This was a compromise? Dream Girl Espresso owner Leah Sizemore promised to require “full bikini tops” at her Forest Grove stand instead of the “pasties employees have been wearing,” an Oregonian story about an Aug. 12 council meeting in the town said. Side note: It’s too bad our coffee shops now come with a side of suburban porn — i.e., bikini-wearing baristas and Victoria’s Secret ads. But aside from that, how bizarre is it that enough of our society knows what pasties are that a newspaper story about the bikini barista dilemma didn’t need to explain the wardrobe contraption? Modesty is a thing of the past and sex sells. Our job is to become better equipped at explaining why we think that is, what that says about us and how we feel about it. We need to be able to give a different picture about what is important and what isn’t to the next generations. And since the Forest Grove City Council can’t legally do anything about the coffee stand/peep show in its midst, the city attorney there informed, parents can use the shack-of-peeps as a launching point for the conversation. Teachable moments abound.
I don’t often reference articles or opinion pieces from The Oregonian, but every now and again our local fishwrap comes up with something thought-provoking. In this case, it’s Elizabeth Hovde, who, aside from her willingness to be open about her own personal journey, can now and again be quite sensible about topics that tend to bring out the screaming, self-righteous ninnies. I don’t often agree with her more Conservative political views, but I have to admire someone willing to introduce common sense into a discussion.
Forest Grove, a sleepy little ‘burb about a half-hour’s drive west of Portland, is about as familiar with controversy as I am with the collected works of J.K. Rowling. Thus I found myself wondering what it is about scantily-clad women serving up coffee and scones that’s left so many good, God-fearing Forest Grove residents with their panties in a wad. Judging by the behavior of some locals, you’d think that James Deen and Lindsay Lohan were putting on live sex shows on MainStreet. Unclad breasts? On display in our fair burg? How DARE they bring that smut and indecency into our fair community?
Yeah, right. Whatever….
I find it interesting that the same folks who get exercised about something even remotely hinting at sex don’t bat any eyelash when it comes to other, far more serious issues. Crime? Education? Health care? Wait for it…is that crickets? Or just the sound of hypocrisy? That tells me pretty much everything I need to know about those who engage in this sort of selective outrage.
I never cease to be amazed at how repressed and uptight some people can be when it comes to sex. For me sex is a basic part of the human condition, and I don’t subscribe to the “it’s only wrong and/or dirty if you’re afraid others are enjoying themselves” school of thought. The human body is an amazing and wonderful thing, yet we too often collectively defer to the Puritan ethic that holds that sex is permissible only behind closed doors, in the missionary position, and only for the purpose of procreation. Why so many feel the need to control and repress the expression of one of the most wonderful and amazing human activities is something I can’t wrap my head around.
Why does something so natural and, well, just plain fun have to be seen as such a threat to our collective morality? And no, it’s not about children, though that’s a clever and seemingly justifiable camouflage. It’s about a sense of shame and revulsion created to control the expression of a very basic human activity. Sex shouldn’t be something discussed only furtively and shamefully, because in the end we’ll teach our children that it’s something to be ashamed of, a gateway activity leading to all manner of sin and licentiousness. I’m not saying we should be encouraging sex in public spaces, but teaching our children that sex is bad, nasty, and sinful is one of the reasons porn is so prevalent. If it’s dirty, nasty, and wrong…well, stolen cookies taste the sweetest, no? Children grow up conflicted about sex because adults teach them that it’s sinful.
Personally, the idea of baristas wearing pasties impresses me as bordering on silly, but I suppose if your target demographic is horny, dateless males…well, good luck with that, eh? When I’m thinking coffee, I’m generally not fantasizing about the person serving it to me, but that’s just the way I see it. Evidently, some of the good, upstanding folks in Forest Grove have chosen to take a far narrower view of things:
Those concerned about Dream Girl Espresso were right to speak up. Now we need them to rein in some folks who are off target: Some of the “good” people of Forest Grove who would never take their clothes off to sell coffee and won’t buy coffee from a pastie-adorned woman have been going through the stand hurling insults, said a barista at the meeting.
These women aren’t the enemy, so no low roads, folks. The view is better on the high road. The coffee tastes better up there, too.
There’s a very good way to deal with this “controversy.” If you don’t want your coffee and scones served up by well-endowed women wearing pasties, buy your coffee elsewhere; it’s not as if Forest Grove is suffering a dearth of caffeine purveyors. Let the marketplace determine whether Dream Girl Espresso sinks or swims. You may not approve of it, and that’s your prerogative. What you don’t have the right to do is hurl petty insults at Dream Girl Espresso employees simply trying to earn a buck.
Hovde’s right; the high road is a far better path to travel, and teachable moments abound. Perhaps if we can teach our children that sex isn’t a dirty, nasty, sinful undertaking, businesses like Dream Girl Espresso won’t have a market. Wouldn’t it be nice to finally be able to put the Puritan ethic to bed? Perhaps then the good people of Forest Grove could devote their considerable capacity for outrage to things that actually matter.
