Category: Let's talk
Why are groups like the NFB obsessed with the completely inaccessible concept of image? I hear that the NFB holds a week-long convention where blind people can spend time with other blind people. And how do they spend this week? Well, I hear they dress up and go to banquets and speeches. I love food, but formal dinners seem to be one of those things that pretend to be about food but really aren't. The NFB recently attempted to set a record for the most umbrellas open at once so that they were visible from the air, which is a great illustration of my point.
Why do they want to pretend to be sighted? Of course they're free to do whatever they want, but I have a problem when people insist that the only way for me to be equal, or as good as, sighted people is to act just like them and only value the things that they value. I like Mensa better. We dress how we want. Some of us like to dress up, but I went to a gathering recently where I wasn't the only one walking around barefoot. We had nothing to prove.
The NFB was trying to win a contest and be seen. That was all that was about. Lol
As to the rest, blind people like to dress up, go to parties, and such too.
That isn't a sighted thing.
I like to go to events were I can be barefoot and wear my shorts too, and seeing people do that too.
I think for some, these week long outings are good, because they get out of the shelter, and can be themselves.
Many meet, enjoy the freedom of not having to be anything else but blind, or whatever.
Interesting viewpointthough.
This is gonna sound a little harsh, but bare with me. This idea from many
blind people that they don't understand why image is important, why can't they
just walk around in pajamas all day, to me is a sign of immaturity. Now, I'm not
saying that you have to put on a three piece suit every day of the week.
everyone likes to relax and be comfortable. But there should be a time in your
life, around the time you start looking for attention from your desired sexual
partner or romantic partner, that you leave behind the idea of dress not
mattering. When you're thirteen, its ok to wear jeans with holes in the knees
and an old hoody with a spaghetti stain on the front. When you're twenty-three,
its not so ok, at least not in most public gatherings.
Now, you might ask, but why is this important if I can't see it. And the answer
is that everyone else can, and if you look like a bum that just rolled off the
freight train he hopped onto, you're not going to get the respect you need.
You're probably going to be thought of as a bit helpless. after all, its a lot easier
to assume a blind person can't dress themselves if all they're wearing is
basketball shorts, a wife beater and some shower shoes. Because then it looks
like you can't dress yourself. It looks like you grabbed something out of your
laundry hamper and threw it on.
Now, if the image you're trying to go for is a slob, then ok, that's fine, but
don't expect to be treated the same by everyone. sure, sometimes you'll meet
people who don't care, but most of the time, if you look like a slob, you're going
to be treated like a slob. Especially if you're in some sort of a professional
environment.
when you're at home you can wear whatever you want. But when you're in
public, you should learn the art of dress. Learn your own style, and how to
make it work for you. And no, slob is not a style.
I never said anything about being dirty, smelly or wearing clothes that are falling apart. I find clothes with holes less comfortable anyway because they never wear out evenly. Dirt and smell remind me of poor health. I assume most people understand that concept.
Visual style is something I never understood. It's like telling me to imagine what it's like to experience the magnetic sense some birds have, and somehow arrange my life based on that and call it an art. I find the process meaningless. The things that I experience directly through one of my senses hold the most meaning for me.
So base your style around a different sense. Its not that difficult. I do it all the
time. ask someone what colors look good on you, and then find clothes that feel
interesting to you in those colors. Like, I wear a lot of linen because I love how
linen feels. its both interesting to me, and it looks good to the people In interact
with. I look like I'm put together, and people treat me that same way. If you put
a bit of effort into it, its easy.
I have a scent collection although I rarely wear them. I wear polo shirts because I like the way they fit and feel, My friend also says I look normal enough in them. My dress is casual and simple. I have special interview/wedding/funeral clothes but that's it. I'm generally not the kind of person who goes out of my way to make people feel upset - if there's too much friction I just hide at home.
But there have always been certain people who want me to care immensely about image even though it doesn't seem real to me. It started when I was little. I was clueless about a lot of things but it was obvious even then that I was treated much different from my brothers. Now, my mother saying I should feel things that I don't is one thing, but when I hear it from other blind people I start to wonder why.
any more than I can make myself believe.
Let me see if I can make an example that will make it make a bit more sense.
Imagine you're going through a collection of songs on an ipod. You've gotta pick
one to listen to all the way through. Five percent of these songs are your
favorite songs, they're great, awesome beats, lyrics that move you, absolute
jams. Five percent are the sound of someone vomiting into a toilet while
someone plays musical saws. Not something you want to listen to. The rest are
mary had a little lamb. Not technically a bad song, but its very meh. Not
something I'd want to listen to all the way through.
Now, imagine you're a sighted person, picking who to enteract with at a
gathering. All you have a glimpses of people. Do you want to entertact with
your favorite songs, something put together, that took time to make and shows
effort? do you want to listen to the vomiting musical saws that are just
disgusting? Or do you want to listen to marry had a little lamb over and over
and over again? Right now, if you don't put any effort into your appearance and
dress, to everyone else, you're mary had a little lamb. In short, you're boring,
and no one likes boring.
So, this will be a reply to the reply given on another board. If you're following
along at home, feel free to look at that board, called "tired of your children,
throw them away". And now, the rest of the story.
Yes, I'm sure that you are right, that people can learn and evolve and change
over time. That's all very true. But think of it like this, since that analogy didn't
illustrate what I'm talking about very well.
Lets say there is a girl named julie. Julie is going into a coffee shop, and while
there she notices three women whom she could talk to. Woman A is dressed in
a nice pair of jeans,a well-fitted top, her hair is done, she matches, she's
entirely presentable. Girl B is dressed in pajamas, is barefoot, is rocking back
and forth with her fingers in her eyes and staring at the table. Girl C is wearing
a wedding dress. Which one do you think is going to be the most comfortable
one to talk to for Julie?
It doesn't matter if girl B is an author, who just found the cure for cancer, and
wrote seven seminal works on Julie's favorite type of everything, while girl A
has never done anything interesting at all. Girl A looks more welcoming, more
normal, more self-possessed, and simply looks more affible. Girl B looks like
she's probably in a bad mood, or is too tired to talk, or wouldn't be a nice
person to talk to since she's not looking up to try and make contact. And girl C
looks entirely out of place.
That is what having social graces can get you. You look more welcoming and
more friendly and more approachable. If you're always frumpy, rocking, eye
fingering, staring at the table, so on and so forth, you don't look approachable.
You might be a very interesting person, in fact you specifically voyager I know
to be an interesting person, but how would someone at a coffee shop or a
dinner party or a bar or something like that be supposed to know that about
you? We judge on appearance, everyone does. You have to pick what kind of
appearance you want to be judge on. Cuz your personality, no matter how
sparkling, isn't an appearance.
Yes, exactly.
I think the problem here is you need someone to sit down with you and explain about appearance in a non judgemental way.
Hell, jeans with holes in them will cost you 200 bucks. The damn holes come with brand new, but I'll bet you didn't know that?
People wear them all the time.
Now, that isn't my style, so I don't buy them, but others do.
You don't have to base your life around it, it isn't difficult like that, but you need to be awear of it.
Now, I just said, you don't need to base your life around it, right?
I take lots of pride in how I'm dressed. I spend lots of money on it. I wash a specific way, so I know my things are clean, and last.
I iron if need be, I shave, or if wearing a beard, keep it trimmed. I keep my hair cut, teeth brushed, you get the picture.
so I'm a person that bases some of my life around what I appear like when I am in public.
I feel good when I do, but I don't expect it from everyone.
Just because a person doesn't see, doesn't mean they need to appear out of place.
In fact, I'll go so far to say, when you look appealing, your bglindness, deafness, in a wheelchair, and whatever else takes a back seat. It isn't noticed as much.
Your original post demonstrates a couple things.
First, apparently no one has ever educated you about the importance of appearance and image. We as blind people don't just live in isolation, or only around other blind people. If we do, then that's another problem all its own. We live in a world where, if we want to make friends, find employment, or have much of a life in general, we need to care about our image. Maybe you're getting hung up on the word image as a purely visual thing? That's one aspect of it, but so is how we speak, behave, interact with the world in general.
Second, you apparently don't know much about the NFB or its conventions. I certainly dont' fault you for that in itself. What does frustrate me is that you make judgments about an organization you clearly know very little about. There is only one banquet at Convention, that occurs on the last night. I don't much care for banquet myself, but that's just a matter of personal preference, not because I think it's silly for blind people to dress up and go to a formal dinner. In some cases, banquet can be good training for a blind person who has never interacted in a formal setting. At any rate, there's far more to convention than the way you portray it here. Try not to make judgments about things/groups/people you know nothing of.
Forereel I've heard of these jeans before. I can't sew, but I'm pretty sure that I could purposely wear holes in my jeans if I wanted them. I've never understood why anyone would pay more for that. To each their own, I guess.
As for looking decent and having disability not really be an issue, it's like I said on another board. In some circumstances I think you're right. In other places it doesn't really matter what I wear, say or do. First and foremost I'm blind, and some groups just don't want blind, period. In those situations I zone out until I can leave.
Its called detailing. They wear holes in the jeans in a specific way, or tatter
the surface of the fabric to give it detail. Its like giving it a different texture to
make it feel cool, but for sighted people. The reason they're more expensive is
mostly the look, not really anything else. I don't personally like the holes, but
some destressing looks good on me.
But Shadow_cat, Explain this: I have friends. I have a life. I have people who *want* to be around me. And I can't, not won't, care about image. If you're correct then one of those two things has to be false.
I care about consequences (both good and bad), but that's not the same as caring about image. Think of any subject that doesn't make much sense to you and that you don't find appealing. You may be forced to learn some about it but that's not the same as caring. You don't suddenly fall in love with the subject because somebody tells you that bad things will happen if you don't learn about it. No, you learn enough to get by.
And yes, it should be obvious to anyone that I generalized a bit about the NFB. But as an outsider, they appear to talk way more about image, representation, speeches and banquets than about, say, their technology exhibits.
Voyager, what we're saying, if I can claim SC as an ally here, is not that you
can't possibly make friends with someone if you don't look a specific way. What
we're saying is that your interactions with strangers, superiors, customer
service people, will all be better if you look and dress and act socially
appropriately. There have actually been studies that measured how many perks
people wearing suits got at a restaurant as compared to someone dressed
sloppily. The person in the suit, who behaved well, was polite, and had social
graces, got a lot more perks and a lot better service than the person who didn't
have those things.
So please don't think we're saying that if you don't learn these things you will
never have friends and will die alone. That's not what we're saying. we're saying
that when dealing with people who don't know your personality, who don't know
that you're a great person who likes such and such a thing, or can tell that
really funny joke about the dolphin and the monkey, or whatever, those
strangers will treat you better than if you go around barefoot and wearing
pajamas, or even if you go around in just basic stuff like a polo and khakis or
something. The more stylish you are, the more respect you'll get from
strangers.
If you've learned enough about image to get by, then that makes a lie out of your statement that you can't, not won't, learn about it. Sure, we can't comprehend colors, for example. But we can learn what matches and what doesn't so that we can match our clothes independently, even if we'll never fully comprehend the concept of color. We may not learn about image in quite the same manner that sighted people do, but we learn in our own adapted way. Perhaps another comparison of the concept I'm talking about would be reading. Sighted people read print, many blind ones read Braille, but we both stil read, just via different methods. Just because we can't read print doesn't mean we're unable to read. Not sure that's the best comparison, but it's what comes to mind at the moment.
I totally agree with you that the NFB does focus far too much on grandios speeches and other stuff that is pomp and circumstance. The umbrella mosaic, in my opinion, was just plain silly and a wasted attempt at a PR stunt. I dislike that about the Federation. But if you'd ever been to a convention, you'd know how much of it is devoted to thing such as technology and exhibits, and what a central feature the exhibit hall is for that week. The idea that they, pretend to be sighted, is laughable.
On that note, I think I'm done with this board. Clearly you've got your mind made up on this, and are only interested in proving your own point, not listening to anyone who disagrees.
Where did I say that I couldn't learn? Most people can learn a simple set of equations like if I wear the set of things X to place Y, then I get result Z. What I don't think I can learn, and I may be wrong,, is to have a real and meaningful experience of myself as looking like something, because what I've described is nothing more than following instructions like a robot. Some blind people become rather upset when I bring this up. Maybe I sound angry. But what I think I'm doing is searching for meaning.
You said it in post 13 voyager, about halfway down or so.
as for meaning, like I've said, its all up to you. what do you value? Do you
want your life to be a bit easier, have a chance for advancement in social groups
and emplyment? Then there's your meaning. If those things aren't important to
you. Then nothing I say is going to make you want to do it. But sometimes we
just have to follow instructions like a robot. Its how we do things sometimes. Its
part of living in a society.
Perhaps this board topic should have been posted in the rant category as it sounds like the original poster just wants to rant about the supposedly injustice of the inaccessibility of image. It also sounds like the original poster is venting about the things she does not like about the NFB. I believe it is perfectly okay for people to vent about their frustrations. However, it does not make any sense to me to post such rants as a form of a discussion when someone is clearly not open to discussing the topic as a rational adult.
For anyone who has ever attended an NFB convention before, they would know that there is only one formal banquet at the end of the convention. And attending this banquet is not a mandatory part of attending the convention. People who attend the NFB convention have a choice as to whether or not they attend the banquet. However, those who do attend the banquet generally dress in more formal attire as this is generally considered the proper attire for a formal banquet.
