If I were an infant, or a hetero man, the answer to this would be self-evident. As a mid-twentysomething, twentyfirst-century woman, though, "make me attractive to infants, or men" is just about my only answer -- and hardly something for the feminists to write home about. (Except perhaps in outrage.)
The answer offered by Slate.com author Adreinne So is, in a typically American way, more practical and more efficient than any I'd come up with on my own.
Perhaps the annoying motion of breasts can be harnessed, So speculates, as a source of energy for, say, powering an iPod.
Preoccupied as I am with my own weight loss -- which has put me even less in the market for this concept than I already was as a non-iPod-owner -- the idea of putting superfluous motion to good use still intrigues me.
Or intrigued me, until I read the perspective of the scientist developing the energy-capturing fabric. Asked if a bra made from the fabric could collect enough energy to power an iPod, Zhong Lin Wang answered:
"Definitely," Wang said.
I asked Wang if this bra would be machine-washable.
"You don't need to wash a bra!" he said.
So corrects Wang on this point, but the scientist's response left me shaken and disturbed.
I understand that geniuses -- and I assume Wang is one -- often lack common sense, but...really?
Perhaps the future will be full of magic and wonder and breast-apologetics that make sense -- but I doubt unwashable underwear will usher us into that utopian age. I doubt it very much.
1 comment:
Wow. What a stupid answer. "You don't need to wash a bra." Specifically, one imagines, a bra you've been working out in, though I suppose that assumes the perspective of a smaller-breasted person like me, who generates so little breast motion walking normally that I doubt I could power a tip calculator.
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