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"Let's get back to the original subject. You still haven't
precisely defined what the limits are ..."
And I won't. It would be unrealistic for me to try to forsee
everything that someone might try to do. Common sense is an
unavoidable necessity. However, a good guide would be the
understanding that what we seek, on a deep level, is beauty. This
is not the same as hedonism, in which one only cares about one's
own pleasures and suppresses one's own awareness of the
possibility of pleasure on more than a shallow level. Here, we
seek all pleasures, including those on a spiritual level, like that
which comes from the knowledge of the loyalty of true friendship,
and we seek them for all, not just for ourselves.
The unclothed human form is a thing of beauty. I would maintain
that the apprehension we feel about it is purely learned behavior,
which those societies in which it never developed, (or where it was
lost along the way) seem perfectly happy without. Consider the
small child who casts his clothes off, not knowing that it is
"wrong", and runs happily along. Until adults tell him to get
dressed again (or he is mocked) it is unlikely that it will occur
to him that there is a problem with this. On the other hand, should
he be molested, history tells us that he is not likely to need
guidance to find his feelings of violation and horror, though he
may need more than a little to deal with them. These are
instinctual, and are part of what defines human nature. For this
reason, one must recognise the rape of a fellow human being as an
absolute wrong, while the concept of "indecent exposure" is merely
an arbitrary cultural construct.
Thus, we welcome the merely uninhibited, but elect to show our
scorn for that which speaks of sexual predation or of forwardness
indifferent to lack of mutual interest. To casually gaze with a
little appreciation at one who one finds attractive is no injury.
Those who feel violated by this should consider either therapy, or
the veil. But to stare with eyes popping out and toungue hanging,
yelling "whoa momma", would be the sort of forwardness we speak of.
It is not beautiful, it can be counted out to inspire severe
discomfort in almost anyone, and it shows a lack of respect.
It is the difference between seeing a woman who has a beautiful
body, and seeing a body that one is barely aware that a woman is
living within.
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