Scott Madin

When I was a child, I remember walking in a mall with my mother and we passed a display with a leather-and-lace one-piece "swimsuit" that was breathtakingly beautiful but would obviously disintegrate in water. I asked my mom why it existed if you couldn't swim in it.

She didn't make a big deal of it, just kept walking like normal and shrugged and said "some people wear clothes to look pretty and don't care whether they can swim in it." I said that was silly because swimming was way better than looking pretty.

Of course, we were walking by a lingerie shop and I didn't realize that wasn't a swimsuit in the display window. And we continued to walk by Victoria's Secrets and various other "kinky clothes to buy for your wife / wear for your husband" stores in the mall for years, as you do.

Maybe it's because I'm autistic and ace, but I still don't understand a difference between a skimpy bikini on a girl who has come up from the beach to grab a Sprite from the shops vs. a leather speedo on a guy who is marching in a protest for his right to live and exist.

I could be wrong, but I feel like a lot of these people asking "how will I explain leather clothes to my CHILD?" probably don't have actual children, because explaining mall lingerie or Sexy Halloween is a thing you've probably already had to do when they were very young.