biological, physiological and psychological – that the nature of male and female perception and the effects of their clothing on the opposite sex differ immensely. Furthermore, it is important to note that it was only once the feminist movement insisted on women being treated exactly like men and having all the same opportunities as men that we find them dressing like men. This is the true reason why trousers were first proposed as clothing for females: to promote the sameness of the sexes, thereby diminishing the unique dignity of the feminine role. Here we are really at the heart of the entire question of modesty in dress and why it is, and always will be, more of a female question. I wrote in an earlier letter that man’s attraction to woman is initially and principally visual and anatomical.36 His instinct is to find a mate that will allow him to propagate the human species. In most cases, it is only later, as he matures, that his attraction becomes deeper and more emotional. Woman’s attraction to man, on the other hand, is almost always initially emotional. She wants to be led and protected. When she looks at a man, she searches for signs of stability and the potential of being protected. The cases that lie outside this mean are often due to some trauma, either emotional or sexual in her childhood, or the practice of deviant sexual behaviour, which sadly is becoming more frequent. That is why, even though men and women both look for a potential mate, the response elicited, firstly through instinct, then tainted by concupiscence, is vastly different. Differences in Visual Perception Since, then, the sight of the female body, of her flesh and her form, is what principally attracts the male and what his eye instinctively seeks to discover – even before any act of the will intervenes –, any form of dress that draws attention to the female flesh or form is, of its very nature, going to tease that natural curiosity. Now, the human eye naturally seeks to make sense of everything it sees. It groups things together into wholes, and follows the lead of lines and directions that it perceives in order to discover where they lead and what is behind them. If a line flows smoothly, for example, around the edges of an object such as a balloon, the eye follows it and the object is perceived as a whole. If a line, however, ends abruptly, the eye tends to stop there in order to observe and explore what it sees, and that object is perceived as a part rather than as a whole. We can all experience this when, for example, we see two sticks that are joined together: our eyes are 73
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