Here's a true story. The other night, my roommate and I were sitting on the couch talking. I was already ready for bed, so I was sitting in a T-shirt and underwear, and my roomie was fully clothed. At one point in the conversation, I suddenly noticed movement on the wall behind my roommate's face. She saw the look on my face and came to the other side of the couch, where we both sat staring in horror at the giant waterbug crawling around on our wall. As we stood, paralyzed with indecision, I instinctively blurted out, "I'm not wearing any pants!" My roommate said, "I know, I'll get it, I just need to do something first." And she marched into her bedroom, where she put on a cute pair of shoes, then came out and killed the bug with a magazine.
Now I'm not normally the super squeamish type when it comes to bugs. In my current apartment, I'm usually the one to deal with it because my roomie can't stand them. But somehow, the fact that I was in my underwear made me feel exposed and helpless.
This is, of course, ridiculous. Whether or not I'm wearing pants has absolutely no effect on my bug-squashing ability. But there's something about nudity that makes us feel vulnerable. Even my roomie, fully clothed, needed to have shoes on her feet in order to build her confidence enough to take action.
We have such an interesting relationship with clothing. We treat it as decoration, as protection from the elements, as a means of self-expression, and sometimes as a weapon. I am a huge fan of nudity and would generally always rather be naked than clothed, yet when it comes to bugs (and many social situations), I feel much less confident without the protection of clothing.
I think the many various ways people protect themselves from feeling vulnerable are so fascinating, and not always grounded in anything rational. We don't even necessarily know what our vulnerabilities are until they actually come up in real life. So I guess I've now learned that for me, it's really important to not be naked when I'm going to kill a bug. Useful life lesson...?
Now I'm not normally the super squeamish type when it comes to bugs. In my current apartment, I'm usually the one to deal with it because my roomie can't stand them. But somehow, the fact that I was in my underwear made me feel exposed and helpless.
This is, of course, ridiculous. Whether or not I'm wearing pants has absolutely no effect on my bug-squashing ability. But there's something about nudity that makes us feel vulnerable. Even my roomie, fully clothed, needed to have shoes on her feet in order to build her confidence enough to take action.
We have such an interesting relationship with clothing. We treat it as decoration, as protection from the elements, as a means of self-expression, and sometimes as a weapon. I am a huge fan of nudity and would generally always rather be naked than clothed, yet when it comes to bugs (and many social situations), I feel much less confident without the protection of clothing.
I think the many various ways people protect themselves from feeling vulnerable are so fascinating, and not always grounded in anything rational. We don't even necessarily know what our vulnerabilities are until they actually come up in real life. So I guess I've now learned that for me, it's really important to not be naked when I'm going to kill a bug. Useful life lesson...?
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