Prudes
Here Come the Fashion Police. Literally.
Every time I see a law that is centered around the way a person dresses, I cringe. I cringe because, almost every law that gets passed in relation to clothing seems to be based on someones personal conviction of what they believe to be “decent”. Here’s a typical example:
Baggy trousers that hang way below the belt and expose what the wearer has on underneath could soon be banned in the southern US city of Atlanta, a city council spokesman said Friday.
“Many youngsters are walking around with their pants way, way below their waists, and you can see everything. Some people call it a fad or a fashion statement but it is simple indecency,” Dexter Chambers, the communications director at Atlanta City Council, told AFP by phone.
And by everything, you mean what exactly?
The trend of wearing oversized trousers that fall down and expose one’s smalls derives from the US prison system.
“It started in prison, where, as I understand it, belts are taken away from inmates. But it evolved into a situation where it was used by prisoners to let others know they were ‘available,’ and it still has that sexual connotation,” Chambers said. – [Yahoo/AFP]
And this is the basis of your objections? Why do people like to look at things and then infer a meaning from it without any logical frame of reference to do so? Even if wearing your pants low around your hips in prison might mean you are sexually available, that does not mean it means the same thing out here. How can you make that kind of leap?
Is he trying to say that all of the youth running around with low slung pants are basically advertising thier sexual availability? I’m no expert, but I seriously doubt that. Why does the idea of it being a fashion fad seem so unreasonable? They are quick to deny that any similar laws are aimed at exposed bra straps and athletic bras, but what exactly is the difference? They might as well.
Who decides what the dress code of the street is supposed to be? Why is it that you can have women walking around in thong bikinis, and men in naught but a pair of speedos, and that is considered “decent” but a fully clothed man whose only fashion faux pas is that his pants are so low that his underwear is showing is an abomination?
These things make no sense. The law should not be used to enforce any indidivuals personal moral code. If the teachers don’t like it, then the schools needs to implement and enforce a dress code. The law should be used to enforce serious public safety issues. Not social dress code.
US city planning ban on low-slung baggy pants – [Yahoo/AFP]
This is why I’m Hawt… This is why you’re not…
Today I thought I’d indulge in an interesting study in morality…
A mysterious blonde paid a visit to a petrol station shop in the small eastern German town of Doemitz on Sunday — wearing nothing but a pair of golden stilettos and a thin gold bracelet.
The tall, slender woman strolled into the shop in the town of Doemitz on the warm afternoon and bought cigarettes, petrol station employee Ines Swoboda told Reuters on Monday. – [Yahoo/Reuters]
Now compare that with this story…
A German bus driver threatened to throw a 20-year-old sales clerk off his bus in the southern town of Lindau because he said she was too sexy, a newspaper reported Monday.
“Suddenly he stopped the bus,” the woman named Debora C. told Bild newspaper. “He opened the door and shouted at me ‘Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can’t concentrate on the traffic. If you don’t sit somewhere else, I’m going to have to throw you off the bus.’” – [Reuters]
Now these articles represent, at least to my mind, a interesting illustration of the fundamental differences between American and European views of sexuality in general. I am almost certain that had these same set of circumstances occurred here in the good old U. S. of A., the exact opposite of what happened in Europe would have occurred. The bus driver would have kept his mouth shut for fear of violating a passengers rights, and some random stick-in-the-mud would have phoned the police on the naked blond.
I believe that this behavior in Americans is also indicative of a much deeper issue. In spite of the constant “Support of Personal Freedoms” chant we hear here in the US, the truth is, it seems that we only believe in the concept of individual freedoms and unalienable rights so long as our own individual beliefs have not been offended. Not our individual rights, just our individual beliefs. There is a big difference. The fact that you believe something does not make it a right. Trust me. Or not. That is your right…
As a result of this, I believe we tend to focus too much on the wrong things. Think back to when you read the articles. Which scenario did you find more offensive? A totally nekkid, (save for a pair of gold stilettos, and a gold necklace) 30 year old, Ferrari-driving blond, at a gas station convenience store? Or a fully (relatively) clothed 20 year old on a bus whose plunging neckline was apparently so distracting as to have possibly caused an accident? And when you first answered this question in your head, did your personal moral values/beliefs take precedence, or your humanitarian instinct towards the preservation human life?
It is such irony that we seem to live in a society where, as a typical example, in any given movie, scenes depicting extreme violence, torture, dismemberment and death, are generally considered more acceptable and less socially heinous, than those with explicit sexual content. What does that say about our values as society? Methinks our moral priorities may be just a *wee bit* skewed… But then again that’s just my belief…
Nude blonde, gold stilettos and a Ferrari… – [Yahoo/Reuters]
“Too sexy for my bus,” woman told – [Reuters]
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