The Battle of the Drawers is heating up in South Alabama, where the fishing village of Bayou la Batre has told its male citizens and visitors to hitch up their pants or face fines and community service.

The Gulf Coast community, once known for its annual ceremony of the blessing of the fleet, and later as the prototype for Forrest Gump’s home, has decided to join the crusade against exposed underwear and male cleavage.

I wish it well, but I join the city attorney for nearby Saraland in wondering whether the town has the resources to pull up the collective pants of a whole generation of young folks. Saraland contemplated an anti-droop ordinance similar to the one in Bayou la Batre, but decided that it was better to let it all hang out than to face the expense of defending the constitutionality of the bare-butt ban.

In a report to his council, City Attorney T. Dwight Reid wrote: “I do suggest that Saraland not be the community who fights for such an ordinance, and may therefore be cause to expend considerable sums determining its constitutionality.”

He may have a point. I have given the Constitution a casual reading and have found nothing in it relating to the right to bare one’s behind or to make an open display of one’s undershorts. On the other hand, there’s that clause that says the states may exercise those powers not specifically delegated to the feds. That means, I suppose, that Bayou la Batre, as a creature of the sovereign state of Alabama, has the power to set legal limits for drooping pants.

I don’t recall male cleavage being an issue prior to the arrival of the hip-hop generation.

It was an accepted part of our rustic culture until fashion designers made a point of designing pants that sagged in the rear and drooped in the straddle. Until then, it was common for shade-tree mechanics to show cleavage when they leaned over the hood of a car to change sparkplugs or prime the carburetor. That was normal and natural, and those who were offended by the sight had the option of looking the other way.

I’m sure the waist band of my boxer shorts has shown above the waist of my trousers on occasions when I was engaged in physical labor and my bulging belly kept pushing my beltline downward and I didn’t have a free hand to pull it up. But when walking the streets or strolling the mall, I considered it an embarrassment when any part of my underwear became visible above my outerwear, and Miss Peggy was quick to remind me when my pants needed hitching up or my shirt needed tucking in.

Maybe I would have felt different had I worn more interesting underwear. Miss Peggy does my shopping for me, and she always brings home plain white boxer shorts or full-width briefs.

None of these bikini shorts or boxers adorned with hearts or erotic prints. But shorts for the younger generation seem to be made to be seen, and not just within the confines of the bedroom or locker room.  Now that underdrawers have become items of fashion, it seems a shame to tell young people that they can’t show them off in public.

Bayou la Batre elected not to spell out the point at which shorts cross the line of legality.

It has adopted a stance similar to the one U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart took with regard to a judicial definition of pornography. It’s hard to define, he said, but “I know it when I see it.”

Bayou la Batre Mayor Stan Wright said the ordinance doesn’t set a legal limit for sagging  drawers, but “trained police officers determine whatever’s enough is enough.”

I’m trying to visualize  a classroom at the police academy in which future cops are being trained in the detection of illegal shorts. Does a young man stand with his back to the class and slowly lower his pants until the instructor calls out, “Enough is enough”?

That leaves me wondering whether the bayou or any other municipality has a similar ordinance governing female cleavage. I remember a hearing in a Norfolk, Va., court in which a judge was trying to define the point at which a go-go dancer’s pasties became pornographic. It was enough to make Aunt Minnie’s face turn bright red.

Men have always managed to accept with gratitude the view of a damsel in a peasant blouse bending over to pick a daisy. Nowadays, the girls aren’t content just to show off the contents of their Wonderbras. They’re vying with the boys to see who can make the most spectacular display below the Fruit-of-the-Loom line. I remember attending an event on Lookout Mountain in which a young female reporter showed up with low-rider jeans and a midriff-baring top. She appeared to have no navel, but when I gave her the once-over, purely out of curiosity, I discovered that her belly button was under her blouse and the waist of her jeans was low enough to make Potter Stewart bury his face in his law books.

I have to confess to a nostalgic longing for the days when the waist band of your underwear was a subject for private viewing and when good grooming was synonymous with neatness and modesty. But neatness and modesty are subjective terms, hard to define in legal language.

My daddy used to have a saying: “People can’t help being ugly, but they could stay hid.”

Nowadays, it seems, what my generation defined as ugliness has become a virtue and is openly displayed. I don’t think a municipal ordinance can change that. And even a constitutional amendment would be either ineffective or oppressive. There’s just no way you can legislate good taste because even Supreme Court justices and trained police officers have a hard time defining it.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson, S.C. 29621, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com.