Twelve years ago, when I was nine years old, I gave my mother an ultimatum: I had to own a spaghetti strap top. Not a tank top, but a spaghetti strap top — you know, with straps so thin that they resembled the bra I didn’t wear yet. I wouldn’t be cool if I didn’t own that shoulder-baring shirt. So, fortunately, I got one from Limited Too — which, at the time, was my haven of fashion — and I rocked it probably once a week, feeling as sexy as a Spice Girl.

I continued to do this every time the sun came out in elementary school. Then, in middle school, come April, my fashionable cohorts and I were rebuked for our shoulders, which apparently were really sexual. Spaghetti straps were prohibited, because they dared to show my shoulders, or worse, my training bra straps. Shorts that didn’t hit mid-thigh or lower were out, too. In other words, my sprouting womanhood had to be concealed by baggy T-shirts and pants in the springtime sunshine.

I couldn’t wait until high school, when I would be able to wear whatever I wanted and wouldn’t be punished. Granted, by the time high school came around, I wasn’t interested in showing up to school half naked. But the girls that were interested in showing up to school half naked definitely got rebuked. Maybe not always aloud, or by the principal, but most definitely by every other girl’s inner judgment — “Wow, she should really not be allowed to wear hot pants — her cellulite looks like a face!”

You know, typical fodder for nasty teenagers. But I was left wondering, where were the kindred souls that experienced the same suppression a few years back in middle school? Weren’t we all equally told to hide our bodies under concealing clothes? Couldn’t we spare a nasty thought and instead be sympathetic to a fellow sister?

Apparently not. And apparently, these sorts of dress codes, once instilled by a middle school policy, have gone beyond the unspoken — or spoken — social codes of nasty high schoolers, but have become transfixed in our daily lives as college students, or just as human beings. We live in a culture of, “Did she (or he) really wear that?!” where we gape and point at others’ fashion misfires and pinpoint the unflattering skin that is showing.

Back in the day, I couldn’t wait for the real world, where no one was going to tell me not to wear my shirt rolled up to reveal my belly; but now I know better than to show up to a public event baring my midriff, which might as well be my soul, considering the remarks I would probably hear.

It was so much easier in third grade, when you were admired for being brave enough to convince your mother to buy you such audacious items of clothing. While a little tank top is common to wear now, and not something that would make for much gossip, it still holds its roots in heated controversy from the school-age days. Shorts weather only brings back memories of fears of being told to go home and change (for which I always had a response prepared: I don’t have a car. I’m 12).

But are we ever really free from those dress codes? Not if someone’s gossiping about your outfit or the length of your shorts. We all know that girls’ whispers can be a hell of a lot harsher and more effective than a teacher’s threat of forcing you to change your clothes, as daunting as that may have seemed back in the day. But quite frankly, shorts or no shorts, no matter how safe your outfit may seem, you’re not free.

Last April, I wore a flowing knee-length skirt, and lo and behold, Binghamton weather made an appearance — the wind blew it right up into my face. Are we supposed to have a dress code for every fashion attempt that gets turned into a fashion or social dress code crime? If so: underwear required in Binghamton wind.