Whether or not you choose to abide by the common socially acceptable rules for attire as based on social norms is totally up to you. However, choosing to go against these social norms may cause other people to treat you differently. However, I also believe a person can look presentable without necessarily adhering to what other people deem as acceptable according to social norms as well. However, blind people should care about what they look like when going out in public because like it or not we live in a sighted world.
No, we live in a world. It happens to contain lots and lots of sighted people. But when you say it's a sighted world it sounds as though you're saying we don't belong in it. It's my world, too.
A lot of the problem comes from us not being taught the importants of image from a very young age. We do the best we can and we manage to get buy. friends, family and the authorities in charge of us tell us we're doing good, so as not to hurt our feelings or have to deal with us any further. Then we get out there in the world and find out that we're doing it all wrong and this shit really matters. It's hard not to get frustrated and defensive when you've been led to believe that what you've done and been taught or left to do is perfectly normal and then suddenly, you've got people screaming at you and telling you that you'll never get anywhere until you decide to do something about it. I think a lot of us would be more open to learning these things if someone told us how something looks and how it generally causes one to be perceived, and then left us to digest that information and figure out for ourselves if the change is something we deem worth making.
I'm not sure I would have been open to that back when i was little, honestly. You're combining describing how something *looks* to someone else, which is an alien concept to begin with, with the fact that someone else feels differently than I do. I often found that second concept impossible. I'm not blaming anyone for that, that's just how it was and occasionally still is.
It's true that two people can see something and get a totally different interpretation, but some things are pretty universal. This is also where you just have to collect info from as many sources as you can, then decide for yourself what feels right to you. Some people might think really bright colors look great on you, while others say that they clash and make you far too noticeable. Both things may be true, but depending on the impression you want to give, you might choose to wear the bright colors, or not.
sorry voyager, but this is a sighted world. everything about this world is
geared toward sighted people. We carve our own position in it by force, but its
not made for us. Its not made for anyone with disabilities. That's just the nature
of it. wE have to figure out how to be as sighted as we possibly can, otherwise
we get left behind. If we want to be blind, act blind, look blind, behave blind,
then we don't get to belong to the sighted world. That's just how things are.
Also, you can follow a few simple rules and still manage to keep your own individuality, style and personality.
I have to agree with a ton of Cody's and shadow cat's views here. I've come across lots of blind folks with this issue and it saddens me. It might be a bit easier for me personally since I had viion before, so I know what colors and most styles look like.
I know bright colors look great on me, pinks, stuff like that. I'm always dressed up, don't care if I'm even going to walmart. I always have my hair fixed up, my makeup done and my clothes presentable. Even if it's a pair of high waisted shorts and a cute little spaghetti strap top. But like Anthony said, if you were never taught that image matters from a young age, you'll probably never truly comprehend. ]
I mean what if you go to the mall, wearing your pajamas, the love of your life, or who could've been sees you in them. Do you think she's going to stop and give you a second look? Looks matter an d whoever says they don't are lying to you. You never know who your going to meet or one of your prospects will find you in an embarrassing state. Best to be nicely dressed.
SilverLightning, Maybe I'm taking this too literally, but I am blind. I cannot be both blind and sighted, and I can't become sighted without some medical procedure that doesn't exist yet. Otherwise, I'm just lying.
And I suspect Anthony's right. I know sighted people who seem to have simple tastes. I don't think they're doing anything really odd like wearing pajamas to the mall, they're just practical.
I've had to help my friends with clothing ideas, makeup tips and what not. If you ever need help or have questions about more on this topic, go ahead and email me on here.
I don't mean to sound like I'm bagging on you or anything.
Yeah, you're taking that a bit too literally voyager. What I'm saying is, you
have to act like you're sighted if you want to get along in this world. You can't
just go along doing whatever you want because you're blind. You have to learn
how the sighted act, and act like the sighted. When in Rome so to speak. You
have to pretend, as much as possible, that you are just like they are. Is it lying,
maybe, but its necessary.
Oh, and you'd be surprised how often people go to the store or to restaurants
in their pajamas. Hell I know some blind people who would wear a bathrobe if
they wanted to. its really sad. Oh, and, for the record, you can never go wrong
with high waisted shorts and a spaghetti strap top. That look really does it for
me.
now I'm picturing Cody in high waisted shorts and a spaghetti strap top. Hmmm. >:)
Took me a moment to figure that was sarcasm. Lol.
Lol, not sarcasm. I'm saying I find girls attractive in that outfit.
this totally made my night.
Though this isn't really only a blindy problem. I had a girlfriend once who used to bitch at me for taking forever just to get dressed up to go to the grocery store.
She'd go in sweat pants and big t-shirts to sleep in. I'm not a sweat pant type of girl, so for the longest time I had to tell her why I dolled myself up everytime I'd go somewhere. That friendship didn't last very long.
Like I said in my previous post, it sounds to me like this topic belongs on the rant board because it appears as though the only thing the original poster wants to do is argue about what others have to say about this topic. It is rather pointless to voice an opinion about something when the other person is not even willing to be open enough to hear it.
Lol I totally misinterpreted that statement.
Let’s take the blind out of this for a bit.
You see, seeing people go to the store in pajamas.
All seeing persons don’t dress well. They are not all clean.
Some don’t match properly.
The difference is, they aren’t judged in the ram of, poor blind man/woman, someone needs to take care of them.
They are seen as, that sob, he/she knows they could have put on something decent before they came to the store.
Laughing.
Now, don’t take this wrong, it is an example, and might help you get a different picture.
Do you take a bath regularly? If so, why?
Do you wash your dishes, or do you get the last dish you used, and fill it up with fresh food? Why?
If you brush your teeth regularly, why do you do this?
I know some that don’t, and it isn’t all blind people.
I suspect smell matters to you. If a person is near you, and hasn’t washed themselves, or clothes, and doesn’t use toilet paper to wipe, and has urinated on themselves for the last few days, you’re going to wonder about that, right?
When teaching a child, you don’t make it a big deal, you just buy them things, and use positive feedback to get them to know they are generally decent.
Others around you, will give you feedback too.
Maybe, and I don’t know this, if you attend a school for the blind, the teachers don’t give a damn, so don’t give students that feedback.
Crazy Cat’s correct, it isn’t that the NFB makes you do anything, it is that when you attend a formal dinner, and that is anyplace, you dress formally.
This isn’t an NFB thing.
Guess I need to get me some shorts and halter tops.
Laughing.
Shadow_cat may be technically correct in that my original post was a bit rant-like. But we're discussing it. Just because I don't entirely agree with SilverLightning doesn't mean I'm not considering what he has to say. So I think that either the rant board or this board would have been appropriate for this topic. However, there are a couple of topics under News and Views which don't seem to belong there. I'm sure most of you can figure out which ones. Shadow_cat, why haven't you suggested that either of those should be on the rant board?
This topics in the correct place as far as I go.
I've never actually looked at what board a topic is posted under. Its a topic,
read and discuss I say.
OK, so I couldn't resist. Guess that's what comes of me being extremely bored and unable to sleep. LOL.
Voyager, I'm not saying the topic should have been posted on a different board, or that it shouldn't be discussed. What frustrated me yesterday was that you don't seem to be interested in learning from the input anyone gives you unless it already agrees with your currently held opinions.
You were definitely taking Cody too literally when he was saying we have to act sighted. The way I'd phrase it is this. I don't think of myself as acting sighted. I'm blind, and I'm not ashamed of that. I think what Cody's driving at is that just because we're blind doesn't mean we get to ignore the social customs and manners of the world around us. If we want to be taken seriously as potential employees, partners, students, or whatever else we want to accomplish in life, than things like appearance and the way we carry ourselves matter. That's not just true if you're blind, it's true if you're sighted, too. A sighted person who dresses sloppily, or who has gross/odd public habits will also be looked at strangely. the difference there is they'll just be seen as strange. With us, the world will attribute it to our being blind. That's not true, it's because the blind person in question has either never been trained how to, or like you, doesn't care, to put forth a positive image. But Joe or Jane Doe sighted person won't know that. They'll just assume we can't do it. That, and far too many blind people think that blind pride, if you will, is saying a healthy fuck you to things like caring about our appearance and image.
I guess I don't think of caring how I present myself as acting sighted. I think of it as doing what I need to do to be taken seriously in the world, the communities I choose to move and live in, and accomplish the goals in my life that I want to accomplish.
it seems to me that voyager has other issues than image. yes, what we look like is important. for 17 years, I did a job where I had to convince people to do stuff they didn't feel they should have to do. yes, the law said the must, but tfor whatever reason they didn't feel they need to comply with the law. through experimentation I learned that if I wore a dress, people were much more likely to cooperate. whether that was because I looked like their mom and made them feel they must be good, or if they felt sorry for the fashion train wreck in their midst so did what I asked is not important. what is interesting is that in most situations if I wear a dress I get treated more kindly and respectfully. traveling, shopping, at church, or whatever the dress is the key.
as for clothes, I love them. I know what goes together, have jewelry shoes etc., that match. these things make me happy and secure. I love interesting fabrics, embroidery, and have been told by many that I have an attractive and original style.
my husband who is also blind could care less. so I buy him stuff that all goes together. then he looks good and I don't have to worry about it.
oh yes, cody, as for the gal in the wedding dress at the coffee shop. I'd talk to her first. I'd want to know why was she there, when was the ceremony, and what color the bridesmaids were wearing.
as for the nfb umbrella image. standing in the hot Orlando sun in july to break a record makes no saense to me. however, this is America, and we have the right to make choices and live with their consequences. for example I have a friend who was at that hoe down and ended up in the e.r. with heart issues. the fact that he's over 300 pounds and had no business participating is not nfb's fault.
as you so eloquently s
one more thing to contemplate. if as blind people we want the organizations that represent us to make strides which will assist us to have better lives, then we must expect that those in leadership and to a lesser extent us members look and act presentably. especially when money is involved, those who hold the dough need to know it's going to be spent wisely. part of the way we convince them is to appear professional and responsible
. that may not be fair but if we want to win the prize we must pla y the game.
Turricane, I sound a bit like your husband in that I keep stuff that goes together, and that's as far as I think about it. An issue of mine is that some people I know in real life seem to wish I would care more than that.
And I thought Cody's analogy was interesting also. I would have also assumed that the lady in the wedding dress was going to a wedding and felt the need to stop for coffee first. And he's right. We all assume and judge. I was thinking about it this morning. I notice it when people chew with their mouths open. The noise can be annoying and when I hear it, I can't help wondering if the person has any clue they're masticating so loudly.
Perhaps it's all in the approach. I'd rather not beat someone over the head until they conform. I find it more enticing to try to explain what to do in order to be taken more seriously, then leave it up to the individual to figure out if it's important enough to bother with. I encounter less defensiveness that way. It's possible that not everyone cares or wants to be taken seriously. There's a lot of good information out there,and lots of people to ask. When someone is ready, they'll take the plunge. People change because they want to, or they get hurt enough that they have to.
Not beating her over the head, she asked a question? Smile.
Now about that woman in the wedding dress, she'd not need to be stopping for coffee, unless she decided to ditch her intended at the alter.
Maybe she figureds if she dresses in her latest fashions, she can drum up business for her dress shop.
Weddings have plenty coffee.
Laughing.
Yes, she did ask a question, but some are trying to say she's not really interested in the answers.
yeah, upon reflection I realize that the wedding dress was not the best
example, but I think you got the point of the example anyway. I just blanked on
a third outfit to wear.
silver lightning it wasn't that bad of an analogy at all. back in the mid '80s my brother in law got married on the 4th of july. the next day, he and his lovely bride were flying out of our area to California. thehotel they were staying at was around the corner froom where we lived. so kindly they offered to give us a ride from their home which was two hours away from ours. for whatever reason anette decided that it would be great to stay in her dress and veil. since it was her wedding day, it was fine. At the time, chip owned a long black old caddie. so, halfway home, anette decided that she absolutely positively had to pee right now!!! the only place close to us was a mcdonalds. she wanted me to go in with her. lucky me. so this limmo pulled in to the Scottish inn. out got the lovely bride in her four inch heals and white white fru fru dress and me in a sun dress and sandals. in we walked. customers were lined up out the door. there was this communal gasp and then dead silence. it lasted until we made the ladies' and then resumed after we exited that room. one of the more memorable moments of my life. so no. a lady in a wedding dress at sstarbucks is in the realm of believability in my world.
I guess I'll just never understand not obsessing over your image. MY sisters and I used to have a contest on who will get the most compliments while we were out shopping. I feel image is very important and people should dress to impress.
I don't see anything wrong with wearing a pair of jeans and some random t-shirt all the time, it's what your style is, fine, do it.
But don't expect to be accepted wearing that outfit to a wedding, formal banquet, or any dress up occcasion.
The homo sapiens, blind or otherwise, is a very visual species. If we were all
mole rats, this stuff wouldn't matter.
Image isn't about what the person looks like to themselves, it's how they're
going to impress other people.
I don't wear suits and ties very often, but when I do I try and get the Windsor
knot just right, so that I'll make the right impression. Also, we talk about
women looking nice in formal wear. But for men, we have expressions like
"Looks like a million bucks," or "Looks like he owns the place," or "Looks like
ready to take over."
Actually, I've heard from several clothing people, including gay men who design
clothes, the suit is not the most handsome wear a man can use. There are lots
of great-looking clothes on different people for looking good, or looking sexy.
