cafe brick

unexpected

2007-11-04T22:29:00.000-06:00

I was sitting there in this cafe yesterday morning
having a bagel and coffee on my way in to work at the bike shop
a routine for me most mornings
usually involves the paper and a sudoku and some solitaire
and a tarot reading for myself

but on this day I had time only for the metro section and solitaire
no sudoku
did not even have my tarot deck with me
laying out the solitaire, calculation

this russian guy at a nearby table says something about reading his "future"
maybe he has seen me there with the tarot deck before
taken by surprise

I say, okay, let me finish this out
and everything falls into place in the calculation

so then we move to the empty table between us
and I shuffle seven times, to randomize the deck
hand the cards to him, tell him to mix them until he feels comfortable
he pulls seven cards without my asking him to
I take these and mix them once, start laying them out

five spades
this is about looking out for yourself, I say
something in your head

seven diamonds
a decision in the practical realm
you are waiting to see what happens

jack diamonds
a new project, connected with the seven

four clubs
a sense that you have already done something
a resting point

five diamonds
a sense of having been left out of something
together with the five spades, an idea of the way things "should" be

three spades
worrying something to death

ace pentacles
an opportunity

diamonds adding to thirteen, something you need to leave behind

something of an emphasis on seven
(the four and the three had been laid out of line with the other cards,
and there was the seven diamonds . . .)
the importance of making a decision

he said it seemed to make sense

the neat thing for me was
reading aloud without difficulty
probably because I had no opportunity to "prepare"

zb

reversals

2007-02-06T12:32:00.000-06:00

the significance of a reversal is not necessarily obvious. sometimes, especially with courts, it may mean that the card applies to someone other than the querent. sometimes it may mean "not," or a low energy. sometimes it may be a means of emphasis, or it may connect with how the numbers are combining among several cards. the meaning of a spread is rarely obvious or overt.

zb shuffles in such a way as to maintain a completely random number of reversals in the deck.

zb

reading with the solitaire deck

2006-12-27T22:02:00.000-06:00

C.,

Thought I would do a little tarot spread for you, to give you a small glimpse into how this has come to occupy a fairly large space in my daily awareness.

I used a deck of playing cards for this purpose, which means no "major arcana" cards, no "reversed" cards, no imagery, the "knight" (high intensity) sort of folded into the "page" (something just emerging) in the form of the jack, and of course a greater mathematical likelihood that there will be a fairly even distribution in a ten-card spread among the four "minor" suits (the majors being in effect a fifth suit) and actually a somewhat higher frequency of "court" (i.e., face) cards.

This is what came up (the enclosed diagram shows the physical arrangement of the cards in a "celtic cross"). Clubs are "wands" or "rods," diamonds are "pentacles" or "coins," hearts are "cups," and spades are "swords."

1. the central concern, ten wands, the sense of burden
2. a related or possibly competing concern, three pentacles, getting things done, "cooperation"
3. the focus, three cups, taking pleasure in a connection with another
4. an underlying or possibly receding influence, two swords, avoidance or denial
5. the immediate concern, six cups, sharing, innocence, nostalgia
6. an approaching influence, three swords, anguish
7. self-narrative, queen pentacles, the quality of resourcefulness
8. how others are affected, six pentacles, issues of having/not having, fairness
9. a hidden influence, ten cups, the idea of emotional fulfillment
10. "outcome," two wands, the moment of initiative

I usually also draw a "shadow" card from the bottom of the deck, which sort of says, this is what the reading is "about." In this case, the shadow was the king cups, a mature expression of the quality of compassion and understanding.

