This week we headed to a theme park for the first time as a family. I learned two important lessons on that trip: one, my youngest daughter does not like rides, and so taking her to a park filled with death-defying amusements that her sister enjoys is probably not the best idea. Two, I never want to see another pair of breasts again.
The latter may sound strange, but allow me to explain. As homeschoolers, we ventured forth on a weekday, when we believed the only others there would be stray high school classes whose teachers had pre-emptively abandoned trying to teach this late in the year. What we did not anticipate was the new dress code for female students attending said amusement park, which apparently consists of shorts that ride down below one’s hips and a string bikini top.
Two years ago I wrote a column advising girls that they really need to think about the effect they have on boys when they wear revealing clothing. I still worry about those male sensibilities, but I’ve also acquired a concern for those of us who simply prefer to live life without seeing mammoth amounts of flesh. While revealing clothing was once jarring because it was rare, today it’s jarring because it’s everywhere, even on bodies where aesthetically it probably shouldn’t be. At that park, over and over again, I couldn’t help but think, “doesn’t she know how awful she looks?” Most figures just can’t be squeezed into today’s fashions and emerge triumphant. Instead people look silly, and even a little pathetic.
I’m not sure where we got the idea that bare is better. It generally is not. Something like 98% of people look better with clothes on than clothes off, and a little fabric covers a multitude of sins. Surely some of these girls are aware that their attire may actually reveal more than is in their best interests, but they wear bare anyway because that’s cool, in more ways than one.
In the process I think young girls have lost some self-respect. It isn’t respecting oneself—even if one does look like a super-model—to bare all. Whether you mean to or not, you project the impression that you think of yourself first and foremost as a sex object. You simply don’t see doctors wearing extreme mini-skirts, or lawyers arguing cases in plunging necklines and spaghetti straps, because it’s not proper.
But for most people the danger of looking too sexy is not nearly as great as the danger of looking just plain ridiculous, and I do find it odd that girls are giving into this en masse. For women, especially, looking pretty has held an importance from time immemorial far more than it has for men. When we’re depressed we tend to turn to a hairdresser before a therapist, because highlights are a great pick-me-up. Perhaps it’s shallow, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that most women enjoy looking their best, at least when we can find the make-up under all the rubber duckies and baby shampoo.
But do today’s teens understand that your best usually won’t include showing everything? These impossible fashions seem to have achieved almost mass saturation in the under-25 market, leaving many girls with no clue about how to look nice—not sexy, not alluring, but just plain pretty. I think it’s another sign of the loss of self-respect when girls insist on presenting themselves in a most unflattering light, simply to go along with the crowd.
The good news is that going against the tide is almost as much a teenage phenomenon as going with the herd, so perhaps some will soon start bucking this trend and start wearing things that cover up bulging belly buttons, or that come above the hips, or that actually allow a decent bra to be worn to provide some modesty. But until then, please, girls, don’t think that just because you’re wearing the latest fashions that you look good. Chances are you don’t. You can dismiss me as a fuddy-duddy if you want, but most of us would enjoy life so much more if we bought clothes with just a little more fabric. For the sake of our aesthetics, let’s cover up a little more. Summer’s coming, after all.
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