Wednesday 25 January 2012

Admitting a Sensibility.

I was on a train yesterday and there was a young woman a few seats away wearing business attire. Her blouse was buttoned quite low, and when I walked down the aisle to alight, I got a good – though consciously brief – view of her lacy bra and its contents. The bra looked expensive; the woman looked cheap.

6 comments:

andrea kiss said...

Do you think it was intentional? I dress modestly but there have been times when i was unaware that i was showing off a bit much. Its been more of a problem since i've had Liam and become a bit more "endowed." I was very unsure about posting the pic on my blog of me holding Liam while he opened one of his Christmas presents because i was unaware at the time of how i looked in that shirt but hopefully viewers will pay more attention to him than me.

JJ said...

Don't mind me, Andrea. This is an area of great import to me and one on which I could write volumes. The fact is that one of the things I most respect in a woman is modesty, and immodesty is a real deal breaker. This has always caused difficulty because women tend to assume that it's an expression of simple male chauvenism, which it isn't. If anything, it's the opposite, and there's a hell of a lot I could say on the matter. Any woman has an equal right to her opinion, of course, but what I find odd, and to answer the question, is this:

I once got sent to Toronto on a photographic commission. My 'minder' was the woman in charge of publicity at the local tourist organisation. I had a meeting with her in her office one day and she was wearing a blouse buttoned very low, which was showing off her credentials! Now, if that's what she wanted to do, fine. But the whole time I was talking to her I was conscious of the fact that she kept nervously pulling the blouse closed at the appropriate spot, and I very nearly said to her 'Catherine, if you don't want people to see what's inside there, why don't you just fasten the damn button? If you want us to see it, stop fiddling! Make up your mind one way or the other.'

I could go on and on and on...

andrea kiss said...

I see your point but i also don't think women should be made to feel like their bodies are something that needs to be hidden like the table legs of the Victorians. There's a difference in dressing in a way that is tasteful and showing a little and a look that plainly says 'i need male attention in order to feel good about myself.'

Its funny to me that my word verification is caliskin

JJ said...

I agree. Women shouldn’t be MADE to feel anything. Every individual has the right to conduct themselves however they see fit as long as it doesn’t hurt others. Note that I didn’t say in the post that the woman WAS cheap, only that she looked so to me.

This isn’t about rules or general expectations, but is entirely a personal issue. For me, women do have to keep their bodies hidden because the female body is at the heart of what I so respect – venerate even – about the feminine principle. My view of the matter stems from a much more rarefied level than that on which social convention, morals, religious diktat and sexual politics function. It’s about my unshakeable conviction that the feminine principle at its purest is inherently superior to the masculine one, and that the central focus of a worthy male/female relationship is about the honour a woman bestows upon her chosen partner by granting him exclusive access to the heart of her femininity. In effect, it’s about the woman taking the superior position to which she’s entitled. Any woman who lacks the required level of modesty is denying me that exclusivity and the honour it brings with it. If she isn’t giving me the honour, I’m unable to give her the veneration I want to give and the relationship is meaningless.

That’s the core of my position, and if you expand it to a general view, you’ll guess that it stems from my Romantic nature and my search for high ideals which have no truck with convention. It isn’t about covering table legs, it’s more to do with the quest for the Holy Grail.

It all makes me a bit unconventional, which goes some way to explaining why I’ve ended up living alone. And I’m too old for it to matter now anyway, so what the hell.

andrea kiss said...

I'm having trouble thinking of an appropriate response to this because i have mixed feeling about what you've stated.

JJ said...

There's no need for a response, Andrea. This isn't a statement of definitive opinion, merely an explanatuion of how I see the matter. As I said, it's highly unconventional and way out of step with modern western culture. It has more in common with Islam, Mediaeval Romanticism and the cult of the Goddess, although it didn't stem from those sources or any other conditioning influences. It's simply who I am, and in stating it I'm courting neither agreement nor disagreement.