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THE FIG LEAF SYNDROME
Private Musings on Public Morality

"Is that a gun in your pocket, Big Boy, or are you just happy to see me?" Mae West

IT'S ALL A COVER-UP, FOLKS!

How often I've heard this uttered in connection with financial and political shenanigans of every strain which, disappointingly, always seem to fade from the public memory before anything can be resolved, or anyone brought to book.

And each time I hear about cover-ups, the image of a fig leaf pops unbidden to mind. Is there a connection? Of course there is. In moments of luminous clarity, the universe has always shown itself to me to be essentially one inexhaustibly funny, punny conundrum.

TRANSPARENCY is a much bandied about term these days. I'm not too comfortable with the word "transparent." It implies invisibility which, in turn, suggests unaccountability a hidden hand, someone or something difficult to see. Like the Emperor's multi-billion dollar new suit. So why don't we use the more organic description: NAKED?

Why do we get so steamed up by the idea of nakedness that we actually have laws against it? Indeed in some countries there are laws to prevent Official Secrets from being exposed. In effect, the Cover-Up is actually a protected form of official behavior, and my thesis is that this inbred fear of public exposure is ultimately linked to our attitude towards sex - whether we view it as a profane or sacred act.

The fig leaf was the preferred form of cover-up in Europe for parts of the human anatomy deemed "private." You find it in old paintings depicting Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Why the fig leaf? Why the need to conceal this unmentionably delectable portion of our bodies? After all, the human body has been described as a Temple of Divinity, the Sacred Abode of God.

The Old Testament explanation is mind-bogglingly simplistic: having disobeyed God by eating the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve lost their innocence and knew Shame. But why did the Maker set them up for such a Fall? Is God basically a cosmic Peeping Tom masquerading as Scientific Curiosity?

Interestingly, the Malay word for genitalia is "kemaluan" from "malu" which means (what else?) shame. However, the Arabs allude to the female sexual organs with the richly suggestive expression, "al ghaib" "the concealed" or "the invisible" in other words, "the Mystery of Mysteries." (Male genitals do not enjoy such poetic licence, for obvious reasons. Colloquially, the penis is given names

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