Get your cultural imperialism off my goddamned hemline.

[jadegirl]

Tonight I wore a minidress. Very mini. Street legal, of course, but quite short. It wore me out, because of the stares I noticed shot my way, the thinly disguised disapproval, sneering, etc. When I wear stillettos and a micro-mini I always have to work very hard not to show the strain being under all those stern gazes causes me. The thing that makes me truly sick is that it's all about cultural mores that imprison us in all sorts of ways - compulsory virtue, 'having something to prove' etc., etc. (There's a lot I'm not going into, but I'm just too acattered right now) When I got home, I went straight to the library and pulled out my copy of Garrison Keillor's We Are Still Married to find this:

Sunbathing yesterday. A fine woman took off her shirt, jeans, pants, nearby, and lay on her belly, then turned over. Often she sat up to apply oil. Today my back is burned bright red (as St. Paul warns) from lying and looking at her for so long but who could ignore such beauty and so generous.

So generous. I need to keep that in mind. Hell, I need to tack it to my mirror.

Comments

[magnifelyn.livejournal.com]

Oh honey, people aren't looking that way because they disapprove of your high hemline and those tasty, tasty legs. They look that way because your beauty and sensuality are challenges to them.

Women who wish they looked so damned good in a minidress. Women who want their men to keep their eyes off you. Men who wish they could stop looking at you. Men who know they've got no hope of ever, ever touching a piece of ass as fine as you. And yeah... men who wish they looked so damned good in a minidress!

Trust me on this one, dear. The disapproval is just self-defense. They're trying to help their self-concepts survive the sight of sexy, provocative, hot-as-hell you.

[telescope-merc.livejournal.com]

Please tell me you're not going to try the mini-skirt combined with the veil.

[jadegirl.livejournal.com]

*snicker* Now that's an image. No, I don't think so, I try to keep my cultural contradictions to a dull roar.:)

How's things?

[telescope-merc.livejournal.com]

Things is good. Settling into new apartment (raking up broken glass from a Lyra panic that resulted in two broken tumblers and a broken Galileo thermometer), trying to get DSL internet access (stupid Verizon) set up (so far I only have access at work) and just trying to get life back on track. Work is good, but not great. May improve in the near future, but only time will tell. Drop me an email, would ya?

[salsuginous.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. That quote kept running through my mind all this late afternoon when I was skating in a little tank top and hip huggin' jeans. I don't know why suddenly I was noticing men noticing me. Certainly I don't remember that many men saying "hi" to me before--but I never pay attention to that anyway. I almost got offended at one point when a man deliberately crossed the street to say hello because I was thinking "WHAT?!? I'm just trying to learn how to skate!" but then I kept thinking of this quote and I just felt better.