o you want me to write something funny, something clever, something about airplanes. Okay, but it’s not about airplanes, it’s about the body, things on the inside, things on the outside, and what’s appropriate. Specifically, when and where one should or should not show belly. At the beach, sure. At home, whatever. While belly dancing? I guess, if that’s your thing. Maybe at a club, but I don’t think so. Not at work, not at church, definitely not in restaurants. The beach? Okay, sure. A pool, I’ll give you that. Working out? Pretty iffy. What I’m concerned about here is not the bikini or the sports bra—these items obviously reveal belly and do so for a purpose. The problem is with belly that is intentionally revealed by the decision to wear a shirt (with or without sleeves) that is cropped to reveal said belly.
      The underlying conditions of the fashion decisions to show belly are, apparently and unfortunately, rooted in the desire for inappropriate, unwarranted attention. It is insecurity, a lack of feeling loved, watching too much Baywatch, and/or a confusion regarding the norms of society that drive a woman (or a man, if we may go so far) to make the decision to reveal his/her midriff. Or is it?
      Now I don’t want to appear a prude, I fully support naked love, but I have to, I feel I must, plant a firm foot against the unregulated use of stomach. Furthermore—what, exactly, is the stomach? If we are to concern ourselves with the accredited sciences of medicine and anatomy, we must concede that the strip of skin from beneath one’s breast to slightly above the pubis is not really the stomach. The stomach is an organ. Inside the body. The misappropriated naming of this region as stomach is imprecise and only further exacerbates the confusion over revelation.
      When we speak about the female stomach we talk of tummies, bellies, midriffs—infantile and inaccurate terms. I know I’m opening doors now: feminism, body image—but truthfully I’m not trying to discuss this in some big deal philosophical way, I just want to know: when is it appropriate to show belly and what purpose does it achieve?
      Would I be a happier, more liberated person if I showed my stomach? I think not. I flirt the tummy, a button-down shirt with the last button undone. Yeah, I get attention. The problem here is that I don’t want to generalize, I don’t want to punish. I don’t want to say that women who show belly are sluts or whores. And yet, showing belly is often a flagrant disregard for a certain kind of propriety.
      There is no honor, no honor at all, in reducing oneself to a poorly named section of the body. Reduction never gets to any kind of truth. And if one must succumb to synecdoche, could one pick a body part with a little less baggage? Umbilical cords, ovaries, placentas, the miracle of birth—it’s too complicated to even think about. How about the kneecap, the elbow, the ankle, the collarbone—they’re all underrated and underused. But what do I know? Once, back in high school, I licked peanut butter out of a gentleman’s belly button. (I was fifteen, he was sixteen.) I also think I sucked on his toes that night.