So I clicked on it. I did not consciously imagine that I would see large, trim German women striding by a sylvan stream, or maybe I did, I can't remember, but of course that is not what I saw. I should have known better. No, what appeared on the screen was a vision of three old men dressed only in sneakers. Spindly legs, no asses, and stomachs that were large enough to provide some measure of modesty, hiding their otherwise uncovered unders.
It occurred to me that it had to be men. Women whose bodies had arrived at a similar state through the ravages of time and gastronomical abuse would never parade the spectacle of their ruin for all to see. Their sense of their physical appearance is either realistic or skewed to the negative, so they are prone to conceal, not so with men.
Somehow men are able to believe they are seventeen, so these three gentlemen could gambol about the hiking trail like fawns in the fauna. They are nature boys, fresh and vital, and their nakedness a blessing on the natural world.
I have never gone hiking naked in the woods and I likely never will, but I am often of a similar mind.
My father, in his seventies, would say he had played or would be playing golf with the old guys, though they were likely younger than he. And he meant it, others grew old but he did not, it was a gift.
I too have the gift, not always, but often, and I believe most men have it too. We can ignore the popped buttons on the waistband above the fly, we rarely actually see ourselves in mirrors, we move through the universe like sleek and agile cats until irrefutable evidence to the contrary momentarily shakes the illusion.
I think this is a good thing and women should join us in this happy illusion, but we ought to keep our clothes on in public.
It occurred to me that it had to be men. Women whose bodies had arrived at a similar state through the ravages of time and gastronomical abuse would never parade the spectacle of their ruin for all to see. Their sense of their physical appearance is either realistic or skewed to the negative, so they are prone to conceal, not so with men.
Somehow men are able to believe they are seventeen, so these three gentlemen could gambol about the hiking trail like fawns in the fauna. They are nature boys, fresh and vital, and their nakedness a blessing on the natural world.
I have never gone hiking naked in the woods and I likely never will, but I am often of a similar mind.
My father, in his seventies, would say he had played or would be playing golf with the old guys, though they were likely younger than he. And he meant it, others grew old but he did not, it was a gift.
I too have the gift, not always, but often, and I believe most men have it too. We can ignore the popped buttons on the waistband above the fly, we rarely actually see ourselves in mirrors, we move through the universe like sleek and agile cats until irrefutable evidence to the contrary momentarily shakes the illusion.
I think this is a good thing and women should join us in this happy illusion, but we ought to keep our clothes on in public.
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