The major arcana can be implied by some of the numerical combinations. For example,

a. the run of threes across the middle of the spread might suggest (3) empress, sort of "the female principle" of abundance, sensuality, nurturing, and/or, albeit less directly, (12) hanged man (because one plus two is three), an interval or condition of suspension and surrender. [Note that three wands, engagement, moving forward, is absent here, though the two and ten wands do add to twelve.]

b. the pair of twos, swords (reason) and wands (will) might suggest (2) high priestess, an intuitive understanding, a period of non-action, and/or (11) justice, taking responsibility for decisions. [Actually, in reading for myself, (11) justice often refers to an outcome that is determined by forces external to myself.]

c. the pair of sixes, cups (proclivity) and pentacles (practicality) might suggest (6) lovers, making choices that affect others, i.e., ethical choices, and/or (15) devil, a propensity to self-destructive patterns.

d. the pair of tens might suggest (10) wheel of fortune, the turning point, gaining perspective, and/or (19) sun, enlightenment, clarity, and/or even (1) magician, focused awareness, effective action.

There is a very slight prevalence in this spread of cups and pentacles, water and earth, over wands and swords, air and fire. (Actually, I do not include "elemental dignities" in my reading, so let's just disregard that. What I meant to say was proclivity and practicality over will and reason. But again, slight.)

The "pips" on the cups add to nineteen, again suggesting (19) sun, (10) wheel, (1) magician, this time in connection with the cups cards. The pentacles (queen high, as self-perception) add to nine, suggesting (9) hermit, solitude, introspection. The wands add to twelve, again suggesting (12) hanged man and less obviously (3) empress, and the swords add to five, suggesting (5) hierophant, external norms, and less obviously (14) temperance, pretty much what it sounds like.

The shadow king cups of course connects to the cups in the spread, but also sits in contrast to the queen pentacles. I also tend to think of the shadow as a sort of commentary on the first two cards (which themselves purport to state the "subject" of the reading).

So putting all of that together:

A sense of burden connected with some kind of practical project involving the participation of others (sound familiar?). An issue relating to enjoyment of another's company, possibly rooted in the avoidance or denial of something. And here note how the three swords, anguish, sits across from the two, with the central cards between, while the six cups, sharing, innocence, nostalgia, is above, with the three, (absence of?) joy, below. All symmetrical and stuff. Anyway.

Self-perception or self-narrative is conveniently a court card, queen pentacles, resourcefulness, nurturing or supportive in a material context. How others are affected, having and not having, and so on.

The presence of ten cups, the idea of fulfillment, as a hidden or unexpected influence is interesting, especially in view of king cups as the shadow.

While this spread was done "for" you, and presumably you could build a narrative around it that applies to your present situation, it is of course also the case that I could readily build a narrative that applies to mine. We are talking about random arrangements of playing cards here, after all.

This kind of exercise is something I spend about half an hour on almost every day, usually with one or the other of my two tarot decks, with of course the majors and the knights and the reversals also at play. The process engages the pattern-making impulse in a big way, but it also provides a quiet space in which to ruminate.

zb

distance reading

2006-10-10T17:13:00.000-05:00

so I laid out five cards in a row, without assigning positions.

oh, let me first mention that what I usually say about my own chances of winning the lottery is that my chances are only slightly smaller than if I actually played.

okay, so. then I decided, partly based on a general sense I was getting from seeing the cards laid out, that cards 1 and 2, to the left, would be background or underlying causes, card 3, in the middle, would be where you are right now, and cards 4 and 5, to the right, would be where you are or seem to be headed.

anyway, what I got was:

5 pentacles, reversed/knight swords, reversed/10 wands/9 swords and/ (20) judgment

which gave me a sort of initial impression: right now you are feeling burdened with more on your plate than you feel you can handle, in the background is a sense of rejection or failure that may be illusory or fading, and a sense that you are not, or have not been, applying your reason to the problem at hand. then nine swords, anxiety, and (20) judgment, a sense that everything will come to a head and there will be some kind of decisive moment.

then I laid out five more cards, as a sort of explanatory overlay, and got:

(16) tower/king wands, reversed/7 swords, reversed/ (7) chariot and/knight cups, reversed

which by themselves suggest a very significant discontinuity (overlaying the 5 pentacles sense of rejection or failure), a weakness or absence of the controlled exercise of will (overlaying the knight swords sense of not applying reason), the idea of subterfuge in some kind of nonobvious or unexpected context (overlaying the 10 wands sense of burden), a very strong suggestion of decisiveness (overlaying the 9 swords sense of anxiety), and some misdirected expression of strong emotionality (overlaying the (20) judgment sense of a decisive moment).

