Mixed Messages

Some of you long-time KWTN readers may remember this story by Richard Watherwax…

A few weeks ago I read in the police blotter that someone had found some pictures of a naked woman in a parking lot, so they called the police!!!  I can hear the tires squealing, see the lights flashing, and there are the CRIME SCENE tapes going up, to protect the public..  That’s a bit of exaggeration, but the perception of a nude body in America has me confused.  So here are a few random thoughts on the subject.

I want all of you men to close your eyes and picture yourself buck naked.  You can’t see a thing, and suddenly a hand wearing a rubber glove slaps you hard across your ass.  As you open your mouth to protest, a woman’s nipple is thrust into your mouth!  A kinky S and M scene?  No… you’re just being born.

Now there’s nothing wrong with this scene… in fact, it’s a beautiful moment.  There we are at Mother’s breast, being nurtured, bonding with only woman that will love us unconditionally the rest of our lives (probably), and drinking life giving milk.  This is a moment that we file away forever, and from that moment on try to recreate every chance we get.  But that’s another story.  The point I want to make is this… a couple of years go by, and one day we toddle into Mommy’s bedroom just as she’s taken off her brassiere, and as she dives for the closet she shrieks “No, Johnny, don’t look!  Bad!  DIRTY!”  And we put that thought into our mental suitcase with a sprinkle of confusion, and start working out on the jungle gym, because, believe me, that baggage is going to get a lot heavier as we roll down the highway.

Now to illustrate the mixed messages that are presented to us daily, I’ve taken some photographs.  The first one is similar to any lingerie ad that you might find in the Sunday paper… an innocent J.C. Penny’s ad, lying on the living room floor after church.  In fact, little Johnny and Petey are making paper airplanes out of the T-strap and see-through bra pages, while Mom and Pop look on, smiling at the little darlings.

Let’s look at pictue #2

I’ve actually added clothes.  The same picture, and clothes are covering most of her body.  BUT… you can see under her skirt, and there’s a little of her panties showing!  Bad!  DIRTY! I’m not sure why, but it is.  Ironically, most of us poor guys would probably be more interested in the second photo.  I just don’t get it!

Moving on, here’s photo three.

 

This is a picture that I shot in Maine when I lived there in the early 80’s.  At that time, the Moral Majority was in full swing in America, the Legion of Decency had it’s headquarters in nearby Boston, and, as I said, I was living in a very small town in Maine!  I advertised that I was going to have a photography exhibit in a local gallery, and one of the villages’ Chamber of Commerce members stopped at my restaurant to inquire if there were going to be any naked women in the show.  I wasn’t sure if he was hoping for a yes or a no, so I told him that he could bring the family without fear.  After he left, I thought I’d exercise a little humor (there’s so little of it in Maine)… so I had a friend pose under a blanket added a few black strips to protect her reputation, and hung the picture, calling it Maine Nude.  Believe it or not, the same guy came up to me at the show and said he thought the picture was suggestive, and why hadn’t I called it “Cold Night in Maine”, or something similar.  He also told me that he had been embarrassed by the questions his sons had asked him.  Poor kids… Finally, here’s a true story that happened a few years ago.  I was at a party in New York, and I’d had a few Martinis (in my drinking days).  I noticed a woman across the room that was knock down beautiful!  Just fabulous!  So, I had one more for courage, and walked up to her when she was alone, and said “Hello… I’ve been watching you, and you have the loveliest face and most wonderful figure I’ve ever seen.”  Thank you, that’s very nice of you to say that,” she said.

“My pleasure.  But I’d like to ask you something… what would you say if I asked you to come over to my apartment this Saturday, and for a modest amount of money, take off all of your clothes and get into different positions at my bidding?”

“What would I say?” she snapped, “I’d say you’re some kind of pervert, and I want you to get away from me this instant!”

“But wait, let me finish. While you were in all of these positions, I’d take photographs, then I’d develop enlarge, and frame them, and hang them in a gallery for all the world to see.”

“Oh, that’s different,” she said, “Sure.”

I’m confused.