The cultural aestethics of being half-naked

Last night, a friend was telling me how foreign the concept of “roommates” is to Rwandans. “No one really believes that men and women can share a house without…” He just smiled. So I think this must mean that anyone who knows my living situation assumes that we are just one big crazy expat orgy.

There’s eight of us here at the moment–soon, we will be nine, for a few weeks. People swing in and out every few months, pulling with them significant others of varying degrees of seriousness. This makes scheduling a shower a little tricky, and it means I have to fight for–and be willing to share–the oversized coffee mug for which I significantly overpaid and to which I have become unreasonably attached.

All of this sharing of space and dining accouterments is fine, even though I am not–for the record–fulfilling the Rwandan stereotype. The gaggle of people who live here are pretty awesome, and I enjoy their company. Even when the kitchen, the only domain about which I become irrationally Type A, is a disaster.

But the thing that really gets me is the underwear.

We have three men in the house now, a Belgian, an American and a Dane, and what feels like a brothel’s worth of women. Most of the women are suitably clothed most of the time. But there seems to be something distinctly male about exposing at least half of your body while lounging around the house. Particularly if you’re European. Unless they’re going to work, my men are pretty much never wearing a shirt and trousers simultaneously.

I can’t decide if the difference between which of the aforementioned items they choose not to wear is personal or cultural. One guy prefers toplessness, the other sharing most of his thighs.

In America, we have very refined opinions about whether men should be wearing boxers or briefs, and what it means to choose one or the other. Sure, maybe you have a roommate who occasionally–or even often–wanders around in his boxers in the morning. But if he wanders around in anything that involves more elastic than is needed for a waistband, he will be mocked and judged and probably discussed behind his back at parties.

So that every time one of my dear men wanders by in those little black shorts desperately gripping his bottom, it’s really, really hard for me not to laugh.