Printer-friendly version
Author:
If there wera a bot and a boy and girl wearing belts standing next to each other with their bodies obscured so that only the belts were visible could you tell which was which?!?
How?!?
BigCloset TopShelf
TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
The Hatbox
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
If you prefer, you can donate through Patreon:
Become a Patron!
Thank you!
Comments
A fashion thing?
I can honestly say there is no difference between all the cowboy and cowgirl belts and belt buckles. So what's the truth? There isn't any difference except where they were purchased. As for fashion belts make from the same material as the dress or off the rack, they tend to be more narrow, thinner. How should one wear them? All cowboy and cowgirl belts go around the body counter clockwise. The belt buckles would be upside down going the other way. Most cowboy, cowgirl belt buckles have a top and bottom. A few don't. If they are engraved definitely the name is on the bottom and counter clockwise.
From here on it's up to each individual taste and until someone tells me different. All my belts, even on my dresses go on counter clockwise
Hugs Diana-Mikayla
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it..
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Historically
I know buttons on a top were a thing. Mainly this went back to men dressing themselves, and women having someone dress them. So the buttons were always designed for right-handed people to manage, as it were.
Maybe belts were the same? I have never paid that close attention to belts. Just a quick image search shows that most women wear them counter clockwise like men. Every few pictures or so are clockwise, but they could be left-handed. Too many variables.
So no, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference based solely on a belt.
Edit - Meant to reply to main post, not Barb. ;)
~Taylor Ryan
My muse suffers from insomnia, and it keeps me up at night.
On the right side if you are looking down at yourself
It is for the same reason women's blouses have buttons on the left if you face down, to make it easier for a lady's maid to dress her mistress.
It is a symbol of gentility I think, much like long finger nails.
Long finger nails flaunts the fact you do not need to work.
Button sides
I once took a college class in the history of wardrobe design. The information given was that when buttons first became common (13th-14th century), men’s and women’s garments all had buttonholes on the same side as women’s blouses do today. That is, buttons on the left placket and the right side laid over the left (from the wearer’s viewpoint). This applied not just to clothing worn close to the body but also for capes and cloaks with buttons. Tailors did all the work by hand, of course; in the course of making garments all day, why would they differentiate between men and women?
The Y-chromosome tends towards combativeness, with fights and duels (and self-protection) in the 13th-17th century usually done with swords until handguns became common. This applied more towards the nobility and merchant class, of course. As the majority of humans are right-handed, swords were worn on the left hip to be drawn by the right hand. Thus, the left hand would grasp the cape or cloak and pull it aside to allow the sword to be drawn … but with buttons on the left side, and the fold of material right-over-left, neither the grasping, pulling, or drawing could be done with ease. Precious seconds could be lost while fumbling with left-sided buttons.
So tailors simply swapped the buttons and buttonholes for male customers. This allowed a man to pull his cloak with the left hand and grab his sword by the right. At first only a few could afford this, or had need to draw their swords often, but male vanity—wanting to be seen as combat-ready, and also the desire to show their difference from women, perhaps?—led to a new standard of tailoring as the non-noble, non-dueling males wanted the right-sided buttons.
As to belts, right-handedness also comes into play; whether a belt is leather, cloth, or even rope, buckled or tied, it’s simply easier to cinch a belt with the stronger right hand pulling it tight.
Long finger nails?
Only if you are old imperial Chinese.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
counter(anti)-clockwise for mine
That way the My Little Ponies circumnavigating my girth are right side up.
~hugs, Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
women pants
women's pants normally have the zipper opening on the left while men's have it on the right. Just like the buttons on a shirt, the genders are opposite.
I would assume that since all that is opposite and men thread their belt through the left side first, women would thread a belt through the right side and thus the tail of the belt would hang to the right side for a woman as it hangs on the left for a man.
But I would say that yes I could tell due to the zipper opening even if the belt was threaded the same on each
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Not necessarily
I practically live in denim, and the hard and fast rule about which side the zipper opens on really doesn't matter anymore. I'd say 90% of my jeans open on the right. And almost all are womens' jeans. Belts (used as holding pants up) are threaded the same way the men do.
