Good morning to Paul Mescal, who went straight from his hotel to Monday’s Gucci men’s show in a rather flimsy pair of bedroom boxers—yet another gem in the crown for the king of thigh chutzpah.
Despite emerging pictures of the gladiator’s revealing on-set kilt, Mescal’s negligible inseam is our Roman Empire, his dueling pins battling it out for our attention. The internet has been swooning over Paul’s thighs since 2020’s infamous summer dash to get prawn crisps and gin in a tin. Henceforth, Mescal and short-shorts have become as synonymous as peas and carrots, Woody and Buzz, the Olsens and cigarettes. The Gucci show was itself a leggy parade of barely-there shorts and long limbs (Gucc-knee, if you will), so Paul was only following suit; but something about his shift from short sports shorts (distinctly outerwear) to full cotton boxers (distinctly underwear) is both deeply unserious and enthusiastically erotically charged. I don’t want to completely objectify one of our most interesting actors, but we’re also witnessing the internet’s favorite boyfriend in his underpants in front of the paparazzi.
And so, I guess, to men’s legs—specifically men’s thighs, a body part that’s become increasingly muscular as it’s become more public. Twin columns once housed in trousers or board shorts have undergone miniskirt-ification, now daring you not to gawp as men’s hemlines rise and rise. Where we once had a glimpse of knee, we now have the holy trinity of hamstring, quadriceps, and adductor. And I get it—it’s nice to have nice legs, and it’s nice to show them off. What are all the squats for if not to encourage squints? Don a short-short, my dear fellow, lest we waste the burpees.
All this makes me wonder two things. One is: Am I a pervert? Or not so much a pervert as a product of our hypersexed culture? Am I unnecessarily sexualizing a nice guy in a nice ’fit at a fashion show? Am I incapable of just enjoying Paul Mescal looking confident in his clothes? I’m also wondering if this is gendered. Women have had beauty standards thrust on them for millennia; why can’t men? Is objectifying a male actor a rebalancing act, or is it straight-up reductive? Am I as titillated by the naked-dress trend? Does that feel as risqué to me? Does a man pour himself into an outfit? Does he flaunt his curves? Or is it all the same thing? With short-shorts and sheer dresses equally blurring the line between public and private, what should and shouldn’t we see?
Male thighs are a bit like female cleavage: both sexually suggestive and dormantly benign, at times inviting, at others innocent. This is how most of your human body works: It belongs to you to dress how you please, but someone out there is eroticizing niche sections of it (hidden or showcased), reducing you to component parts. Obviously, I don’t think Oscar-nominated actor Paul Mescal is just his thighs, but I also don’t think noticing his thighs indecently eroticizes them. It goes without saying that it’s up to him how he dresses—and, in the end, no matter who is doing the perceiving, genuine empowerment comes from your choice of if, when, and how you want to reveal yourself.