The Booby Ban

I am so confused. But then again, I never understood why breasts were idolized in the first place. 

If a woman shows a lot of skin she is either praised for having a positive body image and expressing her femininity...or she's chastised for objectifying all women by using sex to promote herself. 

As I read these different stories I find valid points that I support in all of them... 

Rihanna wore a gorgeous dress to the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards and TLC blasted her for using sex to sell her music. In response, Rihanna found a picture of TLC topless, covering their breasts with only their hands, and tweeted it with a clever remark. (Rolling Stone) 

Meanwhile, circulating the internet is a beautiful story about a conversation between Mohammad Ali and his daughters. He teaches them that their bodies are sacred and like anything precious on this earth, God intended them to be covered and hard to get to. It's a sweet, metaphorical, and beautiful message. 

Then, there are some very well-supported arguments about the impact of telling girls to "cover up" on America's rape culture. It wasn't until recently that I realized how this idea teaches young girls that they are responsible if raped because they "tempt" males by dressing scantily. 

And don't forget that some people don't want their young, pre-teen, or teenage children to witness women publicly breast-feeding because it's "inappropriate". In response, many women have stood up to lobby for a mother's right to breastfeed her infant in public. 

Seriously? I'm dizzy from reading all these articles. I feel like I'm turning in circles. 

What if the reason we care so much about partial nudity is because we choose to make a big deal out of it? I mean, really, if you think about it, boobs are SUPER COMMON. Approximately 52% of people in the world have them. And if you don't have them, there's a good chance you've seen someone else's...

Does the ban on public booby exposure make them seem more exotic and rare? Is that the real reason breasts have become synonymous with sex? 

I don't know about you, but in my opinion, seduction requires a lot more than just bare skin....there's the sultry pout, suggestive maneuvers, etc. But by themselves, breasts are not equivalent to sex. 
So what's the big deal? If a woman wants to show some or all of her breasts, let her. If a woman wants to wear a headscarf, why do you care? If a woman wants to wear a ball gown to dinner at Denny's, don't stop her. 

Each person has preferences that are personal and unique. Who you are and what you like shouldn't bother anyone else and if it does, that's not your problem.  

How do we STOP school shootings?

The way we're going...school shootings will be nearly impossible to eradicate. 

In any scientific study you cannot select a single element of the environment and blame it as the sole cause of the problem being studied. The scientific process requires closely monitored and controlled experiments. Similarly, you cannot individually blame gun laws, security measures, mental heath assessments or treatment, video games, upbringing, bullying, or school environments for these murders. All of these factors play a role, and because each person is different, we cannot arbitrarily decide how much they each factor in. 

In a way, we are paralleling the shooter's mentality by making these judgments. 

Before you write me off, think about it. The shooter looks at a myriad of life problems and identifies a mass killing as the solution for them all. It's like that phrase about how when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. In the United States we are trying to attribute one root cause to numerous school shootings, all with different attackers with their own life story and mental health problems.  

As a comparison, for anyone who is familiar with addiction and treatments, it's very common for the addict to seek out "the reason I became an addict" with the motivation being that "if I can fix that one thing, I can go back to drinking and using." The fact is, once you've turned that corner, you can't go back. It's like when a cucumber has been turned into a pickle. Pickles cannot return to being a cucumber. Furthermore, there is no singular cause that can be attributed to addiction. Like with the school shooting there are several contributing factors: family history, frequency of use, quantity used, mental state when using, emotional trauma, etc. Not a single one can be taken out of context and blamed as the sole reason for an individual developing an addiction. 

Perceiving mass murder as a viable solution to any problem is illogical. It indicates hopelessness and desperation. If we want to protect future generations from knowing this kind of homicide, we need to take an objective look at our society and analyze why these shooters felt so hopeless and desperate in the first place. 

It is easy to lose sight of the fact that these killers are people too, because they have done something irreversible and unforgivable on most accounts. But remembering that they are like us will be essential to working on this problem.

What can we do, collectively, to minimize the likelihood of hopelessness and desperation in the United States?

• Listen to people around you. 
• Acknowledge and appreciate the involvement and opinions of others, even if you don't agree with them. 
• Encourage and support programs that do community outreach in your area. (Such as Oakland Unite)
• Show kindness, even when it's difficult. 
• Have compassion for those you anger you, because they are suffering too. 

We cannot reliably predict the circumstances which will cause any random person to pack a rifle and ammunition to attack innocent people in a public venue...yet. 

We can make small changes in our lives to make the people around us feel safe, appreciated, and loved. That is a start in the right direction...for now.