The Tao of the 80s Girl

It's all about where we are in the pendulum's swing, when it comes to history. If we are lucky, we find ourselves in the middle of the swing -- the spot where we have gotten it right; but, then, things get away from us again. It's inevitable, I think. 

In the Victorian era, an overload of modesty took hold of Western culture. Women buttoned up to the neck and wore dresses down to the ground. To show an ankle was scandalous. In a few short decades, the flappers were going out in public quite scantily clad. The pendulum had swung. 

I have to say, I miss one thing about the 80s: the ladies. And I don't mean this is a Steve Martin kind of "wild and crazy guy" way. I was not a "playa." (I dated one young woman all through high school.) What I miss is the girls' style from the era. (And while we are clarifying, I don't mean leg warmers and teased out hair. I mean their overall style -- their approach to...girlishness?) 

It felt to me like there was a certain amount of modesty still left, but that ladies were also, on a personal level, comfortable with being sexual creatures. (The personal part is an important distinction. I mean in relation to those they liked, loved or were in relationships with, not simply as they walked through the world. And, let's face it, social media wasn't a thing, so superficial public personas were fewer and farther between.) Many girls and women had escaped the pressures of prudishness, but they also had self-respect. If they were interested in you, they had no qualms about letting you know, but abandon all hope ye who "crossed the line" without their permission. 

The pendulum was in a balanced place, then. I'm not just falling into golden-age thinking here. In fact, there is very little I miss about the 80s. Objectively, from the distance of years, it just seems that way to me. It is, of course, open for discussion...

And I am not trying to judge women as humans, by the way. That's not up to me. I'm just explaining the "vibe" I remember. I think we were at the best spot on the pendulum swing in terms of modesty vs. sexual liberation. I mean, Madonna, at the time, was really pushing the envelope. I remember her "Lucky Star" video making me blush a bit as a young teen. Madonna was one of the factors that started pushing the pendulum away from the center we had found...

Why am I only talking about the girls? Well...because they are the ones who have been unfairly pushed around when it comes to what is "proper" since the dawn of dawns. Or the dawn of Dawns, for that matter. (Maybe we guys should have had more of that pressure. If we had, over the centuries, fewer women might have suffered abuse and callous treatment.)

What I am ultimately saying is that the girls in the 80s (the actual ones, not the movie and MTV video ones; the ones in my high school and college; the ones in my neighborhood and at my part time jobs) seem to have had found a balance. I guess what I am trying to say they had dignity but they seemed comfortable expressing their sexuality. 

Why bring this up? Well, I recently saw a social media video in which a guy was light-heartedly interviewing twenty-something girls in a club. What he was asking them was how they rated themselves when it came to servicing men, orally. No, I am not kidding. He was walking up to strangers and asking them how good they were at fellacio. And the girls? They never missed a beat. Never even blinked. They went into great detail as to their techniques. 

I think one of my "80s girl" friends would have punched him in the mouth. They knew where they stood and they'd let you know about their intimate secrets, but only if you earned their attention. You definitely were not going to talk to them like that out of the blue and hold onto your incisors.

There comes a time when sexual liberation crosses the line into sterile obviousness; where the poetry of flirtation becomes a prosaic set of procedures; when a seductive wink gives way to a crotch-grab, if you will pardon my crassness. Again, I am not judging these girls as humans. What I am judging is the culture we have created -- the one in which they were raised that made them get to a place that makes them think they need to give everything about themselves away for a ten-second spot on some dweeb's Instagram. 

And the girls in the video were dressed way beyond provocatively. In fact, I am pretty sure that one of the girls, if she didn't wear a coat home, could possibly have been arrested for public indecency. Contrast that with the 80s girls. What did they reveal? Maybe the old cut sweatshirt falling provocatively off the shoulder and a jaunty flip of the poofy hair? Maybe that was enough for a start? 

Just one dude's take on things. As always, it's all open for discussion. 

With or Without Lust?

I'll let you just react to this, before I get to my point. 

A few days ago, as I was driving home from work through a lovely and very old neighborhood (Haddonfield, NJ -- site of much Revolutionary War stuff and also the place in which the world's first "nearly complete" dinosaur skeleton was discovered [which is all irrelevant to my story]), I saw, on the sidewalk, a beautiful woman, probably in her late forties, casually dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, walking her dog in the dappled sunlight beneath the trees at the roadside. 

