I suppose skimpy dress is nothing new. There have always been those who would display their bodies. Still, I wonder at the way some parents allow and sometimes even encourage their children towards immodest dress. It can be ludicrous. At least ludicrous is what I think of a fashion trend I have noted at my favorite recreation center. Some of the young girls, many just teenyboppers, have taken to folding down the tops of their shorts. Without actually losing their shorts, these girls expose as much of their midriffs as they can manage.
The problem with wisdom is that it requires it a certain amount of age and experience. So when the old tell healthy young people to keep their cloths on, their words lack a certain credibility. Still, if we know better, should we not say something? We do know better, don’t we?
There is a poem I remember reading in high school. I had forgotten the author’s name. I remembered only the title and the difference between the naked and nude. I will let it suffice for my remonstrance.
The Naked and the Nude
For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.
The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometimes nude!
