ShareThis
Sept 18, 2010
The September 17th issue of “The Week”, in its “Only in America” corner, reported that school officials in Seminole, Florida agreed to exempt cheerleaders from a countrywide ban on short skirts. The new dress code, according to the report, prohibits all sexually suggestive attire. However, school principals agreed that cheerleaders should be allowed to wear their mini-skirt uniforms to school on game day. (Good for them!)
Since I do not have a daughter, I cannot claim to empathize with fathers who probably feel the angst every time their adolescent daughters leave their house with their behinds in full view. Whenever they bend or sway their limbs, the hidden cracks above their thighs graciously sachet in thin air. Either by design or by default, I wonder how parents react to the teenage philosophy of using clothes to reveal rather than to conceal. In front of an average male, I am sure that such attire is attractive, if not pleasing to the eyes. However, when the mini-skirt hangs from the torso of an obviously elderly lady suffering from a pre-matured sense of second childhood, both men and women in general twitch their face and shake their heads in disbelief. Suddenly, images of Tina Turner, the 71 year old rock star queen, swings and sings right in front of memory lane.
So what is it with the mini-skirt? Not much I suppose, except for the fact that all I can write about it will be from the not so educated remarks of a very conservative pair of eyes. The remainder of my thoughts can only respect the individual preferences of those who wear them. And since I can attest that I will never use one, I can guarantee that I will never know how it feels to walk around in it.
In the beginning was nudity in its naked form, a sight that bears close semblance to what nature should be. Then, in the Garden of Eden, because of fraud and folly, iniquity was born. With it the awareness of imperfection and ugliness started. Our primal mythical parents concealed their curves and their bulges allegedly arising from the shame of disobedience. They were caught doing what they were told not to. The entire cosmos altered its symmetry because of their iniquity and introduced the discomforts of an inclement climate, forcing the human being to seek protection from excessive cold. Since man was not born with fur, he had to steal the skin of other beasts and the bark of trees for warmth. Centuries of changing fashion, at least in the West, marked years of excessive fiber with fancy cuts and an ornate appearance. In the East, they were simpler and less ornate. While on the southern portion of the hemisphere, particularly in the dark continents of Africa, many of the not so civilized tribes maintained the simplicity of the skin. My lack of knowledge cannot pin point exactly where the mini-skirt began.
I am aware of the grass skirts of the pacific. For whatever reason, I thought that the Hawaiian Hula and the Tahitian dance were part of the Philippine culture. Then again, it only shows how some of us keep some dark secrets of amusing ignorance. Back to the mini-skirt, they keep on getting shorter, don’t they? I still recall as a kid during the martial law era when long haired men were forced to cut their hair, while law officers assaulted ladies and lengthened the hem of their skirts. That was obviously a violation of man’s basic human rights, an infringement against the freedom for self expression. It was short lived.
Florida is of course the Sunny State and a mini-skirt could be nothing else than a comfort against sweat. The school bans it together with all other sexually suggestive attire. Nonetheless, I scratch my head because they have not figured out why cheerleaders should need to wear either skimpy clothes or real attractive ones. I wonder as to why those school officials do not consider a traditional cheerleader outfit as sexually suggestive attire. Don’t get me wrong. As a closet erotic poet, I do appreciate suggestive beauty and my eyes would turn towards any femme fatale worthy of my attention. The point of my contention is in the inconsistency of laws that reflect contradicting values within the American society. The fine line between obscenity and decency based upon a selected fashion preference is something that laws and policies should probably not intervene with. If America is the bastion of democracy, and fashion is part of human expression, then why should a government – local or not dictate what or what not to wear? Indeed, if such regulation were an expressed consensus from the majority of the citizens, then it does not even need to be legislated. Social norms will shape and define dressing habits and trends. The inconsistency is probably within the puritanical beliefs of external modesty as opposed to the essential values of internal purity. The virtues of purity extend outward. The imposed acts of modesty take away the organic development of purity. When I was in Europe, in a small Castilian town, I was a bit surprised to see teen-age girls riding on a bike with two piece swimming attire. When I was sent to the capital, ladies casually took off their top as they laid on public lawn for a nice tan. Of course I drooled, until I realized that I was the only one, until I realized that their society seems to be more comfortable with the human form that shedding off clothes was not big deal. To my surprise, the abundance of young girls wearing a mini-skirt in summer was almost like the rising of the sun. Is there a difference between nudity and nakedness? If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being. If there are dressers who dress up to conceal and dressers who dress up to reveal, then let the spectators judge through the twitch of their eyes or the sighs from their breath. If we would want to teach our youth the proper way to dress, forcing them to do so would probably not work. Showing them how by the way we garb ourselves could perhaps be more effective. After all, real suggestive attire depends more on external behavior rather than the cut of a hem line or the depth of a neckline.
In all honesty, I think the only thing we have to plea for when it comes to clothes is for those who do not have anything to disclose to conceal what is proper. Between the exposure of beauty through wanton attire and the revelation of wrinkles, lipids and bulging curves, I wonder which is more evil. Nonetheless, to play fair, if there is a countrywide ban on sexually suggestive attire, there should also be a ban on explicitly irresponsible acts of displaying obnoxious ugliness. However, whether it is the former or the latter, the reality of beauty as something internal and not external still applies. Goodbye summer! Welcome fall!