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From: iayork@panix.com (Ian A. York)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Help with Assignment on Baggy Jeans!
Date: 9 May 1996 09:39:35 -0400

Alan J Rosenthal <flaps@dgp.toronto.edu> wrote: >craig.s.thom@genie.com writes:
>>In the 1970s very tight jeans were very popular. This gave rise to an urban
>>legend:
>
>or that the shrinkage was painless although paralyzing. But surely the victim
>would have enough time to remove the crushing jeans unless they were drunk and
>better yet asleep too. Even enough time to get scissors, drive to the fabled
>emergency room, phone one's Norwegian grandmother, whatever.

The damaging effects of tight jeans may not be entirely legendary, although the stories Alan and Craig mention certainly are. I remember seeing newspaper reports in the mid-80's, I think, about the hazards of tght jeans on models - the story (and perhaps the truth; I don't know) went that for modelling purposes the jeans would be several sizes too small; the models needed special assistants - two to hold her shoulders, others to pull on the jeans - to get them on, and then had to be carried to the photo site because the jeans were so tight she couldn't walk. The story siad that the models were running into nerve problems because of this.

I have a vague idea that this may have come up on AFU before, and someone may have posted a newspaper article supporting it. (Of course, newspapers being what they are, this is not confirmation.)

Medline has a number of potentially relevant articles. They don't all have abstracts attached, so I'll have to look them up some time when I hit the main library. Here are some of them:

Lantner RR. Ros SP.
Blue jeans thighs [letter]
Pediatrics. 88(2):417, 1991 Aug.

Fiumara NJ. Tang S.
Folliculitis of the buttocks and pinworms. A case report. Sexually Transmitted Diseases. 13(1):45-6, 1986

"Folliculitis, both superficial and deep, has increased in frequency, particularly during the warm months of the year. The frictional trauma from tight-fitting jeans, with overhydration and maceration of the skin, has contributed to the increase."

Scurr JH. Cutting P.
Tight jeans as a compression garment after major trauma. British Medical Journal Clinical Research Ed.. 288(6420):828, 1984

Gateless D. Gilroy J.
Tight-jeans meralgia: hot or cold? [letter]. JAMA. 252(1):42-3, 1984

Mascaro JM. Ferrando J.
The perils of wearing jeans; lipoatrophia semicircularis [letter]. International Journal of Dermatology. 22(5):333, 1983

Mathiesen B. Reumert T.
[The blue jeans syndrome]. [Danish]
Ugeskrift for Laeger. 143(21):1333, 1981

Ian "I'm not wearing any pants" York

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From: merde@crl.com (Meredith Tanner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Help with Assignment on Baggy Jeans!
Date: 10 May 1996 16:52:02 -0700

Alan J Rosenthal <flaps@dgp.toronto.edu> wrote: >
>The set-up for this story is pretty weak. I heard a better version in the late
>70s, without any particular location: That someone wearing tight jeans (I
>think it was a male) was really drunk at a party and was placed into a full
>bathtub clothed, either as a prank or as some moron's idea of getting someone
>to sober up, where he fell asleep and woke up legless. (Ok, not quite legless,
>but it was too good a pun to forego.) Not that readers should be unable to
>think of any other arguments against the wisdom of leaving someone drunk
>sleeping in a full bathtub. But this is a lot less incoherent than the version
>quoted above, as it gives sufficient time for substantial shrinkage. I don't

okay, i remember the jeans-in-the-bathtub fad, so let me relate my experiences. back in the late 70s/early 80s, the rumor was that if you wore your new jeans in a hot bath, they would shrink to fit you "perfectly." (meaning extremely tightly.) i tried it, being a teenager at the time. no shrinkage whatsoever.

now let's think a little about laundry. how hot does the water need to be in your laundry load in order for cotton to shrink? hotter than the average bath, i'd say; if you dropped someone in a bathtub full of water hot enough to shrink their jeans, they'd be in more danger of scalding than paralysis.

on top of that, fabric will only shrink so much; once a pair of jeans has been through at least one load in the dryer on the "normal" setting, it's just NOT going to shrink significantly more. back before jeans routinely came pre-shrunk, they tended to be pretty stiff -- and that was during the "indigo" jeans fad, too; jeans were dyed so heavily that if you didn't wash them before you wore them, you'd dye your skin blue for a day or two.

so in order for the above story to be true, you'd have to have a guy wearing a brand-new pair of stiff, un-preshrunk jeans to a party full of people cruel enough to toss an unconscious drunk into a tub full of scalding water.

while this is certainly *possible*, it's pretty goddamn unlikely. i think we can safely assume that this one is false.