Well, If Your Clothing is Sexually Provocative…
If words have meaning, “sexually provocative” provokes sex
Last week in Paris, I saw a nearly-nude man. Sexy, right?
He was flopped on a sheet of dirty, wet cardboard. His pants were around his knees, his genitals and buttocks exposed, and his shirt yanked up around his armpits.
I guess he was dressed in a sexually provocative way. If you’re into public sex with a dirt-caked semi-conscious man on a urine-soaked Parisian sidewalk.
While walking, I also saw a half-nude woman.
Too touristy to be French, she was overflowing her weeping yoga knickers, crop top, and heels. I guess she was dressed in a sexually provocative way— if you’re sexually provoked by the yoga-knickers-and-heels vibe.
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If you’re into public sex with a dirt-caked semi-conscious man on a urine-soaked Parisian sidewalk...
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And on the train home, I saw some goats.
They were dressed in very attractive goat-hair coats. With exposed faces and feet. And the way they twitched their tails…well, I guess they, too, were dressed in a sexually provocative way. To some farm kid, somewhere.
Could we maybe just agree, as a culture, that exposed skin is just skin? That butts and boobs and dangly bits are just more skin? Gross, perhaps, and uncivilized. Withered, or overstuffed, or hairy, or pock-marked, or of questionable cleanliness.
But could we at least get on the same page that exposed skin and tightly wrapped bits are only “sexually provocative” if the viewer feels sexually provoked? And that sexual provocation — as in the case of the goats — has nothing to do with the wearer?
My thoughts are my responsibility. I can see someone’s genitals and think any of the following:
- “huh. Genitals”
- “ugh. Genitals”
- “wow!! Genitals!”
If I pick door number three, that’s on me. Neither the street sleeper, nor the tourist, nor the goat can be responsible for which thought I entertain.
Could we also maybe just stop using the term “sexually provocative clothing”? Describing clothing as sexually provocative cedes the premise that the clothing, not the viewer, is responsible for thoughts that lead to sexual arousal.
Please: Refuse to buy into the premise that clothes — or lack thereof — provoke sex. Because every time you use the word “sexually provocative” you cede the premise.
I don’t want my daughters flashing their bits in public — because it’s coarse and unseemly and uncivilized and unhygienic. I have exactly the same wish for my sons. Wear a shirt and some trunks, dude. Ain’t nobody wanna see that.
But I shouldn’t have to worry that my kids’ exposed or tightly wrapped flesh might “sexually provoke” an onlooker. I’ll settle for them wearing well fitted clothing simply so that they don’t “nausea provoke” an onlooker.
I mean, seriously. Ugh. Genitals.
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LauraMaery Gold, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist working with couples and parents. She is also executive director of The Relationship Institute and the author of oh-so-very-many books on family concerns. When all seven of their kids became adults, she and her husband took up residence in a 400-year-old castle just outside of Paris.
