, and the Fashion Revolution

RompHim.com

Despite what the (I believe intentionally hilarious) name implies, it isn’t the latest and hottest gay porn website. It is the latest project from ACED Design, a company whose mission is, according to their website, “To revolutionize men’s fashion, one piece at a time.” They’ve started with a line of men’s rompers.

Well, I know what a lot of people are thinking, but sign me up. I think it’s kind of awesome. Here’s the thing. Men’s clothes can be so dude-sitting-in-an-office-eating-a-sandwich-on-white-bread-with-mustard boring. There are only so many shirt, short, pant, tie, button-up combinations you can get into before you start running out of options. As someone who loves clothing and expressing myself through clothing (not that you would know it based on the endless parade of work clothes I wear on a daily basis), it can be frustrating. I have often found myself envying the multitude of options women have in clothing, and honestly anything that proposes to expand men’s options is welcome in my book.

I do think you’ll have to be careful with rompers. Frankly, I think that they have the potential to be very unflattering. I’ve watched the videos, I’ve viewed their media kit on romphim.com (once again, not a gay porn site, so don’t get your hopes up), and they all look great. But I’ve seen other photos of guys in them and unless you have spent the past three years in the gym, they appear to pull across the stomach in a way that emphasizes its roundness.

Also, they tend to elongate the torso, so if I didn’t have the legs to balance that, I wouldn’t want to wear them. Because there is no division between the pant area and the shirt area, it tends to look like one long torso, and if you have shorter legs anyway, you’re going to look like some rejected Bob’s Burgers character.

If you’re very physically fit with long legs, they are cute. I like them.

Not to body shame! Wear whatever the fuck you like and don’t be sorry about it, but I just mean personally, I’m going to wait until I’ve done about ten-thousand more crunches before I slip on a set.

The thing is, the fact that they are not flattering to every body type does not mean they are an unsuccessful piece of clothing. I also would not currently slip on a crop top, but can I just say I am so down for men’s crop tops and I will be on a healthy diet of a tapeworm, laxatives, and lemon water until I feel comfortable wearing one.

If it’s a gender thing—listen people, clothing does not have a sex. There are no sex organs, no ovaries, no biological determiners to clothing that assign them a sex. So, don’t try to tell me when and where I am going to wear anything. Maybe it’s because, in certain ways, I have been defying gender roles since I was goddamn born, but I just really don’t see what the huge problem with this is. Why do you care what other people wear? Why does it have to be so limited and limiting? Let people dress how they want to, and if you don’t like, don’t wear it.

So, if you think that men’s rompers are ridiculous because they defy those gendered limitations, you better buckle up you sweet little ignorant angels. Because that’s fashion.

Fashion is and has always been about pushing boundaries, exploring new ways of presenting yourself and your body. Fashion is an expression of the self, and consistently fashion has been about revolution and trying new things, shedding new light on what a person can look like through the use of clothing arranged in new ways. Men in rompers—that is fucking fashion. The erasing of lines, the blurring of borders, that is fashion. It’s not all fashion is, but it is a part of what fashion can be.

I mean, take the 1800s, women used to not be allowed to wear pants. They were men’s clothes. Strictly for men. High-heels were originally for men. Things change. What is strange and never done, is just one Kickstarter campaign away from being standard and done to death. Now, it’s taken men a little bit longer to borrow things from womenswear, probably due to the heteronormative patriarchal culture that pervades our culture, but it was only a matter of time before this started to happen.

Other pros to men’s rompers include freedom of movement:

and thigh meat:

One of my favorite things on a man are the thigh meat. It goes: height, teeth, biceps, thigh meat, bank account, taste in Netflix shows, sense of humor, intelligence and that’s pretty much it.

Oh, I guess personality, but whatever. That’s not a necessity.

So, I’m down with men’s rompers.

Also, in unrelated news, my new gay porn website, rompme.com will be up in just six short months!