Actually gave some thought to this subject, as far as I can tell, unless the belt is purely decorative in nature, men and women thread their belts the same way. Now women that wear belts for decorative (non loadbearing) reasons, such as wearing a unbuttoned long tailed shirt with the belt loosely buckled around the waist, anything goes. I've worn them both ways. In fact, I have a couple of belts that have two sets of buckles, one for each direction. You can use either buckle, it doesn't matter one bit.
Now I'm wearing jeans 90+% of the time, more fancy clothing may be different.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I have to say you are right
I went and googled pictures of women wearing belts and you're right, it appears that women's jeans and some slacks now have the zipper opening to the right.
I know this wasn't always the case as due to my waist/hip size when I was young, my mother would buy plain girl's jeans for me (and remove the tags). When I asked about the zipper being on the "wrong" side she told me is was just the way they were made and not to worry about it. It was a couple of years later that I found out what she had been doing.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Has no one considered the handidness of the wearer?
Lefties (like me) often have their belts looped the other way around simply because it is easier that way around.
Samantha
Add cynicism here
Samantha, our whole world struggles because of the problems "left handed" people have burdened the rest of us with. No doubt women's blouses started out from a left handed seamstress who put all the buttons on the wrong side. Trying to justify her mistake as it was for women seemed to mollify all the critics who claimed she made a mistake. Thus women's blouses verses men's shirts was begun which men found an advantage to. Unbuttoning a woman's blouse from the wrong side was easier as it wasn't reversed to men's shirts when fumbling in the dark with buttons.
And then there is the English driving on the left side of the road. If we trace this insane idea of all oncoming traffic has to drive on one's right to get past it can be traced back to PM Heklemier who was himself left handed and sit on the right side of his carriage to control his horse. When horseless buggies appeared he "strongly suggested" they all be driven from the right as he had his own buggy.
Even before horseless carriages most wagoners understood teams were controlled from the left side of the wagons or stagecoach. Thus when automobiles came along we got it right. Thank goodness we didn't have a left handed President in office at the time or we might have ended up with our highways and automobiles as confused as the English are.
Hugs Samantha
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Barbie, barbie...
I could reverse your words and say that the US roads and cars are confused... It is all what you are used to.
I learned to drive a car in Germany (Army Landrover) and for around a decade, I'd actually driven more on the right than on the left.
I only messed up twice (to my knowledge).
We do know that it can be confusing so I'll lt you off the next time you take a turn onto the wrong lane of the highway. :) :)
Samantha
Chunnel
The left side/right side driving thing is the main reason why the tunnel between Dover and Calais was designed for rail lines and not motor traffic. All those head-on collisions beneath the English Channel would have been horrendous!
~hugs, Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
There are two tunnels.
There are two tunnels.
Why didn't they put a half twist in the middle ?
If you put a half twist in your belt
...before buckling it, it becomes a mobius belt, and then you only
need one additional thing to turn it into a time travel device.
But my alarm went off + I woke up before the oddly dressed
time traveler couple could tell me what that was.
oh well, Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Because of how the tunnels
Because of how the tunnels were drilled. It's easier to change the direction of flow _outside_ of the tunnels.
Tunnels are VERY expensive. Roads and bridges far less so. I believe that the Chunnel drilling machines are actually still buried under the middle.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Biology
Physical differences in the body might give a clue. The bot would be problematic. The boy and the girl would have slight, but noticeable differences. The waist of a the boy would sit lower toward the hips and their would be a minimum of difference between the measurement of the waist and hips; whereas, the girl's waist would be higher and there is typically 10 inches of difference in the measurement of the waist and hips, so there would be a noticeable swelling below the belt. This may be difficult to see without a side by side comparison.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I would simply say that belt
I would simply say that belt wearing is done so that the buckle follows the top flap of the pants fastening. This reduces wear, and makes it simpler to unfasten. Unbuckle the belt, hold the buckle and pants in the off hand, and remove the final fastener.
Keep in mind that belts only became necessary for men's pants in the 1920's. Prior to that (the Regency, for example), trouser waists were at the 'natural' waist, just like for women. Braces were worn, rather than belts. You used a belt to hold weapons and tools - they were not attached to clothing. Think of the belts police wear (usually they have keepers are leather straps that snap to their personal belt, so it doesn't lide around too much)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.