{"id":1176,"date":"2013-09-12T12:16:49","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T17:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2013-09-12T12:16:49","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T17:16:49","slug":"enforcing-modesty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2013\/09\/enforcing-modesty.html","title":{"rendered":"Enforcing Modesty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guys, summer is over. Can we please stop with the posts policing women\u2019s bodies?<\/p>\n

\"Modesty\"<\/a>I\u2019m not sure why but after years of relative silence the issue of women\u2019s modesty has become \u201ca thing\u201d this year. It seems to have started with a fashion designer who made some vintage style swimsuits<\/a>. I wasn\u2019t going to talk about it initially because it\u2019s not important, and there are too many unimportant things for me to write about all of them. I\u2019m not stoked about my religion being used as a tool to sell clothes but I figured it would blow over with the end of swimsuit season and we would all move on. But here we are in fall and there is a whole new crop of viral posts making the rounds.
The newest one<\/a> features a mom from here in Austin who bespeckles her article with glamor shots of her shirtless sons flexing while threatening the ban hammer to any and all teenage girls on the internet who arch their back for a photo, thereby causing her poor little boys to stumble. In linking, one friend of mine challenged \u201cC’mon men, help your sisters in Christ by being truthful about how we really work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well as Taylor Mali said, if you ask for it I\u2019ve got to give it to you.<\/p>\n

\"modesty2\"<\/a>Ladies, I\u2019m a Christian man who struggles with lust. I want to believe that all women are created in God\u2019s image to be loved and appreciated and cared for but that head knowledge doesn\u2019t always reach my heart and sometimes I have a tendency to think of women not in terms of their value as individuals but in terms of their capacity to gratify me and satisfy my felt needs. This process in my head is called objectification. Turning full people with needs and wants and backstories in my imagination into objects that exist for me. That\u2019s a problem, especially because it has a tendency to slip over into the real world and affect how I interact with women.<\/p>\n

But let me be clear about something. Objectification isn\u2019t an accident. It\u2019s not like stubbing my toe. It\u2019s an inherent and ongoing sin in my life and I\u2019m really really good at at. So good in fact that I have no trouble objectifying you in a one piece swimsuit. The glamor shots that I am getting from these Christian modesty blogs create no fewer thoughts and feelings in me than ordinary bikini pictures do, and if you are winking at me while trying to do your best Audrey Hepburn pose it will probably do a little more.\"modesty3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Needless to say if stopping me your goal, and you are photographing yourself from the breasts down, with a hand reaching up your inner thigh, as if to say \u201cthis is a good swimsuit to take off\u201d. You\u2019ve failed completely.
.
The good news for you is that that\u2019s my<\/em> problem. You don\u2019t have to feel guilty for me objectifying you, I have to feel guilty for that. And that\u2019s true no matter what you are wearing. If you want to help me, forgive me! And pray for me. <\/p>\n

As to the culture that says it\u2019s on you, I feel a bit responsible for that too. Do you remember how I said objectification has a tendency to slip from my mind into the real world? Well I think it did. Somewhere along the line some men, probably in spiritual leadership like me, struggled with objectification, and it slipped into the real world and they decided that the best thing to do is cover these objects up so they could stop being such a problem for us. We decided that if only we could impose our will on you we could get our needs (for sexual purity) met more easily.<\/p>\n

It was a dumb idea.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m not saying don\u2019t be modest. I\u2019m not saying you don\u2019t know best what to wear. What I\u2019m saying is quite the opposite. Wear what you want because you want to. Don\u2019t let someone like me make you responsible for my sin.<\/p>\n

All pictures in this article come from ReySwimwear.com where all the swimsuits are named after Audrey Hepburn characters. Audrey, who quite rightly said \u201cthere is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don’t need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.\u201d<\/font><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guys, summer is over. Can we please stop with the posts policing women\u2019s bodies? I\u2019m not sure why but after years of relative silence the issue of women\u2019s modesty has become \u201ca thing\u201d this year. It seems to have started with a fashion designer who made some vintage style swimsuits. I wasn\u2019t going to talk…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEnforcing Modesty - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2013\/09\/enforcing-modesty.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Enforcing Modesty - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Guys, summer is over. Can we please stop with the posts policing women\u2019s bodies? I\u2019m not sure why but after years of relative silence the issue of women\u2019s modesty has become \u201ca thing\u201d this year. It seems to have started with a fashion designer who made some vintage style swimsuits. 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