then I realized that ten cards could be laid out in a celtic cross, which is how I do usually read, though my positional meanings are somewhat idiosyncratic.

in this layout, we see knight swords reversed as a supporting influence on the perception of failure, the idea of burden as the focus, anxiety as an underlying cause, (20) judgment as the dominant conscious concern, (16) tower, discontinuity, as an impending influence -- contrast this with the pairing of this card in the initial spread to 5 pentacles, both as past influences.

king wands, reversed, the sense that your will is not being exercised in a contolled manner, becomes in this spread your self-perception, and 7 swords, subterfuge, some kind of external event. (7) chariot, decisiveness, becomes the hidden factor, and knight cups, reversed, misdirected emotionality, falls into the "outcome" position.

there are three swords, including knight reversed, spread across the middle of this layout, with the pips adding to net (2) priestess, suggesting an intuitive knowledge of the swords issues. the three majors add to 43, which reduces to (7) chariot, putting additional emphasis on that card, and also indirectly emphasizing the 7 swords, reversed, and also 7 equals 1 plus 6, (16) tower. two knights reversed, but the knight cups is not supported by any pip cards. king wands reversed connecting with 10 wands

and here I should say that I also looked at the "shadow" card, at the bottom of the deck, and it was 2 wands, reversed, saying something or other about the idea of initiative.

before I go further, let me suggest that you lay out these ten cards from one of your own decks in the two configurations I have just described, so that you can form your own impressions.

if I had to put a narrative to all of this, which maybe I should not, because your own impressions should prevail, I would say that you may have been blaming yourself for some failure in the practical or material sphere, and that you are existing in a state of paralysis because of some sense of impending disaster. 7 swords reversed, subterfuge, seems to me to be the idea of getting around all of this by winning the lottery. (7) chariot, decisiveness, is set up as a strong contrast to this idea.

the "outcome," knight cups reversed, and the shadow, 2 wands reversed, are for your own interpretation.

[after feedback]

in light of your reply, I am thinking that knight swords reversed in position 2 may have more to do with the sense of mental turmoil you are describing -- thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, all seeming to pile up on each other. then knight cups in the "outcome" might suggest emotional turmoil . . . or it might suggest emotional turmoil coming to an end, as a result of (7) chariot, decisiveness. it might even be that seven swords in position 8 (externals) talks about duplicity on his part, rather than self-deception on yours, but more likely both.

so then the shadow card, two wands reversed, initiative. the idea of the shadow is to put a card behind the reading that says, this is what the reading is about, or this is a perspective to see it from. in this case, the card is saying, look at this entire spread -- five pentacles, but why reversed? isn't this card upright a good enough description of the sense of failure?, well, two wands reversed says, you have to take responsibility for this, it's yours, now let's move forward.

zb

jerk

2006-09-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

"don't get you nowhere, don't make you a man."
--John Lennon

Is forty-three too old to be pulling yourself off in the shower? Married twenty-one years. She is asleep just a few feet away. We literally haven't touched in three, maybe four years. There was a time when I used to keep track -- two months since we had had sex, and so on. Then one day I knew there was nothing to keep track of, because it wasn't a matter of when she might yield again. I would not ask. I no longer wanted her, or at least I no longer wanted to be dependent on her sexually. Years of bitter, brutal verbal attack against my supposed shortcomings had finally worn me down. I had decided, or rationalized, that she had broken the commitment of mutual respect, and I would not have her. If she ever initiated.

So here I am in the shower, hot water pouring down my neck, lathering it with soap, pulling at it, trying to work up an erection. When I was seventeen, if I simply closed my eyes and imagined the curve of a girl's breast, the upper reach of her thigh, the penis would immediately spring up, nodding, searching. If she were here in the shower with me now, it would probably be the same, though I have determined to refuse her if she ever asks. The male is helpless. But the penis is slow to respond to this mechanical, deliberate approach.