But the suit and tie screams resources, ownership, and control. That's why they
do it. A Black Tie affair is all about being seen.
My ex-brother-in-law is an opera singer. Rehearses for months on end and then
performs with the opera company in Frankfurt. But many people who go see
him perform don't know anything about opera, care about the story, and can
only minimally comment on what they saw. It's all about being seen at the
opera.
Think of the so-called "hot car dates" you heard about from the 50s. She wants
to be with someone in a hot car, he wants to have a babe with him in his hot
car. Formalwear is all about this. Nothing wrong with that, but it's no more and
no less than territorial and power displays among human apes.
It would make sense the blind apes would be just as interested in showing their
mettle in the image department as anything else. And yes, banquets aren't
about the food, tirelessly-working cooks notwithstanding. It's about the
ceremonies, the awards given out, general puffing up of feathers and other
natural animal displays. Hell, Native American tribes in the Northwest here used
to burn food instead of just picking at it, to demonstrate their wealth and
success.
It's not about "liking nice" or "looking presentable". It's about power in those
circumstances. Believe it or not, I've seen $500 jeans. Yes, jeans! If I owned
those,
A suit and tie is a uniform. I have some retired Coast Guard uniforms, one of
which I still use with patches removed for tactical exercises. But a uniform lets
people know what you are. You don't have a badge with a suit and tie, not like
the badge I've got for CERT. But a well-set Windsor knot, pressed jacket and
pressed pants is every bit the uniform.
Why do we call someone "the suit?"
And, if power clothes didn't matter, why do we as blind people often know who
it is in the suit? Again, it's just us animals puffing out our fur, showing
dominance, etc. Haven't you seen how human apes, especially many female
human apes, can't get enough of commenting on the relative merits of
someone's suit? Or social manners? They're just on the hypergamous troll for
resources. Again, not a good or a bad thing, just an ape thing. I'm all ape too; I
certainly feel different when I put on the uniform, the vest, the hard hat, and
strap on my pacs.
I don't feel that different in a suit and tie, because I'm not really a man of
means, not particularly powerful as human apes go, and not very well placed in
the dominance hierarchy. I'm probably one of those human apes whose
moderately-priced jacket would get comments from female apes behind my
back and among themselves, as they compare it to the expensive Armani or
Wall street three-piece job someone else has.
Sorry to say it, voyager, apes gotta ape. Ironically the more refined people try
to come off, the more I can see the raw, uncut animal in them, the animal that
would fight over food instead of fighting over how someone is eating it, under
different circumstances. Like most other apes on the planet, people in this
situation usually lack the self-awareness to know this is exactly what they're
doing. Again, not a good or a bad thing, IMHO, just an ape thing.
It might help to understand the need for this better if you replace the idea of
it being about image, with it being about perception. Rather than worry about
what you look like, worry about how others perceive you, and learn how to
make yourself be perceived as the person you want to be. That might make it a
little easier to understand. If you want to be a figure of respect, learn how to be
that. If you want to be a wallflower in the back of the room no one talks to,
learn how to be that. Its up to you.
II know this isn't a style topic, but I wanted to say Leo, jeans aren't looked down on anymore as jeans.
Your denim can be styled up, or down.
I'd not pay 500 bucks for a pair, even if I had a million, but you can put on some class denim, a silk dress shirt, and a tie, or scarf, and go to a formal dinner.
Designers have demim down to such an art now, some of it, and how it is cared for, can really look different.
Polish your wingtips, iron you a crips cotton shirt. Att your tie, and bling, and you'll look like a million bucks.
Laughing.
actually leo, I've know of jeans that cost more than $500.00. my daughter put her hands on $1,000.00 jeans. I asked her what they were like and she said jeans.
some people perceive dressing to impress as making ourselves in to different people. as I have matured, I now realize that it's making you a better you. when I put on that formal for the banquet, I feel more confident more fun and more attractive.
comfortable in our skin.
here is the turricane view of life. humanity is a jigsaw puzzle. when we are born our piece is dumped in the pile with all the other pieces. as we grow older we have to find and fit in to our slot in the big puzzle of life. our best friends, mom's, boss's or pastors slot is not ours. when we figure out where that is, we become more comfortable with ourselves. presenting that positive image is that much easier because we know what the heck it is, sort of anyway. am I making sense?
it's all about being
You said her hand. Did you add your credit card?
Laughing.
I've once bought 200 dollar pair of jeans, they were Miss me's. I had to buy them because I was rolling in money and I adore jeans that are decked out in beautiful gems and such. Rhinestones I think they are called, the real ones, not the glued on type.
Anyways, I was a sucker and ended up only using them for a year and a half.
I haven't spent that much, but I've spent 120 on a pair before. But they were
well constructed and hand-made. I then spent about fifteen bucks or so getting
them and a few other pairs perfectly tailored, which one should do with all one's
clothing. It was totally worth it.
I never really have issues for tailoring and what not. But I also don't wear bootcut jeans which tend to the be ones that need it.
I felt the same way, until I got it done on a pair of slim cut jeans. After that, i
got it on everything. It really does make a different for me. Especially with
things like blazers, sportcoats and button-downs.
I'm a shopper, so try hard not to pay over 80 for a pair.
I have some that cost a pretty penny, if you aren't careful, but I've been good and haven't paid it.
I'm in to raw, the washing rules, and such, and they last, and look good for a long time.
Buy quality, not because they are expensive, is how I see it, and you'll do well.
I've got a few limit editions too, but don't tell anybody.
Laughing.
I'd agree, a well fit pair of denims, make the man or woman.
Oh, and these limited editions. I'm selling them in a few years for 5 times what I paid.
Talk about wearvesting.
Laughing.
Wayne, I know some really fine looking jeans do exist. I just bought new ones I didn't find that expensive but you can tell the fit's a lot better than even a few years ago.
I would have a hard time wearing them to a formal occasion like that, only because of former social conditioning that requires the typical corporate wear.
I'd say Cody's right, though. When it comes to what you're calling image, think of perception instead. Anyone who's ever been in a uniform can tell you that.
And a uniform, be it one for service / deployment like many of us, or one for power display like your three-piece suit, is far different than just looking nice. Entirely different meanings, although there is crossover in some rather obvious places.
so, disclaimer; prior to going blind i dressed in sterotypical generation x slacker fashion. with this said, i find the notion of attempting to mainstream a minority group by fostering some fashion dogma ugly. my montra is based on articles i have read from gq, fashion bloggs, and articles written about generational trends. seems like some three possibly four years ago dirty jeans and stained t shirts were the rave! now, its torn jeans, denime. fashion houses from tommy hillfigure to gucci are gearing up for their fall collections. if you guessed jeans, denime then you are right on. my point is, make your own fashion, make your own trend. be you. dont be a manaquin one finds in malls. i wear t shirts and shorts most times i head out. from dr appoiments to grocery shopping. no one ever treats me with disrespect.. granted like voyager mentioned certain events like a wedding, funeral, or a potentioal job interview call for a well though, put together look. if you find yourself wondering go for the traditional black slacks, with a button down long sleeve from ralph, liz clairborn, or kenith cole. the latter does mostly blues and all types of geometrical shapes. well from what i last s aw. which is circa 2006.
Lol
I agree with GizmoBear. I guess some turds would criticize my graying chinstrap / Abe Lincoln beard and earring, and usually very casual dress.
However, if the situation calls for it I put on nice slacks and a button shirt, I'm too fat for the suits I bought almost 20 years ago now, when I was a size 30 waist. These days it's closer to a 34 / 36.
I think a fair question might be: Why, if you're not really into the whole pomp and circumstance, would one go to the black tie banquet unless you are paying respects or doing some other honorary act. It wouldn't make sense to spend the $200+ per plate or whatever it is, then show up in other than the expected attire. Kind of like being an atheist, showing up at the church, expecting to receive communion like a Christian. Speaking as the former, in this example.
A couple points. First, there is always a type of grungy, casual fashion. The
thing is, that fashion is mostly for high school students and college freshmen.
You're not meant to dress that way as a full grown, independent adult. You
should stop dressing in grunge when you start paying bills, unless you're in
Nervana. Grown adults should not be wearing torn jeans in most situations. It
might work in a club, but that's about it; and even that is questionable. Your
style needs to mature as you do, and grungy things like that is for kids, not
adults. Honestly, its the same for wearing shorts and t-shirts everywhere. That's
how teenagers dress.
Now, its true that you're not going to be disrespected if you dress in shorts
and a t-shirt. You're not going to get kicked out of a restaurant or something.
That won't happen. But you can get better respect if you dress nicely. You might
get better seating, because they think you'll spend more. You might get seated
faster for the same reason. You will probably get better service because they
expect a better tip from you. Cuz, its logical that a person who can't even put
on a nice pair of jeans probably isn't going to shell out for a big tip. People
simply respect well dressed people more.
Cody, dear boy, you have never lived on the west coast. Even I, who grew up out here, have been surprised to learn what some adults will call business casual. To me that dress means something between a suit and tie, and the jeans / T-Shirt, something like slacks and a button down. Not out here though.
Of course, I do live in Portland, the infamous city behind the humorous show Portlandia. And a lot of that stuff is true, not for all of us, but as a general rule.
Now in my father's day, you didn't go to the store wearing jeans. I remember getting chewed out for that when I was a teenager. But that thinking would be considered silly now, and was thought silly by either people my age then or aging hippies who hadn't yet turned yuppie.
I know Leo, but a lot of those people are considered highly eccentric.
Sad sad Silver Lightning.
Just can't learn how to mind his own fucking business.
Do you consider someone giving advice online to be invading your privacy
James/ If so, you're more than welcome to leave the zone. Cuz that's kinda
what we do here.
beronka grand,get a grip. everyone is allowed to express an opinion on this board. in order to have a conversation or exchange of ideas, more than one person, and that means you, has the right to say something. as they used to say on my favorite show of all time rug rats "go back and get up on the right side of the bread!!!!"
cody, you are from some southern state like florida right? so when it is 115 degrees in the shade with hellatious humidity, do you go out to dinner in a three piece suit? if so, I would hope it's a tropical weight one. otherwise, I'm going to think you done stood in the sun too long!!!!
here is a fact. you women may not like it. when I worked, my job consisted of making people comply with regulations they had to obey but didn't necessarily feel they wanted to . when I visited my clients or conducted meetings, I noticed that when I wore a dress or skirt, I was treated more respectfully and people did what they needed to do more willingly. whether I looked like mommy and that made them automatically be good little hchildren, or they felt sorry for a fashion disaster I don't know and I sure don't care. for me, a happy life is a quiet and stress free one.
now in retirement I still wear dresses. I'm cheap. they still are cute and good. the sexiest woman or an too is one who has found a style and revels in it. feeling feminine makes me happy.
oh yes, and leo, I am constantly amazed at what is worn out here in the great fabulous northwest. it's not just Portland. in my town which is in northwest Washington, people wear cutoffs and flip flops to church. now, I was always taught that god wants our first and our best. that includes clean clothes in his house. wife beaters and bootie shorts make me uncomfortable on sunday morning. thank goodness i don't have to actually look at them.
finally, here's a story i just thought of that illustrates how times have changed. many years ago when I was a kid, my brother broke his arm. my mom grabbed me and him and drove us to the emergency room. when we entered, the gorgon at the desk told her that since I was wearing shorts and sandals I had to go wait in the car. it was august in Washington dc. I was a tiny child of like five. after my mother employed her school teacher/librarian voice to good effect, I was permitted to stand in the vestibule. now, at the community food co-op where I do most of my grocery shopping, folks come to the store in their pjs. kind of makes me envious. no way would I ever be able to do that. my dear mother would hijack the lightning machine and strike me dead!!!!
Sounds like the world is improving.
If I need to wear a suit in the summer, I wear a very light one. A good
seersucker, or however its spelled. Its very light, very breathable, and very soft.
But I don't usually have to wear three piece suits. Technically I don't own a
three piece suit. I don't have a vest.
As a woman, I too agree with turricane. I love dressing nicely, because it does make people receive me more kindly than they would/do when I'm dressed in shorts. Dressing nicely also just makes me feel better as a whole.
The thing is Cody, what constitutes acceptible dress varies by area, season, and activity. Dress codes also constantly evolve over time. Dressing up or dressing down goes in and out of style over time. I think one should dress in the way that makes one most comfortable. I mean both physically comfortable, and psychologically comfortable. Some places, like work places, have dress codes one must observe. Other than that, everything is variable. There is no true right way to dress any more. It is true that people may treat you better or worse based on your dress, but that too cuts both ways. If you over dress you may be dissed as much as if you under dress.
pasco very well stated. cody, thank goodness you don't own a vest. every man I've ever seen with one of those on looks fat. oh yes, and I love seersucker, spelling too.
I like to dress nice, but that nice depends on where I'm going.
If your cut offs are Kalvin Cline, and you've got a Rolex on, well, you get seated fast.
If there say, JCP, and your watch is a Kamart, well.
Laughing.
You'd be surprised how much some folks pay for flipflops, and some topmodels are dressed in, well, clothes with holes in them.
Fashions all over the place right now, and some of these girls in the Danna Caran T shirts with holes look yummy.
I've never liked the hole look, it doesn't suit me, but some folks can carry it well.
You know the other thing about dressing grunge and looking grunge are totally different.
A woman who’s got a great hairdo, her makeups good, and her nails and feet are manicured, looks clean, and classy even if she’s got on cutoffs, a holy T and flip flops.