Being a gentleman of the ilk that has always been attracted to the beauty of a woman, I was looking in appreciation of said beauty, when she "caught" me. This all happened in a few seconds. I was driving; she turned to see who was passing; I was already looking at her.

Our eyes met... (Oh, stop. That's not where I'm going.) 

She smiled at me and I smiled at her. We shared a smile -- as I see it -- between Gen X-ers. The smile of a generation that was, I think, a bit more sexually comfortable than those that went before or came after. (I'm not saying everything was perfect with us; I don't have that kind of nostalgic lens, but, all things being equal, among healthy-minded Gen X-ers, we were pretty secure in our sexuality, by comparison.) 

Her smile was playful ("Haha -- I caught you looking"); my smile was a little sheepish ("E-heh...I uh..."). 

Her smile was a just a tiny bit flirtatious, with, maybe, a sprinkle of thanks, for the wordless compliment I was giving her: "I find you attractive." This phrase, contrary to popular belief, is not synonymous with: "You are an object to me." And the "compliment" goes no further than that appreciation and it was only a compliment because it was devoid of lasciviousness. 

I think of the Bible quotation, that a man "who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." The key component is "to lust after her." It's not about the looking, but the kind of looking one is doing. The intent. 

My smile was playfully apologetic, but it carried -- I hope -- what I felt: a respectful appreciation of her beauty; a small, yet meaningful connection between two humans, rooted deeply within our ancient, natural programming.  

It's daunting to write things like this, because one misstep in wording and someone will find fault based on the standards of some variant of the modern movements regarding sexuality. I've always taught my sons that sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, but it should be a private thing between intimately involved parties. So, to write about "attraction" can seem counter to that advice, but, I think people need to write about the grays of sexuality (and of everything else), because we are losing any sense of nuanced thinking about...everything. 

In the Age Without Subtlety, ironically, everyone is "okay with" everything except "the game of love" -- hence (dare I mention it?), the demise of Pepe LePew. Modesty is lost in both men and women. Prostitutes and porn stars are afforded the respect of being called "sex workers." Modern pop music lyrics refer to explicit acts of sexuality with demeaning atitudes with no social or economic consequences, but someone who glances at a woman because he finds her beautiful and who looks for no other reason -- and with no ulterior motive -- than to appreciate that beauty opens himself up to all sorts of criticism. 

Admittedly, it all stands on the edge of a knife, though, doesn't it? Shift the smile or perceive the smile just a bit off-center, and it becomes a leer and a leer is certainly an insult and a sign of lascivious intent...but for us two, it was, as the youngins are all saying, "all good." We made each other smile. That is what used to be the magic in the dynamics of the sexes -- the game of attraction was fun to play (as long -- and this is essential -- as the woman had the final say in the outcome). 

Speaking of the comfort of Gen X: yes, in case you are wondering, my wife will read this. But that does not matter, in the least. I already talked about this incident with her and we aleady had a philosophical conversation about it. She is neither threatened nor angry. She knows who I am. She knows I am loyal to her for life. And, under similar circumstances, she would have reacted just as this woman did. My wife appreciates being appreciated for her beauty, as well, and her day would have been brightened just a bit by the "compliment" of being respectfully "looked at" by a man. 

My final point? This, to me, was a healthy exchange -- however brief -- between two people in a similar mindset. I've gone past the point of wanting to tell people what to think, but I do wish the dynamics of the sexes these days wasn't so pre-loaded with paranoia. The safety and respect of women is paramount, but I wish raising awareness about this real issues in male predatory behavior didn't have to create immediate suspicion of the motivations of the every, kind-hearted but sexually healthy male in the world. 

Somewhere along the line, the game of love became a chess match. It's a little sad, that's all.  If you don't believe that this has happened, consider: I recently taught Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and some of my high school kids didn't like that the young men were in "mad pursuit" of the young women. 

They didn't see it, as Keats did, as "wild ecstasy." The best they could do was to call it "cringey."

Our Uncomfortable Young Women

The First Feminist(?)

I have noticed a very meaningful paradox in the young women of America. Many of them (if not most) seem to feel compelled to embrace "sexiness" but they also seem completely uncomfortable doing so. This, I think, is one of the many negative results of the media-driven world.

