A Discourse on Depantsing
Of all the sophmoric pranks, the depantsing is funniest. Perhaps this is because nobody gets hurt. There is no mess to clean up. Nothing gets broken, except, of course, the occasional torn belt loop or stretched waist band. However, the depantsing is fully capable of delivering a crushing blow to one's dignity.
At first glance, the depantsing is simple. Sneak up to someone, and force their pants down. But there is much to it. One sneaks up the victim, arms outstretched at the shoulders, hands open, like Frankenstein's monster but with a devious grin. And then, just like that! A swift and forceful tug. The pants come down. The victim thrusts his hips away from the perpetrator, his back bending backward, contorting his body into the shape of a “C” and shouting something profane. This is the depantsing.
But the crafty depantser cannot stop planning here. He must plan for contingencies. Suppose the underwear comes down. This places his face dangerously close to naked butt cheeks and skin could graze (and a savvy victim might realize the potential for swift and decisive reprisal by just these means). Then there is the possibility of insufficient droppage. For a depantsing to be official, one must remove the pants beneath the level of underwear (it is fully understood among the lowbrow community that a victim wearing boxers will present more of a challenge to the perpetrator, however allowances are made for degree of difficulty). Plu there is always the possibility of a reactionary punch, not to mention to unspoken law that demands that such a punch be accepted as just. And finally, the ironic reality that the depanster is himself quite vulnerable to a depantsing of his own.
But one item must be made clear before discussion can continue. Let us no more debase this prank by referring to it as “pansting.” What an impoverished word this is! Pantsing is just the opposite of depantsing. Pantsing is precisely what the victim wants! He, all of us, want to be pantsed, which is to say to keep our pants over those things we believe they should be over. No, no, ours is the business of depantsing. Therefore, the proper order of this prank, as it pertains to the position of one's pants, is this: pantsing, depantsing, repantsing. Any other word will simply not do.
What exactly is it about the depantsing that makes for humor? It is a matter, not only of flouting conventions, but of forcing another to flout them. Pants, you see, are expected to reside about the waist area (with some exceptions for different cultures and use of the bathroom). Pants are not found about the knees or the ankles except in those brief moments of transition when one goes from clothed to naked. It would draw a fair amount of attention should one choose to stop their pants in any other place but the waist, for we, as a culture, have very specific expectations about the appropriate placement of the top of one's pants. The depantser uses these expectations against his victim. The victim's pants are taken from the appropriate, waist-high, level, and pulled down to a level more conducive to humor and ridicule.
The depantsing is a very homoerotic prank. However, the fear of homoeroticism is overcome by the knowledge that the male buttocks is offensive to the sight, and even bared intentionally as a prank of its own known colloquially as “mooning.” Thus, a depantsing that includes removal of any underwear, known to athletes and frat boys as the “full trau,” can be considered to have victimized, not just the person whose pants were adjusted to the humorous, culturally disapproved levels, but also anyone who witnesses the sight of man's naked buttocks. This is why the depantsing remains a strictly male prank. Any possibility of defining the act as sexual assault is lost with the general disgust that comes about when butt cheeks surface.
Thus the victim is placed into a rather awkward circumstance, finding his pants at a level wont to draw attention. He must react. The most common method is to quickly move away from the perpetrator and restore his pants to the level of their previous repose (the perpetrator will have given the victim space for reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph). Some will strike at the perpetrator out of anger with one hand, while using the other to hike up their pants at an awkward angle. This rarely works, since the victim must bend at the waist in order to reach his pants, rendering him incapable of delivering a sufficient blow to his attacker. Furthermore, the one hand he allows for pants-restoration will be insufficient for a proper and swift recovery of his dignity. Therefore, the one-handed strike is rarely attempted in a full-trau situation. There is but one way to defeat the depantser once it has become too late. For the depantsing requires at the very least a modicum of dignity in the victim. There must be something about the victim that makes him say to himself, “Self, I have noticed, although I've never heard it said explicitly, that pants should be fastened about a certain level, the waist level, and, by gosh, I aim to comply with this!” Without this, there is no joke. Therefore the man who defeats the depantsing is he who, having found his pants involuntarily strapped around his ankles, leaves them there for a time and asks of everyone around just what the big deal is.