I have put a fair amount of study into this business over the years. Fingers wrapped loosely, tightly, fingers open, left hand, right hand, both, the hand turned around with the fingers away, sitting, standing, kneeling, crouching, on one knee, with one foot braced against the wall, fingers of the other hand stroking the pubic bone, the anus. Flexing the knees so the thighs remain loose and the tremble arrives more slowly. In the end, there is only the twitch and the spill and the shrinking. The semen washes down the shower drain.

When I used to put all of my energy into helping her reach orgasm, fingers and tongue, with my penis searching but not finding, I learned to take my pleasure in the intensity of being on the verge. Ejaculation was irrelevant. Often (if she did not fall asleep), she would insist on taking me inside after her orgasm had subsided and she could tolerate touch again, but the twitch and the spill were always an anticlimax (no pun intended) after an hour or two on the edge. Sometimes I would masturbate beforehand, telling myself that the delay not just in achieving a second erection but in building to a second ejaculation would enable me to include insertion (if she wanted it) in the work on her orgasm without running the risk of my coming too early. What would actually happen is that I would lose that intensity of focus that precedes ejaculation, and I was less able to concentrate on building her orgasm.

There is more to the male orgasm than ejaculation. There is delay, and building up, and holding back -- trying to resist the helpless tremble and spill -- and there is variety in stimulation that a vagina alone cannot offer. I suspect that very few males over the age of about seventeen (when petting often edges up to, but then pulls back from ejaculation), certainly very few married men, frequently experience an intense orgasm.

When it used to matter, I used to think that masturbation was an act of infidelity toward her. I have no difficulty living within very definite rules that I set for myself. I stopped smoking at her request more than fifteen years ago. Cold. Five years ago, when I got drunk at a party within a few days after losing my job, and our kids saw me throwing up and stumbling and basically acting like an idiot, I quit alcohol altogether. I had never been a frequent drinker, simply an abuser on the occasions -- once or twice a year -- that I did drink. In the same way, I have never entertained any serious thoughts about having sexual contact with another woman since we have been married. I have put the matter off limits and therefore it is not a problem.

But I have made no rules for myself concerning masturbation. It is not like when I was a teenager, jerking off two or three times a day. This is maybe once or twice a month (like sex used to be). And despite all the techniques I have worked on, it is usually jerk, spill, and shrink, sometimes while I am shaving with the other hand.

Actually, it *is* an act of infidelity. The time I spend masturbating (or thinking about masturbation) is time I have not spent anticipating her needs or the kids' needs or planning somehow to put more bread on the table. But then I think, I am not a very, very bad person. I step and fetch for her all the goddamn time. And still she shrieks at me if I put the wrong load in the washer or forget to start the frozen lasagna. Calls me horrible, horrible names. Accuses me of stealing her life from her, getting her pregnant on purpose (seventeen years ago) so she could not go to graduate school, keeping her from having enough money to have any of the things she wants. As if I had any of the things I want. What is there to be faithful to.

I am telling myself that what I need is a good hand job. The vagina is certainly better than my own hand, but it does not give enough attention to detail. The ridge below the glans, the scar tissue from the circumcision. And the mouth can be too intense, not that anyone is offering. What I need is someone else using her fingers on my penis. In my limited imagination someone much smaller than the woman sleeping nearby, a short, dark-haired woman of maybe twenty-five with very slight breasts, is pulling me off with slender, bony fingers, our mouths pressed together, my fingers playing in the wet hair and lips of her tight, fresh vagina. Not yet, not yet.

But the problem with doing it yourself is that there is no disconnect between the central nervous system that is driving the hand and the one that is responding through the penis. The penis already knows what the hand is doing. Delay and holding back are not the same when it is your own hand.

