Boston Globe/ Jim Davis

A RHODE ISLAND man criticized the pervasiveness of yoga pants on women last week in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper. As a result, his home in Barrington was reportedly sieged this weekend, with hundreds of women walking past his house with bullhorns, flags, signs and an arsenal of feminist platitudes, in a flash mob generated on social media.

Alan Sorrentino, the letter writer, said he has also received death threats. Well, of course, he deserves a death sentence. He’s an enemy of women.  Apparently, Mr. Sorrentino, 63, has been living in a cave. How else could he not know that it is all but a capital crime to criticize the ugly, sexually aggressive clothing offered by a decadent, corporate fashion industry that doesn’t care if women look like slabs of meat and purveys everything feminists have ever decried as the “objectification” of women?

The Boston Globe quotes from the letter:

‘‘Yoga pants belong in the yoga studio,’’ he wrote. ‘‘What’s next? Wearing a ‘‘Speedo’’ to the supermarket? Imagine if men did that. Yuck!’’

Sorrentino wrote that it’s ‘‘bizarre and disturbing’’ to see the outfits on ‘‘mature, adult women,’’ noting that it’s ‘‘usually paired with a blousy top and a pony tail hairdo.’’ He said it’s the worst thing to happen in women’s fashion since the miniskirt. He said women should wear a ‘‘nice pair of tailored slacks’’ or jeans instead.

[…]

He told women who wear yoga pants that he’s struggling with his own physicality as he ages and said, ‘‘I don’t want to struggle with yours.’’

Mr. Sorrentino later defended himself by saying he was just joking and that only a “tormented, uptight individual” would criticize what women wear. He is scared. Men are understandably scared of yoga-practicing, peace-loving feminist bullies who have the multi-billion dollar corporate media, the American government and the entire political establishment behind them. Sorrentino probably is a “tormented, uptight individual,” and he certainly didn’t go far enough. He should have totally condemned the public wearing of yoga pants, not just on older women. Though most women don’t intend it, the clingy and revealing synthetic pants, which would have been considered not all that long ago no more acceptable in public than underwear, are a form of sexual aggression. They draw excessive attention toward their bodies — and thus away from their personalities. (Mr. Sorrentino might have also done the world a service by criticizing yoga itself, a practice which encourages resignation, a practice which, though connected to a noble contemplative tradition, presents the divine as an impersonal force, no more interesting than a rock, and is partly response for the Closing of the American Mind.)

Attendees of the march said they would not endure “policing” of women’s bodies — as if criticism was coercion, as if words constituted a jail sentence.

We need more tormented, uptight individuals to stand up to these bullies who don’t realize that what they wear affects other people and is a social statement. Yoga pants worn in public undermine the dignity of women. They make a statement: women are hunks of meat, rather than potentially elevated beings with a noble mission in this world. They are anti-feminine and cruel to women who don’t have the slim and sleek bodies idolized by our culture. Furthermore, they are depressing — black uniforms devoid of decorative interest — and thus they further undermine the dignity of women everywhere and contribute to the pervasive ugliness of our environment.

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