About that homophobic 'sagging pants' picture going viral on Facebook...

You've probably heard some variation of the "sagging pants" story before. If not, let me have the displeasure of telling you. For a long time, there was a noticeable trend of people wearing pants about 3 sizes too large, which caused them to sag down to their knees, exposing their underwear. It was the ultimate display of swag for a while, but in recent years the trend has fallen off (pun intended).

One of the major reasons this unfashion trend slowed down is because of the "sagging pants" story. It's a popular thing for teachers and coaches to tell teens to get them to pull their pants up and wear a belt. It goes something like this:

Back in the 1980s, male prisoners who were serving life sentences gave up all hopes of seeing a woman again, so they decided to be gay with their fellow male inmates. Since the inmates had no way of knowing who was gay or available, the single gay prisoners started wearing their pants down below their underwear. Wearing saggy pants signals other people that you're gay. Pull your pants up.

And here's the image that's going around Facebook:

It's false. Completely false. It's worked so well because it preys on teenagers' homophobia. Since there's a ton of insecurity among teenagers when it comes to sexuality, the story was written specifically to prey on teenagers' homophobia so they would pull their pants up for fear of being thought gay.

Do your part to help stop this homophobic myth by telling people that this story is bogus and does nothing but spread homophobia. Find another way to tell kids to pull their pants up.