Young women are taught (by example, in music and the media) that overt sexuality equals power; a kind of Wife of Bath-ish feministic statement. They are almost, I would argue, sent the message that it is their duty to be sexy; to wear certain revealing styles. I'm told by my young female students, in class discussion, that every young girl has, at some point, received at text from a boy that says "send nudes." The shocking thing here is not that boys want to see naked girls but that those boys seem to think they have a right to see these pictures; or, maybe worse, that getting pictures like that is a matter of course in their relationships with girls. The other thing I am told is that may girls comply because "they feel like they have to."

What I see in daily life is a lot of young women wearing clothes that "show" more than I ever, as a young man growing up in the 80s, saw. What I also see is how uncomfortable most of these girls seem to be in those revealing clothes. They seem constantly to be adjusting and trying to cover up.

It kind of breaks my heart to see that; to be witness to the profound and moving struggle between innocence and experience playing itself out in mannerisms.

To be clear -- and I don't mean this to be funny or ironic in any way -- I have respect for a confident woman who is comfortable both in a with her own skin; who is not ashamed to be sexy. She has every right to "strut her stuff" as they say; I (and the rest of us fellows), of course, still have an obligation to be gentlemanly toward her. But there is a great strength in a woman who is comfortable with her body and who is not ashamed.

That's all great, but, what if one is not ready for that? -- or what if one simply is not that person? This is what makes me sad, because it comes down to the usual thing: people being crushed by the weight of a media-connected, group thinking world.

I wasn't blessed with a daughter, but, if I had been, I would have done my best to encourage her to find her own "look" -- to be herself, without shame whether sh had chooses to dress minimally or conservatively. But I also would have tried to teach her that "sexy" isn't just about showing skin. It all has to be her choice to make, how she dresses; but every girl needs the independent spirit and confidence to really make it her own choice.

One thing I do know is that it really shreds a little bit more off of my already thinning soul every time I see a young girl who is obviously uncomfortable with the way society has dressed her. I don't blame her. I feel bad for her. Sadly, her only option is to take up arms against the ocean waves. Hopefully she has family and friends willing to support her in the fight.

Identity and Reality

There is a famous adage made even more famous by Star Trek: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one." Many take this to be incontrovertible. Morally, most agree that it is better to, for instance, save the lives of five people rather than to save one, given the choice.

Of course, given circumstances, if I had to choose between saving one of my sons or five other people, I know that I would save my son. Is that right? Maybe not. Maybe many people would say that is a selfish decision. Selfish or not, I know what I would do. All this goes to prove is that sometimes instinct -- especially the paternal instinct -- drives us harder than social morality does.

Regardless, I would argue that the adage above is, at least logically and ethically, pretty true. If I were a fire chief, I would hesitate to send fifteen of my firefighters into an out-of-control inferno in order to save one man who was probably doomed. (Of course, if I were a fireman and the person inside were, say, a small child, my instincts might -- as they have done for many a heroic fireman -- send me headlong into the blaze, regardless of orders...)

So, it is clear that the idea of the many being more important than the one does have its "hinge," so to speak. Nevertheless, because it has become a generally accepted adage, many people who are in the extreme minority have been (sometimes unbeknownst to the rest of society) pushed to the fringes of social existence. We seem to have, in the past, adopted the notion (unconsciously) that those who are different are inconsequential; even (and this is a conscious thing, when it happens) loathsome.

Recently, we started lauding sensitivity toward those who do not fit the mold of what it ordinary --which is an unqualified good thing. No one should have to feel worthless or completely outcast, or, at worst, depressed and/or suicidal... But, have we lost the valuable anchor of the old adage? Have we begun acting as if the needs of the "one" outweigh the needs of the many? Are we overcompensating? Has the pendulum swung too far?

I recently heard a news report, on NPR, of a school situation in Illinois, in which U.S. Department of Education has decided that a district:

...is violating the rights of a student who identifies as female by not allowing her unrestricted use of the girls' locker room. The district now has a month to change its policy or risk losing millions of federal dollars. 

One study indicates that 0.3 percent of the total population are transgender. Other studies seem to fall in a similar range. (These studies are of adults, but, it gives us, at least, a sense of the range.) 

