So the other day I was browsing my Facebook feed when I came across this article with the following headline:

“A Brief History of the GOP War on Yoga and Its Pants”, with the subtitle “A Montana state representative says the leggings ought to be illegal. Oh, and Speedos too.”

War on yoga pants? The leggings should be illegal? Surely this was an exaggeration! But alas, it was not. The state representative in question, Mr David Moore, apparently feels that yoga pants are too tight and therefore suggestive and therefore indecent. Based on this, I can only assume that he is deeply uncomfortable with particular parts of the human body, even when those parts are in fact fully covered by fabric.

Still, the man is at least consistent, as he goes on to explain that he feels this way not only about yoga pants, but about “any garment that “gives the appearance or simulates” a person’s buttocks, genitals, pelvic area or female nipple[,]” as the article goes on to report. The pelvic area? Really?

As though this was the point of yoga pants.

The thing is: yoga pants are form-hugging and made of pleasantly stretchy fabric for a very good reason: most of us yoga practitioners will engage in contortionism of a higher or lower order at some point during a session, and what we don’t need at those moments is for those challenging poses that require a significant amount of concentration as it is to be additionally complicated by the distraction of loose-fitting clothes whose folds and extra fabric will inevitable get in the way. In other words: the clinginess is entirely functional.

Still, it’s not all bad. After further reading I found out that Mr Moore at least does not want to outlaw my comfort wear altogether, he merely wants it to be illegal if worn “in public”. I am still allowed to wear yoga pants while doing yoga at home, or in a privately owned studio or resort. I would just not be allowed to wear them in public, so my doing yoga in a park or on a beach while wearing appropriate attire would mean that I would engaging in illegal behaviour. How exciting. And how non-sensical. I would argue that it would be many times more indecent or at least distracting if I performed a bridge pose or a bend-to-leg pose or even just a downward-dog pose in a still-perfectly-legal bikini, for instance. Then again, perhaps the representative plans to place contemporary ladies’ swimwear on the indecent list next?

Actually, while we’re on the topic of swimwear, it seems the Montana representative is, at least, equal opportunity as to what constitutes indecent: Speedos are also far too tight to be decent, so there’s that. For Speedos, this proposal would be even more limiting. You wouldn’t be allowed to wear Speedos in public? Since most people tend to wear swimwear when they go swimming or sunbathing at a public pool or the beach (very few people have access to a private pool), that would leave precious few opportunities to wear Speedos.

Still, my favourite bit from the article is this: “The Republican from Missoula said tight-fitting beige clothing could be considered indecent exposure under his proposal.” Yes, quite. See, everyone’s skin is beige. Therefore, if tight-fitting beige items are worn by anyone at all, they will simply seem naked, which is, of course, evil. Now it all makes sense.

But let’s get back to the initial premise: “Yoga pants should be illegal in public anyway,” in the words of the Montana state representative. A concise summary of his arguments would be that these tight-fitting yoga pants are suggestive and indecent and lewd. And just … just … well, evil! I say: why stop at banning them from public life? Just cut this off at the source and make the sale of the things illegal, since the items themselves should definitely be illegal. Same for Speedos, naturally.

So tight-fitting beige items are evil, and yoga pants in general are evil. I shudder to think what it all means for beige yoga pants…