Her clothing is clean, made of quality materials, and looks crisp.
Now, you take the same exact woman, let her get dirty for a few days, her hairs unwashed, and her skin, nails and such are not to healthy looking due to the dirt buildup, and she doesn’t smell so good, well, she looks and is grungy.
Same for guys.
So, if her and her twin showed up at a trendy bar, her well-dressed grunge trim gets in easier and gets more respect than her dirty twin.
It is amazing what clean, and well-groomed looking does for the same exact people in the same style.
I think blind people that have no outlet, or people around them that care about this sort of thing should subscribe to magazines that cover these topics.
It will give you a well-rounded idea of what’s happening in your world you don’t see.
Sure, you can show up at a trendy bar in a suit, and look just fine, but you don’t need to if everyone else has on comfortable T’s and shorts, and maybe Rainbow flip flops. Rainbows are not only well made, but comfortable.
Summers almost gone, but for the remainder of it, on a Saturday, and you’re just out to drink cold beverages, you want to be comfortable too.
So, sure grownup people can and do dress grunge and look good doing it.
Just some thoughts.
Ok, there is a difference between dressing nicely, and dressing fashionably.
You can wear designer ripped jeans, and still look out of place and shitty. stuff
like that is for casual settings. If you want to go to the club in designer ripped
jeans, that's cool. I have casual jeans too, not ripped ones, but casual ones. But
leave club clothes for club nights. You've gotta learn when to wear things, not
just what to wear. and learn the difference between designer and nice.
I'm afraid Wayne is entirely correct here. First, he's seen. Second, he's speaking as the nonpretentious kind of people I tend to run with do when they describe things to me that they're looking at.
Doesn't have to be club night.
Some jobs don't require a dress code now. We have churches that are totally casual.
We have clubs, like jazz places I frequent, that have dropped the dress down were it was suits, slacks, and dress attire.
Last time I was in, folks had on an assortment of dress, because it was summer, so.
About the only place a suit is required is a wedding or some formal gathering. Some eating places, you’d wear a suit, and dress too, but it really depends on where you are going.
The attitude is among culprit, or working class, I have to dress all week, so on nights and my off time, and I’m going to be comfortable, or sport my personality.
Now, that doesn't mean some people don't wear suits, lots do, and look great in them, but dress is just really individual now, and one’s taste can be made their own.
We talked some on this in the public side, so I'd like to give an example of something I saw two nights ago.
I’m that guy that dresses like a 40 year old redneck, right?
Laughing.
Tow young people, 25 and 24 respectively were going out for drinks and a night on the town. The guy was wearing a hinddley, light cords, and Tember Land boots, but his were off white leather.
A hinndely for you that don’t know is basicly a long sleeved T shirt, and you match them to your outfit. Really pretty.
He had on a cap that looked like a wood cutters cap, but it was made of some soft material.
He looked sweet.
His hair was cut specificly too.
The girl had on flats, but a shorts set. She was made up and such as girls are, but she was totally casual.
You could say both were underdressed, but because of how the outfits were color coordinated, and what they were made of, it was sharp.
You have to think, if a company such as Tember Land is creating boots in that color and style, they’ve come up from just work clothes.
So, dress is really interesting. I dress much like the guysometimes, not always, but I don’t wear caps, or hats. Lots of guys do of some type now.
Horn rimmed glasses are vogue now too believe it or not.
These were nerd wear a few years ago.
Wayne, nicely does not mean a suit necessarily. Just because a business does
not enforce a black tie dress code, does not mean you should show up in assless
chaps and a wife beater. Dressing nicely means, usually, darker clothing,
without holes, which fit correctly, and don't have logos or that sort of thing, and
usually a button down shirt of one sort or another. It doesn't necessarily mean a
suit. That's why I said, you also have to learn when to wear something, rather
than simply what to wear. That's why we have terms like white tie, black tie,
professional, business casual, and casual. They tell you what is appropriate and
what isn't. The thing that troubles me is that some blind people seem to think
that those words don't matter, and that they should be able to wear whatever
they feel most comfortable in at all times.
Well, I'd agree with that.
I think people should make an attempt to look decent, but that is my taste.
No matter how it gets sliced, you make an impression on the people that see you. If that doesn't matter, dress as you please, but remember, you can't expect people to have a good impression and not care as you do. I know about the different levels of dress, but I tell you, these are really getting smudged. Again I would say a blind person that doesn't have much outlet subscribe to some magazines on lifestyle and such.
Well, as it seems that mostly anything goes, as far as dress, those blind people who think they should be able to wear whatever, anywhere, can, these days.
I'm with Chelsea and Turricane, I enjoy wearing dresses every day, all the better if it has a gathered or pleated skirt. I don't feel very attractive in jeans and slacks, they're just less comfortable, and I've stopped being concerned with what anyone else thinks of my style choices. I frequently get compliments, which is lovely, so no need to change anything.
I don't think I've owned a pair of flip-flops since I was a kid, and would only wear them poolside, I guess. Even as totally blind, you can hear that people commonly wear flip flops out and about, and it always surprises me to hear it, in dressier settings.
I love flip-flops in the summer time especially if they're really cute and decorated. Of course, I only wear them when my pedicure looks good. People with gross or ugly feet should hide them. lol
I guess I should mmake it clear that I'm talking about when I'm casually dressed, not dressed for church or volunteering, etc.
Whoa, DG, I think your computer went a bit nuts on you. I've seen duplicate posts before, but not 12 of them! LOL.
Woe! I didn't even notice until just now. Yikes! Sorry, yall. I think my cat may have stepped on the enter button. Either that, or like Shadow Cat said, my pooter went nuts. Sorry.
I just thought you were very passionate about your feelings. LOL
I deleted the duplicates. Here Kitty kitty!
I wears my flip flops with suits.
Laughing.
Still one duplicate left.
Out of curiosity, what makes feet ugly? I assume that filthy feet with jagged dirt-encrusted toenails are gross, but those things are fixable. Are there feet characteristics which are considered ugly and aren't fixable?
oh yes indeedy voyager,
there are lots and lots of fugly feet. you have the ones with huge callouses. some people have hairy feet . you need a weed whacker to see what the foot looks like. there are the ever attractive huge veins on top which are complemented by bony protrusions and age spots. Still interested? there are always corns and bunyans. finally the piece de resistance; the fungus among us. you know the athlete'sc feet complete with contagion and pealing skin. now I want my lunch. how 'bout you?
LMAO, Turridcane. You expressed it far more elliquently than I could have. lol
Anthony, thanks for deleting the doups.
All that is fixable, but.
Laughing.
Yep, ugly feet.
forereel, you are correct of course. however, after I sent my description I forgot to mention a lot of other stuff about our feet. as my mom used to say "by the time our lord got through making us, he ran out of ideas for the things we'd use to stand upon. so he just decided to have a laugh at our expense."
ladies and gentlemen we will start with toes. sighted people have told me they are totally amazing. you have the long ones that look like those of a spider monkey. then there are the short stubby ones that look llike slugs. I could go on and on.
and then the feet shape is important. very few of us have long narrow graceful ones. there are those like the ones on me which are flat and turn out. then we have the ones like those on my dear husband. his are short wide and stumpy.
just as with other parts of the anatomy with our feet, size is important. There are huge guys like my dad with teeny small feet. On the other hand, there are the kind seen on one of my college room mates from years gone by. she was a tiny little gal the size of a minute whose tootsies were as long as an hour listening to aunt myrtle recite her health complaints.
wear flip flops with care. either hide your feet in shame, or do like I do and celebrate your individuality. pedicures hide many flaws.
Just to clarify, when I said I love dressing nicely, what I meant was that it's important to me to create my own fashion statement--too many people, blind and sighted alike, don't do this, and I think they're missing out.
For me, dressing nicely means wearing dresses. Of course it's important to abide by a job's dress code if necessary, but if not, then have fun while you can!
Also, Wayne brought up a good point about some churches allowing people to dress however they want to. Hell, at the church I currently attend, the pastors often wear jeans. I think that is great--it shows they haven't forgotten their humanity and it shows that they're relaxed and cool, as they should be.
Turricane you make me wish for a "like" button. Lol!
Personally, if I were still religious, I'd hate going to a church where people
dressed casually. You're going to visit God in his house. The almighty being who
made everything, including you, and you're going to wear flipflops and a
tanktop, or cutoff jeans and camo? That seems worshipful? It doesn't to me.
Plus, when I was greek orthodox, the churches were so beautiful that I
couldn't imagine going to worship in them without being dressed to the nines.
could you imagien going to a service at the national cathedral, a building so big
you could lay the empire state building on its side down the aisle, and hearing a
service while wearing shorts and tennis shoes? I certainly couldn't. I'd feel
ashamed of myself.
Probably wears the thousand dollar kind with raw silk shirts. Vary dressed if you ask me.
Laughing.
god do i miss my rainbow flopps!! plus my timberland strap gladiator style leather ones! *sights* damn dieabedies
On sale right now. Get u some.
Laughing.
silver lightning, with red on my face, I have to admit that I once went to a service at the national cathedral in a sun dress. god didn't strike me dead. it was an ankle length one with all lkinds of lace on it and it was also 106 degrees. since god made it that hot, I'm sure he understood.
hey, and on a totally unrelated topoic, what's with going to conventions of the blind and someone wants to put a print name tag on me. like who is going to read it? never hav figured that out.
finally, chelslicious I totally agree with your last post.
well, better than them putting a braille nametag on you and having everyone
feel you up to figure out what your name is, right?
Ooh, yeah!
Laughing.
I refuse to wear name tags. To wear one puts me at a huge disadvantage as a person knows my name, and I do not know theirs. By not wearing a tag, when we talk it forces a proper introduction. Works like a charm. If I were attending NFB, I would not permit a name tag there either. That is probably for the convenience of sighted assistants.
Wow, Pasco, such strong feelings about name tags. Of course you have a right to your opinion, I've just never seen that kind of reaction. Turricane, I think the idea is for people like the sighted volunteers at Convention to be able to read it, or for example when you win a door prize, they use your name badge to know they're giving it to the right person. I've never thought all that much about the name tags. Usually I carry mine on me, so I can show it if I win a door prize, but I don't always wear it. I have no problem doing so, I just forget most of the time. Even if they did offer Braille name-tags, I definitely wouldn't wear that. No stranger is getting that close to me to read it. LOL.
While I don't have the same strong feelings as paskow about nametags, I
completely understand where he's coming from. It is a bit unfair for us not to be
able to look at someone and know their name, and prevents us from being able
to introduce ourselves in the manner we deem fit. Or, for more socially minded
people, what if a girl doesn't want a guy knowing her name, but she has to wear
a nametag? That makes things awkward.
I experience the exact same strong dislike of name tags. It's hard enough for me to tell who's in the room and those things make it even harder. People get used to not having to introduce themselves. And something about repeatedly hearing my name in unfamiliar voices gives me the creeps. I feel like I'm starring in the blind version of the Truman Show, where everyone knows who I am and what I'm doing at all times, but I'm clueless about them.
This is for Voyager.
I remember you don’t like people touching you when you’re out.
I teased you about having a T shirt made that says don’t touch me.
Today, while shopping on the Blind Mice Mega Mall, I notice they have one that says. “don’t touch. Causes blindness.”
Made me think of you.
Smile.
Ooooh thanks. I'm on blind mice so I'll have to go look for that one.
that's terrible! and very funny!
Yeah it is. I had to laugh.
Do you know how many people actually believe if they touch a blind person they might catch it?
It just amused me.
On an unrelated note, BlindMice also has shirts that read too much sex causes blindness, lol.
Haha. That one doesn't exactly apply to me, but I do have their shirt identifying me as a member of the Blind Rifle Association.
Here's the thing. Those T-shirts look really funny on the website, and we've all
seen similar t-shirts. I had a t-shirt in high school that said "stay back I'm
allergic to stupid", and I thought that thing was the height of comedy. But think
about it. You have that one t-shirt that says too much sex causes blindness.
First time you wear it, its funny. Second time, maybe a few people laugh, and
you still think its funny to yourself. Fifteenth time you wear it, the joke has worn
thin and its no longer funny. Fiftieth time you wear it, no one even bothers to
read it because they've all seen you in it, and it stopped being funny a year ago.
Now, add to that the fact that those t-shirts, last time I looked, were over 20
dollars a piece, and I doubt they're made of very good material. most graphic
t's and slogan t's simply aren't made of good material. They're made to be
cheap so that people can pump them out of t-shirt cannons and throw
thousands of them to sports fans or what have you. You could get an actually
well-made, attractive t-shirt for the same amount of money, and learn a joke for
free, that you can then stop telling after all your friends have heard it. You save
money, and your t-shirt doesn't quickly start to suck.
silver lightning, thanks for sharing. actually you really need to lighten up for heaven sake. actually, for the record, my husband has the blind rifleman shirt and it is very well made. it is always wise not to criticize an item we haven't seen. there's an appropriate time and place to wear those things. lounging around the house or whatever is fine. personally, I don't wear t shirts. frankly, I don't feel like giving someone free advertising. I also don't want to have people remember me for whatever slogan I happen to be wearing. if someone wants to buy one of those things, it's no big deal. good grief.
There are very few things that its not ok to lounge around the house in. In fact i
can't think of anything that's not absurd. Like, its not ok to lounge around the
house in kkk robes or something, but that would be an idiotic thing to say if one
were being serious. But do you really want to spend twenty bucks on a shirt you
wear to lounge around the house? And most people think slogan t-shirts are for
kids. I happen to be one who agrees. They're fine if you're a freshman in high
school. They're not so ok when you're an adult. Unless, like I said, you're
lounging around the house.
