Here’s what I keep wondering: Does J.Lo remember anything from that night? Could she focus on the speeches, the performances, the friends sitting around her? Honestly, how could she think about anything besides whether her breasts still had just the right amount of coverage? What happened when she sat down? Did she have to suck her stomach in? Can you even sit down in that dress? How much of a distraction must wearing that dress have been?

As fashions exposed more of the body, they required more body monitoring. Once the legs were exposed, they needed to be smooth and hair-free. As clothing became tighter through the torso (not just the waist), the whole torso needed to become slim. What seemed like greater freedom in terms of clothing actually in some ways translated into more restrictions. Sure, you can bare your arms and legs. You can wear jeans. But now you have to worry about how your arms and legs look. And now those jeans you love reveal the exact shape of your butt. Your freedom to wear a bikini means you have to worry about the size of your thighs. Chronic body monitoring is a ridiculous price to pay for fashion, but as women, we pay it all the time in dozens of different ways. I don’t want young women to feel shame about their bodies. I don’t want them to be called sluts when they wear what fashion moguls have decided to be the in style of the season. They should be able to wear whatever they are comfortable wearing. But how comfortable are they? We should have the freedom to dress how we see fit, but we should also have the freedom to be present in the moment. If we are to monitor ourselves, I want us to be able to monitor our thoughts and feelings, our desires and goals, not our appearance.

• That study showing women do worse at math when they're in bathing suits than when they're in normal clothes, while men are unaffected by the kinds of clothes they wear
• How every girl and woman, from little girls to professional athletes, is expected to wear a tiny bathing suit or leotard or short shorts if we engage in any physical activity, and how uncomfortable that made me feel as a girl.
• How as girls hit puberty we end up having to shave our inner thighs so hair doesn't show around the side of our bathing suits while boys can just keep on wearing swim trunks.
• How many girls see these outfits and are scared away from sports? How many women would be better at swimming or running or gymnastics or dance if we didn't have to worry about how our bodies looked, about chafing around our thighs, about wardrobe malfunctions, about gluing our clothes to our asses?
• Speaking of glue, how much can any of these women pictured above can enjoy events with their clothes literally glued on their bodies?
• How many singers would sing with stronger voices if they weren't in high heels and constricting clothes, if they were pain free and boob-glue free and able to breath freely.
• How we start out in clothes that are already uncomfortably skimpy and are expected to wear even skimpier and skimpier ones as we grow older, or we'll be seen as immature or prudish or ashamed, until we're seen as too old to be attractive (usually around 35)
• Which means that at the same time as our bodies are growing and changing we're supposed to let the world see more of our skin than ever before, which means having to be more self-conscious than ever before.
• And also means we never get to interact with our bodies on our own terms. We can never neutrally observe our growing breasts and shifting fat distribution and body hair, we always have be conscious about how these things appear to others and what kind of statements they make.