1. "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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