With this in mind -- with this tiny percentage -- how far should we go to make transgender folks feel comfortable? Is it discrimination to tell a person who was born male that he needs to change in a private room rather than among young women? That he can't play on a girls' team?

Is it okay just to say: If you are uncomfortable changing clothes in front of boys/girls, then use the bathroom to change? Is it okay to say that, because you are physically male, you need to play on male teams (for gender-divided sports)? 

I think the number of girls who would be made uncomfortable by a biological male having "unrestricted use of the girls' locker room" is much greater than the number of those who might be comfortable with it. I admit it: this is me guessing. I think it is a reasonable guess, though. (Anecdotally, in discussion with a class of high school seniors, of mine, not one girl said she would be comfortable with a biological male changing in the girls' locker room.)

I also believe that every human deserves respect, friendship, love and dignity: gay, straight, transgender, Muslim, Catholic, Jew, disabled, etc.  I do not, however, think every human always deserves for the circumstances to be changed in order to make him or her feel comfortable; therefore, I think it is okay for a boy who identifies as a girl to have to change in the bathroom. I really do. I don't think, however, that that boy needs to be tortured as a result of his sexual identification. If a reader thinks that making that boy change in a bathroom is torture, we must agree to disagree. 

We all want to fit into society, somewhere, but it is equally important to embrace our own differences. In doing so, one must, it seems to me, accept certain levels of inconvenience (and, perhaps, even, some pain) as a result. Maybe it is okay for a boy who identifies as female to have to deal with changing in the bathroom until he is able to (or decides to) make the physical transition. 

In the end, it amounts to a question: How much do we change for a group that is at an (estimated) 0.3% of our population? I would truly love for every person to be happy, but we all know that can never be. We have come very far and I hope we will go farther, but perfect social harmony is impossible. 

We have proven that society's attitudes can change. Only a few decades ago, interracial marriage was a real issue of contention. Now gay marriage is legal and homosexuality (though still not "mainstream" in its overall acceptance) is no longer a life relegated to the shadows. These things resulted from a change in ideology; from a wider acceptance on both a personal and social level. 

To me, though, simply shoehorning someone into "the norm" is not real acceptance. To that boy who identifies as a girl, I would say: "I don't want you to change in the same room as my daughter. Sorry. I do, however, want you to know that this does not mean I don't value you as a human being. You are welcome to eat at my house and be friends with my kids, but, if you are uncomfortable in the boys' locker room, I'd rather you change in private than undress in front high school girls. Unlimited access to whatever you want can be an infringement on the rights of others. If it comes down to an infringement on the rights of 0.3% of the population, I will err on the side of the majority, as long as the majority treats you with sensitivity and respect."

This is, of course, attack-able. I know it full well. It's easy for someone to say that what I said above contradicts the notion that I value the person in question as a human. Again, I simply disagree. I think, at some point, the comfort of the many needs to outweigh the comfort of the one...as long as the one is safe and is treated with civility. 

Another possible counterpoint to this is that I am downgrading by using words like "comfortable" and "convenient" and "inconvenient" -- that a transgender boy having to change separate from all of the other kids is more than an "inconvenience." If humans treat each other well, though, these words are really all it would come down to if a transgender boy had to change in a bathroom. If the reality is that kids would give him a hard time, then insensitive parenting is to blame...which seems always to be at the base of every problem.

Catharsis and Desperation

Sexual contact is a human need.

The expression of emotion is a human need.

Sexual need is both physical and psychological.

The need to express emotion can take physical form.

Some sexual need is driven by deeper psychological factors, like the need to bolster self-esteem: the person who "sleeps around, " regardless of propriety or circumstance.

Needing to -- regardless of propriety or circumstance -- express one's feeling to others can be driven by the need to bolster self esteem, too: the person who simply has to say what he or she feels.

In both, there is catharsis of a kind (which is the valid reason for either engaging or expressing): having sex wipes away desire, for a while, at least. "Getting things off of one's chest" can make one feel better, for awhile.

But both approaches can be, depending on the individual, nothing more than a desperate attempt to prove one's worth to one's self (often at the expense of others).

In excess, both actions can erase future interpersonal paths.

I Know Not "Seems"

For years, I have heard people say that "confidence is sexy."

But, like, confidence, itself, right? Not confidence that one is sexy... 

