The right to bare laundry

Hard to believe, but America's body-phobic society has now devolved to the point where it's indecent to hang one's... unmentionables on a public clothes line.

To be fair, it's also about making sure the neighborhood doesn't "look like trailer trash." But that's a pretty egocentric point of view, don't you think? Assuming that using a clothesline is indicative of "trailer trash" status is, frankly, ignorant. There are so many reasons for keeping the dryer turned off. Many poor people who don't have clothes dryers hang their clothes out of poverty, not backwardness. I know many people who hang their clothes because they prefer the fresh feel of an air-dried shirt over the static-y cling and lint-ish smell of one dried in the dryer. Many of my rural friends do so out of long tradition. And many people nowadays choose a clothes line because it's more economical and environmentally friendly.

But it's the resistance to viewing underwear under that there clothes line that tickles my funny bone. (It's especially ironic that the story has such international import that it's reported in the Tehran Times.) What kind of prudes are we when we're scandalized not only by the exposure of skin but by the layer of clothing next to the skin! Pretty soon they'll be talking about people being "naked" when they're only in their underwear.

Oops... too late.