[MD] So cometh MOQ, what next?

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Case]
>From a legal standpoint, in the USA anyway this is the sort of thing that is
covered by local rather that national or even state law. While some states may
have laws to this effect, the idea is to have local community standards apply.
I know that where I live local ordinances govern nude dancing in private clubs
and the dress codes at most beaches. I would add that if it came to a vote
locally I would be for more rather than less clothing on purely esthetic
grounds. One trip to

[Arlo]
I see this got Platt's aesthetic tethers all bunched up. But let me ask, if its
"moral" for society to force people to conceal parts of their bodies others may
find aesthetically unpleasing (like a fat retired guy), would you say that
gives society the right to force people with severe skin problems to cover
those parts of their bodies? What about people with "ugly faces"? Or are there
no ugly faces, just ugly bodies?

Avoiding for now the idea that the human body CAN be ugly and aesthetically
repelling, I think what's not being foregrounded here is the notion of choice.
I'm not suggesting people should go nude, I'm suggesting laws forbidding
toplessness in women are the result of archaic, sexually immature and
women-as-property modes of thinking.

But now we have a new tangent. Society is morally correct in forcibly covering
people who are ugly and would repulse others. I assume that's Platt's view of
the MOQ. Yours?

[Platt]
I live in a very warm climate and nudity might be comfortable here but I hear
tell that if you move farther north it gets a bit to cold to be running around
bare butt.

[Arlo]
We have the Polar Bear Club. Although not "nude" per se, they do things in the
cold that I wouldn't choose to do. Brrrrr. But again, we are not talking about
mandatory laws FOR nudity, only again that laws forbiding women to be topless
(and let me draw direct attention here) in the same situations men ARE allowed
to be topless are immoral laws.

[Case]
While cooler weather does tend to enhance the finer points of the female form,
as George Costanza lamented it causes shrinkage in males. Many of us can ill
afford to be exposed under these conditions.

[Arlo]
Have no fear. Despites Platt's "slippery slope" from toplessness to public
fornication, I've already presented a health-based argument against
"bottomlessness" in most public places. As for the beach, unless you belong to
a specific "nudist colony" you can, like Gav had initially done, wear bottoms
until you feel comfortable.

But let me tell you, the idea that at nude beaches everyone is going around
gawking at everyone else is just an outgrowth of the immature sexuality that
leads to words describing the human body as "obscene", "indecent" and the like.


[Case]
Certainly what we view as sexual is culturally determined. In colonial America
the sight of ankles was a turn on. In first century Palestine when nudity was
acceptable in the bath houses, Greeks regarded exposure of the male glans as
obscene.

[Arlo]
Exactly. But let me ask this, since I bet its ignored elsewhere.

If its moral for men to force women to wear tops (let's say at the beach)
because they find the sight of women's breasts either "sexually provocative"
(or in the case above "potentially ugly"), why is also not moral to pass the
same law about men's chests, since I assume "shirtless men" can either be as
much a turn on for women (or a similar ugly revulsion)?

Would you support a law that would force American shore goers to wear shirts or
full-piece bathing suits because women may either be "aroused" or "repulsed"
otherwise? 

[Case]
It would seem that clothing is a nearly universal feature of all cultures across
all time. This suggests to me that there is some biological or evolutionary
basis for it.

[Arlo]
Let's look into this. My hypothesis is that its origins are primarily
property-based, or a religions view that sexuality is "indecent", followed by
the concealment of parts considered "sexual" (and hence "indecent"). I would
suspect that bottoms (thinking about tribal loin cloths) originated out of a
recognition of health concerns, the spreading of bodily fluids, or concealing
potential odors.

[Case]
As for Muslims I would think they should either abide by the local customs where
they live or be prepared to deal with the consequences.

[Arlo]
If you are saying, like Platt and Ham, that Muslims be forbidden from wearing
veils because it goes against "local custom", should a Hasidic Jew be forbidden
from wearing a kippot, or a Hare Krishna from wearing his robe, or a Hindu
woman from displaying a Bindi if these customs are not the "local customs"?

Or like Ham, to you propose that only people we are afraid of, or customs that
make us "anxious" be forbidden? What if Bindi's make a community anxious? Then
do they have the right to outlaw them?

[Case]
But I suspect the consequences are mostly just getting looked at strangely. Some
of us get that even when we comply with the dress code.

[Arlo]
And so they are. In my younger, nihilistic days, when I worked for the complete
destruction of mankind and the abolition of civilization, I did the punk thing.
Mohawk. The whole nine yards. I'm sure I made the civilized, proper gentry
"anxious", and I got mainly strange looks. But it was my choice. So much for
American freedom. 

Hey, just think, if we all had to wear the SAME UNIFORMS, how less anxious
everyone would be! There'd be no one forced to deal with having to look at
someone who dressed in a different way! Ham would be completely at ease walking
down the street, knowing that no faces could be concealed. No one would have to
see strange Krishas in robes, or Hindis with Bindis. All that threatening
strange stuff of "other cultures" would be right out. Maybe this is the route
the MOQ takes us?....