That’s not quite true. I can’t speak for all sports but Artistic Gymnastics definitely has rules. You must wear a leotard and you can’t wear shorts or leggings. Some girls have done so for religious reasons and incur a deduction.

The thing is, I looked at the site that the essays’s on, and it’s a bit… questionably motivated. Suffice it to say there’s probably a reason for the things you noticed. And I’m not sure what the author’s qualifications are, although I should check that. But the argument can be assessed independent of the background, I think, and it seems persuasive.

It’s too bad I’m just a bit too young to be able to have seen (noticed?) the before and after personally. Although for that matter, I went to small religious schools growing up, and ‘gayness’ was never really on the social radar. Between being sheltered and being oblivious….

Okay, enough! Waaay OT!
(But this would make a great post for SocImgs, hint hint!!)

I can’t help myself:
Is it me or does the author come off vaguely white-and-peevish, what with all the comments about “buffoonery” and “clownishness”— which seem to be specifically directed at the hip-hop baggy look? And there’s a very creepy-old-man tone for a while there— he sure seems to miss seeing boys’ bulges, and their “voluptuous” this, and “sumptuous” that. It made me kinda uncomfortable! (Why the focus on “boys” anyhow, and not men? Boys didn’t go to the disco.) And what was that about “playing around” in their pants?! The hell??

But other than that, I think he’s definitely on to something re: menswear baggification.

It’s a little thing, but as someone who sews, those outfits made me cringe because it seems like every time I see athletic women “glammed up” like this, the clothes are unflattering or don’t fit, and somehow the effect is distinctly awkward and unfeminine.* There’s no reason for this. It’s one thing when it’s a woman on the street going about her business; I well know how hard it can be to find clothes that fit/flatter, and life isn’t a catwalk. But if it’s a professional glamour shot? It bugs me. It’s like even the professional stylists just throw up their hands and say “we don’t know what to do with this!” and chuck some satin at their victim. It doesn’t seem fair. If you’re gonna go there… ain’t they a woman?

____
*I may be sensitive because I have a bit of an “athletic” build myself in the upper body.

Jeez yourself.

http://www.ipce.info/library_2/files/esser_baggy.htm

No actual sources, but the argument feels right to me. To oversimplify, he’s claiming that it started with heterosexual men perceiving a need to distance themselves from a style that had formerly been generically male, but came to be associated specifically with gay men.

Well, there’s always the men’s swim team. Their new outfits somehow seem even more revealing, even though they’re now covered from neck to ankles!