So don't buy one. Simple.
Lounging around the house should be done naked.
Now, were's my T shirts that says, "I'm gonna enjoy my damn life and I don't give a damn about opinions."
Laughing.
What does Silver think is proper louging attire?
I'd love to know really.
Did I not just say that I can't think of anything inappropriate for lounging? If
all you're doing is curling up under a blanket and binge watching the great
british bake off, where whatever you want. If you want to wear nothing, do that.
if you want to wear lingerie, wear lingerie. I had a cotton bathrobe that I
absolutely adored. I'd wear that thing all the time on snow days. There was
nothing better for being snowed in and watching cartoons than that bathrobe.
sadly I outgrew it and never replaced it.
But, the problem with talking about loungeware is simply this, its not part of
your image. Image requires there to be an observer. And if no one is there to
observe, it doesn't matter what you're wearing. If we're tlaking about image,
there has to be someone observing you. And its at that point that you might
want to start thinking about what kind of message you're sending.
And that brings me to my other thought that I had. All throughout this board
there has been one phrased repeated and repeated. That phrase is I don't care.
People apparently don't care so hard that they feel the need to read through an
entire board post about image, then get so worked up that they have to
comment about how hard they don't care. That's some aggressive not caring.
Even the OP, who proportedly doesn't care, didn't care so much that it caused a
board post all about image, which is the thing not cared about, to be created
just to demonstrate how hard the op simply doesn't care about the thing the
post is about. That is really some hard core not caring. Its amazing how much
people who don't care about image, feel the need to talk about image. If you
don't care, why are you reading over a hundred posts about it? Do you often
waste that much time on a subject you have no interest in? I know I certainly
don't.
True enough.
I care about image, , but people that don't care are posting because they need assurance that everyone else doesn't care too.
For that reason is why they spend time on topics about image.
I have no problem with people that don't care as long as they don't say I should not care about how they appear to me, or I should say, that I care about image, . .
But if they worry about whether or not other people care, or they wonder why
other people care, they are themselves caring. So can we please drop this
defense of, "Oh no, Cody is saying something that makes one of my fashion
choices seem kinda simplistic and childish, I'd better say that I don't care about
what other people think." Its clearly self-defeating.
I personally wouldn't wear one of those shirts, but if someone wants to spend 20 bucks on it, that's their 20 bucks, so more power to them. Same with actually wearing the thing. Taste in clothes is so subjective that even though I wouldn't wear that, if someone wants to, that's their call.
As for not caring, I totally get your point. Why argue about it if you don't care? But after thinking about it for a minute, I think it boils down to this. Someone not caring what they look like in public isn't necessarily the same as not caring about the discussion itself, or the ideas behind it. They care about their opinions, even if not their image. Not sure that makes sense, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at. Before I write any more nonsense, I think I'm going to go sleep. Been up since five this morning.
Everything is their call, of course. I'm not saying we should pass laws banning
slogan t's or anything. I'm just saying that people, or at least some people, will
think differently of a grown man who walks out of his house wearing a slogan t.
Especially if that slogan t is stupid, which the vast majority of them are.
Some folks just enjoy stupid. Just how it works.
They get a few laughs and that's that.
During the past couple weeks, this thread has really captured my thoughts. I have a couple points to make.
Silver lightning, the one thing a former friend who was, is, and ever shall be a total asshole said to me that made sense was “you can’t stop stupid.” No matter what we think, do, or say, Some people are going to act inappropriately. Just be thankful they aren’t our relatives or co workers.
Image to me is a very shallow term. It just concerns our dress, hair an grooming.
The term I prefer is appearance. It encompasses the entire package. If someone dressed as fashionably as it appears silver lightning does and acts like a total slob, then his image is unimportant. If we look classy we must act in a manner befitting our appearance.
Oh by the way, what do you wear to publics to pick up your food silver? I can’t imagine you wearing shorts a shirt and sandals.
I guess a short story might illustrate what I’m trying to say. back in 08 our son got married in a simple church ceremony. the men wore suits, the ladies in the wedding party had nice long dresses. The bride was dressed in a beautiful simple gown. As the groom’s mom, I chose a purple dress and pumps. Both were approved beforehand by the couple of the hour. The mother of the bride showed up in skintight jeans, cowboy boots, and a very form fitting low cut silver lammay top. ladies, she’d nursed four children and we surely did not need to see those puppys on parade. my husband was the best man. as this vision in appropriate wedding attire entered to be seated, My son leaned over to his dad and whispered “look there’s a hoe at the hoe down.”
being totally ignorant of all this, at the reception after telling her how lovely everything was I asked the M.O.B. since I couldn’t see her, what she had decided to wear. She said “as you know I hate dressing up. I never put on skirts and that shit. I picked the jeans without the holes and a dressy top. I wore it ten years ago at another wedding. Some might have thought it was maybe a little low and tight but I didn’t have time to get anything else. I can’t imagine why my husband, mom and daughter are so upset with me.” “ I said that I wasn’t in a position to have an opinion but if she felt comfortable it probably was ok. also to remember that everyone was nervous and exhausted from all the preparations. My only comment made to myself of course was “what on earth was she thinking and who raised her?”
the church was well decorated. The ladies of the congregation had prepared a lovely reception. Everything was impeccable. The food was some of the best I’ve ever eaten at one of those events. The cake was teriffic. Too bad all that will be remembered by all of us was the vision in cowboy chic.
You may have a point. Appearance might be a better term than image.
Though I think more that your appearance is part of your image. Along with
how you act, your posture, your attitudes, your mannerisms, so on and so forth.
But that's probably just a difference in terminology.
To answer your question, my normal everyday outfit is usually jeans, a t-shirt
if I'm feeling lazy, and usually converse shoes, or if I have plans and want to be
comfortable, a button-front shirt, maybe some chelsea boots or desert boots,
something like that. I"m a big boots guy, though not cowboy boots.
And your story kinda underlines one of my points, people will view you
differently depending on what you wear. Does that mean every sighted person is
good at it, no, but does the fact that a sighted person might be bad mean that
every blind person should be? NO. We, as blind people, have a lot more to
overcome than the general sighted person. So learning how to dress
presentably seems a small task in my opinion.
I am baffled as to why anyone would nitpick the fact that people dress casually at a church--I didn't say anything about people wearing flip flops; I simply said that people dress however they want.
I'm with turricane, in that if God has a problem with it, he sure hasn't shown any of us. Worship is worship, whether you're dressed nicely or dressed in shorts. Because, another piece to this puzzle, is the fact that, believe it or not, some people just don't have really nice clothes to dress in. All they have are shorts or pants. So, in some minds, I guess they should be denied entry to a church because they aren't wearing what someone thinks *has* to be worn in that particular setting.
Well, I've never heard of anyone being barred from entering a church because
of their dress. But I do know that in the church I attended, dressing casually
would have gotten you a whole lot of stares, disapproving glances, and talked
about wildly before and after the service. Granted, not everyone wore Tom Ford
or anything, but everyone back then wore what nice clothes they could. Even if
that meant getting them at the salvation army. Even I admit though, these
days, churches don't really feel like churches to me. On the rare occation that I
attend church, they feel more like a social club to me than a church. But that's
probably just my upbringing.
Now, if its something like a wedding or a ffuneral, assuming its not one that
has a specifically relaxed dress code, then showing up in flipflops would be
extremely rude I think. But that's different than just church.
silver lightning, my husband made a good point. in your generation it is image. in ours it's appearance. guess my age is showing and i'd better tuck it in.
at the risk of starting a fire storm, a statement you made; "We, as blind people, have a lot more to
overcome than the general sighted person." really touched a nerve. " yes, i partially agree with you. we do have to prove ourselves a lot. so do many individuals who see. it's part of the human condition.
many sighted people have as bad hurdles to conquer as do we. theirs are less apparent. inferiority complexes, social anxiety, bad self images, residual effects of abuse, depression, and a lot of other things are universal to both groups. for example fear is a far worse disability than any physical one.
in my high school, there were many kids who lived in mansions but their parents had beach chairs in the living room and the family ate cereal for dinner. external appearance was so important to the so called adults that they bought in to this charade. then they wondered why jimmy or janie never asked friends over. i got invited because it was theorized that i wouldn't notice and couldn't comment.
back when i was a freshman in college i got from both my parents and teachers the whole "you are probably the only blind person a sighted individual will ever meet. therefore you must remember that the weight of all the other blind folks expectations rests on your shoulders." so, if i were treated unfairly i just smiled. if people took stuff from me i just smiled. if my boy friend lied, cheated, or hit me, guess what, i just smiled. did all those millions and millions of blind people benefit? i don't think so. after trying to kill myself, a wise counselor told me and experience showed me that having a good self image, being happy with my accomplishments, helping others, and doing my best in areas that were interesting to me would be far better examples to others.
life is tough. no matter who we are or what our disability is it often sucks big time. it's our decision to determine how we deal with it. do we master life or does life master us?
oh and what is an "average sighted person." If someone put the word "blind" in the sentence you wrote I'd be terribly offended. no one is average. all of us are unique. whank goodness for that!!!
as for church, some of the meanest people I know attend them. some of the nicest folks I know don't. the god in whomi believe doesn't give a hoot and aholler what I wear. he wants to know the condition of my heart not that of my wardrobe. as for people being turned away for dressing inappropriately, unfortunately it happens. my god cries when it does. a friend attends a congregation where they have a ruler on the sanctuary door. if your skirt is too short, you must return home to change. frankly I'd shake the dust of my feet and never return there.
thanks for reading this. guess I've ranted enough. enjoy your day. over and out
I think you misunderstood what I meant by us having more to overcome.
What i mean is that, when we meet someone, often times they assume we're
helpless, or nearly so. I'm sure you've experienced that. So if you dress like you
can't dress yourself well, people's assumptions will be reenforced. I just mean
we have a lot of things to overcome to be on a level playing field. So it seems
rather silly to put yourself even farther back.
As for church, I certainly can't talk to your church specifically, and since I"m a
very well-known atheist you should take this with a spoonful of salt, but I think
I respect a god and a church more if they have some expectation of nicety. I
just feel that there is more ceremony if there is some expectations to be met.
Like, when I went to temples in Vietnam, they expected men to wear long
pants, no shoulders to be exposed, things like that. it gave it more of an air of
respect. Showing up to a building in what you normally wear, not putting any
thought into it, and just expecting god to be ok with that. That, honestly, seems
really disrespectful to me. Like, if I were god, I'd be a little annoyed that you
couldn't even look nice to come to my house. And the churches who have
traditions and ceremonies always seemed more reverent and worshipful. When i
was a baptist, it just seemed like we were there to have fun, until the preacher
started screaming. But when I was Greek Orthodox, the iconography and
symbolism and ceremony made it seem like we were actually worshipping a
powerful being instead of just singing a few songs we all happened to like. But
that's just me, and I have no skin in the game, so my opinion doesn't really
matter at all. if it were up to me I'd close all the churches and give all the
money to charity anyway, so what do I know.
Thinking that a God who is omnipotent would be so petty as to even notice how you dress when you honor him places God as just like you. Whether you believe in God or not, those who do, do not think God is just as small, and petty, as they are.
gentleman I agree with both of you.
silver lightning, your comments on dress are sensible. thanks for clarifying yourself. I feel so much better. they can also apply to sighted folks. for example I have a neighbor who wears a bathrobe almost every day all day. she doesn't understand why folks think she's lazy and not to be taken seriously. she's a beautiful jewelry designer. when she goes to stores to show her stuff to prospective owners who could sell it, they aren't interested. what a shock. so lack of common sense in the fashion department is not just limited to us.
as for church, in the one to which I belong, not my friends, the only expectation and that is not overt or pressed is that god wants our best. it is assumed if you come in wearing a pair of clean jeans and a nice shirt then that's your best. god is not the provence of the rich and famous. he loves us all. therefore if we are clean and dressed in what I described, then that's fine with Him and my particular congregation too. sometime silver I'd love to hear some more about your trip to Vietnam. oh an for the record, again offending will occur so hold on to your temper gentle readers, some Baptists can be the greatest block to believing. too often they are legalistic, and who for heaven sake wants to be screamed at by some preacher. as a child I was yelled at every day. that will not happen on sunday on my watch.
pasco, it is my experience that people put god in a box that makes them most comfortable. if they were raised in a are controlling environment, then he's that way. ditto with angry, prejudiced or fearful. he mirrors our upbringing and experiences. their image of him reinforces their general life outlook and exp.erience I'm not saying this well. grrrr!! anyway again, to me, he's much huger, grander, and more amazing then anything we can imagine. I'm sure I have my limiting of his power. we all do. he just laughs at us and teaches us more stuff.
wel, I don't want this to become a theological debate, so I will let the subject
drop. But one thing you said kinda reflects my point. You said rich and famous
when talking about being well dressed. They're not the same thing, but isn't it
interesting that our minds automatically go to rich and famous when talking
about well dressed people? Kinda evidence for what I'm talking about. The
principle works with other things. Go into a restaurant in a suit, even if its not a
bespoke suit from St James street in London, and people will think you're rich
and famous and treat you accordingly. even if its not true at all.
And that sort of leads back to my point about the grunge dress.
