Deluxe Velvet Breeches
You want to pick a fight with someone? Tell them their grandfather wore dresses. The funny thing (besides the whole male-wearing-a-dress joke) is that you probably won't be lying.
Some of you are probably nodding your head and smiling, realizing that I am speaking of that period of time when Breeching of boys was a common occurrence. Others of you are fidgeting uncomfortably and remembering those pictures of grandpa wearing that negligee and eight ounces of eye makeup.
Breeching was the hysterical (and historical) custom of watching your son get fitted with his first pair of pants. Hysterical because until that precise moment, your son wore dresses for all of his life. No, it's not some weird sub-meaning of the word dress. No, the word dress didn't once mean something else. Not long ago, sons wore dresses until they were about 6 or 7 years old. Flowery, lacy, flowing, beautiful, J. Edgar Hoover dresses. Talk about un-seamly.
Breeching was a ceremony held for a son, a rite of passage so to speak, when they moved from gay, cross-dressing toddler to heterosexual, sword-wearing boy. (editor's note: Our writer is a gay cross-dresser, so he means no insult by this) (Writer's note: No, I'm not).
The ceremony was elaborate, with many of the boy's relatives and friends there to watch it (and you thought having a horde of people sing Happy Birthday to you was embarrassing). The boy would give up his dresses for good and put on his first pair of breeches. He would often get a ceremonial sword to strap on too, just to make sure he understood that he was a man now and was supposed to kill things.
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