And the shower is running and you have finished shaving and it is time to just spill and get it over with.

just checking

2006-09-21T22:44:00.000-05:00

I want you to imagine that someone is handing you a check. And this check represents compensation for, quote unquote, work you have done over the past two weeks. Work you might not particularly enjoy. Compensation for the eighty or ninety or a hundred hours that you might otherwise have spent . . . reading the great American novel, whatever that might be, or trying to write it -- or, if your taste runs in a different direction, reading about the systematic dismantling of the social welfare state, such as it has existed in rudimentary fragments in this country for sixty or so years, or organizing an effort to oppose this. Time you might otherwise have spent listening to music, or playing it, cultivating your friendships, preparing and eating organic, whole foods. Eating out your girlfriend.

And now I want you to imagine that before you even deposit this check in your bank account, you already know where every nickel of it is going, that the bills are already coming due, that you have already written some of the checks, that you are playing the float. Sure, a lot of it is lifestyle stuff -- the cable bill, the minimum payment on the credit card purchase of Ikea furniture -- but still, you are living, as they say, paycheck to paycheck. And losing ground.

Eighteen or twenty percent interest on the credit cards, the occasional late payment fee. Sometimes you play the float and lose, and end up paying the bank twenty-five dollars on a bounced check.

Or to take it a step further, imagine that the bills that are coming due are not what most of us usually think of as "lifestyle stuff," but rent, groceries, electricity and water bills, keeping the phone in the wall. Liability coverage -- not casualty, just liability -- on the car, because you can't quite give up the car just yet.

Or imagine that you have played the float one too many times and you can no longer maintain a checking account -- that you have to take the paycheck to your employer's bank and maybe pay a fee for turning it into cash. That you have to buy a cashier's check or a money order to pay the rent. That you have to pay the electricity bill by hand. The car is gone, and you are dependent on public transportation.

A lot of people live like this. Maybe some people in this room, certainly some people on the street just outside that window.

And now I want you to imagine that you have somehow gotten past this, that you have found work you actually enjoy doing that pays just enough to cover the rent and the groceries, the occasional bicycle repair, and that allows you time to read and write, to listen to music, to be with your friends.

Imagine there's no heaven.

interrogatory 11

2006-09-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

Interrogatory 11:

State whether petitioner intends to claim marital misconduct on the part of respondent, and if so, state in substance and detail each instance of marital misconduct petitioner intends to claim.

Answer:

Petitioner does not allege that the division of marital property should be affected by the conduct of either of the parties, nor does petitioner make any claim for maintenance. Therefore, petitioner would suggest that the details of the parties' emotional life over twenty-odd years are not relevant to this proceeding.

If an issue is to be made in this proceeding on the question of "misconduct" on the part of one or the other party -- and petitioner here reiterates that he does not intend to make this an issue -- petitioner would state

(a) that he was subjected to almost continuous psychological and emotional duress throughout the entire course of the marriage -- literally from day one --, mostly taking the form of respondent verbally belittling petitioner and attempting to persuade him (actually, with considerable success), through constant repetition of the idea -- almost always in direct reference to the fact that petitioner was not producing enough income to satisfy her material "needs" -- that he was a selfish and unloving person, and petitioner would further state

(b) that there were instances of physical abuse -- in particular, an occasion on which respondent required petitioner to sit on a bench in the parties' family room while she struck him repeatedly with a broomstick over the course of about half an hour. The date of this occurrence would have been sometime in the mid- to late 1990s (it seems to petitioner that the parties' daughter was away at college). Respondent gave petitioner to understand that he was not to attempt to defend himself (as, for example, by grabbing the broomstick), because this would be characterized by respondent as abusive behavior on his part, i.e., a threatened attack on her, and in fact, when petitioner attempted to cover his genitals with his hand, respondent struck his hand with the broomstick (bruising his thumb and impairing its mobility for several days afterward), and then struck his genitals at least twice.

Throughout this incident, the parties' son was in his bedroom, immediately adjoining the family room, within earshot. Respondent had instructed him to remain in his room, with the door closed. Occasionally, while she was beating petitioner, she would cry out phrases like "don't hit me."

