While most of this bold, new world was capable of tolerating - if not enjoying - their nudity, there were some dissenters, as always were in the human race. Belldandy tried to psychologically programme the new human race to accept their nudity, to prevent misfortune (caused by the Monkey's Paw) from befalling them.
However, she could not prevent the injury of everyone, as humans can be strong and stubborn-minded at times. Most people liked or were used to nudity. Others were too afraid of "the curse" to pursue dress.
Then there were some few, brave men and women who deliberately gave a big middle finger to "the curse", and adorned some sort of protective clothes.
One of the first groups to resist the impulse not to wear anything other than belts and decorative jewelry were the Desert Monotheists (or "D.M."). Rather than decorating themselves in jewels and tatoos, which they believed offended their god, they wore simple loincloths to give their gentials privacy and speciality, and simple bowl-shaped hats to show that their minds deserved protection, as well.
This angered the Monkey's Paw, of course, and it made these people suffer terribly. They were forced to watch out for freak lightning storms, packs of lions and wolves, famine, drought, not to mention the occasional attack by another tribe. Despite the curse they lived under, however, they managed to survive for thousands of years - just.
Another group that professed clothes wearing were referred to as "dressists" or "clothesmen" or similar titles. Like nudists of the old world, they chose to dress in clothes by choice, as a lifestyle. They were the pioneers of what would have been considered fashion on the old world. They wore jewels and tatoos like the rest of civilization, as well as ties (turns out Beau Brummelly was as much a hit in the new world as the old). But they also planted cotton crops, raised sheep, and made the first (and only) textile mills on Earth.
They developed "over-torsos", which looked somewhat like shirts, "over-bottoms", which were the equivalent to pants, and "over-heads", hats which covered one's head, either as a decoration (some resembling DUNCE's hats, which were considered a popular clothist fashion), as protection (helmets, brimmed hats, etc), or as both.
Like the D.M, they suffered bountiful misfortunes, but they still lived their lives, revelling in their silks, wools, and other threads, their hides and synthetics. Clothing was life for them!
There were also normal, nude people who, while fearing "the curse", dreamed and wondered about the idea of clothing. Artists and writers who wrote about the joy of clothing, the theory of clothing, the reason clothing should be allowed.
They would draw and paint lovely pictures of women in "over-all skirts"(dresses), working-class men in overalls and "over-torsos", women in "2-parter" bathing suits (which had been invented in the 1950s, and looked stunning, but were a poor sale because of the shark attacks on women who wore them to the beach).
Writers would write about the joys of one's first set of clothes, the identity that one's clothes gave oneself, the freedom of expression they gave you without having to wash yourself off every damn day as you had to do with body paints.
Most of these rebels - the D.M, the "Clothesists", and those artists, as well as many, many others - lived lives that were either short, stressful, or both. They would either die from "the curse", or from the stress of fearing for your life at all times. Very few became accepted by "normal" society, let alone cherished or admired.
However, they made a statement, and stood up to the folly of one man's foolish wish - not that they knew it, of course.
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(Posted Sat, 02 Aug 2008 21:56)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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