Qui Italia - February 4th, 2005
By Carlo Alessi
adapted from italian by Jean Paul

Socks goodbye. Once is not accustomed equality goes on the contrary, at least in dressing. Now men want to wear tights and this is becoming a true tendency. What does not fail to inspire the designers and hundreds of sites on Internet. The phenomenon is such that already some companies specialized in tights equipped themselves arranging a line dedicated to the men.

In 2004, already, in Milan and Paris the designers had tried to break the traditional vestimentary codes by proposing on the podiums the skirt for the male one. That had been such a plebiscite that it engaged creators like John Galliano, Andrew McKenziee, Pringle, Vivienne Westwood, Antonio Marras and Dior Homme.

Now in 2005 exploded the tights "pour homme" destined to men at all are effeminates, on the contrary. It is a phenomenon everybody he began in big secret alone.

In 2005, it is the explosion of tights "for men" intended for men absolutely not effeminatized, quite to the contrary. It is a phenomenon which is born far from the parades, springing from the base (as one would say in politics). All of them began alone, in secrecy, then Internet did the rest.

A phenomenon to which a sociological questionable search was dedicated that defines the users of tights as interrupted teenagers, "adon-escenti".

There are also those which qualifies them curiously of "fourth sex" or even "metrosexual" word to use to qualify those which get dressed freely while borrowing from their mate's cloakroom.

They are man-men who, after having admired the woman's clagged legs, perhaps want now wear them like fetish object during sex intercourse, but above all they wish to wear them daily as other male usual garment.

Male pantyhose lovers are plentiful on Internet; of sites of discussions where are exchanged opinions, photographs and advertisements of meeting to leave the secrecy. From now on, the Italians have theirs http://nonsolocollant.altervista.org site.

This site is intended to become a focal point indexing all news, initiatives, and products related to this new trend in male fashion. Its objective is to eliminate the inherent taboo and to encourage the rise of this fashion as a standard of elegance and emancipation in the way man of the new millenium get dressed.

An extremely indicative wish of normality is shown througout messages in the bulletin board: "Hi"! Is there anyone from ologna? Could wear tights together with others which do not find them "strange" without problems at least :/ ".

This subject also meets in other forum of discussion like femminile.com, where on January 31 a man "interfered" about husbands who like to wear tights or to be dressed "en femme" at home, although this considering "perfectly male". Here a small extract:

"I am a 28 year old man who likes to wear female hosiery since my eleven's. I adore the contact on the skin of nylon clagged legs� But I do not make it to satisfy a pleasure of the physical contact. Do not judge me, nor do not consider me as homosexual at all."

Call it sickness or deviationism, as you want, only notice that the society is not ready yet to accept a man in tight, skirt and high heels. It is enough for that to read the outraged comments of women, not all them luckily, but I would reply them that I surely will do it without awaiting the carnival.

Pantyhoses have a huge symbolic value for men, by convention they belong to the most female clothing which exist if we want, , although I consider them that as a female accessory� If a man wishes to wear tights, for me it is effeminatized, and when well even it would be it, where is the evil. But honestly, I am partial.

In summary, they wish that all that return to normality. But what is normality?

It is a concept which can be declined in various ways. A purely statistical meaning, to highlight greater frequency of a certain event or the wait than a certain event takes place.

Conventions established between the human beings are based on the fact that other individuals involve themselves in a way which is commonly considered as normal.

Therefore, if statistically for a man it is not normal to wear tights under its trousers, return the concept of normality to a scientific use, so that it does not become a discrimination and exclusion tool at the same moment.

Thus, as science is based on experiments, why not try a pair on before gessing?

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