Don't Be Hatin'

Previously, on This Is My Bar . . .

I took it upon myself to do the unthinkable: tell women how to dress.  You had it coming, ladies, after asking us since the beginning of time the unanswerable question "Does this make me look fat?"  (Sorry, I was legally obligated to incorporate that joke somewhere in here.)  Comeuppance, bitch.  Truthfully, this is kind of like community service, since I am doing everyone involved a favor, free of charge and for the benefit of society.  So, without further ado, let's resume the pain.  Hey, it can't be worse than menstrual cramps, am I right, girls?  Yeah?  What?  There's no turning back now anyway, I may as well push this as far as it can go.

Tights with Shorts

This is one of those iffy cases; yes, it can look okay under the right circumstances, on the right girl, with the right wardrobe.  But why risk it?  Like a straight man wearing pink, odds are some alternative is the better choice.  Because when this look goes wrong, it goes Titanic wrong.

No, like the actual ship sinking.
(Sidenote: why would they mention Cameron made Aliens, T2, and True Lies?  "If you liked those pseudo-intelligent action flicks, you'll love . . .  weepy historical disaster drama"?)

Remember when you were a little girl and liked to raid Mommy's closet?  Or, if your household was less-traditional, Daddy's?  You'd try on everything and anything, according to the order in which you found it, regardless of taste.  But you quit painting your face with cosmetics like Bozette the Hooker Clown years ago.  Time to do the same with the zany, anything-goes outfits, because, honestly, it mostly makes you resemble a little girl.

And we prefer to imagine you older.  Slightly.

Think of it another way: people make fun of superheroes' underpants-on-the-outside for a reason.

80s Stuff

I know I promised not to cover the glaringly obvious faux pas in this article, but then I turned around and immediately mentioned leg-warmers and shoulder-pads in the same sentence; why would you trust me?  Neon is dead.  The Pastel Plague is over.  Spandex resides in its proper circle of hell.  When you toy with such dangerous trends, you're like one of those cliched idiot scientists from the movies who decides to fuck around with an alien mutant zombie-producing super-virus for fun.  Fuck you.  What good could come of that?  Similarly, attempting to resurrect any element of 80s fashion is just asking for apocalyptic consequences.

On second thought, I'll take those alien zombies.

The vast majority of 80s garb makes a woman look frumpy, skanky, or mentally deranged, owing to the little-known fact that most designers of the time were senile slutty grandmothers.  Apparently.  That 80s Show failed because the decade in question wasn't even good for more than a few jokes.  What's that?  You don't recall That 80s Show?  Exactly.  More than anything else, it looks like you are (1) half-ironically emulating an era you weren't part of for humorous effect (fail), or (2) desperately trying to recapture the high days of your bygone youth (epic fail).  Either way, it's a major turn-off and reprehensible to good taste besides.

Writing/Logos Where You "Don't" Want Us Looking

Now here is one I have absolutely no problem with per se, but confuses me to no end, so I want to at least bring it to your collective female attention.  You are a modern, empowered 21st-century woman (who still doesn't buy half her drinks at a bar), and deserve to be treated as such.  Correct me if I am wrong, but that means not being treated as a piece of eye-candy, yes?  So why, for the love of Sir Mix-a-Lot, would you want to walk around in public sporting these?

Game on.

You read my mind.

It is challenging enough for the male psyche to avoid sexualizing the feminine form at every turn without drawing attention to the assets (Christ, I went for a pun there).  It's the equivalent of putting up a flashing neon sign that says Don't Read Me.  As exemplified by the above image, Victoria's Secret is especially guilty of this with their "Love Pink" line/mindfuck/whatever.  Then again, I guess this is not terribly surprising coming from a company that exists for the sole purpose of visually exploiting its target demographic.

Sexily exploiting them.

For the record, I think I speak for the majority of my gender when I say it isn't necessarily trashy or unattractive when women dress in such clothes.  However, you cannot get offended when wearing it causes guys to stare at your butt.  It's like wearing a padded pushup and a skintight V-neck that leaves half of your rack basking in sunlight - we're going to look, plain and simple.  Even sweatpants can look provocative on a female when they are this style, for fuck's sake.

Not.  Fair.  They aren't even pink!

I suspect women secretly do this as some sort of reverse-psychology, post-modern, domination-through-stereotype-exploitation stratagem, but lack the proof, since my brain basically turns into non-conductive Go-Gurt substitute, like most men's, in the face of sex.  Conversely, if wearing these pants/shorts literally turns your posterior into a billboard, in scale as well as purpose, maybe you want to opt for something a tad more demure.  Just saying.

"Breaking up the scenery, breaking my mind . . ."

And I think that about sums it up.  I hope you have found this simple guide useful, if not especially politically correct or tasteful (ha, get it?).    Before I start fielding complaints, let me just say that, despite the relative simplicity of our wardrobe options, men manage to screw up their look approximately ten-thousand times more than women.  That's because we aren't as vain, materially-obsessed, and superficial as you.  Just kidding, we're idiots.  There, happy?