Like...a professional who trusts in his or her instinct; who enters a room and sort of gets looked to as the leader; who walks upright and who isn't afraid to take responsibility or to speak out. This person can be sexy as a result of his or her sense of personal command or confidence. But, not the person who brags about his or her physical perfection in either words or selfie...

You know? 

To me, anyway, there is nothing less sexy than someone who thinks she is. (Insert your favorite pronoun/s here...ayam what ayam...)

I follow a local radio show on Twitter and they have "selfie Monday" -- which might just make me stop following them. Almost every selfie (that gets retweeted, anyway) is of a girl who makes extra sure to get all the best bits in the shot. Each girl has a manufactured smoulder on her face.

Handsome Is As Handsome Does

A small, good thing.

Yesterday, we went out for my mother's birthday; dinner. On the way home, we engaged is various crazy discussions and in an elevated level of goofiness that actually left me hoarse from repeatedly doing a silly voice.

At one point, for some reason, the conversation lead to my son, who is twelve, asking my mom: "Grandmom...who was the actor you had a crush on when you were younger? Tom Cruise?"

"No," my mom said. "He was after my time. It was Charlton Heston."

"Who's he again?" my son responded.

"The guy from Planet of the Apes," I chimed in. "Taylor."

"Oh, yeah," my son said. Then, he thought for a minute. "He was a pretty good-looking guy. I could see why girls would like him."

What was cool was the ease with which my son said that. If I am geing honest, as a twelve-year-old from a different time, I would have hesitated to have even mentioned that I thought a man was handsome. I would have been afraid of what it would have "sounded like." I might have thought it (in fact, I actually remember having thought it watching the movie as a kid his age), but I would have refrained from saying it.

I think it is cool that my son has a such a level of comfort with his own sexual identity (one that has been comically clear since his youngest days -- the lad has clearly loved the ladies since preschool); I think it shows an exceptional level of maturity, even in a time of apparently (though maybe exaggeratedly) shifting perceptions.

That's it. I just like when people (especially my sons) are, as they say, "comfortable in their own skins."

Sexual Desperation

If had a daughter, she would be beautiful. (I would think that automatically, I mean -- that was not meant to be a reference my genetic mojo.) It is impossible to imagine it would be otherwise, even as a fictional father of a girl, so I have to extrapolate that she would, eventually, upon her blossoming into womanhood, be attractive to men.

And when this fictional daughter of mine finally became, physically, a woman, I would want her to feel comfortable in joining in all the reindeer games of flirtation. I would want her to be proud of her body. As much as I would instinctually want to dress her in a burlap sack and hide her from the prying, seedy eyes of her hormone-possessed male contemporaries, I would teach her that she has two rights, when it comes to her body:

1) It is okay for her to look sexually appealing.
2) It is okay for her to deny access to her sexually appealing self, at any time. 

I would want her to feel the joy of being appreciated for her aesthetic charms. We all find it gratifying to be "looked at" (in a polite way, at least) by the opposite sex. It's good for the old ego and it is nice to feel attractive. It spawns some wonderful poems, too.

Where the Ripples End, Nobody Knows...

We all know that change send ripples out over the pond of society. Any shift in paradigms; any newly adopted popular perspective will have unpredicted effects. That said, the increasing acceptance of homosexuality among the populace raises many questions beyond the obvious ones associated with individual systems of morality.

Before I discuss this, let me guard against any weaknesses in my own writing skills. This is not meant to be a judgement on people's sexual orientation. (For the love of God [literally], the Pope even said, recently, that he is not one to judge another for being gay.)  It is simply an observation of how acceptance of homosexuality changes things...

For instance, one day, as I am sadly wont to do, I was watching an episode of the TV show "Cops." (Heck, I'm a writer, okay? How can I resist seeing these people? -- people I would never otherwise have seen in my life? -- like, dudes who do crack and run naked around their neighborhoods claiming that God told them to steal food off of everyone's barbecue grill?) In this particular episode, a woman was going to be searched, so they called a female officer in to do it. It occurred to me that, in a world with changing attitudes toward sexuality, if I were a doer of evil deeds (or a beater-up of my wife because she got in the way of the TV during the Eagles game) I would probably start using the violation card, no matter who they got to search me. I guess anyone could have used this in the past -- sort of accused someone of being "deviant." But now that "deviant" is no longer the way many see alternate sexual orientations, what will happen when criminals refuse to be searched? What is to stop men from saying, "I'm gay. I want to be searched by a woman" or, "I'm bisexual - I refuse to be searched." What's to stop them from claiming violation and harassment when they are patted down by a male officer. (And, of course, vice-versa with female n'er-do-wells.)

