It is interesting that, throughout many periods of history, women would have been ashamed not to wear dresses; this is an indication of how social pressures can be effective in the self-subjugation of human beings; it is rather as if a woman should be raised in such a way as to be ashamed if she did not wear her ankle chains; she might, of course, compete with other women, to see that her ankle chains were prettier than theirs; it is interesting that women put up with dresses for so many years, long, hobbling dresses; perhaps this is some evidence of their masochism; today, however, whatever may be the case with their natural masochisms, or those of men, it is glorious to note that women are becoming more inventive, more complex, prouder, perhaps even more beautiful creatures. The dress, today, however, seems to remain a masochistic garment, an invitation to men to sexually subjugate them, if only for the hour, but it is mixed today with other elements as well, elements of freedom and self-assertiveness, and self-pride; this can only be good; on the other hand, the dress remains a symbolic declaration by woman that she is determined to remain vulnerable quarry, masochistically the object of the male’s hunt. It is her nature to be hunted, and she knows it, and loves it. She wishes to be pursued, and then caught and, by the man of her choice, and no other, raped. That is something important the husband in imaginative sex has working for him. He is, presumably, hopefully, the man of her choice, or at least one of the men of her choice. By him she is willing, perhaps eager, to be raped.

A word is perhaps in order here on the subject of the return of the long, ankle-length dress. We note, incidentally, it has not “caught on” with women at large. But, with those women who are attracted to it, what might be their motivations? Presumably it is not simply a mindless reflex response to fashion dictates. The women who wear them are presumably no more simplistic than those who do not. Similarly, although there is a theory that men are more interested in what they cannot see than in what they can see (a theory perhaps invented by a sexually nervous woman with bad legs or a distracted homosexual dress designer attempting to justify fashion change), it seems probable that the reasons lie elsewhere. For example, if it were really true that men were more interested in what they could not see than in what they could see, one supposes they would go about wearing blinkers and sunglasses, or else that the girls, catching on, would bundle themselves up in large black sacks with periscopes. This is not the case, of course. Men can, and do, like long, lovely dresses on girls, but this is not so much because it conceals the girl from them as it is because it enhances her loveliness. Girls can be beautiful so adorned. The advantage of the dress is not that it conceals an ankle, thus driving a male mad with curiosity, but that it makes her appear beautiful. Evening dresses, for example, are often beautiful. No one claims they are attractive because they conceal girls. They are attractive because they look beautiful on them.