"midriff" v.

[Arnold Zwicky]

Chris Waigl recently alerted me to this usage.

from: http://www.awc.org.nz/userfiles/9_1176774783.pdf

The midriff generation

In the world of advertising and marketing, a new con-
cept has recently emerged: midriff.  Midriff is the word
used to describe a young generation of women who
were brought up against the backdrop of feminist suc-
cesses, with a musical soundtrack made up of the Spice
Girls, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears.  The mid-
riffs are so named because of their style preference for
wearing low-hung jeans, short tight T-shirts, with an
exposed pierced belly button.  However, the term is
also increasingly used as a verb: to midriff is to sell to
women by wrapping old sexual stereotypes and clichés
in a new discourse of empowerment.  To midriff is to
present sexual objectification as an active choice: it
says, essentially, 'I like being a sex object, it makes me
feel powerful and in control', etc.

This paper explores this shift towards 'midriffing' in
some detail.

.....

arnold

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