According to the New York Times, men are no longer choosing to wear pants that hide their butts. They're ready to show off their rears.

Until recently, the article suggests, men have focused on beefing up their upper bodies at the gym and have worn looser pants to deflect from their sagging derrieres and scrawny legs. But now, the tide is turning. More European-style, fitted cuts are coming into fashion as gym-goers focus on giving their lower bodies an equally challenging workout.

(Are you following this? If you are, can you explain it to us?)

We're not sure if a new approach to weight training is really what's (ahem) behind the trend toward slimmer-fitting, ultimately more flattering cuts in men's pants. We think it's likely just another ebb-and-flow style cycle, or maybe the product of the fact that the general public is far more fashion literate than they were, say, ten years ago.

(At the same time, we've also noted a trend among younger men toward baggier pants, so the NYT theory could be completely off base...)