men

As the temperature has soared to a high of 93 lovely degrees farenheit for the last three days, I have been pensating a little on clothing. A little on modesty (which I will not discuss now), but mostly on staying cool in my summer skirts. My favorite one is a swooshy, lightweight black skirt that is the single most comfortable item of clothing I own. It gets a little tricky occasionally walking downtown when the swoosh gets carried away by strong winds. But that's a rarity.

Skirts are, hands down, the coolest thing one can wear in hot temperatures. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

When we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, our guide was wearing a skirt. He was from New Zealand, and wore the traditional costume. A nice, strait, brown skirt. It did not make him effeminate. At all.

Neither did the skirt-like costumes worn by the other men at the Center. Quite the contrary, in fact. Please, take a moment to peruse the website. Here are some of the manly skirts I captured:



And then, holy cow, when they started dancing, it was like masculinity personified. All the stomping and rhythm and dance-fighting was 872 times more virile than any football game, drag race, or spitting contest. So why on earth are mainland American men afraid to wear skirts, much less terrified to dance? It's both practical and sexy. Can you get a better combination?