If you are perceived as “rich” or “famous” or both, you can dress in that fashion just so you are clean and your clothing has the correct labels, or appears to be.
If you have an expensive, or good hairdo, and some jewelry on, that appears real, or expensive, these ripped jeans, and T shirts now are stylish.
Show up in the same exact outfit sort of dirty, or dingy looking, you could be a millionaire, but be perceived as nobody with no money.
Even if you aren’t rich, nor famous, how you appear makes a hug difference in what people perceive of you.
Anything dressed up, so to speak, a car, a house, or cabin in the woods.
A yard with pretty flowers, or a park that is well kept simply is more presentable to human nature then the latter.
This includes us, like it or not.
I’ll not tackle the God thing, but church, school, out shopping at the mall all are the same to me.
Sure, outfits may be different, but presentable is best.
Let me add.
It isn't how much your outfit cost, nor even the labels on it, but if it is clean, fits you properly, and you are same.
What type of outfit depends on what you're doing and with who.
you go forereel. you put what all of us have been attempting to say succinctly and clearly!!!
I hope I didn't give the impression that I thought everyone should wear
expensive clothes. I don't, not at all. I think you should wear nice clothes. Nice
and expensive are not necessarily the same thing. Though there are some types
of clothes I think you should spend some coin on in the name of having good
quality. Like shoes.
yes, inadvertently, you did give that impression. however after a long and illustrious life of feet mistreatment I totally am in agreement for shoes. men don't have this problem as much as women. I mean, how many black brown, blue or grey shoes are there. no matter the gender, fewer good quality ones are better in my newly opening world. get a pair of shoes that have good arch support. these aren't as ugly as they used to be. when i was a kid, all I could wear were oxford ties that looked like the wrath of god. when I got to middle school I went on strike and refused to wear those puppies. until recently I have continued refusing to do so. after getting a severe ankle injury, I moved out of that condo on the banks of denial. reality is a bite but I guess I've had to take it.
as much as we blind folk walk, it's far preferable to have a good pair of shoes for that purpose. skechers for example are reasonably priced and attractive. after we arrive at the office, club, or whatever, we can change in to the very fashionable and extremely uncomfortable option.
if we treat our piggy toes like rolls royces they'll act like that car brand for years. if like me, you ladies get sucked in to the high wedges, four inch heels, and ballet flats that cost $9.99 and have no support at all you'll end up hobbling like grandma at my tender age of 59. that's painful for the body and hell on the ego.
Bad shoes? Evil, absolutely evil.
Walk in some bad shoes a day, and you hurt.
Ouch!
We blind people don’t have the luxury of just jumping in the car, and only walking a few steps for things, or most of us don’t, so good shoes in my small rule book or a must.
They’ve actually got beautiful shoes that support your feet. They always have, you just have to shop for them and pay the price asked.
Even women’s shoes with high heels, I’ve seen made in such a way they are comfortable and can even be walked in for distances.
That makes sense after I gave it some thought, because you’ve got models, entertainers, business women, that need to be dressed, and their shoes can’t be pinching their toes and such nonsense.
They’d rebelled and were socks only, or sneakers.
On hot days, they might even just paint their toes to match the outfit and go barefoot at work.
Laughing.
I’m a classic girl when it comes to shoes, and I’ve got several pairs in different colors, and styles, but you didn’t read me saying that, right?
Shoes make the outfit, and your feet love you better when put in the right pair.
I totally agree, good shoes are a must, even for things like sneakers. Who
wants to be buying new sneakers every three months, and not having really
comfortable ones anyway. Buy good shoes. They last longer.
Yes Cody, you did come across like that in your post. That's why my previous response to this topic was as it was.
Regarding shoes, shoes are everything--if they don't fit right or feel right, they aren't right. No ifs, ands or buts.
Never, never, never purchase used shoes. They form to the first users feet, and will never fit correctly.
the only way I have ever bought used shoes was one time I found some gorgeous dressy ones in the original box with the paper in them and the price tag on the box. I asked the owner of the store and she said the woman brought them in because she was dumped at the altar and wouldn't ever wear them. since I'm married and not superstitious the $3.99 price for the $100.99 shoes came home with me.
SilverLightning asked: If I don't care about image then why would I start a topic about image?
Asexual people aren't sexually attracted to anyone, but some of them still felt the need for a website where they could discuss sex and what it's like to live in a world full of people who experience sexual attraction. Atheists discuss religions they don't believe in, autistic people talk about so-called normal behaviors that they don't understand and on here we talk about visual experiences we don't have. In general, an atheist won't care about pleasing God, an asexual won't desire sex and a blind person won't be motivated to come outside by the nice sunset. It's pointless. But we discuss it all anyway.
I guess I brought this topic up for two reasons: First, I wanted to know if other people experienced something similar. It has no name, so I did my best to describe what I wasn't feeling. Second, sometimes it's fun to stir up the Petri dish and watch the reactions. Some people gave me more insight into this motivation that I don't quite understand. Others made all kinds of assumptions about me, for example that I don't bathe. All of those answers caused me to think about how other people think.
Yes, but atheists are negatively impacted by religions, asexual people are
negatively impacted by sexual cultural norms, and autistic people are negatively
impacted by social expectations of normalcy. So it makes sense for them to
form a group that would discuss their given situations. Are you saying you're
negatively impacted by your lack of fashion? If so, I can refer you to many
places where you might be able to begin changing that.
No, that's not what I'm saying and I think you already know that. It was meant as an analogy. I've participated in all those discussions, so you haven't explained anything I don't already know.
I'll use asexuality again. Sometimes, all people want is to discuss how weird sex is to them and how they find themselves in conversations they don't really understand. They want to be able to say "I don't get why people are so obsessed with sex" and be told they aren't alone. It's not always about the heavy stuff. There are humor threads that people in the same situation can laugh at and contribute to. Blind people do this too.
So I think I had a legitimate reason to bring it up and it's not that I "don't care really hard," as you put it. It's to see if there's anyone here like me who doesn't grok this stuff.
And since you brought it up, I'll turn the question around: Why are you still on this thread?
Good post Voyager. Point taken.
Ah, ok, I get what you're trying to say. As for me, I'm still on here cuz I like
talking about this sort of thing, and I think we've had some good discussion on
this board.
I agree with you. It's been interesting and I've enjoyed it.
someone here said something about not going out to appreciate the sunset. guys, what happened to our imaginations. yes, I have never seen a sunset. as I listen to the awe filled vivid descriptions of those who have I can imagine in my head what it is like. then, I am filled with amazement and wonder. if you ask, many people withphysical sight and a fairly well developed vocabulary are happy proud and thrilled to pass on their impressions of sunsets, high mountains, or how well the football uniforms fit the players butts. learning this stuff isn't that important or maybe that interesting, but it sure spices up my life. especially the football uniform descriptions.
Well butts in football pants don't do a thing for me, but I get your point. LOL Much rather hear about female butts myself, now that's an image!
In that case, I suggest getting a descriptively talented sighted person and
watching olympic diving. Its enough to give a munk a hard on.
But I agree with the idea that we don't need to cast aside visual things simply
because we can't quote-unquote see them. For example, I had a conversation
with a blind woman who told me that she's tired of being asked what she looks
like, because she has no idea what she loks like. Now, I didn't say this in the
conversation, but that's absolutely preposterous. I know what I look like. I could
describe myself in rather good detail if I wanted to. I might not be able to tell
you precisely what shade of brownish-blonde my hair is, or what exactly the
amber color on my eye color chart means, but I can describe myself. Just like, I
might not be able to see the colors of the sunset, but I can still enjoy sunsets in
other ways. And I can't tell you what color my shirt is today, but I know I'm well
dressed and presentable.
I simply don't understand this idea that we, as intelligent blind people of the
modern age, can't engage in a sighted world. By that logic we should never go
to plays, because plays are somewhat visual, and sighted people should never
go to symphonies, because they're not visual. And blind people should never
attend a ballet. It makes no sense to me.
I'm not the fashionable type like Cody is but I agree with him and Turricane on this regarding our imagination. We're not so much blind as trans-sighted: a sighted person living in a blind body. We have, and use, all the visual software and firmware, even some of the hardware -- the visual cortex of the brain. Humans and other apes are exceptionally spatial visual creatures.
Visual doesn't always mean caring about fashion. Voyager, there are things you see in code, for instance, that leave you with the impression the developer didn't know what they were doing. Bad indentation, any number of things, which actually are visual.
Anything we call code readability, well, that's visual. Fashion nuts don't have a corner on the visual market. Try showing up to an interview for a software engineering position dressed like a power broker in a 3-piece suit. Fashion nuts and HR types, people who couldn't build a bridge if their lives depended upon it, will be delighted. But anyone who has been in engineering for any length of time will think you a poseur.
Being once a seeing person, Cody, you are right on.
Blind people really can describe themselves, and description from the right person can bring something to you.
We can actually feel a concept and it be close, or true.
Though I agree in the main, I must admit ballet does nothing for me.
I'm glad people have brought up the fact that just because we're blind, doesn't mean we don't use our imaginations, for things we can't visually see. To say that we don't go outside because of a sunset, or something along those lines, is just plane ignorant. I for one love hearing people's descriptions of things, in combination with using my own imagination, cause it opens up my world so much more, as turricane said. I don't need to understand or be able to conceptualize how it actually looks to a sighted person; it's more a matter of doing what I can to integrate myself into their world as much as I can, and being willing to find ways to do that. (Having them describe things like sunsets, facial expressions, clothes, ETC, are just a few ways I as a blind person, can and do spice up my life).
As to a face, you can actually feel the expression on your own, or with your face muscles as you are doing one.
If you are close to someone, you can ask them to allow you to see what it is like when they do differet expressions too.
I haven't been to one of these but do read the email about if you can't get around in the hotel for the convention or if you need somebody to push a wheelchair for you, bring an attendant. My question is are there people at the NFB and ACB conventions who do have attendants with them? The emails seem pretty firm about don't expect our volunteers to get you to your room. In other words, am wondering about bad experiences volunteers have had with being taken advantage of by people and wonder about how many people at those conventions use attendants. Know this has been off topic but close enough to people caring about image and how they come across to others.
You can bring whatever you require. You pay to go, so you do as you please.
leo, hre is a funny story for you. back in the 80s I tookmy husband and another couple who were sighted on a tour of the world weather building. this is where at that thime the huge cray computers lived that did the forecast models which fortel our meteorological future. rick and Margaret worked for ibm. so I thought hey, they'll be blown away by all this computer power. on the way out I asked them what they thought of our little excursion. Margaret said "it really upset me." i asked why and she said "the employees here are wearing polo shirts and khakis. can you imagine?" i said well it is Saturday. she said that since she worked in the shirt and tie model ibm had at that time that she thought these people weren't taking their jobs seriously.
as for descriptions, i just got back from a wonderful afternoon at a local lake. my friend is a retired schoolteacher. she described in vivid detail the beautiful colors of the leaves. she said one was all dressed up in yellow and it was so pretty she wanted to bow down and worship it. on the way home she described how this road we were on was on a cliff and you could look way over the housetops and building and trees to see the water in Bellingham bay. she painted such vivid pictures. i could see what she was talking about in my mind's eye.
I must admit, the face feeling thing makes me queasy. It is such a blindness stereotype. I have all too often had people ask me if I want to feel their faces. No, not particularly. Now, with a lover, perhaps, but feeling the faces of strangers or even casual acquaintances just seems weird to me.
ppasco, eeeew!!!!!! being asked by a sighted person if i want to touch their face makes me extremely queasy too. when I attended the school for the blind there were kids who wanted to do that all the time. since it was something that never occurred to me to do, it kind of creeped me out. thank goodness, when staff saw them do this, they were firmly disciplined. we were told that our bodies are our personal space, private, and touching people was inappropriate. in fact it would make most people feel very uncomfortable. since I attended that place until grade seven, i'm sure that as students aged the message was deeper. that's what little kids were told and it stuck on me to this day.
like you said pasco, if it is your spouse or a lover that's a different thing. for others, they think they are being so sensitive and caring. to me, it's a sign of shallowness.
more to the point, why do sighted people care that we know how they look? our character is much more important then is our physical appearance. skin color, facial features, weight, all that stuff to me is not important. if I walk with someone sighted guide and their upper arm is huge, it's interesting but that's all. honestly, I don't care about others' dress but I do care about my own. yes, silver lightning, that is logically inconsistant.
when I was pregnant with our daughter, a friend and I used to eat frequently at a place called the beautiful day café. unfortunately it is no more, which is sad as it was a real old time hippie hang out. back in the '80s a vegetarian restaurant was rare indeed. the food was also great. anyway one of the women who worked behind the counter was also pregnant. in fact our due dates were the same. every time we saw each other, we talked in detail about this fascinating, to us, subject. both of us had one child who was close in age to the new arrival. she was having a home birth, which at the time was pretty radical back east, and i thought she was totally amazing.
One day, after we left, my friend said how can you talk to her? she has a snake tattoo on her arm!!!! reptiles are creepy!!!! I'd never have one in my house let alone on my person. I asked her what the big deal was? she was kind, interesting, and in the milieu where we were it was appropriate. often I wonder what ever happened to her. she quit work to stay at home with both her kids, i was raising two children almost 15months apart and we lost touch.
When I was in college, this one person asked me twice whether or not I wanted to feel her face. I was like: “Have you been watching too much television, or what?” Because anytime some TV program had a blind character in it, one of the tropes was having that blind person feel someone’s face. It was embarrassing even to watch that display, but that incident in college was the first time I’d ever been subject to it myself. Way not cool, and way unseemly.
