The other day when I rack pulled 635 pounds at the gym, a new personal record, I asked the guy who worked at the front desk for a hair tie or a rubber band, in order to tie up my T-shirt behind me, and roll it up into a crop top, so it wouldn’t get in the way when I was lifting.

And then I thought, why is it that it is so normal for women to wear crop tops, but not men?

If you’re a man, and you have a beer gut, then it makes sense to not wear a crop top, because nobody wants to see your stomach fat. But assuming you have a low body fat percentage, is there any downside to wearing a crop top?

The same thing goes with wearing short shorts, it is common for women to wear short shorts, or even wear tights at the gym in which you could literally see into their butt hole. But why is this not the case for men?

The first theory is sociological signaling theory. That is typically if you’re a gay man, the way that you signal that you are gay is that you dress in a certain way, in order to low-key signal that you are gay to other gay men. Typically this is done via the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you dress, even your color palette.

However, if you’re a straight heterosexual male like myself, why is there a fear to wear clothes that might be perceived as looking “gay”? Or another words, is homophobia, and homophobic thinking in the context of men holding us back?