In my recent Internet travels, I stumbled across a visual that comments on rape culture: six female forms are depicted in various states of dress from completely covered to totally naked. Under each, the caption “Not Asking For It.”
Predictably, the citizens of Facebook responded: Of course naked ladies always want to have sex! Of course your outfit can mean you want to be raped.
But in my experience, one of the chief perks of having sex with an adult is that if they want something, they can ask for it. For instance, if I’m at dinner with my mom and I want her to pass the salt, I don’t put on my special salt costume. I ask for the salt. With my word place.
Now imagine, if you will, my young travelers, a strange world where all of us, regardless of beard, bra, or body hair, can only express our wants and needs through our clothing. Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo. Because of the different vestments everyone will need, we will have to drag large steamer trunks with us everywhere.
Airport security would be a nightmare. Like, “Excuse me, sir, you can’t bring this knife suit on the plane with you.” “How else am I supposed to tell the stewardess that I want the chicken?! Fuck you TSA!” Steakhouses will be a walking health code violation, people draping themselves in meat. If you want your steak rare, just douse yourself in blood before coming in. Don’t worry, you won’t get salmonella — unless you ask for it.
But wait, our perilous trek has yet to encounter the gravest danger of all: changing into our different costumes. Of course, there will be government changing booths scattered about like stop signs, but these cannot account for the emergencies.
Say I’m running late for work and need my bus to stop. Whilst yanking on my giant hand suit so I can wave the bus down, I will for a moment be naked, and if anyone sees me, we must instantly have sex. No time even for the condom costume — which is just putting on a condom — NO! We must fuck posthaste.
And if anyone stumbles upon us, mid-coitus, they’ll have to join in and our orgy will swell like a giant, naked peach of sex juices.
Injuries would be rampant, from sprained vaginas to dehydration — if only someone could change into their 911 costume. But noooo, hospitals are no safe haven. People are naked there all the time. Just think about it: sponge baths, the morgue, childbirth. The person in labor will be naked from the waist down, and how do you take something out while putting something in?
You don’t. People would stay pregnant forever, no one would ever make their bus, all the Home Depot flowerbeds would wilt, and we would all die, starved but still fucking in the streets of our cities.
But you can save us from the impending apocalypse of naked. For the love of God and humankind, stop asking people’s clothing to have sex with you and start asking people.