I once had a teacher grab both my wrists and rub my hands over her face.
No, would you like to, not, by your leave. Just grabbed my hands and went,
"this is what I look like." To this day that thought creeps me out.
Leo, you made me laugh because you reminded me of some ugly source code I was reviewing the other day that had mixed spaces and tabs. Then there was the time in college where I had to code in a group, and my partners decided to cram several complicated tasks into one big function. It had about 30 if/else clauses if you counted all the nested stuff. Even worse, they made it quote "return" several results by passing in and modifying a bunch of pointer arguments. I strongly suggested that they split this monster up into several functions, but they didn't listen. It never worked.
Y'all are right that I can imagine and enjoy certain spatial aspects of the sunset, but I can't imagine color. I enjoy thinking about how the light rays have to pass through the atmosphere at different angles as the earth moves and that probably changes the colors people see. I like hearing my friend talk about clouds. He describes how high they are, how fast they're moving, what they're shaped like and how he can tell if they're rain clouds. But that's still thinking in terms of space, motion and frequency, not color. My mind cannot do color, and it's not because I haven't tried. Color names to me might as well be "mumble mumble mumble."
I really do enjoy descriptions of the things I can imagine, but my mind seems to favor actual first-hand sensory experience over mere words. Things I can touch, smell or hear often seem much more real and meaningful to me. I'm thinking of the time a friend and I were walking through a parking lot at night. He was commenting on the night sky, and I became distracted by the smell of oil on the ground. I wasn't trying to ignore him, but the smell was real and the sky wasn't.
SilverLightning, how is what I said about the sunset like saying sighted people should skip symphonies? Sighted people are perfectly capable of hearing a symphony, so it is a real experience for them. I'm not capable of seeing a sunset, so it's not real to me.
I'm not as opposed to feeling faces as some of you because I don't think in terms of lover versus not, but I still have to trust this person. I prefer them to be smart enough to understand why I'm doing it. I don't think of you and your face as being almost synonymous like sighted people seem to. I might touch because I'm curious about bone structure and other differences between people and the expressions the muscles can make. Some people have probably felt more like I was taking measurements, than seeing them.
I admit, that metaphor wasn't perfect, but I think the other two got the
message across well enough for my purposes.
voyager, you must be an engineer ro computer programmer. besides allusions you've made to that, your description of being fascinated with the light rays passing through the earth's atmosphere being more interesting than their colors kinda gave you away. my husband would say exactly the same thing. color is meaningless to him. so, I just buy him mix and match everything makes our lives easier.
I have never, ever understood people wanting me to feel their face. In fact, that's one of the few things that really irks me--I know what faces feel like, and like Turricane, I view that sort of thing as incredibly shallow, when it's strangers or even close friends that we're talking about.
chelslicious, right o!!! you go girl. the last time someone asked me this was about six months ago. at first I was really annoyed. then I remembered this is the woman that will buy any age reducing wrinkle removing sking fixing make up on the market. she told me that she has two linen closets. one is devoted to her cosmetics. since she's a dear lovely person who is one of my closest friends out here in the great nnorthwest, I just chalked it up to something that in her world was important. she thought she was doing the kindest thing she could think of. so I said nope. thanks so much. your heart is beautiful so who cares about your face?
on the other hand.... there is a woman I know at church who is crazy. she will come up to me without permission and tuck the tag in that back of my shirt in if it is out less than 1/16 of an inch. a friend who saw this said to her it couldn't be seen. when she sees me she will straighten my hair. for the record it is combed the way I like it. i'm a neat clean person. anyway if in her world one strand is out of place she will rearrange it. sometimes it's not the way i want it. so after she leaves, i put it back correctly. at a retreat we went to, she sat at my table. after they served our food she looked at me and said in this carrhying firm voice " stop!!!! you can't eat that!!!!. of course the six other women all of whom I know well who sat my table looked at her and said her food is fine what is your problem? she said, I swear to this on a stack of bibles, "her dish is off center." I asked by how much and she said "an eighth of an inch. you can't eat it like that." I just smiled at her and said "Loraine, honey, watch and learn." It looked fine to me. I ate every bite and enjoyed it thoroughly. that kind of crap is a lot more annoying then someone asking me about the face. that problem is solved immediately lovely Loraine is a frequent issue. at my age I still haven't mastered a kind loving way to tell her to go bite herself and leaveme alone.
Touching faces, eeeewww! Never had that asked of me, thank the force. And I hate touchy feely shit like that. Ever meet a blind person who comes up and says hello? Who's this? And they put their hands all over your shirt and stuff.
Wow Turricane, sounds like the woman you're describing may have OCD. I'm not even kidding, or making some sarcastic jab at her. That kind of attention to detail, and the feeling that you can't do whatever activity if the detail is slightly off, would speak of something like OCD to me. Not that I'm a doctor, that's just what it made me think of when I read your post.
To B in post 163, yes, some people do have attendants at convention if that's what they need. I know some people who are deaf-blind will bring an SSP (Support Service Provider) with them. But it's up to each individual to do this. They know their own needs, and are responsible for making sure those needs are met, just as they are in any activity or event they go to in life.
As for feeling faces, that has always creeped me out, and I don't do it, with the exception of someone I'm with romantically. Even then, it's done as a gesture of affection, not because I don't know what they look like. The worst experience I ever had with this was when I was about 12 years old. A friend's Mom grabbed my hands without saying anything, put them on her face, and started moving them around. I immediately jerked my hands away, and, very shaken up, demanded to know what she was doing. She seemed surprised by my reaction, and said she was only trying to show me what she looked like. After all, wasn't I curious about it, and isn't this how I did it with everyone? With all the bluntness of a 12-year-old, I told her on no uncertain terms that no, I couldn't care less what she looked like, no I never did this with anyone, and didn't want her ever touching me again. It wasn't sexual or anything, but it was a definite invasion of my space, and though I stayed friends with this particular girl, I never went over to her house again.
It isn't shallow for sighted people to think we might be interested in what faces look/feel like. It might well be misguided or ignorant, but not shallow. No more than feeling clothing/neatness/image/insert your choice here
are important.
Smells, sounds, touch, these are all just sensory experiences that we find attractive, repellant or somewhere in between and act upon our responses.
Sighted people might want to be "seen" by us. I've often wondered what it is like for a sighted person who is in a relationship with someone who can't see him/her, what it is like to not have eye contact, to never be "seen". These things are so
intrinsic to the sighted world.
That all being said, I agree that it is a great trespass on personal space to force face feeling on someone.
Some really really beautiful music has been written for ballet.
Even if you don't like classical music, please do yourself a favor if you're a lifer
and totally blind.
Listen to the following two works:
The Grand Canyon Suite.
Can't remember who did this, but you have everything from morning through
trail work through an afternoon thunderstorm and finally a sunset.
Beethoven's "Pastoral" or 6th symphony.
No, it's not a religious work. "Pastoral" means shepherding. Ludwig Van
Beethoven was advised by his doctor to retire to the country in order to heal
himself. I can't remember if he had tuberculosis or what. But he wrote this
symphony in the country.
You have German woods which still existed in the 19th century ( to a point).
Actually Austrian, sorry. And you've got a thunderstorm and a waterfall.
I've never seen light in my life, but works like these can really help you get a
feel for the varied colors and patterns people who can see experience. Of
course, if you've never seen, you won't have the same emotional reaction to
colors as sighted people do. And every sighted person I've ever known does,
even those who say they don't care about color or image, or dismissively say
things "Look fine". You can catch them red-handed on a beach during a
spectacular sunset having all of the emotions of the artiste while taking in the
color pallet. Hang out with people who are watching the moon and stars. I don't
mean scientific stargazers, though that is cool too. I mean people who are
staring in wide-eyed wonder at the immense spray of tiny points of light we call
the Milky Way, or watching the moon arch across the sky, "hide" behind a tree,
and "pop out again".
The natural environment for the human ape to be walking about in is rife with
colors and shades of colors, a great many of which stimulate quite the
emotional reaction.
leo guardian great works of classical music you pointed out. wish I could remember who wrote the grand canyon suite. although i could ask syrie i'm too lazy to do so. anyway, anyone can get it off the internet. it's worth the listen.
when I was in middle school we had a chorus teacher who every Friday would suspend the singing. He'd make us sit quietly and listen to music. he wanted us to imagine what the music made us feel. sharing was not mandatory, but many of us did. the grand canyon suite was one of the ones he chose. we also got exposed to everything from blues to indian dancing. it was a totatlly worthwhile way to spend time.
oh and he was one heck of a teacher. for the first time, when I was in 9th grade, we went to the county choir championships. we didn't win, but it was the first time our school was there.
you are a wonderfully intelligent man, who I respect a great deal. do me a favor and take a suggestion for a former home school teacher whose mother was a librarian. a person who writes or performs music of any kind is an artist. an artiste is a bare back rider, tight rope walker or an exotic dancer. just thought I'd point this out.
You can't actually tell what a person looks like by feeling faces. What I'm suggesting is how expressions look.
Feeling faces to tell beauty doesn't work.
Even if a face is smooth, and all, it night not look beautiful to one person, but interesting to another.
Leo, though I agree with you that Bethoven's 6th, and the Grand Canyon Suite are beautiful pieces of music, they were not written as ballets. Some' ballets are coreographed to existing pieces of music, and some are written together. Ballet music can be beautiful, but sometimes is not because it is changed or extended for the purposes of the dance performance. The Nut Cracker Suite is an example. The original was fairly short with all the wonderful movements most everyone recognizes. The ballet version is four times longer with much that is not particularly interesting without the dancing.
For the person who wrote about guys coming up and feeling you while asking who is this, don't permit it. It is a person taking advantage of' their blindness to cop a feel. They always start at the chest hoping it is a female. This is almost exclusively a male behavior.
I just don't get that. I'd think that would be a severe invasion of the space bubble. Someone did that to me, they'd get what to my mind would be a well-deserved clout, or at least a few stinging words. But then, I don't like being messed with without permission, so I guess I'm not so nice at times.
That is exactly right that when people touch your person, it's likely a male trying to see if he can feel a woman up.
Regarding sighted people wanting blind people to feel their faces not being shallow, V8, I'd appreciate it if you didn't invalidate other's feelings. You don't have to agree with us, but in my mind and the minds of others, it is extremely shallow. Here is why: because, whoever is asking me to feel their face, most likely has other odd/unpleasant things about them, that make them stand out in a not-so-good way. Because the reality is that most human beings don't ask if I wanna do such a thing. Also, people who want me to feel their face wouldn't ask a sighted person to feel their face, and if they used the brain that they were blessed with, and stop to think for just a second, they'd realize that all faces feel the same, and perhaps that as blind people, we don't give a crap what they look like from a visual standpoint.
A small point of contention. I’m not sure I’d call it shallow necessarily, but I would call it playing to stereotype. So, so many times I’ve seen sitcoms or movies with blind characters in them, and the first thing the blind character would ask is whether or not he or she can feel this or that person’s face. What I’d like to know is where did the idea actually come from that this is something we’d be expected to either want to do or have others ask if we wanna do it? It’s ludicrous. It’s invasive. It’s embarrassing. Frankly, it’s so not normal, it’s beyond the pale. It’s a stereotype, but I’m not sure even where it may have originated. Any takers on this one?
Johndy, you asked a question I've long wondered about. The feeling face thing is so ludicrous, I have no idea where the stereotype even originated. with many stereotypes that exist, I can tell where they started, even if I disagree with the stereotype itself. But not this one.
It's probably just something that sighted people thought up, therefore, it's true. You know, one of those things where they were so off-the-wall in their thinking because they were solely focused on what they would want/how they would want things to be, that they couldn't even fathom what it's *actually* like for actual blind people.
I haven't read all the posts, just wish to contribute a few thoughts. Agree, disagree, ignore, whatever...
It can be easily guessed that they have watched others do it. I have seen it in film, in Mask and Scent of a Woman, other movies. You can find depictions of blindness in art, music, all across history. It’s all throughout literature as well, from ancient to modern, and not unique to our times. One depiction of this is the biblical story where Isaac, old and blind, is tricked by Jacob who has clothed himself with animal fur to feel like his hairy brother Esau. On this basis I don’t find it unusual one bit. I think face-feeling behavior has been going on among the blind for a really long time. Some consent to it while others don’t. But I might be speaking from ignorance because I wasn’t born blind and haven’t really looked into this subject. I haven’t experienced the kinds of things mentioned on this board, though one thing I would strongly frown upon is having my hands forced on someone’s face. I wouldn’t object if someone wanted to feel what I look like.
I agree with post 173. But you don’t have to be asexual. Being asked if I’d like to examine an ugly mug isn’t such a terribly odd question, or one that ought to be considered prurient. I have been on few occasions and was grateful. Other times I stated that a brief description would suffice, that is, if I wasn’t curious enough. But I have to stress that how you think of personal space depends a lot on your culture.
I have no idea if it is because I was once sighted but, for me personally, touching somebody’s face helps me get a better mental picture of their physical appearance. When I feel that they have a dimple on their chin, or a large high forehead, or even an oval face or square jaw, these tangible proofs corroborate my impressions of them as serious types, intelligent or complete goofs. Descriptions alone carry the same effect but can fall short if articulated poorly. For example, someone who describes him or herself as having bad posture, or gap-toothed, small details like this may elicit a chuckle because my head is full of many cartoon-like grotesque images that I can recall at the mere utterance of such words.
