Oh, Pretty Woman

In the last couple of weeks, my Twitter feed, for some reason, has been filled with posts about music. Greatest hits, all-time this, all-time that, best vocalist, best guitarist, etc., etc., etc. One of the Pop Hits accounts promoted Roy Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman.

Indeed, Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman is one of the best pop songs, but as I was reflecting on it, I wondered: What would constitute a pretty woman to Orbison, or to any blind person, for that matter?

No sighted person would say that the 70-year-old Mother Teresa was a pretty woman. They might say she was a nice woman, though even that is up for debate. But they would not say she was a pretty woman.

But if Mother Teresa stood near Roy Orbison and her raspy breath tickled him in just such a certain way, and he reached up and felt her wrinkled skin and perhaps that wrinkled skin reminded him of some favorite erotic poem he had read in braille might he imagine Teresa a pretty woman?

In any event, it is without question that blind people have a greater freedom than sighted people in terms of significant others. Or, for the more promiscuous of us, others. Particularly in the high school years and early twenties, many are swayed by peer pressure. “What would they say if they saw me with him, her or it?” There are not many individuals with as strong and secure a sense of identity as Klaus Kinski, who could fuck anything that moved without concern of his peers’ judgment.

If a sighted person saw a young blind woman whom most would consider pretty, let’s imagine a blind Kristen Stewart, and they saw this blind Kristen Stewart holding hands with some Mitch McConnell-looking fucker, would we tell the blind Kristen Stewart he wasn’t right for her? Just because it isn’t right for the sighted, would we dare to impose that bias on the blind?

Is a blind person then free to love whoever they want? If we saw a 60-year-old blind man making love to a 15-year-old girl, we would say ‘no’ the blind person is not free to love whoever they want. But that may just be a societal form of peer pressure. Can such a social convention apply to the blind?

What are we going to say to the blind man we catch in bed with a 15 year old girl, and he replies ‘bro, she told me she was 18?’

It would seem an unjust burden to require any blind person to first ask his prospective lover to procure a braille ID card before they could consummate their love.

Is a blind person then legally free to have sexual relations with any human being, no matter their age?

Obviously any adult blind person should be able to realize that any human the size of a baby, a toddler, a first grader, couldn’t be old enough to grant consent.

Therefore, in the case of the blind, it must be a question of size rather than age that determines the legality of the sex act.

It is probable that any human 4‘10“ tall could be of the age of consent. It is entirely reasonable to believe that a blind person caught in a sex act with a 4'10" person who was not of age nevertheless justifiably believed that person to be of age.

The fairest, least prejudicial and least burdensome requirement we can ask of the blind is for them to use a height measuring device before engaging in any sexual activty.

But, yes, Oh, Pretty Woman was a great pop song.