August 16, 2002
Not Pretty
Okay, enough already. I thought it was mildly cute when pretty young ladies rekindled the midriff exposure fad. Youngsters glorying in their youthful fitness, blah blah blah. But then this low-slung pants thing caught on, and pretty soon I'm learning that the innocent faced thirteen year-old sitting at the adjoining restaurant table has a glittery blue g-string. I didn't need to know that. Her father, on the other hand, does need to know, but my guess is that he is a sorry lump of an excuse for a half-man who doesn't know much else about his daughter either, or else she wouldn't feel the need to dress like a Las Vegas prostitute.
In any event, now the trend in provocative dress has taken a dark turn. I can live surrounded by young underdressed women. It doesn't make my life easier or better, but I can tolerate it without getting overly distracted. What I can't abide, however, is this new trend: women who -- if I'm any judge of horseflesh -- are well past their nubile prime, exposing areas of flesh that, frankly, should only be seen and handled on an autopsy table, by seasoned professionals with great upper body strength and iron stomachs.
An example: I was walking into a large office complex just recently, and ahead of me walked an overweight employee, dressed in gray slacks and a black top that stopped just shy of the top of her pants. The fatty flesh around her waist, which looked painfully pinched by her pants, peaked from underneath her shirt as she walked. Making things worse was that she strutted like someone too cool for school.
I can say without reservation that this is unattractive. Especially after a large lunch.
Even worse is to be in church and find oneself incapable of looking to the left or the right without seeing some teenage girl's underwear sticking out of the back of her pants. I keep expecting lightning to strike either me for seeing it, the girls for having no respect, or their fathers for having no sense. I don't think there are more than a handful of young women in my church -- which is pretty conservative -- who have not at one time or another exposed most of the congregation to their lingerie. This is troubling.
So I'm asking for a truce. Women, I promise to be more attentive to your hair, your sparkling wit, or whatever it is about you that leads to such embarrassing displays, if you promise to quit showing me your underwear, your belly-button rhinestones, and your love handles.
The alternative to a truce, I promise you, won't be pretty. Picture me in a burlap thong and turquoise "Wham" t-shirt, and you get my point.
Not pretty.
Posted by Woodlief on August 16, 2002 at 02:48 PM
I've never met and never seen you, but I don't really want to picture you in a burlap thong and a turquoise "Wham" t-shirt. Thanks for the imagery.
Posted by: Tim Plett at August 16, 2002 3:10 PM
Sorry, Tim. Every war has its casualties, you know.
Posted by: Tony at August 16, 2002 3:53 PM
Even worse are the teens who wear their pants around their knees, which gives the appearance that they have crapped in their pants. Reminds me of my kids' diapers when they had a full load.
Posted by: Charles Mitchell at August 17, 2002 7:55 AM
Tony--you have pics up on your site. The mental image of you in a thong is pretty appealing!
Posted by: constant reader at August 17, 2002 9:05 AM
Oh, just you wait. Now the boys are getting in the act with the hip-huggers, too. See:
http://countrystore.blogspot.com/2002_08_04_countrystore_archive.html#79841624
The silver lining is that we've all become inured to the flashes of unsigtly strips of boxers by now, thanks to the Lords of Hip-Hop Fashion (the "load in your pants" look). I guess the next trend will be glittery g-strings for your local Skateboard Boy.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at August 17, 2002 9:52 AM
I would also add to your list any woman over thirty-five wearing anything sleeveless in public. Unless we lift weights, this is not a pretty sight, either.
Posted by: llanaw at August 18, 2002 10:26 AM
Have you ever tried to shop for school clothes for a 12 year old girl? Nothing but belly baring shirts (usually emblazoned with something like "your boyfriend thinks I'm hot"), low-slung pants that show off everything, including the thongs they now market to grade school girls, and dresses too short for even anime schoolgirls to wear. It makes me long for school uniforms.
As for the adult women who should know better, I work for the government. You have described almost every civil servant female over the age of 50.
Posted by: michele at August 18, 2002 11:28 AM
I do believe it was a plumbers daughter that started the trend.
Posted by: Cis at August 18, 2002 7:28 PM
Isn't this ironic? This is where "feminism" has gotten us. Young girls are taught that brazenly showing their bodies and soliciting sexual attention (the two are almost inextricably linked, no matter what Ms. Magazine claims) is what is "fashionable", and no one dare comment because it is supposedly sexist to wish women to cover up at all. We've gone from blaming the victims of rape for dressing like they're asking for it to encouraging our daughters to dress like they're asking for it. Lost forever is any reasonable warning to young women that some men will always interpret such dress as asking for it, and this is no more a blow for female sexual equality than the Free Love movement was in the 60's. If you ask me, hooker chic is as based in idiocy and unreality as burkas are; one extreme assumes women must be covered because men can't control themselves, and the other extreme assumes women (and girls) can show everything because men can somehow be taught to have no sexual responses.
Talk about the pendulum swinging too far.
Posted by: Kimberly at August 21, 2002 4:01 PM
I recently received a thin catalog packaged with my Classical music club mailing -- something you would normally think would be a fairly conservative market. To my surprise it included a selection of thong underwear marketed to the early teenage girl. If that wasn't bad enough, one pair was emblazoned with the words "Third Base". That's right -- if the guy gets to see them he's made it there. What kind of girl wants to make herself the object of sexual conquest, and what sorry excuse for a parent would allow his teenage daughter to wear them? A phrase I read recently in a newspaper article sums it up nicely -- "Many kids these days don't have parents. They have buddies with credit cards".
Posted by: Don at August 22, 2002 12:54 PM
All have good points on this issue. However, the real question at stake is freedom. Many adults find this trend of clothing getting smaller and smaller disturbing because they don't want to see their children grow up. Parents nowadays must realize that their kids do do these things, and allow them to do it there own way because trying to stop them or saying "NO! You're not going to wear that!" will alienate them from you and cause even more defience. It might even cause them to go out and have sex to get back at you in some cases.
To conclude, live in the times, pause and think about the feelings of others before you act, and give your friends freedom, if you don't want them wearing skimpy things, show compromise and get somthing that goes with the trends, but isnt insulting to your tastes.
You all have a good idea, that it shouldn't be politically correct for young women to put their bodies on display in that manner, but think of a way to do it so that all partys content and none are put down and alienated.
Posted by: A Teenager at January 14, 2003 12:03 PM
I think that freedom to wear whatever we want to wear is what the world needs to foster. One person CANNOT infringe on another's existence. We all have a right to be here. And quite frankly, everyone is responsible for his or her own. If you don't like something, don't look at it if you can't control your childish emotions and judgements. Also, as far as putting your body on display for a girl - listen, the only thing that really exists in this world is the need to procreate. Sex is what we are here for. Survival of the species. We are still animals and by the sounds of it, we are trying to pretend we are not by laying down "ethics" and "morals" and being non offensive. BAH
Posted by: tammara at February 11, 2003 4:25 PM
