NEW YORK — In a week that has seen its cruder manifestations of
Bush-hatred (see: any of the fire-setting antics of the local
anarchist contingent) Wednesday’s mass panty flash at Manhattan’s
Battery Park was, beyond dispute, the best dressing down of the
president.
Sporting bright pink panties emblazoned with anti-Bush slogans,
some 100 young women, most in their twenties and thirties, gathered
for what was billed as an exercise in “exposing Bush.” The
underwear was key. Designed and marketed by Axis of Eve, a trio of
self-described feminists and anti-war activists who believe so
ardently in their cause that they are willing to strip to prove it,
the panties are marked with messages that run from the racy
(“Expose Bush” and “Drill Bush Not Oil”) to the downright
disconcerting (“My Cherry’s for Kerry”).
Exactly how does stripping to their skivvies prove their point?
And, of no less import, what exactly is their point? The idea, as
best I could glean from talking to some of the would-be flashers,
the honorary “Eves,” is to reveal the “cover-ups” of the Bush
administration. The ladies didn’t specify which cover-ups they had
in mind, but they were quick to note that there would be no
nudity.
This hardly seemed right. After all, how could the Eves’ expect
their disdain for the president to take off if they didn’t, well,
take off? Nonetheless, my view that a truly effective anti-Bush
demonstration ought to be performed in a genuine Eve-suit failed to
win any devotees. Indeed, one member of the Axis, a lithe dynamo
with flower-child hair calling herself Angel Eve, suggested that
perhaps I was missing the bigger picture: The Eves don’t care for
President Bush. “We want to get the ‘man’ out of the ‘house,’” Ms.
Angel explained with commendable patience. “That’s why we’re
working our butts of.”
Admittedly, Ms. Angel was less than convincing. Her insistence
that the panty flash was in fact a “political action” struck me as
standard-issue pseudo-feminist kookery. Being of the male
persuasion, to borrow the feminist parlance, I nonetheless decided
to stick around. So did many others. As the legion of Eves prepared
for their big moment, shedding their shyness and their skirts, a
young man, seeing me scribbling in my notepad, leaned over to
convey his keen appreciation for the efforts underway. “This is
frigging great,” he confided. “I think we might get to see an a**
shot.”
And so we did. Within minutes the young ladies, now in
military-issue combat boots and Axis-issue panties, were gyrating
in place to a drumbeat. On their rears, some had slapped stickers
that said “Bush.” These, you see, were intended as commentaries
on…well, one is not quite sure, but given the nature of the
medium, one is not positively certain it matters.
Upon talking to the Eves, however, I discovered that some
participants felt it should — that the hoped-for seriousness of
the expose-Bush cause would be covered up by the sexy spectacle.
Denise Howard, a lovely New Yorker and a devout Bush hater, was one
participant who saw it this way. “I know what you’re saying,” she
said, as her boyfriend appreciatively scribbled a crossed-out Bush
sign on her panty-clad derriere. “We actually had a group meeting
about it. But we still decided that it was a good way to attract
the media.”
There was no denying that. The park was swarming with media
types, though it was hard not to notice that they, like most of the
onlookers, were overwhelmingly male. Photographers ran around
snapping furiously, taking pictures at a rate surprising even for
professional shutterbugs. Meanwhile, the Eves persisted with their
partisan gyrations, chanting, “Which side are you on? Our panty
lines our drawn.”
Now I can’t speak for everyone, but most spectators seemed to be
on the side that provided the best view of the action. That
included two members of the NYPD. Asked if he thought this a choice
assignment, one officer did not hesitate. “Absolutely,” he said, “I
wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Which left me wondering if perhaps the flash, while not without
its aesthetic virtues, was not counterproductive. Like so many of
the left-wing exhibitions staged in New York this week, it was
thoroughly entertaining and utterly incoherent. Despite the Axis’
claims that they are not merely “Girls Gone Wild,” they seemed
exactly that. Wild for Kerry, perhaps, but no more persuasive for
all that.
Still, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I spotted
one young man who took something away from the experience.
Displaying a noticeably tight tank top with the words “Weapons of
Mass Seduction” across the chest, he was radiant: “For my
girlfriend,” he explained. “I got it extra small.”
