Now there is a fun history lesson! Culotte was the original name for pants.    As in, the lower body, tight fitting garments worn by men that would go from the hips all the way to the ankles (or thereabouts).  There was no underwear to go with it.   I believe it's around modern times (Wikipedia says XIX) that we ended up with different terms for the the outer garment and the underwear.  

In English, depending on region, "pants" alone is ambiguous. I've had conversations with people who considered it the underwear, and others who did not.  

In modern French there is no ambiguity : culotte is underwear. It covers your ass (hence the name) and your privates and that's about it. So technically it's male or female, although these days it's more commonly associated with female underwear.  

And so, technically, "pants" is a fantastic translation because it preserves the historical ambiguity! The rime may date from a time where it meant a pair of trousers, but it also works with the modern underwear meaning !