Put Clothes On

13^th April 2012

Dear Cassi,

Today I commit to memory George Washington’s seventh rule of civility and decent behavior: “Put not off your Cloths in the presence of Others, nor go out your Chamber half Dressed.”

   

Let us first understand that this was a different time. In being so it was a time of vermin and illness. In this time the body was often an ugly thing covered in scars and dirt. To see a man’s chest would be to see his fleas and oozing wounds. In this degree the body was a thing not to be seen.

   

Further on that thinking was the commonality of sexual repression. I believe that it was not until the time of the World Wars that a woman in pants was socially acceptable. Even at the time I think this was not common.

   

I would have to say that this rule today would mean more along the line of ‘dress appropriate for the situation’. It would be silly for a man to put on a shirt at the beach and I do imagine that a bikini would be half dressed for Washington’s time.

   

Modesty of the body has left us for the most part but there are still limits to what we should and should not show the world.

Live in the moment, little sister,