A call for a moratorium on ‘wifebeater’.
This is a call for a moratorium on ‘wifebeater’, an awful word used to describe a person who commits felony assault.
We think carefully about the words we use here, as far as I can tell; we spend a lot of time thinking about the right adjectives to describe the way two people lean in against each other, the way mouths open against each other in a kiss.
We try to be gentle with each other; I see it every day.
‘Wifebeater’ is classist, tasteless, offensive, but most importantly, why use such a violent and ugly word to describe a beautiful thing, worn by the men and women that we love in our most intimate moments: your father, drinking coffee and making your oatmeal in the morning before school, shrugging on his shirt in your kitchen; a tank top from the boy’s section on a girl curled up in her underwear on your bed, the armhole cutting a gentle line against full edge of her breast; the hottest late August day, sitting on the fire escape drinking beers with the man you’ll marry, laughing a little, his undershirt sticking damply to his back.
Tank top. Undershirt.
THIS MEANS YOU, EVERYONE WHO WRITES ABOUT DEREK HALE.
