The only thing America hates more than the “terrorists” is its own sexuality. We’re in the throes of yet another “teen sex panic” and the anti-pleasure-of-any-kind-crowd of course has come to stoke that fear over barista skin. They should be ashamed. We all have bodies and use them to do our work, and no one is hurt from merely seeing or exposing skin. Body modesty is a social disease.

If it wasn’t sick and sad it would be funny. Watch the 2009 legislative agenda for a bill for the “safety” of minor baristas. The ghost of the Women’s Christian Temperence Union lives on.

Do you suppose any of these “moralists” who are worried about the “new” discovery that sex sells otherwise mundane commodities have any positive memories of being 16 to 18? How many of those “concerned” for the “safety” of young men and women are happy to drive their gas guzzling SUVs to buy coffee grown by slave labor while we send our kids to die in war for oil? Where are these “moralists” when it comes to ending poverty?

Get a life, people. Remember pleasure? Go take a nap, find some beauty somewhere and drink it in along with a way to be happy and comfortable in your own skin before you condemn other people for showing theirs.

Christopher Bingham