I believe you can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.
My mother and I have exceptionally different fashion senses. We're probably at opposite ends of the spectrum. She's, understandably, more conservative, and I am, understandably, am not so much. So, when the question arises of 'how much is too much..' skin to show off, we can butt heads.
I remember the first time I dared to try the bare midriff trend. I was ten years old, and on vacation with my family in the U.S. We had decided to take a day trip and venture into Tijuana to do some shopping, some sight seeing, and to spend some time together somewhere new. There were loads of store owners and stores selling everything from handbags, to shoes, to instruments, to lighters, and finally, to midriff baring tops.
Ah, midriff baring tops.
It was like love at first sight. I saw it, as I approached that particular store and tore off from my parents and my sister, making a beeline right to that white midriff baring shirt with little blue flowers throughout. I simply had to have it! In that moment, nothing else mattered but me having that midriff baring shirt.
The one problem. Ahem. The one big, massive, huge, major, problem??
My dear mother.
To clean up what could be a long story, to my absolute surprise, my mother agreed that the shirt was cute, and would look great with my cut off denims! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! I couldn't. And I sure wasn't going to wait around to find out. I pulled my size off the rack, and handed it to my mother to make the transaction official. I think I held my breath as I watched her give it the once over, and then pass green money over the counter to the seller. She handed me the bag, and I couldn't wait to wear the shirt.
No, really.
I couldn't wait, I didn't even look for a bathroom to change in, I went into a secret corner in the store, and asked my mum to cover me while I changed. That was the day my love for the midriff baring shirt began.
So, imagine my joy when summer 2010/2011 rolled around, and midriff shirts reared its beautiful head once again. The one difference, is that this year, I'm not 10 years old. I'm a decade and a bit older than that. And what I could once show off, I wonder if I can still.
When I was ten, not only did I wear a bare midriff shirt, but I was able to bare much more. At ten years old my heart was so much more open, and willing, and the world seemed to be filled with endless possibilities. I was happy, nay, ready to bare all. All of my heart, all of my dreams, all of my hopes.
I know that there's a balance, and I'm trying to seek out that balance. How much, is too much, to bare?
MJ xx
And all of the pedophiles that you met growing up that just so happened to have a thing for the midriff got a nice little image of you and your bare midriff in their heads to use however they might use such an image. I notice you didn't show your entire person at ten so you obviously know that they're out there.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter won't wear midriffs until she's at least a teenager.
And no, I'm not being paranoid. Don't believe me? Just take a look at your local state online sex offender registry and assume about 1/10 of them are just recipients of bad luck and aren't quite the perverts they've been made out to be. Then remember all of the ones that aren't listed yet or didn't have to get onto the registry because of some extenuating legal circumstance. Then remember the simple fact that all of the ones on the registry are solely made up of only those who were willing to take their perversion to a point of risking getting caught.
I'm a midriff man in case you haven't picked up on it yet. There's only one reason to expose a girl's midriff, to look sexy, and to a man for which the sexyness is to be "looked," the midriff is what leads to and becomes part of the golden land of pleasure and dreams, to put it nicely.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the bare midriff doesn't look cute on a kid because of course it does, but so does the naked baby. That doesn't mean I'm going to let my baby walk around naked because he/she looks ohhh so cute. And I find it exceedingly disparaging how cute so many mothers find their girls when they take it even further than just a bare midriff. All those little girls that dress like Brittany Spears and even worse come to mind. And this is common. Some places are so bad that 12 and 14 year old girls would be surprised and then tell me when I refused to go out with them because I was early to mid twenties how age doesn't matter and that they've dated guys older than me.