indicating a general sexual mood, specifically a woman's willingness. (And when I say "male point of view," I mean
my
point of view.) Unlike the ape exhibiting her parts to a passing male, there is no single gesture or act, nor any single item of clothing, that expresses willingness. There are conventional clothesâvariations of underwearâand there are various forms of nakedness. It is obvious that a woman who dresses up wants to be observed. Men, less subtle, more single-minded, cannot rid themselves of the notion that a woman who wants to be observed and desired also wants to be possessed.
Fashion itselfâthe enthusiasm for dressing up, no matter what clothes the woman is wearingâis a specific signal to a man. Women say to each other, You look fabulous! Men cannot say that without investing the exclamation in either coy or overt sexual innuendo, because men cannot separate fashion from sexual plumage. The reductio ad absurdum of this is the utter bluntness of the women in Orwell's novel
1984
who wear a red apron on the days they want to get laid. The majority of men would be delighted if instead of an expensive dress, women simply wore a little button on their lapel that read
Yes.
Men, who are fairly stupid when it comes to women's clothes, are seldom interested in fashion for its own sake. But sometimes a style catches on, nearly always eroticâslips, bras, slit skirts, fur, feathers, whateverâand men go weak in the knees.
It goes almost without saying that women's fashion seizes a man's attention when it is motivated by eroticism. Because sexuality whips up the blood and hums so near to the surface in so many man-woman encounters, it is impossible for a man to consider what a woman is wearing without at the same time wondering what is underneath. This is not necessarily the imagining of a naked body, but perhaps of whatever lies next to her skin. Men of a certain age were stimulated by female sexual images before they became aware of the struts and buttresses and technical underpinnings.
Fashion that is completely new and unfamiliar, that does not echo an image from a man's sexually impressionable period, is doomed to failure from the man's point of view. For some men the image is sufficient to provide sexual fulfillment. This is also the reason men are more fetishistic than women. One of the more pathetic generalizations you can make about men is that some of them are perfectly happy nuzzling a woman's shoe. That women are rarely fetishists is yet another difference between the sexes and the manner in which their libidos are awakened.
The object of desire is the "Rosebud" we carry within our imagination. In each man there is a variant image, or some set of associations, comparable to the lipstick-smudged and perfumed cigarette, or the barefoot woman in a bra standing in total concentration; the image needs to be answered in the present. It is exquisite in its tiny way, and overwhelmingly significant.
At the Sharp End: Being in the Peace Corps
M Y RECORD was so bad (the FBI was sent to check up on you then) that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker, and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing. The alternative was Vietnamâthis was 1963, and President Kennedy was still muddling dangerously along. I was sent to Nyasaland. And then a month before my two-year stint was over, I was "terminated"âkicked outâfined arbitrarily for three months' "unsatisfactory service," and given hell by Peace Corps officials in Washington. Of course they believed the truthâthat I had been framed in an assassination plot against Dr. Hastings Banda, the President-for-Life ("Messiah," "Conquerer," and "Great Lion" were a few of his lesser titles). But the case against me looked bleak. I was debriefed. Airfare from central Africa to Washington was deducted from my earnings, and I ended up with two hundred dollars. Out
my
point of view.) Unlike the ape exhibiting her parts to a passing male, there is no single gesture or act, nor any single item of clothing, that expresses willingness. There are conventional clothesâvariations of underwearâand there are various forms of nakedness. It is obvious that a woman who dresses up wants to be observed. Men, less subtle, more single-minded, cannot rid themselves of the notion that a woman who wants to be observed and desired also wants to be possessed.
Fashion itselfâthe enthusiasm for dressing up, no matter what clothes the woman is wearingâis a specific signal to a man. Women say to each other, You look fabulous! Men cannot say that without investing the exclamation in either coy or overt sexual innuendo, because men cannot separate fashion from sexual plumage. The reductio ad absurdum of this is the utter bluntness of the women in Orwell's novel
1984
who wear a red apron on the days they want to get laid. The majority of men would be delighted if instead of an expensive dress, women simply wore a little button on their lapel that read
Yes.
Men, who are fairly stupid when it comes to women's clothes, are seldom interested in fashion for its own sake. But sometimes a style catches on, nearly always eroticâslips, bras, slit skirts, fur, feathers, whateverâand men go weak in the knees.
It goes almost without saying that women's fashion seizes a man's attention when it is motivated by eroticism. Because sexuality whips up the blood and hums so near to the surface in so many man-woman encounters, it is impossible for a man to consider what a woman is wearing without at the same time wondering what is underneath. This is not necessarily the imagining of a naked body, but perhaps of whatever lies next to her skin. Men of a certain age were stimulated by female sexual images before they became aware of the struts and buttresses and technical underpinnings.
Fashion that is completely new and unfamiliar, that does not echo an image from a man's sexually impressionable period, is doomed to failure from the man's point of view. For some men the image is sufficient to provide sexual fulfillment. This is also the reason men are more fetishistic than women. One of the more pathetic generalizations you can make about men is that some of them are perfectly happy nuzzling a woman's shoe. That women are rarely fetishists is yet another difference between the sexes and the manner in which their libidos are awakened.
The object of desire is the "Rosebud" we carry within our imagination. In each man there is a variant image, or some set of associations, comparable to the lipstick-smudged and perfumed cigarette, or the barefoot woman in a bra standing in total concentration; the image needs to be answered in the present. It is exquisite in its tiny way, and overwhelmingly significant.
At the Sharp End: Being in the Peace Corps
M Y RECORD was so bad (the FBI was sent to check up on you then) that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker, and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing. The alternative was Vietnamâthis was 1963, and President Kennedy was still muddling dangerously along. I was sent to Nyasaland. And then a month before my two-year stint was over, I was "terminated"âkicked outâfined arbitrarily for three months' "unsatisfactory service," and given hell by Peace Corps officials in Washington. Of course they believed the truthâthat I had been framed in an assassination plot against Dr. Hastings Banda, the President-for-Life ("Messiah," "Conquerer," and "Great Lion" were a few of his lesser titles). But the case against me looked bleak. I was debriefed. Airfare from central Africa to Washington was deducted from my earnings, and I ended up with two hundred dollars. Out
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