Indecent dressing

'INDECENT DRESSING' is wearing of clothing that is out of shape with what the society expects. It is dressing that is likely to shock or offend people. 'Indecent exposure,' on the other hand, is the deliberate exposure of a person of a portion or portions of his or her own body under circumstances likely to be seen as contrary to the locally accepted standards of decency .Both concepts apply in good measure to the current style of dressing among the youth especially boys.

'Saggy pants' began from prisons in the United States in the 1990s, where big pants were issued to the prisoners with no belts. The prisoners were likely to be men and women incarcerated for drugs, murder, arson, robbery and similar heinous crimes.

Just at the time that saggy pants were evolving in the United States and across Europe, they were evolving locally (in Ghana) too. There came into Ghana a Black Stars coach called Otto Pfister between 1989 and 1995 the irascible, chain smoking coach who took us to the 1992 Nation's Cup final in Senegal.

This coach was quite plump except for his buttocks which appeared relatively thin and flat. Making it necessary for him to wear his trousers on the hip rather than the waist, Boys enjoy adventure and non-conformism. Soon the boys began to copy Otto who can claim the copyright of a new obnoxious fashion in Africa.

In days of yore, boys in Ghana did not wear uniforms (a shirt and shorts) until they went to school. In such inclement weather, the best a child could have was a 2-yard piece of cloth bestrewn over the body, over a 'twakoto' (short panties) to cover his vital parts. We in Ghana copied 'dressing' from the British colonialists who urged our grandmothers to 'cover' their top, and we got 'kaba'.

We were measured to size, and there were 'braces' to hold the shorts in position. We made fun of the tailors who insisted that our shorts reach the knee because they were called 'knickers' (knee-knickers). Nowadays the shorts reach the calves.

I learnt the word 'ragamuffin' in my elementary class in the fifties. It means a ragged, disreputable fellow. It refers to a child in ragged, dirty clothes. Since such a child also tended to be a 'ruffian'-a lawless dissolute person especially characterized by dress or appearance- a lot of us tended to write (wrongly) 'ragamuffian' for 'ragamuffin'. In those days, one could distinguish between disciplined, respectful, rules- abiding, student from a wayward, rascally vagabond, just by looking at the dressing.

Nowadays, everything is fused and confused. Students dress haphazardly, not tucking in their shirts; everybody has become bow-legged; even the knock-kneed walk in a haughty manner, swaying and staggering like drunken men.

Many people agree that there is a crisis on our hands. A few have, however, argued that each era has a pervading social behaviour characteristic of the youth, which for reason of generation gap, the elderly frown upon. Some have pointed out the days of 'Tokyo Joe' and 'Ebony' haircuts, the 'Burger' style of pulling one's trousers up above the umbilicus (the navel); the psychedelic and 'bell-bottomed' styles, 'pimpinis', 'apuskeleke' and so on, to the point one would ask: Are you jealous of the youth? It is their time; let them savour it.

The trend is catching on fast-like wild fire. And some of the youth relish this style of dressing, making it appear as if they have discovered or invented some strikingly exotic phenomenon- The lower one's shorts or trousers are, the more the wearer is accepted in the 'boyz-boyz' group.

The boys in Ghana justify their indecent exposure by reference to the trend among the youth in London, Paris or New York. But, make no mistake; few local people indulge in such indecent dressing in these societies.

In France, for example, many of the churches patronized by non-citizens have put up notices insisting on pilgrims to be 'correctly dressed'. As found in the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre, the notice reads: "Silence….et tenue correcte", and in Notre Dame they expect to see "respectful dressing and behaviour" and there are 'guides' to ensure compliance.

The motto of Akrokerri Teachers' Training College is "Non scolae sed vitae" (Not for school but for life). Thus, whatever we learn at school is carried over to life in general- you my call that 'Presbyterian training' So, if a boy learns to dress indecently, exposing his dirty, multi-coloured underwear or boxer shorts which scream 'to be covered up', how are these nestlings going to dress when they grow to join the Army, Police, Customs, Prisons, Lawyers, Immigration, Fire Service or even when they are engaged as teachers, bankers, insurance men, or when they become Parliamentarians, Ministers or 'big men' in our society?. Some role-models indeed! A U.S. student thinks "With the job market now you've got to be really competitive. If there's one guy looking nice and one guy sagging his pants they're going to hire the guy looking nice." It is 'survival of the fittest'.

Parental control is now thrown into the wind, and teachers who are 'parentis-in-loco' shy away from exercising control because of a backlash from the pupils' parents. And so, the show goes on… and the effect is inflicted upon the unsuspecting minds of those in primary schools, the 'tabulae rasae'.

Ours is a free society, but our over-indulgence is leading us into a near -chaos situation. What are the Ushers in our churches doing, because the boys take this dressing to church? What happened to Ephesians 6:4 which says; "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the lord".

The headmasters of some schools are known to be punishing recalcitrant students who relish this weird style of dressing. But immediately they are out of the school precincts, the students do as they please, and the larger society remain adamantine, dour or unmoved;

I am not advocating a rigid 'dressing' style, nothing like the one that prompted vigilantes to kill Grace Ushang of Nigeria in October, 2009 for wearing khaki trousers; nor the law in Sudan that led to the arrest of Lubna Hussein, a former employee of the United Nations and twelve other women for 'Indecent dressing'; However 'Your child sagging his pants is disrespectful to you as much as to your colleagues and indeed to himself'. Of course, he is disrespectful to the society.

In the past, some dare-devils had kicked out the strict Victorian style (1830-1900) of dressing where even the exposure of a woman's legs was considered indecent, so that baseball caps have the cover for shade turned backward; people (including Presidents) wear shirts without ties, even for official functions; and spectacles are permanently perched on the forehead. Now, the Pentecostals have liberalized the dressing of their church members.

Many of the states in the United States of America (including Delaware, Columbia and Virginia) have laws on 'indecent exposure'. Some of the State Governors (US) have resisted the attempt to pass such laws because of the fear of being tagged racists-guess why!

Some Nigerian universities have introduced dress codes. Lagos State University, for example, has rejected applications from prospective students who 'dress immorally'. Abia State University has passed a bill of conduct 'admitting only students decently dressed in attires that do not expose, suggest or give away the vital contours of sensitive parts of the body!

New York State Senator Eric Adams has plans to post six billboards round Brooklyn targeting the pants-sagging trend with the message; 'Raise your pants, raise your image.

Mzbel, like Lady Gaga, may be notorious for the way she dresses-skimpy, god-forsaken bikinis; but, as she claims, she does so to look different on stage; (Mzbel is now going African, adopting the; 'dipo' of the Krobos). Other artistes, while on stage, would want to look different and 'hot'; wearing tattered jeans with holes, transparent and see-through dresses as well as tight-fitting shirts that expose the contours of the body. But you dress according to the place you go! One does not dress to church as if he is going to the disco or the beach.

As parents, we have the duty to ensure the continuum in social life, but make the necessary room to accommodate social change. In 'Fathers and Sons' Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev's nihilist hero Yevgeny Vasil'evich Basarov asks the liberals "what institution doesn't deserve absolute and merciless rejection?". Don't let it be said that fathers have passed on less power, less wisdom and less love to their sons.

Confucius thinks that: "The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them;" and a Chinese proverb says: "If a son is uneducated, his dad is to blame."

We cannot fail, for as Charles Wadsworth notes: "By the time a man realises that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he is wrong."