Well Jessica, I looked at all of it and I just can't bring myself to give a crap what underwear people are buying or wearing. It's not that I think they are harmless or goofy, just stupid and not worth getting worked up over.

Well it pays to advertise!!

'Beaver fever' for me translates as 'don't even go there, run like hell and never look back!'

Anyway you probably wouldn't even get as far as his dodgy pants after spying the boob shower gel dispenser in his shower.....

Well, it's better than "Class Chlamydia-Carrier"

I actually think the ones for girls are kind of cute. When I wore my pink superman undies as a little kid (and you better believe I did), I don't think that the implication was that my underwear was superman.

This makes me wonder why the post says "I can only wonder what your undies will help you succeed at. Ahem."

The point is that my superman undies proved that I was a superhero at age 8 or so. And sparkly!

I think the men's ones are dumb, but not all that offensive. I agree STRONGLY with Rebecca's statment "...that the threat that if we take them seriously we are humorless and shrill is exactly why they matter." It's just that I'm not finding myself offended in this case, even if I'd like to be.

DT:

The point is that at age 8 those undies encouraged you to believe that being superman would be a good thing.

I think that encouraging kids to believe that being a chauvanist pig is a good (or even acceptable) thing is a bad idea.

I don't know...there's something really disturbing to me about selling preteens and teens underwear that says male chauvinist pig. Kids that age (and those that shop at AE) aren't really into irony...or am I not giving young boys enough credit?

As much as I want to disagree with Jessica on this point, I really can't. While I can find the humor in some of the stuff--like the one pictured- the bigger problem is the perpetuation of a culture that doesnt see anything wrong with these sayings, espically when its being targeted to a group of people who are at a critical time in their lives--and are dealing with all sorts of issues, namely peer pressure.

i look forward to american eagle's line of "bigot pride" apparel.

I agree with Jessica: these kids are too young for irony. I saw a ten year old wearing an A&F shirt the other day which read "Blond is the new smart". Funny (maybe) on a 20-something - not on a ten year old.

Jessica--

I think our contemporary young boys are going to have some serious gender and sexuality issues, considering the healthy diet of the man show and similar crap that is permeating our culture right now. Boxers like this seem, to me, to be prtty much just a manifestation of this fuckedupedness in straight male youth culture right now.

What's odd, is all this controversy over Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears or whatever and their sexuality, but almost none about the rise of this openly hyper-chauvinist culture.

You know, I've used the search feature on this site, and I can't seem to find any article where you ladies chimed in against the whole "Boys Are Dumb, Let's Throw Rocks At Them" t-shirt brouhaha from a year or two ago.

So pardon me if I don't get too worked up over this. Hell, may even buy a few...

thechief - They never posted about it, but the subject has been brought up numerous times in the comments section.

I'm going to go out on a potentially dangerous limb here and say that I *like* the male pig underwear...
It gives the people who are seeing these guys in their undies a huge sign to put your clothes back on and walk (run) for the door. I find that t-shirts that are offensive provide an easy to follow guideline of who NOT to hang out with or approach at the bar. if the sexist/racist/homophobic/etc people of the world want to openly identify themselves it makes my life a whole lot simpler.

I'm with ya, Ahlana. Clothing doesn't make someone a sexist; it just expresses the belief system of the sexist. Let them be honest and wear the shirts or undies, that way I can have a nice little discussion with them; which is better than preaching to to choir all the time.

On the one hand, I agree with bittergradstudent so much that I wish I'd written that post. ;)

On the other hand, I too thought "Well, if he's wearing those undies, at least I'll KNOW he's a jerk instead of having to find out the hard way."

I guess it's the difference of whether we believe that a) Only jerks will buy this (and therefore they serve a useful purpose as an early warning system) OR b) young men with pliable values will buy this (and therefore they are dangerously influencial).

I have to fall back on the "No son of mine..." position, I guess.

I agree with Rebecca's comment wholeheartedly.

And I have a niece hitting puberty who loves those slang undies for girls. My mom HATES buying them for her - she keeps asking, suspiciously, who my niece is wearing them for. I guess panties declaring "Flirt!" are the new plain white cotton now.

Oh and for the potential troller, no one talks about the "Boys are dumb - throw rocks at them" shirts for the same reason that we aren't up in arms over the "Let's not turn this rape into a murder" shirts.

Anyone wearing shirts promoting physical violence is a jerk. Period. There really isn't any point in railing against it - we just shake our collective heads and move on.

What we're more interested in is whether a more subtle garment (in this case "humourous" boxers) is a cause for concern. Sometimes the less in-you-face obvious something is, the more dangerous it can be.

That's my take, anyway. But it's good to see there's still plenty of folks here ready to accuse us all carte blanche of being hideous warty hypocrites. ;)

What I want to know is, who's buying the boxers for the boys?

'Cause, you know, the parent that does that is even scarier.

Well, yes, the parents are scarier, but that probably can't be cured. The best you can do is to prevent the disease from hopping over to the next generation.

I didn't remember until now, because my friend saw the same shirt today, but last fall I was INCENSED when I saw a girl wearing a shirt that read "I'm too pretty to do Math." I was in a rage for days.

I'd really rather have a girl wearing underwear that says "Most Likely to Succeed." At 13, she's probably (hopefully) only wearing them for the other girls in the locker room after gym class.

prairielily, that would piss me off, too.

My parents saw one yesterday that said "Will Flash For Beer". Featured prominantly over the breasts of course.