Kelli vs. Miley or "Yuck" vs. "Enchanted!"

The collective social concept of sexuality is "devolving," no?

Uh, no. 

To borrow a phrase once used by someone I know: I knew I was heterosexual at a very early age. From as early as I can remember, I was powerfully attracted to the opposite sex. It was silly, really. (Isn't it, always?) 

Ask any man, and he will agree: sometimes, you felt like Curly from The Three Stooges in the episode in which he was conditioned to a Pavlovian response to a bell: ding, and he started boxing. Except, for us, a pretty girl was the bell and you couldn't just start...uh...boxing. So, then, you were the cowboy from the old movies jumping out onto the team of horses to the stagecoach to stop the whole thing before it fell off of the cliff.

Football Playin' Sissies

This morning, because of the recent death of former NFL superstar Deacon Jones, the hosts of a radio show were referring to his appearance on the old show "The Brady Bunch."

In the episode, Peter is on both the football team and in the glee club at school. The football players make fun of him, calling him a "canary" and a "sissy" and Deacon chimes in and tells the kids that he and some other guys on his NFL team have a singing group and that they perform when they are not playing. "Am I a sissy"? Deacon says. The coach then refers to Rosie Greer, who also was a singer (and who was very tough on the football field; with a name like Rosie, I suppose he had to be).

Deacon the sissy with the boys.

One of the radio hosts said that this particular episode rarely airs now, because it is "politically incorrect." Presumably, this is because of the use of the word "sissy."

Am I the  only one who doesn't see the word "sissy" as a reference to being gay? I always saw a sissy as someone who can't stand up for himself; a wimp. As a quality of "sissiness," being gay never entered into my mind. I don't see all gay men as wimps. Never have.

And there is nothing in that episode that implies gayness in any way. The kids just believed that wimps sing and tough guys play football.

A Question of Intimacy

There are still people out there, you know, who think boys and girls ought to be separated during the educational process. I am not one of them, to be clear. But I do sometimes wonder if we are taking things too far in some cases. We need to be careful not to confuse equality with sameness.

Now, we are even integrating sports. Early on, in baseball, for instance -- or in soccer, even -- I see no problem with this. And, to be fair, we do separate them when the stakes get higher. You simply do not want a 200 pound boy flying toward a 110 pound girl on a kick-off return. It's just not safe.

Today, though, I sat and watched a Saturday karate class at my sons' school. Girls and boys are mixed into the classes. This all seems okay to me when it comes to practicing kicks and punches on the bags or when working on Tang Soo Do forms; but, during this particular class the kids were asked to partner-up and work on take-downs.

Should girls and boys be practicing jiu-jitsu (which is more of a wrestling form) together?

Fearing the Way

These things seem true to me, regarding sexuality:

1) It is one of the most profound things in human existence.

2) It is so profound that it frightens many of us.

3) That fear causes some of us to hide from sexuality's profundity.

4) That drive to hide from sexuality often makes us behave illogically.

These things seem true to me about traditional wisdom:

1) Self-control is held in high esteem. 

2) Self-control is often regarded by students and teachers alike as a constant need, rather than a thing that may be let-go, under the proper circumstances (which, in itself, is a kind of modified control).

3) Therefore, any abandonment of control is regarded as failure and, sometimes, immorality.

Because of the truths above, many a bride -- and perhaps many a groom -- over the course of time, have fellt guilt over their pleasures with their spouses, even if they followed the rules of her religion and "waited." Why? Because the act in which they engaged felt like a loss of self-control; like an abandonment of everything they were taught. They stood too close to the doorway to Tao -- that place where all of our morals, all of our logic, and all of our social graces evaporate into the vapours of all creation . . .

It Ain't Natural

From Darwin's
The expression of the emotions in man and animals

We're kind of stuck, aren't we? We like to argue for the legitimacy of things by saying: "It's natural." Of course, by this, we imply that natural means it is okay -- good for us; advisable; even moral. Sometimes, the argument works; usually it doesn't. I think it would be good if we all remained aware of this.

