…Or keep them off

Alex Sorondo/Assistant Opinion Editor

Jenna Kefauver, in her argument against the University’s scantily-clad students and the obscenity of wearing egregiously revealing outfits, makes a fair and compelling argument. It isn’t professional, she says; it shows more skin than your peers care to see. All true, in many cases. Still, I have to disagree.

The impulse to wear very few or very revealing clothes is, one could fairly say, strongest among the young; under 25, let’s say; those who feel they have something titillating and agreeable to display; the boy or girl for whom responsibilities are so sparse, and of such small caliber, that his or her appearance can still be the primary concern.

It’s true that our culture glorifies youth and virility, and an insidious sort of beauty that has as many economic as sexual undertones; and it’s true that, when so many people are preoccupied with how they look in the eyes of — and compared against — their peers, it lessens the focus on school.

But consider it a celebration, of sorts.

We’re only young once, and in the end, we’ll all find ourselves staring with glossy-eyed nostalgia at pictures of our youthful selves someday. The skin smooth and elastic, the musculature firm and defined, breasts and eyelids still triumphant over gravity. Wouldn’t you like to look back and think, “Wow, I looked good, and seeing as how I hardly wore any clothes, everybody probably knew it.”

And really, is it so awful that we should have our campus cursed by a plague of cleavage and thighs, biceps and pecs?

If the arguments fail to compel you toward understanding, toward sympathy and appreciation for the scarcely-clothed, consider this: it will never change. These are the key years for narcissism. Short on real-life experiences, and belonging to the age-bracket of greater commercial pursuit than any other, we’re not yet versed in the depths of our ineptitude, our cosmic insignificance, the vast and uncharitable expanses of our humiliating ignorance and, perhaps least of all, our mortality.

Kind of grim, I know, but grounds enough, I think, for passivity. That others should be more concerned with their beauty than the rest of us, just as our own vanity might trump that of others, should be of little concern insofar as its influence on our education. We may as well try to enjoy it. Because however reluctant we might be to confess it, there’s a beauty to our bodies, or at least an element of intrigue for parts private and public.

So let’s parade it, acknowledge it if we wish, and maybe, at some point, try to appreciate it.