Oh, indeed Word.

[bellatrys]

Neva Chonin says in few words what some of us have struggled to articulate in many:

In last week's column, I suggested that, in today's cult of the leer, "girls have actually grown tamer rather than wilder. Sure, they flash their breasts more readily, just like monkeys perform tricks for peanuts at the San Francisco Zoo. But neither act symbolizes

Comments

[the_leewit]

Eh. Remember in the Darkover novels, where one woman is outraged about the tight pants and tunic of the Earther's uniform, and another laughs and says, essentially, "In your town, they must have dressed women to sexualize them; in mine, it was to hobble them, and the first time I saw the Earthers, I thought, 'How wonderful, to be forced to dress in clothes that you can run and work in!'"

Sexual exposition can feel like liberation... after all, isn't one of the reason given to suppress feminism that feminism promotes promiscuity, and a woman is only as valuable as her hymen her ability to produce and nurture undoubted heirs for the rightful head of the household? Wasn't it great, the day you realized you didn't have to wear what your parents told you? And you are right... the "wild" cited here feels like the difference between "wild" and "feral" as defined by Pinkola Estes. But I'd rather work for a society where breasts are not considered "obscene" and showing them is not an act of shame OR defiance, just expression or comfort.

I also believe that part of the reason these girls do this is for the cheers they get... few and far between, at that age, for either gender. So cheer for a co-ed, start the revolution now!

That's the whole point

[bellatrys]

They're *not* doing it to be liberated. They're doing it to cadge favors from their masters. There is none of the cold, conscious, "I am going to wear a tank top and shorts - even tho' it makes me feel like a wanton slattern due to my modesty conditioning - because it is hot, and I can damn well wear what my brothers wear" *choice* that I went through at age-oh-27-I-think, "and if men lust after me that's THEIR problem, not my sin" deciding of the head and will that was mine.

And no, I never got a juvenile turn-on from defying my elders - unless you call this blog that, at the age of thirty-and-some. I *was* the mature, responsible adult in the family, at age 7, 10, 15, 17, 20, 25 - and my darkside temptation was always to be a *warlord*, not a courtesan--