Costuming
Humans and some other animals have great fun with costumes. Actually, we humans are a relatively boring and uninteresting species when it comes to our birth costume. Other animals, particularly some bird species, have some very colorful and beautiful costumes some of which are designed to announce their readiness to mate. The male flame bowerbird builds an avenue-type bower with two sides of sticks. It also moves his wings and tail to the side and shakes his head when it is ready for a sexual relationship. Many of the animal species have very elaborate rituals to indicate that they are ready for mating and/or ready for a sexual relationship which may or may not be with an opposite sex member of the species.
Although human have been experimenting with costumes and rituals to announce their readiness to at least explore a romantic relationship, we have also “evolved” to disassociate a sexually explicit costume from a willingness to engage in a romantic or sexual relationship.
We humans rightfully, I believe, want and are increasing demanding the right to say no at any time and at any stage of a sexual or romantic dance. We have even evolved to maintain that even a very sexually explicit costume is not an invitation to a sexual or romantic dance. It is easy to accept that, given our culture, children – even young adults – are experimenting with using costumes to announce aspects of who they are or who they might want to explore projecting. Adults are expected to supervise and mentor these children but not accept what appears to be and which might me an invitation to a sexual dance. We also are attempting to legislate the response of other children – often with much explicit direction for dealing their powerful hormonal signals to mate or at least find some sexual release.
Once there are two adults of sound mind (sans the influence of mind-altering drugs including alcohol), the current cultural message is that it is the sole responsibility of the audience member to not treat the person using sexually explicit costumes (including perfume, certain, shoes or other accessories) as a sexual object. Of course, one never wants to blame the victim of sexual assault.
I do, however, wonder if all of us in this culture have some responsibility for exploring ways that we can use costumes to have fun, to feel good about our bodies and to even feel sexual without presenting ourselves as a sexual object. Certainly, many of us do not want there to be universal rules to cover one head or even most of one’s face to reduce the like hood of sexual attractiveness. (Even the covering can sometimes do more to stimulate one’s imagination then the exposure of certain body parts.)
Is it possible that the time has come to have open, frank, non-judgmental discussions about the role we want costumes to play in our adult relationships? Could we possibility set aside for a moment labels such as victims and perpetrators and lovingly, creatively explore these topics. This would obviously be a different conversation than that we need to have about how deal with compulsive sexual disorders.
Written November 17, 2018
Humans and some other animals have great fun with costumes. Actually, we humans are a relatively boring and uninteresting species when it comes to our birth costume. Other animals, particularly some bird species, have some very colorful and beautiful costumes some of which are designed to announce their readiness to mate. The male flame bowerbird builds an avenue-type bower with two sides of sticks. It also moves his wings and tail to the side and shakes his head when it is ready for a sexual relationship. Many of the animal species have very elaborate rituals to indicate that they are ready for mating and/or ready for a sexual relationship which may or may not be with an opposite sex member of the species.
Although human have been experimenting with costumes and rituals to announce their readiness to at least explore a romantic relationship, we have also “evolved” to disassociate a sexually explicit costume from a willingness to engage in a romantic or sexual relationship.
We humans rightfully, I believe, want and are increasing demanding the right to say no at any time and at any stage of a sexual or romantic dance. We have even evolved to maintain that even a very sexually explicit costume is not an invitation to a sexual or romantic dance. It is easy to accept that, given our culture, children – even young adults – are experimenting with using costumes to announce aspects of who they are or who they might want to explore projecting. Adults are expected to supervise and mentor these children but not accept what appears to be and which might me an invitation to a sexual dance. We also are attempting to legislate the response of other children – often with much explicit direction for dealing their powerful hormonal signals to mate or at least find some sexual release.
Once there are two adults of sound mind (sans the influence of mind-altering drugs including alcohol), the current cultural message is that it is the sole responsibility of the audience member to not treat the person using sexually explicit costumes (including perfume, certain, shoes or other accessories) as a sexual object. Of course, one never wants to blame the victim of sexual assault.
I do, however, wonder if all of us in this culture have some responsibility for exploring ways that we can use costumes to have fun, to feel good about our bodies and to even feel sexual without presenting ourselves as a sexual object. Certainly, many of us do not want there to be universal rules to cover one head or even most of one’s face to reduce the like hood of sexual attractiveness. (Even the covering can sometimes do more to stimulate one’s imagination then the exposure of certain body parts.)
Is it possible that the time has come to have open, frank, non-judgmental discussions about the role we want costumes to play in our adult relationships? Could we possibility set aside for a moment labels such as victims and perpetrators and lovingly, creatively explore these topics. This would obviously be a different conversation than that we need to have about how deal with compulsive sexual disorders.
Written November 17, 2018
RSS Feed