Petitioner does not allege that the physical aspect of this incident was at all typical, though it was (and is) not at all uncommon for respondent to claim that any expression by petitioner of disagreement with her was (or is) a form of emotional or psychological abuse, and on the rare occasions -- quite early in the marriage -- when the parties would engage in something resembling a mild physical struggle, respondent would shriek and fall to the floor if petitioner made any effort at all to deflect her blows, as by grabbing her wrist.

On the day that petitioner finally left the marital residence, almost three years ago, to begin a separation that both parties had agreed was necessary and almost certainly permanent, with the moving truck already in the driveway, respondent threatened to call the police to report that petitioner was stealing the few items of furniture, etc., that he was taking (and which the parties had agreed he should take) unless petitioner not only provided to her the address and telephone number of his new apartment (which he had already provided to the parties' son), but did so on his knees with an expression of abject apology. Petitioner complied with this demand in order to get out of the situation.

Petitioner does allege that this behavior on the part of respondent was entirely typical.

It is not clear what the phrase "marital misconduct" as used in the interrogatory means, but in any event (if this is what is meant) petitioner does not allege that respondent engaged in any act of sexual infidelity during the time the parties cohabited, nor does petitioner allege that respondent appropriated any marital property to herself or concealed any transactions involving marital property from petitioner. Petitioner would describe the last eight to twelve years of the parties' cohabitation as essentially sexless, and would state that for several years before that the parties had sexual relations much less frequently than three or four times a year, but petitioner does not allege that this in itself constitutes misconduct on respondent's part.

Interrogatory 12:

State whether petitioner has ever engaged in marital misconduct, and if so, state (a) the date of each instance of marital misconduct, (b) the person with whom each instance of marital misconduct was performed, (c) the method and means by which you initiated contact with each person with whom petitioner engaged in marital misconduct, and (d) the whereabouts of the parties' minor children during each instance of marital misconduct.

Answer:

Petitioner objects to this interrogatory on the grounds (a) that the phrase "marital misconduct" is not defined, and thus could conceivably include almost anything, (b) that respondent has not alleged misconduct in her counter-petition, and (c) that misconduct cannot be an issue in the division of marital property, as petitioner has left essentially all marital property in possession of respondent and is making no claim for anything resembling an equal division of marital property.

Subject to this objection, petitioner states that he does not believe that he has engaged in "marital misconduct." Petitioner acknowledges that on one occasion, sometime in the late 1990s, in the course of a verbal argument with respondent, he screamed "shut up" quite a number of times, with his face very close to hers. Thereafter, respondent claimed that petitioner had caused damage to her ear, for which she claimed that she had received medical treatment, but petitioner has seen no documentary evidence of this.

mislaid object spread

2006-09-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

L.

So there I was at the cafe, on my way back from the courthouse, coming down, and I thought, why not do a lost object spread -- actually, a mislaid object spread, on that HRC logo singlet I cannot find -- and see what I get. I improvised a three-card spread and had already laid the three cards up

position 2 ace cups/position 1 ace pentacles/position 3 (6) lovers

before I realized that I had not assigned any values to the positions.

I had a fleeting impression, turning up the aces, of our first stay at C.'s in Ann Arbor, after you had been in Canada quite a number of weeks. The separation anxieties between us, the urgent sex.

But I had nothing in this spread to say, for example, this card represents your relationship with the object, this card, what was going on when you mislaid it, and this card over here, how you are going to find it -- though those particular assignments did seem to come forward, so I adopted them. But still I could not make much sense of the spread, so I drew three explanatory cards, and the resulting six-card spread looked like this

ace cups/ace pentacles/(6) lovers

two swords/queen pentacles, reversed/three wands, reversed

The pair of aces connecting with the two of swords, and also suggesting (1) magician and/or (2) high priestess. The net minus one among the pips in the lower row maybe suggesting (-1) magician, reversed, the upper row balancing the lower row in this way. Shadow card, knight of pentacles, reversed, connecting somehow to the reversed queen of pentacles in position 4.