I’m no phrenologist but I do believe that knowing such things about a person’s appearance adds to your overall impression of them. Whether they’re noble, intimidating, mischievous, handsome or attractive isn’t tangible, except through in/direct interactions with them. The upside is the more you know about them, the more equal the footing to them if you happen to engage in friendly teasing. This way you have ammo when they joke about your hawkish nose and monobrow. I used to draw caricatures but I can’t joke very well about appearances anymore.
I still experience the strong impulse to visually size up a person whose voice catches my attention. To be clear, it’s nothing romantically or sexually motivated. A languid tone, some elderly woman’s cough, or an angry shout that’s decrepit and hoarse…they flood my brain with mental images of faces I’ve seen in the past. My mind instantly selects facial features at random, trying to create a facial composite of that stranger on the bus as if I were a forensic sketch artist. This can be painfully overwhelming and frustrating at times.
So I believe it’s unfair to make a snap judgment about sighted people and write them off as shallow or overly focused on appearance simply because they assume people who are blind might want to know what they look like. I’m sure there are those rare cases who are trying to take advantage, but the majority isn’t. I'm not accusing anyone on here of judging sighted people this way, but some posts did come close. Anyway, what this says to me is that their brain thrives on such stimuli, an impulse that makes none blameworthy. Your self-image or persona, masks for all you disciples of Jung out there, isn’t something that should dominate your every thought and action but it does shape your dealings with others. Take children as an example. I have been around children, or babies who search my face for acknowledgement of any kind. They feel rejected if their antics are overlooked. They learn it from birth, so I believe it’s in sighted people’s nature to get visual feedback, a grin, a raised fist showing solidarity.
Their response to the fact that this one aspect of their way of viewing and understanding the world is inaccessible to a blind person makes them seek an alternative, similar to that old Indian anecdote about six blind men touching an elephant and each gaining different opinions about the animal, or truth. When a person is deprived of knowledge, or when they are looking for something that is right under their nose, and if you were nearby and saw the solution was right in front of them, your first impulse would be to point it out to them or walk them through until they reached their objective.
I sincerely believe that the motive behind most such sighted people is like that of museum curators who allow blind visitors to touch the displays. The way I see it, they are trying to show us something that’s a part of our world but that we can’t see, and the fact that we will probably only grope a small part of it doesn’t stop them from wanting to show it to us. They are doing for us what all those sculptors from ancient times had in mind when they chiseled figures out of stone. They had all the future generations in mind whose curiosity would wish to know what such and such emperor looked like. Or to tell the world of their gods or their king’s greatness. They had the power in their hands to not deprive future generations of their own contribution to civilization.
So what they are doing is very normal and very human. And I’m not saying they think of themselves on the same level as David and Mona Lisa. They’re responding to the human impulse to want to share what they know and what they learn, what they see and value, and they expect others to act upon their curiosity similarly. It’s what makes people snap photos and capture their image for posterity. I say this as someone who at one time could appreciate the appearance of things in the visible world. If the description is sufficiently enticing, I know what, why and when I would reach out for an object to tangibly get what I could out of it. I’m not sure if someone who’s never seen can have their curiosity stimulated the same way. Feel free to educate me.
Also, I don’t see how a person whose impulses tell him or her to value and appreciate beauty and expects, even wishes that others do the same automatically means they consider the heart and inner beauty worthless. Most people consider them inseparable. Physical beauty is part of the whole package, and that your appreciation for it may cause others to suspect you of objectifying them is really sad. And I bet that superficial beauty isn’t even what’s on the minds of most people who ask you to feel their face. Overemphasizing the soul or heart or whatever term you wish to use just to devalue the physical and demonize those who have a healthy opinion of their own looks is unnecessary. Like someone else on here said, beauty is open to interpretation. I don’t think sighted people who ask to have their faces felt are egoists, or superficial deviants with mutant-like features.
Let me make clear that I think it’s a violation to have your hands forced on someone’s face. I’m not defending or excusing this type of behavior. I’m only trying to better understand and explain why we might be asked.
When I had just lost my sight, some of my relatives and friends would grab my shoulders, hold my arm, or hold my hands when they’d talk to me. It was their way of compensating for lack of eye contact, and their actions helped me appreciate the effect my blindness was having on them. Nowadays I rarely notice it.
each of us is different. if you want to know where the blind feeling face thing comes from in movies and tv watch the miracle worker with audio description.
chelslicious you go. couldn't have said it better myself.
Raskolnikov
,your message was interesting and thought provoking. although I sure don't agree with it, I value your experience and understand what motivates you to feel as you do.
here are a couple thoughts you might want to consider. hope these make sense.
as we all know our sense of touch is similar to vision. there are many things that sighted people would not do because they are an invasion of privacy.
would you as a sighted male sneak in to the ladies room, hide in a stall, look under the divider with a mirror and watch me pee? since I don't know you, I surely hope the answer is a resounding "no!!!"
the reaction we have to feeling people's faces is personal and strong. to me it's an invasion of privacy.
if I want to know what a cartoon character looks like, i'll go to toys 'r us and ask to look at an action figure. if I need to know what hawk nosed is, i'll look it up in the dictionary. if that definition isn't good enough for me, i'll go to my nature center where I know they have stuffed birds and ask if I might please see a hawk.
oh, and if any of you gentlemen try to touch my body, i'll say this "do that again, and i'll break your fingers." it's been a long while since I was aware that male blind creepazoids did that. it had been hoped that such a socially unacceptable behavior had experienced a well deserved demise.
To add to Turricane's last two posts, not only is face-feeling an extreme violation of my privacy, but it's highly offensive because the sighted person in question is assuming he/she knows what is best for me. I think a lot more thought on the sighted person's side goes into it than Raskolnakov thinks--I'm not attacking that view, just saying that I don't agree with it at all. Because the reality is that the first thing sighted people think is "Oh bless your heart, you can't see what I look like...so here, let me show you by letting you touch all over my face!" Never mind the fact that we don't even want to touch their face, which brings me to another part of this: consent. That is a thing, believe it or not. I don't consent to touching people's faces, yet, I'm forced to do so anyway, because they want me to/think they're doing me a huge favor, ETC. No thank you!!
Turricane, point well taken.
Now, as to the face feeling thing: I've not been asked, though I would decline. But on another forum I joked that some people must be drop dead beautiful / gorgeous, and I am merely average, hence they have been asked and I have not. Again, not something I would comply with, and I think personal space is pretty damned important.
Interestingly in the 80s, I read an article by someone who had been kept hostage by some drug lords in Colombia for years. One of the things they did was just invade his space without him knowing it. Not always kick or beat him, just get into his space. Oh, and he was blindfolded for the duration of his captivity.
That should tell anyone in doubt how important personal space, as small as that might be at times, surely is.
I can see and understand Raskolnikov
points because I was also visual once.
Sure, you need permission, or someone should ask if you'd like to feel a face not force it on you, but we asw blind people need to give a little understanding sometimes in these areas.
Just say no thanks.
I don't ask if I can feel faces, and if I'm not intimately interested in a person, I have no desire, but I understand why the concept is here.
Now, I'm ready to check out all your faces. I'll take the guys first please!
Laughing.
of course being raised right I smile sweetly and say "no thanks." thank goodness miy skull isn't transparent. the person who did the asking would not like to read mythoughts!!!
Oh, if I'm asked, I decline politely, and try to nicely explain why I don't do that, nor do any of the blind people I know. I explain why this is a misconception started by the media in movies and books. The only reason I got the way I did about it in the incident I described was because I was not asked, it was done for me without my consent. But like Turricane, I'm polite on the outside, and thankful that someone can't read my thoughts while I make that nice answer.
No one said anything about being mean to those who want us to feel their faces, but then again, that would depend on the situation. If, for example, people get rude to me and insist that I feel their face, I'm gonna tell them in no uncertain terms that they need to buzz off and respect my boundaries. If they accept them immediately, of course I'll stay nice. When it comes to my boundaries not being respected though, sometimes there is no being nice.
The fashion people won't like this, but fashion (beyond simply keeping the sun and cold
off our hairless ape selves) is, and likely always has been, about status. Even before
clothes, prehistoric people painted their bodies to express status. Clothes simply
became the new medium for prehistoric hunters to show off the tiger teeth or the
medicine man has his staff with owl feathers or whatever.
As societies developed, classes of people become identified by distinctive clothes. In
the late 1800s in America, and I assume in Britain, a gentleman never came downstairs
in his own home without his shirt and tie, shoes and slacks. He didn't entertain guests or
come to the dinner table without his jacket. Only a workman digging a ditch or laying
bricks would be seen working with his shirt off, and not in the presence of women. Only
poor farmers or the lowest laboCome mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.rers ventured into town not properly dressed in the
same suit they wore to church.
As late as the 1960s, no gentleman went outside without a hat. It was a near scandal
that John Kennedy went around harmless in public "like a ditch digger".
So societies almost always have class based dress codes. My son works as a scribe in
a medical clinic. The doc he works for is notoriously casual. He wears golf shirts and
cargo pants or Dockers at work, and never wears a white coat. When my son inquired,
doc, himself a product of working class parents who got educated, mom a teacher, grew
up in a casual home. He said he actually tried wearing jeans and tee shirts at work, but
patients were confused, and didn't take him seriously. Rightly or wrongly, we use clothes
to indicate status.
But blind community outfits go too far to kiss the proverbial ring. I was astounded that a
major FL rehab outfit basically used the blind students as props for fundraisers. The
news article would read "spring formal a big hit with donors". The accompanying photo
invariably posed a blind couple alongside the director, all looking like they'd just come
from a state dinner at the white house.
Thats marketing, like posing an Indian chief in a top hat to depict him civilised.
I'm sorry, but to me, if the event is created FOR the blind, I'm not expecting the blind
attendees to be all wound up with their panties in a twist if another blind guest has blue
sneakers and no socks. As long as his feet don't drink, I applaud him if he is
comfortable. If Jeanie shows up in a tee shirt and jeans, wearing a scarf, its all good if
she likes it..... I got nobody to impress, least of all with clothes.
Oh shit that got scrambled. Android better!
Well, I'm certainly curious about the drinking feet! lol
BTW, Northcountryguy, sounds like you and Leo might hit it off.
Yeah. Drinking feet? Is that a new thing?
Laughing.
I didn't like autocorrect when I could see. It's a real pain now. And has a sanity problem.
Stinking becomes drinking, and just now Android tried to become rhinoceros. Wtf
Google?
Ah, but we were teasing you in good fun.
It wasn't mean.
T-shirt and jeans here. Nothing fancy schmancy.
We just moved, and I realize I have suits into which I am definitely too fat these days.
Now when we had an explosion here in Portland, I was deployed as a responder. Two buildings clean gone save rubble and flames, one building with its façade so blown off rubberneckers could stand there and marvel at how much it looked like a dollhouse inside. One apartment building blown to shit enough its occupants couldn't return, although still standing enough that many wanted to, and thought they could.
For pants, shirt and jacket, I always wear my
Coast Guard issue operations uniform with the patches removed since I'm unauthorized now to wear the true uniform since I'm not with them anymore. But over that we responders all wear orange, and I do mean bright orange, vests along with hard hats and boots.
This young 20-something pointed out how "ugly and icky" the vests looked, and I told her: "Not all image is about being dainty and pretty. some, like what we're in now, is to let you know who we are, and what we're about to do." We were there to keep rubberneckers from getting themselves too close to the smoldering remains, and had our packs on with basic-issue gear for responding. I'm not a medical, but I had my pry bars and radio gear.
We talk about image as though it was all about looking cool. Sometimes it is: If you're paying $200 or more for some formal dinner where you're there to be seen, you have to show up in alpha male / lay off single mothers getup. These days if or when I need that, I go rent it; all pressed, starched and looking exactly the costume you need. I look at it like a Halloween costume or something.
But for real, you'll learn what image actually means if or when you ever put on a uniform, strap on a pack, and people look to you because they need assistance. Then you're out of playacting faux alpha male territory and now you're playing for keeps.
With two buildings completely destroyed, an apartment building full of rubble and its occupants milling around in the surrounding area, we kinda needed to stand out, for real. It's not how you look only, but how you act. And I'm not talking little miss manners pampered poodle shit either. It's a pretty gentrified area, a few blocks from my house actually, so we were looking at pampered poodles turned into bedraggled mongrels in a few hours. We're all the same, they all wanted to stand around and watch the show, see what we and the officials from the government were doing. I for one didn't blame them. Just had to keep some of them from getting their nose where it didn't belong. You'd be very surprised how close some people will try to get to an open gas pipe, smoldering remains or a hot line, saying "It looks ok!"
Plus they all want to be on the news, and some of them did make it. Google explosion Portland Oregon, watch some videos and you can hear them tell you all about how it was for them.
Someone earlier said image has to do with status, and in fact for the shallower kind, it does. But it also has to do with identification, which is what I'm referring to. And honestly, then is when it matters for real. As I said earlier, you put on a uniform / vest / identification / gear of some kind, you're playing for keeps now. Not the "Mine is bigger than yours" games often associated with what many refer to as image.
Well stated.
There is probably something in the idea that our ideas about fashion are
based on class. I don't agree to it entirely, but it has merit in certain situations.
However, good luck struggling against that. Show up to a job interview in jean
shorts and a Miller Lite T-Shirt, let me know how that goes for you.