Tag Archives: sexual harassment

BEAUTY IS AS BEAUTY DOES

Corruption, Language, Random Thoughts, , , , , ,

WHO CARES ABOUT BEAUTY?

We used to say that, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and even as children we knew that meant someone, sometime would love us and see what we really are. Both boys and girls tried to make themselves -maybe not beautiful, but as attractive as possible. Girls could hardly wait to wear lipstick and maybe the boys would notice. If we complained to our moms that we wished we were pretty we were told, “Beauty is as beauty does.” By that we learned that character had as much to do with beauty as did looks. Both outsides and insides were covered.

I thought about all this because I went to get my hair cut yesterday. I wish words could adequately describe the “hairdresser” I was given. She had long “claw” bangs dyed neon pink, the sides of her head were dark and shaved about three inches up, the rest of her black hair was longer and ran down the center of her head like a dead animal. Added to that were the piercings just down from the corners of her mouth, which were shiny black. I didn’t check the tats. All I could think was, “Whatever happened to beauty?”

The question is probably more along the lines of “When and why did people deliberately choose to be bizarre, wild, weird, strange, unattractive or ugly, anything but beautiful? I know, I know, some of them are wonderful, love cats, and wouldn’t hurt a flea. Nonetheless, they make themselves so unattractive at times one has to wonder about their sanity. Even some naturally beautiful people make the worst of themselves.

Remember, you who are older, when NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC writers and photographers would travel the world and bring back stories of tribal customs that distorted bodies, particularly women’s bodies? The rings stacked up around women’s necks to make them long and “beautiful”; or the plates in female lips that made them stick out so far as to make them useless. Even the Chinese foot fetish that killed and maimed women for hundreds of years are examples of how far out of kilter people can get in search of supposed “beauty.” Funny, one thinks about genital mutilation today as being even more ignorant, and yet people tolerate it. I am not a Feminist, but one does have to wonder about men who have no respect for women and force cultural norms upon them that result in pain and degradation.

Men’s excesses today tend to be in the realm of huge body tattoos, which I personally find unattractive, and to ear gages and piercings. I had a friend who told me he once thought about getting tats, but decided to try phony ones first. He used the phonies one time and thought about living with them the rest of his life. He decided he didn’t need tats after all.  Good choice.

If beauty were just a matter of physical attractiveness, or lack thereof, it might be easier to understand, but to go out and hear filthy thoughtless language, hateful hand gestures, and loud pornographic music directed against women, UGH!

Ugliness seems to top all the charts today.

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR CHILDREN?

Musings, Politics, , ,

“. . . whoso shall offend one of these little ones . . . ” Matthew 18:6

The radio wakened me this morning to the news that a six year old boy in Colorado was being charged with “sexual harassment” for kissing the cheek of a little girl he liked. The principal of the school said the charge would be permanent on his school records. I was rolling my eyes at such stupidity when the news played the little boy’s voice saying, “I did something wrong.” At that point I almost cried and wanted to scream, “NO, YOU DIDN’T!!” It was not a good beginning to the day.

What in the world are we doing to our children? Six years old and this child thinks he did something “WRONG”, when he did no such thing. And now he faces the threat of this idiocy hanging over him for the rest of his school years. At some time or other every little boy innocently kisses a little girl. Most big boys sometimes innocently do the same thing, too. Almost all women have male (and female) friends who hug them and kiss their cheek. That’s just who they are – huggers and touchers.

Doctors and nurses know that all patients, from birth to death, crave human contact; that preemies are more likely to thrive and survive if they are held, caressed and spoken to. Some hospitals have volunteers who feed and rock babies so they receive important touching.

I have heard parts of, but not read in full, a report about developing a conscience in children. One researcher said that the first step is to hold and talk or sing to babies so they learn they can trust and care for those around them. Another researcher said that trust is the cornerstone of conscience. Sounds about right to me.

The war against boys is such a farcical thing it makes one want to laugh and cry at the same time. And what does this war do to little girls? Can they grow up happy when they are forced not to trust any of the boys, or men for that matter, around them? And yes, I do know you have to teach children to recognize inappropriate behavior, but there are correct ways to do so without scaring them to death.

My grandmother died when my mother was barely six years old, and mom’s father was a rather shy and undemonstrative man who didn’t quite know how to rear his four little girls by himself, so he made sure they were fed and clothed, and left the loving to visiting aunts and friends. My mother missed the love and touching of a parent and grew up craving human touch and contact so much. Sometimes when I would visit I would reach out and scratch her back or hold her while we watched TV. She would sigh and open like a thirsty flower. I could feel her wrap herself around in my expressions of love through touch.

What happens to this little boy and girl in Colorado now that they have been shell-shocked by the so-called adults around them? Do they feel that all people who hug them are evil? That if they want to hug or kiss someone they themselves are bad? Do they ever trust anyone at all? What are the long term consequences of cutting off completely normal actions of the people around them?

Fathers and mothers need to stand up for the right of their children to be children and do the normal things that all little children do. It is really past time to attach shame to the so-called professionals who don’t use common sense and indulge themselves in bringing harm to little children.