Touching helps me see. So I fondle things a lot. Once, I felt a six-pack on a mannequin. Fascinating! I scanned for employees that might accost me as I lifted the shirt and brought my head closer to get a better look.
Molesting mannequins became my new favorite game. As I felt my way around more and more of these lifeless representations of the human body, I noticed there were no mannequins of color and some had stomachs as flat as the desert plains, while others had the V-cut abs near the pelvis associated with sex. Some female mannequins do not have nipples. Even weirder, some female mannequins do have nipples. More extreme guerrilla tactics were employed to discover some have no bulge!
Was the store using mannequins to sell subliminal undetectable messages, concealed by clothing? Saying, “T-shirts comes with six-pack! And prolific sex life!” Mannequins were this nexus of cultural anthropology, fashion, and marketing. If it weren’t for my blindness, I don’t think I ever would have stumbled onto this sociological phenomenon.
Bored one day, I walked into a hip store and asked, “What store is this?”
“Anthropologie,” a worker said.
I realized this could be the pinnacle of my research. What more could a guerrilla cultural anthropologist want than to be in the store that branded itself “Anthropologie”? As I made my way to a mannequin, I salivated. It was in the shape of a tipped over teapot, one hand on its hip and the other on a table of clothing. I thought, Fascinating. Anthropologie is going for the bored look.
I forewent my usual protocol when I was a few feet away and just stuck my hands out like a zombie, wiggling my fingers, giddy to pull his shirt up and feel his abs. But the mannequin yelped, jumping in the air, putting his hands in front of his stomach. I veered away from him, drenched in shame. It wasn’t a mannequin; it was a man! I felt perverted. I said, “So sorry,” now 10 feet away from him, trying to seem calm as I raced to the exit.
I should have explained, “I just wanted to feel your abs. I thought you were a mannequin, swear!” But that sounded creepy. All of the sudden, everything I was doing felt creepy. And as I walked out of the store, the stench of perversion covered my whole body. I didn’t even think to say, “Sorry man, I’m partially blind.” How could I not have seen this research was just a huge, perverted disaster waiting to happen?
This bizarre experience wasn’t about mannequins, but rather my putrid blindness. I couldn’t admit to myself how much I mistake things and people, how suddenly objects materialize dangerously in front of me, and how much I conquer just to get around. Unable to acknowledge all this, my blindness had coated my fascinating research at Anthropologie in a miserable stench of shame.
