[LMB] (no subject)

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "john campbell rees" <jwcr at gardd-lelog.org.uk>


> "Azalais Aranxta" <tiamat at tsoft.com> wrote:
>> Is this a social experiment in which you're trying to see how
>> long it takes a flamewar to break out on this list?
>>
> No, I am merely confessing (which is supposed to be good for the soul) 
> that in
> the area of female clothing and in that area only, I have one of those
> attitudes that "cannot be changed, they have to be outlived".

Alas and alack!

Isn't some amount of reprogramming possible, though?   The brain and human 
consciousness are self-programming and self-reinforcing--people can and do 
change their tastes and values over time, just look at fashion taste 
changes, or how people's values can change over time.   Compare Miles of The 
Warrior;'s Apprentice being squicked by mild come-ons from Bel, versus Miles 
of Diplomatic Immunity, regretful that he had never taken up Bel on any of 
the passes that Bel made at Miles.   Compare Elena Bothari's attitude about 
Barrayar in TWA to her attitude much later in life... or, alas, there's what 
Aral said about the psychic destruction of Bothari by Vorrutyer, Bothari 
recovered enough to deal with the permanent damage by fixating on Cordelia 
as a moral compass, since what he had left after Vorrutyer, was almost 
completely dysfunctional--he had a recognition that he was depraved, and 
Cordelia became his lifeline for holding on to what sanity it was possible 
for him to retain, or rather, what could pass as sanity.   But he DID 
recover enough from being Vorrutyer's amoral/morality eradicator tool of 
evil, for some type of redemption.

{uh-oh, I had this sudden picture of Cordelia as Bothari's Personal 
Savior....}

Or, real world, Benjamin Disraeli, at least according to the BBC series, 
married a wealthy widow he didn't particularly like for her money... and 
over time, came to cherish and love her for herself, rather than for the 
money she brought to him.
>> The problem is that your argument rather assumes that other
>> people are, or should be, choosing their clothes to suit you.

I've seen people who -swore- they were going to never marry again... several 
years later, though, they were remarried, and with children by the 
remarriage.  I've also seen people who were certain they were heterosexual 
permanently pair up in same gender relationships, and people who claimed to 
be homosexual, wind up heterosexually partnered.

Compared to those things, changing one;s opinion of proper clothing, can be 
minor... one of my late aunts, who was born in the 1910s,  grew up I'm sure 
wearing skirts and dresses, but in the last few years of her life her 
primary attire was pants.