Awkward Photos Of Men In Shorts From the 1970s

You’ll note from this 1979 Schwinn advert that short length was basically equal for men and women.  Whereas, today there’s a huge difference – shorts for women/girls are markedly shorter.   What’s changed in our culture that revealing shorts for women are seen as good (which it objectively is) while revealing shorts for men are verboten?  Armchair sociologists needed.

Cool points will be awarded for anyone that knows where this photograph comes from.  I use it as a cautionary tale: You may want male short-shorts to return, but understand that it’s not just good looking guys like Robbie Benson who will be wearing them.  Sooner or later, Seals & Croft will show up in a pair, and before too long, even Paul Williams.  Trust me – nobody wants that.

And let us not forget the jean shorts, perhaps the biggest perpetrators of unwanted male exposure.  While things may have been better contained by the skin tight denim (versus loose terry-cloth or polyester), men tended to cut them oh, so very short.  People tended to go commando in the Seventies –a lot more than they do now.  Things could get unseemly real fast.

Well, it’s time to leave this world of ball exposing short-shorts and return to the present day where men’s upper thighs, unpredictable penises, and hairy gonads are kept safely under wraps.   But don’t get too comfortable.  Fashion is cyclical.  What now is hidden may once again rear its ugly head.

Credits: flashback

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