Another image: What are they selling?

Okay, not exactly a challenge. They are selling sex. But, hey, the Lemon Girl and I are on vacation so I'm going with the easy-to-analyze stuff.

That said, that is an odd way to ride a horse and why a rocking horse instead of a real one? Is this "just for play". Well, if that is what a girl wants, yes! (There is also a not terribly subtle masturbation suggestion going on here but only for the girl who wants to see it; and there are a variety of different reasons why a girl might not want to see it.)

The image in question is a logo for Passionata, which is a line of lingerie produced by the Chantelle company. It's a slightly less expensive line than the flagship brand but still more expensive than most.

The intention, I think, is to be a bit girlier and more playful than the main line. There is less emphasis on seduction and more emphasis on the wearer's identity.We can see this in the text we find on their website:

Passionata, the gentle stimulation of the danger that comes from loving

Emphasizing sensual curves, making hearts beat wildly and kindling joie de vivre: Passionata ignites passion and unlocks the unexpected and improves the everyday life of all heroines. Passionata’s pink logo expresses the ambition of «Passion Maker»: a tiny pink heart that beats (very strongly!), a lucky charm or a mascot affixed on each label. Like a talisman to be worn close, very close to one’s heart…

Most virgins could legitimately claim aspire to be a Passionata or "passion maker" on those terms. In fact, the language and logo sort of suggests that this is more about being/becoming a  woman than about having sex. The sales pitch is more about being the [female] sex than having sex. Look at the language used here "a tiny pink heart", "lucky charm" and "mascot". There is almost a sense of high school here. At the very least, this stuff is probably aimed at young women who don't have a lot of sexual experience and are not looking for a serious partner just yet. (Which, by the way, is most of them.) It's aimed at women whose sexual identity is not that of a wife or even a girlfriend and who may just still have a stuffed animal on her bed. Sex is something that may or may not happen this time or any time soon. This is about who she wants to be and her underwear "expresses the ambition" and "unlocks the unexpected".

The various Passionata collections all have names that carry on this theme such as, "So Pretty", "Casual Sexy", "Charm", "Sexy Ruffles", "Love Me", "Promise" and, my favourite "Poupouido" (clearly meant to recall Betty Boop "Poo Poo ee do"). No one is going to expect you to be Lola Montes in this stuff and that is comforting. A girl buys this stuff to challenge herself a little but she is very careful about what she wants the challenge to be.

Compare and contrast with another Chantelle line, "Chantal Thomass":

Her universe could be defined by these words: fashion, boldness, humour, sophistication, glamour and impertinence, as found in her collections of lingerie.

The woman who reads that copy and buys feels pretty certain that she knows what she is doing.

Or, yet another Chantelle line, "Femilet":

Femilet offers a large range of confortable and quality products: lingerie, beachwear, warm underwear and accessories.

 The woman who buys that is over thirty and married, the key word being "warm".

Then there is Chantelle's biggest competitor in the Oh-so-French lingerie business:

The Aubade woman is at ease with her body, asserts her sensuality, and plays on her natural femininity. She is romantic, provocative, delicate, naughty, gentle, discreet, audacious, and elegant as well as knowing… She is the mistress of her seductive power, wanting to play with and Share it with her man, a willing victim to this game full of humour and seduction.

Putting their stuff on would be like showing up at the ski hill with all the best and newest equipment. People expect you to be good and really know what you are doing.

Here is the final thought: there isn't really that much difference between the actual lingerie. The Aubade stuff, as you would expect, is a bit more radio-active than the Chantelle, which is more romantic, and that romantic quality in the Chantelle is a tiny bit more adult than the more playful Passionata. One of my sisters the other day said, "We are romantics hemmed in by life's practicality." Well, by the time you are down to your bra and panties, life's practicality is some distance away; it is at least banished to the other room. All this stuff screams sex. Just knowing it was there, even though you can't see it, will do something to your brain whether you are the man wondering about or the woman wearing this lingerie.

The most important difference is what is going on between the ears of the woman who is wearing it. This stuff matters and that playful quality—somewhere between the nursery and the dorm room—is a good place to go to if your are preparing to be a lover. It is a way of expressing your ambition.

 (You never get this in Victoria's Secret or La Senza ads. There it is only the physical image that matters. There is an old line in music criticism that a really good composer makes as good use of the silence between the notes—of the time you spend anticipating the next note—as they do of the actually sounded notes. You'd think that would be even more obvious with sex where the silences between notes run so long. One of the reasons that France still has the cultural power it does so many years after its decline is that they get this while the Brits, Americans and Canadians do not.)

