Yes, very much so...in the same way that defecating on the sidewalk is an aesthetic crime. Or even having my house surrounded by neon billboards. A society that has lost its sense of aesthetic integrity is no longer a civilization.
You realize, of course, that someone from the Victorian era would probably be scandalized and say exactly the same sorts of things if he/she saw a woman wearing shorts and a T-shirt in public? A modern person from Saudi Arabia might react the same way to a woman in public without a burka. It's all based on the idea that there's something inherently bad/shameful about the human body and sexuality.
And yet the Victorians has no qualms about depicting nudity in their art...taking after classical models.
Defecating on the sidewalk is wrong because someone could fucking STEP in it. And do bodily decorations really equate to neon billboards? You can avert your eyes if you really don't like them. Also: WHO THE FUCK DEFINES AESTHETIC INTEGRITY??!!! I think long head hair and lots of facial hair on a guy is attractive, some people think that's vile. Can I decide that you're committing a crime by wearing a certain piece of clothing and demand that you don't wear it because it's a crime against me?
True, but they would have found the idea of a woman walking around in public wearing shorts and a T-shirt quite indecent and slutty looking.
We could say the same about any form of right vs. wrong. Should we abandon the principle of ethics altogther...simply because a few criminals will dissent? Should we abandon having tests in school because a few kids will fail?
clustering_flux, I do sympathise with you - fourteen year-old girls who walk around with 'J-U-I-C-Y' on their bikini bottoms and shout 'fucking perve!' at anyone man happens to be in the vicinity annoy almost everybody. The thing is, most teenage boys (and builders) often take their tops off in hot weather and no-one seems to care when they walk down the street. However, if a girl paraded around the streets wearing a bikini top and shorts, eyebrows would be raised.
You can't apply right and wrong to what clothes someone wears and what bodily decorations to wear. However much you might dislike someone else's aesthetics, they're not actually harming you. Otherwise I could claim that someone is 'harming' me because they're wearing an ugly piece of clothing. I AGREE. For some reason the male body is seen foremost as functional, whereas the female body is seen foremost as sexual. Which sucks, because when you live in a body every day and you use it for walking, running, eating, shitting etc. it's hard to see yourself as firstly sexual. Me thinks I'll start a thread on this one....
Sure you can...just as New Yorkers reacted with outrage to the first proposed design for the Freedom Tower in Manhattan. It was just plain ugly. People react very strongly when you destroy the aesthetics of their environment...with good reason. Take a walk through a furniture store. Most of the time, money and energy spent by the carpenters is on aesthetics...not functionality.
Towers, sidewalks etc. belong to everyone, therefore everyone has a right to a say in what their aesthetics are like. Someone's body is theirs and theirs alone.
The way you look affect others as well...which is why we have dress codes for schools, restaurants, church, the military, and the workplace.
There's a difference between that and the assumptions people make when they see you walking down the street. If you judge someone by how they look, that's not you being 'affected' by them. You're not a blank slate, incapable of reflecting on your own thoughts and thinking things out. If I see someone in Nikes and tacky hoop earrings and judge them to be an unsavoury person because of that, that's my fault, not theirs. They could be a very wise and kind person for all I know. And really, the same applies in schools and the workplace. It's just that teachers/bosses, delete as appropriate, have the power to kick you out if you won't take out your 3 spiked labret studs.
If I see someone plastered with advertising and metal pins stuck in their face...this reveals much about the person inside. There is nobody home behind their eyes.
That's YOUR OWN judgement, and may or may not tally with the reality. I wear metal in my face as a decoration, not because I have an emotional problem, or, as you less formally put it, nobody home behind my eyes.
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Its a decoration of ugliness...a common manifestation of self-hatred. Not much different than cutting yourself. You know the end is nigh when insanity becomes a fashion accessory.
You see what you are doing? You are taking YOUR OWN opinion of something and projecting it on to reality whether it actually fits with reality or not. You see it as akin to self-harming. It's really not. The object is not to hurt yourself. The object is to look good. If someone invented a way of doing facial piercings that healed instantaneously, I'd get my ass down that studio in a flash.
