naturally drawn to the area where they are joined; we want to figure out what is there and how it is held together at that spot. Apply this now to the case of a woman wearing trousers. The male eye, which is already fascinated by the female body, is, of itself, drawn to her legs, the shape of which is made visible by the trousers. Seeing the legs then gives rise to an instinctive following their curve up to where the legs are joined, which is of course the most intimate part of her body. What that means in plain language is that when a woman is wearing trousers, a man’s eyes are directed right to her private parts – both in the back and in the front. The trousers facilitate that natural flow of the eyes. Mind you, the same thing happens when a woman sees a man wearing trousers, but as we noted earlier, her instinct is not to focus on anatomy, and so it does not have the same effect as in a man. So whenever a woman is wearing trousers, she can expect the eyes of the men who see her to go, as of themselves, to her most private area. A man’s instinctive, built-in tendency to discover, explore and enter into a woman’s physical intimacy is abetted by the sight of a woman wearing trousers. We must add, however, that there is nothing “dirty-minded” about this reflex – the angles automatically direct the eyes there. We must also repeat that this instinct, as we saw earlier, is deeply wounded by Original Sin. This does not let men off the hook. It means they must practice custody of the eyes, but sadly, few do. Men must form their will to cooperate with grace so as to not let wounded nature run its course, at least as far as thoughts are concerned.37 Apply this now to the case of a woman wearing a long dress or skirt. In this case, the man does not have this instinctive following the curve up between the legs, for the simple reason that he does not see the legs, as they are hidden by the dress; his eyes will then be inclined to follow the outside of the dress up to her face, and he sees, not a part of her anatomy, but a person, a woman, a human being; his eyes rest in the vision of that whole person, and his heart remains at peace in the calm, tranquil perception that he has seen a very beautiful sight, one that he wants instinctively to honour and not abuse. When you place these principles of visual perception alongside the teaching of the Church on concupiscence, it is easy to understand why, since the dawn of history until very recently, it has always been unthinkable for women to wear trousers. This explains also why trousers in men, although of rather recent use in 74
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