This image had to seep in for several hours before it began to say something like:

The singlet was a physical object to which you had attached meanings connected with your tendency toward impracticalities. What was going on when you mislaid it had to do with an emerging intimacy and with some kind of avoidance. Which could be read somehow as referring to the time in Ann Arbor -- certainly invites me to re-think that time, as it may tell me something about where I am, or we are, now (at this point, the reading almost does not seem to be about the singlet at all).

So then what about (6) lovers and three wands, reversed? ethical issues in an intimate relationship, the sense of forward movement at an ebb. Then or now? or is that the perpetual backward look I am always giving this relationship, impeding spontaneity . . . not necessarily very constructive thinking, but the kind of reverie the cards often put me in. But the benefit is, maybe, you can see the mindfuck itself laid out there in the cards, objectified, as a sort of graphic, lying on the table. Shadow knight pentacles, reversed. I do feel I am learning to look back without regret.

Okay, so where is the singlet?

I am going to e-mail C. and ask her whether it turned up when she was packing to move.

zb

shoes

2006-06-13T18:24:00.000-05:00

What were we talking about? Oh, yes, shoes.

Okay, so have you ever asked yourself why a tall woman might wear heels? Because it does something to the shape of her calf muscle that the culture tells her she should display.

Are you with me so far? And why do women generally (in industrialized societies) -- tall or short -- wear skirts, apply face makeup, why do they shave their legs and their armpits (leaving aside fluid dynamic concerns specific to competitive swimmers and cyclists)? I am thinking it is because they are conforming to cultural norms, they are doing something the existing culture tells them they "should" do.

But what does it mean for a woman to wear a skirt? I mean, this is not (as near as I can tell, not having myself worn one) a particularly functional piece of clothing -- well, except maybe for one function: it can easily be moved aside for sexual access.

Sorry, is that too blunt? But I have a difficult time imagining any other origin for this differentiation between the conventional clothing of males versus females, though I suppose I am willing to consider suggestions. Okay, you are saying that wearing a skirt makes it a lot easier to squat to urinate, without completely exposing yourself. Point taken. But apart from that -- I mean, it seems to me this remains an issue only if you are pissing outdoors (which I will treat as essentially historical), or maybe in a public toilet with no doors on the stalls -- am I perhaps being unsympathetic here? -- apart from that . . .

. . . and not to get sidetracked, but I do not understand why a male would stand to urinate in his own home, as it tends to splash, so this whole subgenre of "humor" about "leaving the seat up" completely escapes me . . . though you do occasionally read in the paper where some kid has been beaten to death by his brutal, stupid father for sitting to piss -- which should tell you something about how deeply ingrained these cultural norms really are, at least among people who do not try to think for themselves.

Anyway, in the view I am putting forward here, in an industrialized society, the skirt is at least a vestigial emblem of the subordination of females to males. I mean, okay, wear the skirt, or the dress, but at least be aware what it signifies, and wear it by choice, with some sense of irony, not by compulsion.

Similarly with face makeup: the woman paints her face in order to be "presentable" in public, and specifically to make herself "attractive," sexually, to males. What kind of culture requires that an entire sex hide her natural appearance, that she smooth everything out, that she put forward what amounts to a continuous mating display?

Oh, there he goes again, everything is sexual with him. Excuse me. But then ask yourself why men are not required to do this, or anything like it. Jackets and ties have an entirely separate, though probably equally stupid, history, but they do not require males to disguise themselves -- and at the level of the skin, no less -- as children.

Yeah, sorry, we have to take the depravity here up yet another notch: what about the shaving of leg and armpit hair? What the hell is that about? I will tell you what it is about, it is about infantilizing a woman, and at the same time presenting her to males not merely as a sexual object, but as an object some part of whose sexuality derives from her being childlike. I happen to think that is sick, but what do I know? Well, okay, one thing I do know is that an adult female does have body hair. Again, go ahead, shave it off, but at least acknowledge that you are doing it (if you are doing it without irony) in order to conform to what amounts to a pervasive sexual fetish.

What were we talking about?