A Post With No Clothes

I like clothes, people. 
They're nice to pick out and throw together and talk about and think about, and fun to make statements with, and an easy way to confuse the hell out of people by changing them twice a day between classes (guilty).  But do we honestly have to wear them All The Time?  I am really goddamn sick of this whole keeping-on-your-clothes thing in the dorm.  My wing is one straight, long corridor and my room is right at the end of it.  The door to the upper lobby's usually open, and yes, I wrap myself in a towel and dash across the hall to get to the showers.  Who's it going to hurt?  So bloody what if someone sees me?  It's a towel, people.  I wear outfits that cover about half as much of me and nobody blinks.  And if somebody with a penis happens to see somebody without one while they're basically wearing a floor-length dress, is it really apocalypse?  At home I don't have to put up with this shit and I can make breakfast naked if I want.  I'm not used to worrying about who might see me - I just don't care.

But one of the residential staff - that is to say, the teacher whose apartment is on our wing - just stopped me and said I have to be 'more conscious of how covered up I am'.  Christ.  I don't tend to show an indecent amount of skin in general -  up here you can't, you'd freeze to death most of the year - but that doesn't seem to be the point.  Nobody has a problem with shorts and tank tops around the lounge.  We live here, after all, and casual dress is to be expected.  It's not a big deal... who cares what the person sitting next to you is wearing?  Maybe you can see shoulders and, may the good lord preserve us, a little cleavage!  My god, how awful!  No.  Nobody acts that Victorian when it's about what people are wearing to schmooze.  But when you're dashing from the shower room with wet hair and flipflops to your bedroom and are, in this shameful towel-wrapped state, exposed to the view of whomever should turn in your direction for a duration of perhaps ten seconds, you are an irresponsible, loose, slutty troublemaker.  Why do we have to be so... closeted, I guess, about our bodies?  There's no great secret about them.  I don't mean to bitch, but, god, Americans.  H-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e-s.  Your culture orders us to be as promiscuous as we can possibly contrive to be, but the moment anybody, especially a woman steps out of line with the rest, or fails to find anything to be ashamed of about her body, you become Puritanical prudes and slut-shun the hell out of her.  I know I'm technically one of you, but I feel so much more European in this respect.  Give it a break.  These double standards can be damned.  If I'm allowed to go out in a short skirt and camisole but can't be in a towel on the girls' wing, what else can they restrict?  Only read controversial books in public where you can be supervised?  Don't be a Jew where someone might see?

Okay, I know those are different.  Those are 'real' issues, you might say, but this is the same principle - it's people being scared of anything they consider abnormal, of anybody having the guts not to be ashamed of what everybody else hides.  Really, it's so unfair.  It's ridiculous that I should even have to be writing this, and I know it's not the end of the world that I might have to throw on a bathrobe tomorrow morning.  It's just stupid.
 
So I don't sound like a totally boring bitcher, and also so I can attach a relevant photo to this post that's not porn, I'll tell you what else I did today.  This is the beginning of '80s weekend here, which meant dressing up for school today and a fantastic dance this evening.  Tomorrow there's a movie marathon planned which includes Labyrinth, and while I'm sure you're shaking your head at this point because it's full of bad memories of half-hearted spirit weeks and theme days wherever you go/went to school, I can say that, if today is any indication, the people here - students and faculty - pull    it    off.  There were some amazing costumes (everyone came to me for solid-coloured tights.  That's right, I'm the legwear queen here.  Remember what I said at the beginning of this one?  I like clothes.) and a record player in the lounge was set up.  I spent my free hour between tech and chem dancing to Thriller, King of Pain, Hip to be Square and Eye of the Tiger instead of studying for a quiz on solubility of ionic compounds.  It was amazing fun.  And there was more of it all at the dance tonight... and let it be known that I love, have always loved and will always love Wham!'s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.  Anyway, I'm utterly exhausted from way too much dancing, after which there was a costume competition with 5 prizes.  I won one of them, and I guess I could go ahead right now and do that thing fashion bloggers do where they break down their outfits and say what's from where:



-The shoes are, quite obviously, just converse.  They were a present for getting into the Turkey program.
-Socks are Gap kid's.  So I wear my little brother's clothing.  What'ya gonna do about it?
-The tights were a birthday present.  I don't know where they're from but I love them.
-The skirt was a Wet Seal impulse buy for a ridiculously tiny amount of money.  Yes, I'm ashamed, but I'm not sorry.  Thought I'd never wear it anywhere...
-The sweater's American Eagle, but was handed down to me from one of my mum's friends, and I think it might actually be a 1980s piece.
-You can't really see it, but the blue beads were a present from my teacher in Turkey.  She gave us all a little something and knew I was into retro jewelery.  Miss her so much. 






 

My prize was this Smurf shirt.  It's my new favourite oversized tee. 
That's all for now.  Night, everyone!