Sagging pants? No fly.

Four years ago, I first wrote about sagging pants and quoted media reporting from The Daily Iberian that the Delcambre in Louisiana would soon outlaw sagging pants. Early last year, I wrote about General Larry Platt's audition on American Idol with a song called Pants on the Ground.  In April last year, I wrote about New York State Senator Eric Adams, who with Fully Persuaded for Children and Families Inc, launched a campaign to encourage young people to raise their pants, with six billboards in Brooklyn.

It seems that saggy pants may have resulted in a passenger being refused passage on an airline.  Reported in San Francisco Chronicle

On Wednesday, San Francisco police got a call about 9 a.m. that someone was exposing himself outside a US Airways gate, Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said.

An airline employee spotted [Deshon Marman, 20, a University of New Mexico football player] before he boarded Flight 488, bound for Albuquerque, and complained that Marman's pants "were below his buttocks but above the knees, and that much of his boxer shorts were exposed," Rodriguez said.

The employee asked Marman to pull up his pants before he boarded the plane, but he refused, Rodriguez said. Marman allegedly repeated his refusal after taking his seat on the plane.

"At that point he was asked to leave the plane," Rodriguez said. "It took 15 to 20 minutes of talking to get him to leave the plane, and he was arrested for trespassing." Marman allegedly resisted officers as he was being led away.

Read more. Marman was actually arrested and taken into custody for one night before being released on bail.  According to further reporting in San Francisco Chronicle, the incident has generated debate about fashion issue and whether Marman had been targeted.  See also report by NPR.

San Francisco Chronicle has also acquired footage of the incident.


The question should be about undergarment exposure. In any other circumstances, would just wearing underwear in public be allowed?  If so, then there is not a problem.  If not, then there lies the issue.  In any case, saggy pants looks ridiculous.