So, …..

She headed into the changing room to try on a new pair of the sunglasses modern decency now required, heaven forbid that someone of the opposite sex to whom she was not married glimpse her eyes, even though the difference, if any, between male and female eyes was at best impossible to discern, although admittedly there might be differences in shape and lashes.

She was a mature woman, now in her nineties, and thus able to recall when it was the female breast that had been the focus of perhaps irrational taboos, something she would never discuss with anyone nowadays. Oddly, the spread of taboos had come, not from the religious right, as most had supposed would occur, but from so-called liberals, especially feminists, the movement that had once advocated for freedom from bras and free sex but had eventually morphed into the anti-sexual #MeToo movement, good old hashtags.

Now everyone had to wear dark or mirrored sunglasses in public and ought to wear them in private if members of the opposite sex, other than spouses were present. Of course, there were the young radicals, they just refused to abide by rules! Sometimes they’d just flash naked eyes, quickly removing and then replacing their required sun shades, but more and more there were those seeking to be arrested for indecent exposure, going out publicly with no eye protectors at all. Hopefully they’d go blind or grow hair on their eyes the way urban legends claimed could happen if one didn’t avoid direct exposure to light, natural or otherwise.

Damned eyepees!!!

Still, she recalled that when she was a very young girl, her aunt would apply different kinds of eye makeup to make her eyes more attractive to the opposite sex.

What had they been thinking way back then!

She adjusted the sunshades she’d been considering to assure that the sides were fully protected. Some daring people, especially entertainment folk, dared to expose the sides of their eyes to others eliciting sexual titillation, but if something untoward happened to them as a result, they deserved it; at least that was her opinion. Not that the courts agreed.

Damned liberal judges, they’d be the end of us all!!!
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2019; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia although he has primarily lived in the United States of America (of which he is a citizen). Until recently he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.