Censorship, Essay 1, Breast

Censorship - Time, Place and Manner 

 
The topics of censorship, oppression and youth mental health occupy my mind quite a lot  these days.
• Jeez, just grow up!   
• Toughen them up - they don’t have a clue about stress. Or oppression. • If you are shielded from dis-ease in your encounters, you’ll miss a lot of good in the world. • Someone else’s deeply held myth should not be allowed to censor me or anyone else. • Both my children are getting treatment for anxiety-related troubles.
• Why would you say something to deliberately hurt someone?
• How can you, sitting in your position of privilege have anything legitimate or helpful to say  about this issue the victims of historic violence?
• What is the purpose of art?  
• Isn’t some art beyond acceptable? To you?  To everyone?

BREAST

   
My mother grew up in the rock-ribbed conservative farm country of northern Vermont. It was  the Depression and her land-rich, cash-strapped, dirt poor family ate potatoes every day. She  graduated Phi Beta Kappa at UVM and was a WWII veteran as a Women’s Army Corps (WAC)  member. Other than her WAC posting in Indiana, she lived in Vermont all her life. She was  conservative and a church-goer but didn’t have much truck with the religious flames that  occasionally flared up at church. She was generous and judgmental. Put a lot of personal time  and effort into making our small towns work. She was the toughest of the six kids growing up  and by the 1980s was certainly a feminist, though perhaps without the label. She loved flowers and  beautiful vistas and well-conceived quilts. Didn’t think much about art per se and liked to have  radio songs in the background. But she didn’t have much appreciation for any music that  others might insist be played a bit loud, for proper attention.  

Our family recycled in the 60s - before there was a name for it. Her parents were founders of  Cabot Creamery with its scrumptious cheddar. We had a real treat when the store brand cheese-food was out of stock and she splurged on “real” Velveeta. She had charge of a ball field-size vegetable  garden and sweated over scores of Ball jars every fall. She sewed a lot of our clothes and  almost all of her own. Always had her eyes out for a real bargain.  
 

As the six kids grew up, she took on substitute teaching in the Barre public schools. Her  letters sometimes mentioned students and families she got to know through this work. It was  usually the boys whose behavior or circumstances merited mention. She took assignments for  classes for which she had no background, sometimes for a whole school year. But she knew  those kids and what she could accomplish with them and what would take their minds and  energy in bad directions. Usually the boys, yes.  
 

At the fabric store a remaindered bolt of multi-color polyester was steeply discounted. She could not pass up the bargain and she could use a new blouse when school started again that  fall.  And she wrote to me about it.

The fabric’s pattern consists of lines of reproductions in stamps of old master-to-19th century  paintings from various foreign postal services. Perhaps aimed at stamp collectors. Portraits of
real and imagined people. A Rembrandt self-portrait that can, among northern Europeans, be  seen as a good model for a suffering Christ. A stylish English horse woman. A dashing  cavalier in a plumed hat. Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. Face-on and rotated 90, 180 and 270  degrees and repeated every 9 inches.

 
 

She had enough fabric for  two blouses and with her  focus on efficiency and comfort and not perfection she soon had  them hanging in her  portable closet near the  laundry in the basement.  One I found and saved  for this story. 

 

But look more closely. As she must have when she measured, cut and sewed.
Unmistakable, plain, repeated across the front, back and sides of the blouse. Décolletage, and  a wardrobe malfunction!

There would be no doubt that such a tiny point would not be lost on high school boys  (especially) and that whatever educational hold she had on the students would disappear for a long time. Being the conservative that she was and the knowing teacher and the sort who  threw little away, she had a practical response - a fabric pen that fixed the problem, at least in  her estimation.  Its unlikely that she wore the amended blouse to school.

 

I wonder if someone more comfortable with naked bodies and an art assignment could have  gotten away with wearing this and then engaging girls and boys on the subject of the body, art,  attitudes and exploitation. Probably not. Should they do so today? In elective art courses? In  courses touching on human sexuality and health? Retail trades when learning about  advertising? Yes - if it is a well-grounded and supported teacher. Should parents get a heads  up? Yes - if they will commit to being attentive to the rest of the curriculum. 

How do you factor in potential sexual trauma among and the prevalence of sexualized images  and videos and lyrics that inundate today’s youth? Well beyond my understanding.
 

Would there be time and internal fortitude to do this - probably not. And I would agree with  teachers and administrators and boards who would say “Who needs this hassle?"