If you’re a sensitive person like me, you worry that this type of clothing objectifies women, turning them into pieces of meat that are meant to be consumed. Why, the very slogans that appear on these ladies’ derrieres are the words that would be used on a steakhouse menu to whet the appetites of consumers. Recently, the trend has only gotten worse. The sweatpants I have seen lately are appalling. The fashion industry is becoming less and less subtle about its productizing of women. In fact, I did an informal study. I looked at nearly two dozen sweatpants and compared the slogans printed across the buttocks to the dinner menu of my local Outback Steakhouse. Believe it or not, every single slogan found on these sweatpants could be found on the Outback Steakhouse menu. In my anger and disgust, I now want to present my findings to you.
To begin with, it is worth noting that women of all ages are targeted as potential consumers of these sweatpants. Clearly, the messages written across the bottoms are meant to entice men. But designers are indifferent as to what women they objectify. If you are a female, the fashion designers want to turn you into a strip sirloin, a tantalizing dish prepared especially for the masticating male. Thus, they have designed sweatpants that will appeal to the young:
And they have designed sweatpants that will appeal to the old:
Perhaps the casual onlooker will not equate either of the above slogans with food. They are undoubtedly among the tamest. But as we continue through the selection of sweatpants, it becomes more and more obvious that any woman who wears them is to be regarded as a 13 oz. ribeye:
Some slogans are even more outrageous, scarcely concealing the commoditization of women. With this next pair of sweatpants, the message is loud and clear—if you’re a salivating customer with enough money in your wallet, you can get what you want:
“Pink” and “juicy” now seem mild in comparison, don’t they? Well, can I tell you about something that is not mild? It’s the alarm I felt in realizing that, in some cases, fashion designers have gone so far as to quote verbatim the descriptions found on Outback Steakhouse menus regarding the various ways in which steaks can be prepared.
Consider this pair of sweatpants, which contains the exact description of an Outback steak prepared “medium”:
Designers also utilized the description for steaks prepared “well-done”:
Sickening.
In their callous greed, designers have begun to utilize a wider- and wider-range of phrases plucked from the Outback menu. As they do so, the results become more and more perplexing. Consider the next batch of sweatpants. As a male, I admit that each one piqued my curiosity and struck me as highly alluring. And yet, the precise meaning of each slogan becomes increasingly allusive. At some points it is downright baffling. This indicates that fashion designers are seeking to appeal solely to the base and appetitive parts of our nature. They care not one whit for the rational parts of the soul. Take a look:
Even the dessert menu is not off-limits. Whether it’s a description of carrot cake or of Outback’s famous Chocolate Thunder from Down Under®, fashion designers want to take something innocent and pervert it by plastering it across the butts of women everywhere:
This is merely one study, conducted informally, and comparing the menu of just one restaurant to a small sample of sweatpants. I can only imagine what I’d find if I searched out more sweatpants and opened up more menus. Olive Garden, P.F. Chang’s, The Cheesecake Factory. It turns my stomach how, after conducting my simple study, merely listing these restaurants’ names is causing my loins to stir. Something must be done about this. If you have any ideas, please leave them in the comments. I myself will be thinking about what to do as I go eat lunch. I’m very hungry now, as you can imagine.
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