When I was maybe eight years old, I discovered slips.
I call it a discovery because it happened entirely on my own. I noticed these off-white silk skirts my mother and sister wore under their church dresses, and asked nothing about them. But when I found one in the laundry room, I figured I should wear it.
Because that's what people do, right? They wear slips under their church dresses.
I had no hint of understanding as to the reason and function behind slips, and I wasn't about to ask. I just slipped it on (ha ha) and got my books and went out the door.
As I walked out of the car and through the parking lot outside the church, the slip -- much too big for my frame -- slowly fell from my waist and eventually gathered in a small silk heap around my ankles. I looked down, stepped out of it, and put it in my bag.
My aunt, who had witnessed the whole thing, approached me laughing. I asked blankly what it was she was laughing at, and she stopped and looked at me, puzzled.
"Well--" she tried to explain, "your slip fell off..."
I looked at her.
"And slips -- slips are kind of like underwear. ... So, it was, you know, embarrassing."
I looked at her.
"...Since I could see it." She was beginning to feel cruel.
"Oh," I said, and looked at the undergarment in my bag. I blushed, and laughed, immediately embarrassed. On command. Feeling exactly as I had just been told to feel, as it had been explained to me.
Since then I have, of course, learned the function of slips, acquired ones which fit, and worn them appropriately, careful that they are not noticed, simply because of what I was told that one unfortunate evening when I was eight.
Children are only ashamed of what they are told to be ashamed of.
And proudly so.
They hide what they are told to hide, and they do not really think of how the slip must feel to be kept so carefully from public view -- every edge of lace, every small seam. The children are proud of their proper embarrassment, and why shouldn't they be? Undergarments never ask why you are embarrassed of them.
You hold no obligation to them.
Everyone wears underwear, and so everyone knows that everyone else does too. But whenever you see it in public (outside of the purposeful sagging-pants look, or maybe not), you are immediately embarrassed. Because underwear is meant to stay under whatever you wear.
Do you hide what you're ashamed of, or are you ashamed of what you hide?
Is it only the function of the slip -- the purpose of residing under a proper skirt -- that produces embarrassment? Or is it because of embarrassment that the slip must belong under a skirt?
You are proud of this shame. You are. You're supposed to be.
People aren't like underwear. That's what I'm saying.
I call it a discovery because it happened entirely on my own. I noticed these off-white silk skirts my mother and sister wore under their church dresses, and asked nothing about them. But when I found one in the laundry room, I figured I should wear it.
Because that's what people do, right? They wear slips under their church dresses.
I had no hint of understanding as to the reason and function behind slips, and I wasn't about to ask. I just slipped it on (ha ha) and got my books and went out the door.
As I walked out of the car and through the parking lot outside the church, the slip -- much too big for my frame -- slowly fell from my waist and eventually gathered in a small silk heap around my ankles. I looked down, stepped out of it, and put it in my bag.
My aunt, who had witnessed the whole thing, approached me laughing. I asked blankly what it was she was laughing at, and she stopped and looked at me, puzzled.
"Well--" she tried to explain, "your slip fell off..."
I looked at her.
"And slips -- slips are kind of like underwear. ... So, it was, you know, embarrassing."
I looked at her.
"...Since I could see it." She was beginning to feel cruel.
"Oh," I said, and looked at the undergarment in my bag. I blushed, and laughed, immediately embarrassed. On command. Feeling exactly as I had just been told to feel, as it had been explained to me.
---
Since then I have, of course, learned the function of slips, acquired ones which fit, and worn them appropriately, careful that they are not noticed, simply because of what I was told that one unfortunate evening when I was eight.
Children are only ashamed of what they are told to be ashamed of.
And proudly so.
They hide what they are told to hide, and they do not really think of how the slip must feel to be kept so carefully from public view -- every edge of lace, every small seam. The children are proud of their proper embarrassment, and why shouldn't they be? Undergarments never ask why you are embarrassed of them.
You hold no obligation to them.
Everyone wears underwear, and so everyone knows that everyone else does too. But whenever you see it in public (outside of the purposeful sagging-pants look, or maybe not), you are immediately embarrassed. Because underwear is meant to stay under whatever you wear.
Do you hide what you're ashamed of, or are you ashamed of what you hide?
Is it only the function of the slip -- the purpose of residing under a proper skirt -- that produces embarrassment? Or is it because of embarrassment that the slip must belong under a skirt?
You are proud of this shame. You are. You're supposed to be.
---
People aren't like underwear. That's what I'm saying.
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