Quotations culled from the internet

I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something.
Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt.
The most remarkable things follow.
Please remember that what people wear isn't as important as how they feel in it.
Life is too short to be living your life for others.
Men's clothing has become so standardised that there's no fun in it anymore. Let's put some fun back in fashion.
It's true that only real men, men who are comfortable enough with their sexuality and masculinity, wear skirts.
Any society in which it is a crime or a hassle to be different is a society based on psychological fascsim ... imposing norms on people and making life dificult if they don't accept them.
If you want to be considered a man and people are sneering at you for trying to look like a woman, then you still look like a man in a dress and you are achieving the look you are after. Their crude, crass and ignorant remarks are backhanded complements atesting to the success of your venture.
One-liners in response to "Why are you wearing a skirt?"
Admittedly, I've never had an occasion to need them, but my own two favourites are:
(Said to a criticizing woman wearing trousers) "I'm no more cross-dressed than you are!"
- or -
"Women get a choice, and men don't???"

It really must be marvelous to have a female frame,
So that you can end up wearing anything you name,
A pair of jeans from London or a chiffon frock from France,
The world is just your oyster,
But the man wears pants.

There is no finite limit to a woman's clothing range,
No item of apparel that she might find rather strange,
She'll stick on something different, her audience to entrance,
"Oh, Dahling! That's so stylish!",
But her man wears pants.

There was a time in history when she only wore a dress,
In a variety of shapes that you could only guess,
But soon she started wearing clothes from plain to elegance,
That wardrobe started bulging,
Still the man wore pants.

Then in the 1950s women started wearing jeans,
To look like Marlon Brando or sexier, like James Dean's,
The range increased to take in all men's things, her options to enhance,
There were now no holds barred,
But the men wore pants.

Our modern woman can now lay back, feeling quite content,
Her closet full of clothes and her money duly spent,
So now I've started thinking: would it matter, would it hurt,
If a man stopped wearing trousers,
And sometimes wore a skirt?

Barry Talendor,
© 2002,2003. All rights reserved.
I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what you do, someone will find fault. If you do it a different way, someone else will complain. So, with this in mind, I do what I think is right to the best of my ability, and if they don't like it - tough, let them do better.

NEVER BACK OFF. Either don't wear a skirt at all, or wear it all through. If you back off, you send a signal that you consider skirt-wearing somehow dubious. No matter what happens, if you wear a skirt at work, don't panic. Behave as if you had pants on.

After all, you don't behave differently based on what color of pants you are wearing or what style of a shirt you have on. A skirt is no different: it is an item that you wear.

If you start sending signals that skirt-wearing is a thing that you don't exactly dare to completely do, people will pick that and start treating you accordingly. Even if you panic, don't show it! Remember, men are brave and go on even if they are scared to death!
TA WEIR A KILT
YA NEEDN'T BE A
***SCOT***
TA WEIR A PAIR
O' PANTS
YA NEEDN'T BE A
***MAN***

At any given day I know that most of western civilization is seeing, even if it is one of us at a time, a man who has the ability to  abandon the bondage of men wearing bifurcated clothes [trousers] in a variety of ways.

  • Each time one of us goes to the local pub of his choice wearing his clothing of choice there will be a (sometimes fairly large) group that has seen a guy out having a drink or two not in trousers.
  • Every time we answer the door in a skirt or kilt and the delivery person, evangelist, or neighbour sees him carrying on in his choice of clothing, that is one more person who has been exposed to a normal guy practising fashion freedom.
  • Each time a yob sees one of us, that is one more mental image in their feeble minds of a guy who has more courage than they do.
  • When we go shopping or to the theatre, a concert, church or on the bus we are showing a mass of humans that there is one more of us.

For each of us that those mentioned above sees there will be some of them who will gain the courage to join us as they can. For those who will never join us there will be an erosion of the stereotype that holds men in fashion repression.
Being able to decide the best clothes for a give set of circumstances, in my opinion, is true freedom of choice. Before the 1960s, women did not have that choice. It was just not acceptable for women to wear slacks.
Now, they have the ability to choose the clothing for the activity or weather conditions they will be enduring. It seems obvious that everyone should be able to do that. Alas, it is not the case.
Men wearing skirts is challenging but the end result is a much stronger person who has changed their environment, not the environment change them.
I can very much vouch for the fact that my skirt wearing man is every bit a man and probably more so because he is comfortable.[from a wife]
If men absolutely have to wear pants of some length or another, then it follows that women must absolutely have to wear something other than pants since pants are a MAN'S garment. Tell me that you can go more than five seconds without seeing a woman in pants. Don't WOMEN frequently wear shorts during the summer months? Men wearing the same garment as women? So much for that gender thing as a determining factor in clothing choices.

There is nothing wrong with preferring to wear a skirt whether you are a man or a woman. The problem is with people who seem to attach almost magical significance to the piece of cloth wrapping your lower body should you happen to arrange it in an un-bifurcate style but are endowed with xy genes rather than xx genes.

As I see it the problem is that there is a feeling that maleness must be actively and positively pursued and includes conforming to rigid codes including the type of clothes you wear. What rubbish!

Skirts are simply free easy and comfortable garments, in my view they are preferable to trousers unless you are riding a horse or climbing a tall ladder.

I just get tired of feeling like I am fighting a battle all the time by wearing a skirt, so I confess I do give in but the feeling never goes away. When I go back to a skirt I feel peaceful, free and easy, nothing sexual, nothing weird just happy.

People who object should ask themselves why, as people living in a high tech logical world, they attach so much almost magical significance to a simple piece of cloth.

Found this statement on www.AsSeenOnScreen.com (can't find it again):
"Some things that stars wear you would obviously not choose to wear yourself, like Beckham's sarong or skirt as it was more commonly known!"

It struck a raw nerve so I e-mailed them:

“Why 'obviously' not? Why does men's fashion have to be so restrictive? Why are men expected to wear trousers, trousers or ... trousers, when women wear whatever they like? Are women cross-dressers because they wear trousers? Why are men's clothes so DULL? Especially for men my age (50+)? I prefer to wear a sarong or skirt simply for the COMFORT it offers. I have no desire to pass for or become a woman. Have you ever considered that there are men out there that are years ahead of the 'trendy' designers? There were men wearing sarongs long before Beckham came along. And who cares about the stars and brain-dead celebrities?”

A day later I received:

“Thank you for your comments. This is a fair point, well made. As a woman I am aware of our cross dressing tendencies as a gender!!! As a Scot I must say that there is nothing better than a man in a kilt, probably the best (and most manly) piece of clothing that a male could wear. My comments were more directed to the Beckhams and their take on fashion. Furthermore, it was a little dig at the press and the media attention that these clothing stunts provoke and the way in which society conforms to these press dictated views.
Best wishes”

I replied:

"Thank you for your reply, I wasn't really expecting one.
 
I must agree with you about the influence the media has on social attitudes. When Beckham wore a sarong as a stunt, he raised awareness that men can wear garments other than trousers, but at the same time the press slated him for it; I thought at the time just how narrow-minded the media can be, which is rather sad. And now, of course, the sarong is irrevocably linked with him. I've worn a sarong in public while out with my wife, and have received a few (always positive) comments. These comments invariably mentioned Beckham, and all came from middle-aged or elderly women!
 
Regards
 
Charlie”

Nothing more hear from them.
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