Devil on one shoulder, heaven's hottie on the other...

People who read this blog probably remember "Bond Day." Oh, that one day when we dusted off our fishnets, shined our leather boots, cleaned our sheets, and polished our handcuffs. And then made it all into an outfit we could wear to school. For some people, of course, Bond Day wasn't a holiday, it was a way of life. For some, it still is. But for the rest of us, we're left smacking our foreheads and thinking, "trench coat? knee-high boots? fishnet? ass-shorts? Why the hell would you put those together?" (If you dressed up for Bond Day all four years and don't regret at least one outfit, I have a street corner to sell you in Brooklyn. You'll just have to battle the coke dealers for possession.)

I didn't do it freshman year, because I wasn't in the drama program. But I count it as my first Bond Day, because when all the cool girls waltzed in (or stumbled, more like) in boots that picked up where their skirts left off (and believe me, their skirts left a lot off) I thought, how cool. I thought, sexy? Really? Because when you're 14, do you even know what sexy is? You're willing to take someone else's word for it.

So needless to say, I looked forward to participating in it sophomore year. It wasn't just a chance to show off, it was a chance to represent the team. It was, in a sense, a duty, much like pulling off good grades and volunteering for charity. I went conservative, considering the times. Slinky red shirt, maybe a little too lowcut, black skirt (but nothing too scandalous) fishnet and boots. To be honest, I thought it was classy.

Sure, there were signs over the years that Bond Day might not be in the best of taste. There was the time Barry (you all remember him) sat on my lap and unzipped my boot. In the middle of class. Still, I persevered. There was that time, in drama class, when I stood up to make an announcement about the upcoming play. At the end, I got only one question. "Is that your costume?" asked one of the guys in the back. The teacher quickly gestured at me to sit back down. "No," I squeaked. "No?" she repeated, looking worried. Laughter rumbled through the room.

There's more. (I'm going to get all this off my chest, because I know for once I have a sympathetic audience, you did it too, don't deny it!) How about that one day, walking down to the art classrooms (through that shady parking lot and down that slippery hill) and I heard one girl say to a friend, "What is she wearing?" And the other replied, "I don't know. I've seen a lot of girls dressed like skanks today." Or perhaps the fact that a friend's mother referred to it as "Casual Sex Day." The sad afternoon when I waved to Sam (E., Ben's brother) in the hall, and he averted his eyes from my creepy cork heels and shorts ensemble. Oh, there were signs. The crowning glory was senior year, when a few of my friends came to school in nothing but jewelry and sheets, the latter tucked up under their arms and wound around a couple times.

"Why sheets?" I wanted to know.
"Don't you get it?" My friend trilled. "We just got out of bed. After having sex with James Bond."
Oh. And then our history teacher refused to let them into class, and by afternoon the sheets had been unraveled, the boots had been packed away, Bush had been elected, and we were all on a trajectory towards higher necklines and more serious manners.

I have to admit, I wasn't one of the girls in the sheets. I almost was. I seriously thought about it, and then, that morning, something changed. I looked at the sheet, I looked at my jeans, and I remembered a story I once heard from an abstinence counselor (whose efforts, by the way, were wasted at our high school). She said, "every aspect of your femininity is a gift. You're born with a basket full of gifts. And every time you share one, it's like you're giving away a gift. And do you really want to arrive at the altar and have no gifts left to give your husband?"

Just kidding, of course. But I didn't feel right about it anymore. Instead, I wore a dress over jeans.
"You know," a friend told me in sixth period, "I think you're the classiest Bond girl today. I mean, not showing any skin." And I wasn't thrown out of history class!

By the time Halloween (which to most college girls is the same thing Bond Day was to us in high school) rolled around, I realized I had to go modest. I borrowed a friend's costume. It was Fiona the ogre, from Shrek. I even put on the horns. And since it was a child's costume, the neck came up nearly to my chin, and the hem fell at my knee. Going out that night, I saw plenty of women dressed as Playboy bunnies, fluffy tails and corsets galore. Even my friends, Can-Can girls and Matrix characters, looked more extreme than I did.

Shopping for Halloween nowadays, I see costumes that boast knee-high boots and fishnets. Nurses and witches alike wear skirts that barely cover their bums (remember nurses? They wear scrubs and flats. Witches have warts and stringy hair, and they stir smelly cauldrons). Halloween isn't about being sexy, but the costumes beind peddled to us aren't real. They're strange erotic fantasies, cops in a world where cops flash their boobs rather than enforce the law. And that's great, of course, except that your middle-aged neighbor and her kindergarten-age twins don't want to see your boobs. In fact, a very limited number of people actually do. And of that number, still fewer are people you want to show your boobs to. Right? So what's with "Horny Hermione" and "Peekaboo Pocahontas"? And for the big question: are we really getting closer to our sexuality, to our so-called sexual selves, when we submerge ourselves entirely in someone else's idea of sexy? (Don't get me wrong, some women enjoy being so submissive, so passive, but most of us need a little more room to breathe.) Right?