Yet, we construct belief systems that are meant to elevate us above the rest of nature. Sex, for instance, is natural. It is natural to feel sexual feelings. How we act upon those feelings throws us into a tizzy, though. Usually, we put lines around it: You may be sexual under conditions A, B and C, but not under condition D. You may be sexual under condition A, as was aforementioned, but not if element Z is introduced into the situation.

Good is the New Bad

Once, while helping a friend of mine to move, I took out a desk drawer, as is the protocol, and I saw three glossy, black-and-white photographs of a naked girl staring up at me. She was in her twenties and posing proudly -- shamelessly -- for an anonymous photographer. She was standing in the bathroom -- in a hotel or a dormitory or something.

Having had no respect whatsoever for the privacy or feelings of my friend, as was the dynamic of my group of twenty-something pals at the time, I yelled: "Yo! Who is the naked girl in your desk drawer?"

My friend, sweaty and annoyed by the work of the day stepped into the room, mopping his brow with an old shirt. "What?"

Balancing Passion

I've been thinking about sex since Monday.

I know. That's childish and lame. Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Now, let me state it properly: I have been thinking about sexuality since Monday.

To start this week, I wrote a piece called "Calling All Ladies and Gentlemen." The piece called for renewed attention to manners -- to what is appropriate, partially in reference to the media and its over-the-line depiction of sexuality. A reader, the very insightful and articulate "zmkc," mentioned something extremely important. The comment:

I am so badly brain-washed that, while instinctively I react as you do, I cannot quite bring myself to say that you are right. Or rather, I think you are right, but I fear an extreme reaction in the other direction, leading us back to an emotionally trussed-up world.

"The White Curve of Her Neck"

One passage from James Joyce's story "Araby" has always moved me; it reminds me so much of my perspective on girls when I was a boy and it makes me think how wrong we have gone in terms of the way women can be perceived in our society. Here is the main character's view of his friend Mangan's older sister (with whom he is desperately in love) in "Araby":

While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go [to Araby], she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent [school]. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.

Maybe I'm getting sentimental, but this nearly brings a tear to my eye every time I read it. It is as if Joyce reached into my brain and pulled out the innocent, aesthetic aching for female beauty that I felt as a boy; the attraction that had nothing to do with ulterior motives -- nothing to do with lust, yet. It was more like a tree's need for light than anything else. Does every boy go through this for a time? Or was it born out of the concept that had I somehow gathered -- that girls were something special, even magical?

A Bloomin' Shame (I Think)

Recently, on Yahoo, there was an article about teenaged cheerleaders in Connecticut who protested their exceedingly revealing uniforms to their school officials. Like anyone else, I cheer the cheerleaders for not wanting to be sex objects, especially when the world around them seems to encourage them to do so. You might imagine that the writer of that article is in their corner, but then you can see that the "read more" link on the opening paragraph says: "see their get ups."

See their get ups? So, the lure for reading the full article about cheerleaders who are protesting being treated like pieces of meat is to tempt the reader into wanting to see . . . more of their . . . meat. Uh, right?

Or, was the writer trying to teach us something about our lascivious selves? Maybe? I dunno.

Within the article, there is a link that entices us to "see professional cheerleaders in action," while, directly above this link, the writer discusses the correlation between anorexia and bare-midriff uniforms worn by college cheerleaders.

But maybe instead of blaming the writer, we should wonder if there is some automated program that shows "relevant" links (as far as the computers know). Are the Yahoo machines finding articles related to cheer leading and, in perfect computer fashion, totally missing the irony of what they are advertising in conjunction with this article about these refreshingly self-respecting girls?

Whatever the source, the melange of messages here is fairly indicative of the shape our cultural morality is in -- maybe that it has always been in. Just loads and loads of paradoxical signals. And loads and loads of arbitrary decisions about what is considered appropriate.

Bloomers, for instance. One day after school, in high school, I was sitting with some friends and some of the cheerleaders in the hallway outside our gym. The cheerleaders were goofing around and one of them turned a handspring in her short uniform skirt, which, of course, flew up. Another cheerleader exclaimed, "Oh, no, Carla! You forgot to put your bloomers on!" Carla turned beat red, and nearly cried, until the other girl revealed that it had been a joke -- she'd had them on. But it got me thinking: What, exactly, was the difference between the bloomers and underwear? Then it occurred to me: a societal definition. That was it.

