He nods, and gives Jack an approving smile; the man's smart, Eliot could tell that right away. It's good to know someone so curious, to be able to engage in conversation and really think about things he might otherwise take for granted. It makes him feel less like an animal pacing in a cage.

The horrors of modern clothing marketing, however, might be beyond Eliot's ability to explain or even comprehend. He winces in sympathy at Jack's shock.

"You wouldn't think so," he sighs, "but it's just one of those things that's deeply weird about modern culture, and no one even really thinks about it. Like..." He chews at his lip, trying to conceptualize the oddity of it all. "Like I think this is one of the things that naturally happens as a result of having a society that, by and large, is obsessed with sex but was also built on a foundation of deep puritanical shame. That's maybe more philosophical than you'd expect to get about the selling of clothes, but here we are."