Book squee, extended version part one

[ifreet]

Two things first--
1) I owe you and you (and also, you) comments, because you're being all interactive and insightful and stuff, but I already know I won't get to it tonight, because I'm being all hermetic.

2) I just fixed a window with a hammer.

Comments

Clothing!

[ifreet]

(When the experience is cool and informative, the use of said experience as a referent is not tedious to one's audience. Refer away!)

My knowledge of Med/Renn clothing pretty much begins and ends with knowing that certain cloths and colors were reserved for use by particular classes, and that as a result, there were issues about the legality of costumes used in playhouses, as the actors themselves were not of the higher castes (Thank you, Renaissance Drama: Issues of Gender and Sexuality and my beautiful professor). So who you were was definitely reflected in what you wore.

That's also the behaviour she describes at conventions - con-goers not only wear costumes but also other markers of their participation, like t-shirts and buttons (she doesn't mention badges, but at every con I've attended, our affiliation is required to be carried on our body). So it's easy to see who is 'inside.' But more than simply identifying individuals, clothing creates a private space within a public venue. As she puts it, "those areas in which visually marked members predominate become functionally removed from public space....Outsiders display a great deal of discomfort when passing through these areas, which have become private in relation to the outsider culture and public in relation to the various groups who intermingle there" (pg 74-75). See also my reaction upon attaining the lobby at acen -- Look, my people! ^_^ So the clothing isn't just expressing an individual, or defining an individual, it's being used to define a group and to delineate an area as belonging more-or-less exclusively to the group for the duration of the con.

It works the other direction, too. The individuals make up the group, and the group influences the individuals. Since the group is recognizable by its clothes, adjusting one's dress is desirable when one wants to fit in. Again, thinking of my con experiences -- at the comic con, I wore t-shirts that fit with the culture as close as I could, and at Acen I was in partial cosplay by the last day of my FIRST convention. And now that I'm more comfortable in my connection to fandom, I'm back to t-shirts. With cleverly geeky phrases. Give to me by good friends. ^_~

Jumping to does shirtless equal more sexy? Hard to say. My inclination is to agree with you and say, no, not necessarily. Largely because male shirtlessness is largely desexualized by context in our culture. Working in the yard? Shirtless. Fixing the car? Shirtless. Construction work? Shirtless. Going swimming? Shirtless. It's not unexpected for a man to be without his shirt-- it doesn't have the shock or transgression or even revelation that a woman without her shirt carries. So, I don't think women are thinking "Mm, SEX" any more when they see an attractive guy without his shirt than we do when we see an attractive guy with his shirt on. As you pointed out, the level of attraction is already there. Unless we're talking some seriously beautiful, Greek-god-like body, previously completely hidden by poorly fitted clothes, in which case maybe. But I was probably already thinking sex.