In short, someone, somewhere, had decided it was okay to do back flips in a short skirt, as long as a girl wears underwear over her underwear. Ah. I get it. This must be the same reasoning that makes it okay to show two people moaning, sweating and bouncing around in a bed (under covers) at one in the afternoon on a soap opera, but makes it not okay to show a woman or a man naked on a Discovery Channel documentary about evolution at eleven o'clock at night.

At any rate, the school board of the Connecticut high school is going to purchase black body suits for the girls to wear under their revealing uniforms. Which makes perfect sense.

David and the Fig Leaf

Apparently, there has been a bit of a scuffle over what type of nudity is quite proper in French resorts. At Cap d'Agde, the town is in a clash: the "naturists" vs. the "libertines". (They still have libertines?) It seems the libertines are using the legal public nudity to, let's say, allow easier access to naughty fun in random places with various Biblically inadvisable combinations and numbers of people. The traditional naturists -- the ones who see nudity as a perfectly fine family activity which is devoid of sexuality -- find this appalling. It makes me wonder how long we are going to try to narrow down our incredibly complex human spirits and minds into neat categories. It won't work, people. We are much more complex than that.

William Blake, that wonderful early Romantic nut, said, in the Proverbs of Hell, that "the nakedness of woman is the work of God." The guy was, in much of his philosophy and work, maybe the first proponent of "free love" in literary history -- yes, even before Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. But, in his ironic proverbs, he is making a point for the purity of nakedness. In short, there is a balance in this fairly loony poet/artist that most people lack.

Generally, I find myself annoyed that people seem to accept that stuff just happens.  They say, "Teens just become rebellious -- and they all experiment with drugs and alcohol; people become heartless as they get older; people will succumb to temptation." I once heard a youth counselor tell kids they shouldn't even hug each other -- that any physical contact, like pressing the bodies together, was a bad idea before marriage because it could "lead to other things." Well, yeah, it could. But do we tell people who love sports not to go into Modell's because it might lead to stealing? (Or rubbing the leather gloves wantonly?) How about just encouraging kids, guiding them -- saying to them: "You can control yourself. Identify your own line and don't cross it." Teaching kids to avoid all contact is the same as teaching them to avoid taking responsibility for controlling themselves.

And, please, don't tell me that is an unrealistic way of thinking. It is only unrealistic as long as we believe it is as a collective societal mind.

So, back to the naked French people. The natural nudies are mad at the hoochy-coochy nudies for engaging in hoo-ha and not just playing volleyball and cooking burgers with their kids. (Why does it always have to be volleyball? Can't it be, like, horseshoes, or something?) The "libertines" feel they are simply engaging in natural, unabashed human fun. To me, each of these groups is composed of les idiots.

Nudity is both a sexual and non-sexual state. If you are right in the head, you can appreciate the aesthetics of the human body, the way Michelangelo did, and also realize that the sexual impulse is strong (like Michelangelo did) and, at the right times, perfectly wonderful.

As things stand, we wear clothes in public in most places. It is practical in terms of avoiding both sunburn and frostbite, and it helps us to keep perspective. To take clothes off is a choice as is the time during which we do it. Having them on and taking them off can be equally tantalizing states. We make the choices to be celibate or not. Our respective religions guide us as to when these choices are appropriate. But let us not act as if a "wardrobe malfunction" or a low-cut shirt is an evil. Let's just teach our kids: The body is beautiful and powerful. Respect it in every way -- both yours and everyone else's. "Sin" starts in the mind. Let's not equate the body with it from day one.

In the end, how silly is it to put a fig leaf over David's privates? You see them everywhere, these censored masterpieces: on lawns; in front of pizza places and caterers. Why? He's just standing there, either pre or post Goliath clobbering. The sculptor's work is a celebration of the body's aesthetic beauty. If David makes people feel randy, they will simply have to control themselves. And, just maybe, if more kids grow up thinking the body is beautiful and with a perspective of having seen what it looks like, especially in great art and under the thoughtful guidance of their parents, they may not be as eager to undress their dates after the prom to get a look.

WHADDYA THINK?