Thoughts on Hooters girls and the decline of civilization

AS MANY OF YOU no doubt know, I am not in the habit of praising modern technological advances. I was surely among the last in my generation to switch to a word processor, a change that seemed to come too soon after my reluctant transition from a manual to an electric typewriter. I am, I admit, resistant to change and suspicious of progress.

But I rather like e-mail. As I mentioned in a recent e-mail message to the vice president of editorial at The Union Leader, it saves me the trouble of printing my message and the cost of mailing it. (As I often like to say, I’m a real conservative, speed-read messages and fire snappy comebacks.) He e-mailed me this in his reply: “You’re the only guy I know who would embrace e-mail and the Dark Ages in the same week.”

Well, that’s a nice distinction, I suppose. But then Mr. Perkins got a bit carried away, suggesting that I really get with the times and purchase a satellite dish. “You take pleasure in monitoring the decline of civilization,” he observed. “Perhaps you are professionally obligated to watch.”

Good God, man! Can anyone really believe it takes a satellite dish, or even cable, to monitor the decline of civilization? Did I not just recently chronicle the shrinkage of figure skaters’ skirts, from Sonja Henie to Sarah Hughes, without seeing a bit of the Winter Olympics? And can’t I see enough moral and cultural decadence on my little black-and-white TV, with attached antenna, watching Channels 9, 11 and 50?

In fact, I don’t need a TV at all to see it. It’s everywhere, like horse manure and Howard Cosell used to be. You can even see it at church, but that’s a whole other subject. Except that a godly woman of my acquaintance, who has raised a large number of children and worships at a traditional Latin Mass, has repeatedly suggested to me that I write a column on the following question: “Does immodesty in dress by women constitute sexual harassment of men?”

Now there’s a short answer to that question that goes quite nicely with today’s short skirts. The short answer is, “Yes, but we love every bit of it.” That may also be translated, when women with short skirts and shapely limbs pass by your work station, into a polite request once put memorably into song: “Beautiful girls, walk a little slower when you walk by me.” Or is that polite? No, that request could be the subject of a sexual harassment suit.

As an attorney who concentrates on employment law once explained to me for an article I was writing: “To say, ‘You look very nice today’ is probably OK.” Probably. For now. “But ‘Your butt looks good in those pants’ probably wouldn’t be.” No problem, I thought. I would never say such a thing. I wouldn’t even say, as Pat Boone once crooned, “Your separate parts are not unknown, but the way you assemble them’s all your own.” I didn’t even tell that lawyer she looked rather fetching in her matching jacket and skirt. I am sometimes foolish, but I’m not crazy. She makes a very nice living suing people over impolitic utterances.

As for the decline of civilization, I can see evidence of that by visiting the Hooters restaurant in Manchester, which I did during a lunch hour not long ago. (I’ll do anything for a column.) The young ladies were, of course, uniformly undressed, save for minimum coverage of the essentials. As Maynard G. Krebs once said, “They got like laws in this town!”

Was I harassed by the sight? I’m not sure. I found it rather depressing, really. They are all so young. Especially, the young lady at the door, who greeted everyone, coming and going, so nicely. She seemed like a nice kid, sweet and even innocent, to whatever extent one might still speak of a child over the age of 12 (or perhaps six) as innocent. Too sweet and innocent, it seemed to me, to be exposing herself as a sex object.

In an earlier civilization, like the one in which I grew up, there were some colorful but unpleasant names for women who appeared in public dressed like today’s Hooters girls. I won’t repeat them, however. I don’t want to be accused of sexual harassment.

In an earlier civilization, like the one in which I grew up, there were some colorful but unpleasant names for women who appeared in public dressed like today’s Hooters girls

Right, we called them cheerleaders and every school had them. Still do. Except the Pittsburgh Steelers refuse on the grounds it would actually cost money. Another subject, the Rooneys! Somehow I think the do gooders are tiring of attacks on tobacco and SUVS, so why not hooters?

Right, we called them cheerleaders and every school had them. Still do. Except the Pittsburgh Steelers refuse on the grounds it would actually cost money. Another subject, the Rooneys!

The Cleveland Browns don't have them either (and if there's one thing that can't be said about Al Lerner its that he's shy with his money) and no one really wants them to. We figure real fans don't need to be told when to cheer. >:)

At least the Browns and Steelers don't have male "cheerleaders" like the Baltimore Ratbirds do. >:o

-Eric

Too sweet and innocent, it seemed to me, to be exposing herself as a sex object.

That makes three.... So a woman, in a One piece bathing suit, at the beach, is exposing herself as a sex object?????

They are the only people on earth who can make even monogamous, missionary style married sex seem dirty.

But It is. Those are two of the most unnatural constrictions on the Act, there is. Well, for Men. All women should be monogamous. But Missionary....should be like a 2 am encounter. Brief, to the point, and as a prelude to something more exciting.

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