I was really planning to avoid writing on this topic. Heck, near as I can tell, just about every other blog on the Internet has either written about it or posted pictures.

This post is going to cost me my “card-carrying liberal” card.

A Ms. Roselle, whose name never previously registered with me and who I don’t think I know, sends me an email. It appears she got my name because someone she knows has me on his emailing list and he doesn’t know how to preserve email privacy by using the “blind copy” capabilities of his emailer. No real biggee, that. It’s not like I’m a shrinking wallflower. I can handle the unthinking “forgive-me-for-not-realizing-I’ve-lost-all-my-marbles-but-well-I’ve-lost-all-my-marbles-so-how-would-I-know?” crowd better than I can handle the unthinking conservative crowd anyway. After all, their mistakes are often just inane and almost always harmless and entertaining (primarily because they’re so far left, they’ve hardly a chance anyone will listen to them, let alone implement their occasionally detrimental beliefs).

She writes to tell me that she thinks America is “totally warped” because, after all, “a tit is just a tit.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I like tits. In fact, I like them a lot. When I see a woman in public who is apparently just dying to show off her tits, it takes a lot of restraint on my part not to oblige her by staring. I know that even though she’s a 38-DD stuffed into a shirt meant to barely conceal a 32-A, with décolletage reaching to her pudendum, I’m not supposed to notice. I remind myself that it doesn’t make much sense to expend all that energy looking, since there’s not a snowball’s chance in — well, you get the point — but I’d be a freakin’ liar if I tried to say I always succeeded in not losing control of my scrutinous vitreous globes. And I’m not trying to be nasty, either. If you thought I was going to say, “snowballs chance in heck that I can have sex with her,” that’s not what I was going to say. (I was going to say, “…that I would actually see her tits in all their glory.”) Tits are just one of many things in the world that are, well, pretty. They’re nice to look at.

Nevertheless, a large portion of the world cannot help but equate tits with sex. Heck, I’m not positive that my own reason for thinking them pretty and nice to look at isn’t because I’ve been conditioned to make that leap of illogic. I don’t think that’s my reason, but I could just be kidding myself. I am a basically-socialized American male, after all — and this isn’t really an attituded limited to the United States, France notwithstanding.

The fact of the matter, though, is that in the real world, showing off one’s tits on national television in the United States is just not socially-acceptable behavior. For whatever reason, Americans have considered that to be unacceptable behavior for at least as long as national television has existed. And before national television was invented, Americans thought that showing off mammary glands in public — at least human female mammary glands — was more than just poor taste. We’ve pretty much always considered it to be something that is reserved for only partial exposure; it’s either a necessary evil (if you’re a Puritan) or for — if you’ll forgive the pun — titillation (if you’re Hugh Hefner and any one of the millions of other Americans, male and female).

One could even argue that Janet Jackson would not have bothered to show her tit on national television if it wasn’t such a shocking idea. To her it was just a tool to boost her popularity and ensconce her reputation as some kind of brave artiste. And even though I thought it was a nice enough tit, it was a pretty un-original approach to showing one’s “avante-gardeness.”

The Yellow Times article about the idiocy of thinking that Janet’s unannounced titillating tit unveiling which was included in Ms. Roselle’s email notes,

The cheerleaders, a vacuous bunch to be sure, can show it all the way to the panties. Who cares if you don’t see their nipples; the effect is still the same. If the “offense” of the breast is sexual, the cheerleaders are much more offensive than Miss Jackson. Her breast was not a turn-on. If it was a clothing malfunction, I’m sure many “shocked” women, deep in their hearts, can understand. We’ve all dived into the deep end of the pool, came up, and found one hanging out of the suit. Feel sorry for Janet: most of us don’t have that moment in front of hundreds of millions of people.

There’s more than one problem with this characterization — and I’m not just pointing out the vacuous pot calling the kettle black. First of all, the argument appears to be that if you “can show it all the way to the panties,” you ought to be able to show it all…period. That’s a slippery slope if ever I saw one. You don’t even need the Vasoline-smeared, sparkling cheerleaders to have a problem standing on that one.

