purejuice

Is that a leather top you’re wearing in this photograph?
Yes. I wore it when I went to speak at the first meeting of our University of Chicago lesbian and gay alumni association, and I thought it was so sweet for them to invite somebody who wasn’t gay to be their keynote speaker. But I wore this outfit, and they said, “We want to thank you for wearing leather.”

-- Martha Nussbaum, who goes on to scrupulize about marrying again or eating in restaurants when others cannot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/magazine/13FOB-Q4-t.html

I have to go shoot the starving New Mexicans right now, so I don't have time to continue the very enlightening disquisition on the theme of Old Babes' fluid gender as expressed in their clothing, apropos

Martha Nussbaum's expressing inchoate horniness, in panjianlien's musicologically expert, shrewd and humane assessment of the Cherubino arias Nussbaum sings for an hour before dinner every night,
channeling a kind of dommey femmey thing in her black leather ninja jacket, as shrewdly and artistically noted by filmstills, who with true genius pulls Carine Roitfeld out of the hat as the Frenchy Voguey dommey femmey Old Babe whose vibe may well be the one that Martha Nussbaum is aspiring to and, because of her innate Episcopalianism or Chicago-ness, isn't quite achieving, and
Susie Bright's piercing (!) assessment, via the excellent eye of minniethemoocha of Camille Paglia's channeling a butch bottom, vide the excellent clip provided by oneseriouscat which shows Paglia in a couture camo blouse which has got to be the very avatar of butch bottomness.

I leave it to y'all, who are so very brill, to think upon the political agenda -- or survival agenda -- an Old Babe is choosing with her clothes -- competence, viability, employability and, in Nussbaum's case, fuckability. Please note that both femmey dommey and butch bottom convey competence as well as -- sweetness? Willingness to please? Approachability? Fuckability?

I hope your comments will have produced a PhD. thesis on these important matters when I get home tonight.

Always leaving aside, of course, the not-very-vexed question of whether or not a French Vogue editor, much less the foremost female ethicist, should wear fur or leather. This one problem alone, the utter cluelesness on Nussbaum's part, supports entirely

panjianlien's Cherubino mental health assessment. Paglia may be an asshole, but, unlike Nussbaum, she's not a hypocrite wearing leather (any more). The couture camo is perfectly judged.

You all? Rock.

P.S. What I am wearing to shoot the starving New Mexicans is what they wear: jeans, sweater, jacket, running shoes. I don't know if I will go so far as to wear my one pair of blue jeans. 'Cause the black jeans are just so much more....Roitfeld. Grrrrr.

Update: Wore the blue jeans, which are very dowdy, but also my Tuareg earrings. And my $90 real chambray J Crew blue collar shirt. Everything else is black. Thank God.