The issue of clothing and morality has almost always been associated with questions of female modesty and chastity. Costume historians have frequently asked, Do women dress to attract men? — while ignoring the ample evidence that women dress as much for reasons of status as for sex appeal. Even when it is clear that women are dressing for an audience of other women, it is suggested that they are all rivals for male attention. But what is the reaction when the question is turned around: Do men dress to attract women? Presumably, heterosexual men want to look sexually attractive to women, but their primary goal, they say, is to look active, powerful, and rich. Furthermore, they are strongly inhibited by anxiety about appearing effeminate — or, indeed, as a sex object at all. The male sex object is regarded with ambivalence and even disapproval. Only men regarded as ultra-masculine (such as baseball or football stars) can pose with impunity as centerfold models.

Men and women both report that there is a stigma attached to the man who looks too beautiful or ultra-fashionable. Heterosexuals openly suggest that beautiful, fashionable men look effeminate (which is, in part, a code word for homosexual). In a broader sense, however, effeminacy implies the quality of being like a woman, which is somehow less than a man. Evidence of strength and success attracts many women, and the men's experience of their own sexuality has made it undesirable to seek acceptance or approval of their sexual charms. Men's bodies have never stood simply for sex; consequently, their clothes never have either. Pity the poor man who wants to look attractive and well dressed, but who fears that by doing so he runs the risk of looking unmanly.

Valerie Steele, Clothing and Sexuality
From the book Men and Women: Dressing the Part, edited by Claudia Brush Kidwell and Valerie Steele, accompanying the Men and Women project of the National Museum of American History
Copyright © 1989 by the Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved.

Posted 27 July 1996

| No Comment menu | E-mail to Chaz