The thing in the United States is that — somewhat to my disappointment, I’ll confess — while you can show it all the way to the panties, that’s as far as you can show it. The suggestion that a thing is about to be presented to one’s eager eyes is not the same as the presentment. One might as well argue that since “Happy Days” frequently hinted at Fonzie “scoring,” they might as well show the actual consummation of his theoretically-numerous sex acts on prime-time television.

And one has to ask whether it’s the far-left vacuity, hypocrisy, or merely self-delusion that causes Emily Reinhardt (the writer of “A tit is just a tit“) to argue that

[t]his little white boy exposed a member of one of the most powerful and bizarre African-American entertainment dynasties. To speak of the racial aspect of Boobgate is more taboo than to speak of the sexual, but it is a pathetic irony that the interracial duet ended with a long-standing tradition of American racial relations: a black woman being molested by a white man. Strom Thurmond and Thomas Jefferson are giving thumbs-up from their graves.

Ms. Reinhardt doesn’t just assume, by implication she expects that her readers will assume, that Janet Jackson, the African-American entertainment dynasty, was so stupid and self-hating (or overwhelmed by her relative status as “a black woman” to Justin Timberlake’s “white man” status???) that she was not actually playing a part in an interracial duet — she was helping perpetuate “a long-standing tradition of tradition of American racial relations: a black woman being molested by a white man.” And why should I disagree with Ms. Reinhardt? I mean, it’s impossible to conceive of this any other way. I could never believe that Janet Jackson and Justine Timberlake were naively-liberated enough to view this just as a “man-woman” (and not a “white man-black woman”) thing. I mean, sure, I can believe they’re liberated enough to have him rip off part of her bodice on national TV, but I can’t believe they’re liberated enough to get past the race thing.

(Truth be told, I think they not only did not have Ms. Reinhardt’s racial hang-ups, but they also believed that the “attack” was not so much an attack as a positive and exciting manifestation of lust. I certainly understand that their lack of consciousness of this as an attack is the very thing that makes this theoretically-socially-imprinted paradigm upsetting to “more enlightened” folk. However, I think that it’s entirely possible that it’s this way only for the “more-enlightened” folk. To a certain extent, there’s a question here of intent. You don’t have to buy that; just cogitate on it a bit, rather than merely being socially-imprinted yourself by “more-enlightened” folk.)

And if Ms. Reinhardt is such an advanced thinker — so advanced that she agrees with the French that American attitudes about sex are quaint — then what’s with this?

Speaking of the Jackson clan, maybe it was out of family loyalty that Janet pulled this stunt. It removed her brother’s woes from the front page, at least for a nanosecond. But Michael Jackson should be getting more attention that one meandering breast. Indeed, if he showed more interest in breasts, perhaps he wouldn’t have the problems he is facing.

So Michael Jackson, yet to be convicted of any crimes (except in the press and, maybe, Ms. Reinhardt’s mind), should be getting more public attention? And that because he’s (according to Ms. Reinhardt, apparently a close personal friend) not interested enough in breasts? Are my comments here any more absurd than Ms. Reinhardt’s speculation that Justine Timberlake re-enacted a long-standing tradition of American racial relations?

Seriously, Ms. Reinhardt: Which is it? Do we feel pity because Janet dove into the deep end of the pool and came up in front of hundreds of millions of people only “to find one [breast] hanging out of the suit”? Or do we get pissed off at her, Justine Timberlake, or both, for glamorizing the white man’s molestation of black women? Or do we honor devoted sister Janet for her willingness to sacrifice her modesty in order to get her brother’s plight off the news, if only for a few moments?

The simple fact of the matter is this: In the United States of America, for whatever reasons (good, bad, indifferent or just uptight), showing naked body parts in all their glory on national television is unacceptable. We may hint around about it. We may even test the limits of just how close we can come to showing completely naked body parts on national television. But whether from residual intelligence or out of respect, we don’t, as a nation, push them out there with nothing but a pewter nipple collar — not even for two seconds — for people who would rather not experience the results of our liberated attitudes.

And for those of you rabid far-left liberals, I herewith demonstrate to you just how offensive it is: Ms. Roselle, since you so strongly concur that it’s such a trivial thing — so quaint a thing over which to be offended — that you had to email me that getting worked up over it was “totally warped,” would you mind showing me your tit?

Yeah…. Somehow I didn’t think so.