A nautilus of nautiluses

A good day yesterday. Beautiful sunshine and wind. Saw a bald eagle working the bay. Then, yesterday evening, I said the evening Angelus, poured a champagne cocktail and got silly, resulting in this:

Days like that always make me think of this song, for reasons that have nothing to do with what Joni Mitchell meant by writing it, I have a lifetime of happy memories that go with it:

City thoughts

Sitting here by the seashore, I keep remembering two recent experiences from the city.

The first was a conversation between a couple. As they walked by, I heard him say to her, "You wouldn't want to see a picture of you naked?" He said this with the same incredulous tone that he might have said, "You wouldn't want a thousand dollars?"

I was stuck by the amazing lack of empathy. The only thing this guy could grasp was his own feelings. For some reason he wanted this woman to have a nude photo taken of herself. He couldn't see why a woman wouldn't be just as thrilled at that prospect as he was.

The second experience was of walking through a city park with five high school girls out during their lunch hour. They were listening to a song on one of the girl's smartphones. This through the tiny speaker so they weren't doing this for the musical experience. The song was a hip hop tune and the guy was rapping two lines over and over again. The first line never changed. The rapper discussed two aspects of some woman's anatomy in it. One of these as "big" and "fat" and the other was "really juicy". The next line varied a little. It discussed what the guy was going to do to her. "I'm going to ... and then I'm going to ...." The things he was going to do were aggressive and even violent and he sang as if the consent of the woman he was singing mattered not at all.

What made it interesting was that the girls, who clearly knew every line of the song off by heart, were taking turns singing couplets to one another. One of the more extroverted girls started by turning to another and singing, declaiming really, a couplet to another who responded by doing the same right back and then, between, them they singled out the others.

There was one girl who. clearly shier than the rest, moved away as if she didn't want to be part of this. Eventually, one of the more extroverted girls noticed this and went after her, singing two of the vilest suggestions at her very loud. Every man in the park was already paying attention so it didn't change anything as far as he audience to this was concerned but it had a big effect on the girl. She smiled, very clearly pleased to be included.

What I'd suggest about all this behaviour is that it is completely normal. In the city anyway. Not here where my life is directed by the flow of the tide and fog (which come in together). This morning I woke up to a rooster for only the second time of my life.

Anyway, if we take the time to think about it, it should be quite obvious why some types of exhibitionism appeal to some kinds of women whereas others don't. The girls in the park knew exactly what they were doing even though none of them would have been able to articulate why if they had been asked. The woman who didn't want a nude photo take of herself probably couldn't articulate her reasons either but she, too, was doing exactly what she wanted, or, more precisely, not doing exactly what she didn't want.

Romantic liberalism

Who knows when I'll be able to post again. As I said, the internet is really spotty here and could crap out before I can click "post". We're having a wonderful vacation here. I'll be back in town and posting regularly again next week.

Here's the the thing I keep thinking about: human nature. If there is one thing that defines modern liberalism it is the notion that human nature is malleable and this is taken to be a source of freedom. The romantic strain of liberalism that sprung up through Rousseau and Kant in response to the Enlightenment saw human nature as a sort straitjacket. The notion that human morality should be subject only to the dictates of human reason was seen as liberating. Thus Kant's odd claim that the right thing to do is the right thing to do even if it is impossible for us to actually do it.

In practice, however, "the dictates of human reason" tend to be a far more severe straitjacket than human nature ever could be. Consider this if you don't believe me: lots of people say human beings should be free to reach their own conclusions but don't you suspect that they all believe that, if everyone decides honestly and freely according to the "dictates of human reason" that they ought to reach the same conclusion?

The notion that we all have a human nature is really quite liberating by comparison it seems to me. "Dictates" of reason has the same root as "dictator" after all.

Semi-hiatus

We're at a little seaside town with spotty Internet. There may be posts and there may not.

Here is the view off our deck.

Waiting on the tide

Travel day.

What can you do?

One of life's little lessons is that you can't really comment behaviour. We use the express "I'm going to call her on that" but you can't.

Suppose you are dealing with someone who pulls some classic passive-aggressive trick on you. She says, "I suppose you won't be able to come over for a visit." You bristle because you feel manipulated and you feel manipulated because you are in fact being manipulated. If she did this sort of thing once—then you could both treat it as a light-hearted remark—but she does this every time.

But the problem if you try "to call her on it" is that she thinks she is behaving normally. In fact, she she's you as the aggressor. That is why she pulls the passive-aggressive tricks in the first place.



ADDED: Talking about something else altogether, Ann Althouse pulls out a beautiful sentence that applies here:

And when I say the argument was stupid, I mean that I was stupid not to see the nature of the argument and bow out quickly.