Immodesty != Manure

If you've spent any time on Facebook, you've probably run into the tendency to pass around pithy maxims in the form of images. The problem with this means of communicating one's ideas that is in translating something into a pithy maxim, truth often suffers. There's one going around at the moment which, for whatever reason, particularly annoys me:

Part of it, I think, is the "Dear Girls, ... Sincerely, Real Men" format. This sets up a hierarchy of sorts in which the "real men" instruct the "girls", who otherwise may not know what is up. It also implies that if you're a man and you disagree with the sentiments expressed, or the way they're expressed, you may not be a "real man".

For those who agree on the value of modesty, there's an immediate feeling of validation encapsulated in the statement: "Dressing immodestly is like rolling around in manure.  Yes, you'll get attention, but mostly from pigs."  So, if you're a woman, and you dress modestly, you have the virtue of not being covered in shit.  (And those vixens are actually disgusting.)  And if you're a man, and you value modesty, you're a real man and not a pig.

The problem is, although it's calibrated to make people feel a quick spurt of validation, the analogy is not at all apt.  If someone really rolled around in manure, people would find her disgusting.  But let's be honest: "real men" (taken to mean: men who put some value on modesty) don't find immodestly dressed women disgusting (at least, not if the woman in question has the goods to carry it off.) They find an immodestly dressed woman attractive just like any other man would. It's true that dressing immodestly may get a girl the wrong kind of attention, but it's certainly not because she's made herself unattractive or disgusting, it's because dressing provocatively sends certain social signals. Some guys make take that as a message that there are other things on offer as well and provide attention (wanted or not) and others may either avert their eyes or quietly absorb an eyeful while assuming that this "isn't their type". But there's no similarity to rolling in manure.

Maybe the attraction in this formulation is that it's simply more evocative than trying to make some point about objectifying or commodifying yourself through immodesty, getting the wrong kind of attention, etc. But I can't help thinking that a lot of the attraction of this formulation is simply that it makes it so easy to look down on others.

It's also unpersuasive.  If you go tell some girl you think is dressing immodestly that it's like she's rolled in manure, and she'll only attract pigs, you've got two problems.  First off, you've described her as rolling in manure, and insulting someone is usually not a good way to get her to listen to you.  Secondly, she knows perfectly well that dressing the way she's dressing does not make her disgusting to "real men".

And now we're done

Simcha has written. If this isn't the last word in the pants debate (did I just say "pants debate"?), it ought to be.

A few women in various comment boxes said that we must wear skirts because Mary did — that even if Mary were on earth today, she would never wear pants. They KNOW this.

Okay, you ladies who know what Mary would do. If you can’t imagine Mary wearing pants, then try this: imagine Mary wiping her nose, or yawning, or having heartburn. Imagine her giving birth. Or heck, imagine her having to go to the bathroom, but not being able to get up yet because she didn’t want to wake up the baby, who was nursing and allllmost asleep. . . and then He bit her! He always does that just as He’s falling asleep. Oh, and now He’s poopy again, and she still has to go to the bathroom.

Weird, eh? Not used to it, are you? But there’s nothing immoral about these images. If they bother you, because it’s not what you’re used to. It’s not what you’re surrounded with. Just like you’re surrounded with earnest, hard-working, kind, sincere women who have chosen to wear skirts, and so it seems utterly natural and obvious that Mary, too, would wear skirts.

...So would Mary wear pants? I don’t know, and neither do you — she was a strange and unpredictable woman, like no other. But she was a real woman. If you think that Mary actually always wore blue, always had a look of fond melancholy on her face, and always held her arms at a 45-degree angle from her sides, then you are paying homage to a statue, and not to God’s real-life Mama. And if there’s anything worse than a woman in pants, it’s an idolator. That’s in the Old and the New Testament.

O real life Mama of God, intercede for us. Help us to understand each other. And if I ever sit down to write another post about pants, please make the roof fall in on me before I hit “publish.”

Ladies: Better Support through Engineering!

This one is for the ladies (or for those men who are well-bred enough to refrain from making stupid comments -- which will put them in a higher class than the chauvinist pigs over at the WSJ site, apparently). For the men who quake with passion at the mere mention of a breast: just go away. You need more help than we can offer you here.

I do not belong to that poor benighted class of women who could burn bras in the 60s and actually feel like they were liberated. Unfortunately, most bra manufacturers (including the ubiquitous and near-useless Victoria's Secret) only cater to a small range of rather unexciting sizes, which makes them worse than useless to me. (Worse, I say, because either the saleslady looks at you blankly when you request a size they don't carry, or she says blithely, "Oh, we'll just go up a band size and it'll fit!" Ladies, if you ever hear that from a saleswoman, RUN.) So I was pleased that the WSJ ran an article yesterday on better bras for larger cup sizes, a theme near and dear to my heart.

A well-made bra tends to cost more than $50 and often closer to $100. Why so much? Bras are engineering challenges that have been compared in the industry to suspension bridges. In a bra, the wires, straps and other engineering features redistribute the weight in the bra to the band around the torso.

...Good bras can have more than two dozen working parts. Seams support stress points and create shape. Rigid stays prevent the fabric under the arm from crumpling. Stretch lace at the top of the cup looks decorative, but it has a function as well: It ensures a smooth fit even when a woman's breasts aren't exactly the same size. The straps don't actually support the weight in a bra, but they do need to be firmly anchored into the band to distribute tension.

All that engineering is the reason that most lingerie stores advise washing bras by hand. Even putting bras in a lingerie bag won't protect them against machine detergents, which take the life out of lace, elastic and other materials. A good bra should last for at least two years, says Jenette Goldstein, owner of the Jenette Bras shop.

...When a woman with a chest circumference of 32 inches buys a 36-inch bra, the band often rides up in back, leading to sagging in front. "It's the see-saw effect," says Ms. Goldstein. "The more you crank the straps, the more it pulls up in back."

One of the worst things a woman can do for her figure or her posture is wear a poor-fitting bra, and I say this as someone who wore the wrong size for 15 years. Wearing a bra that fits correctly is a revelation and a joy and suddenly reduces a lot of stress on a woman's shoulders and back. And your clothes fit better, which is a not-insubstantial perk. If you can afford to eat nothing but beans and rice, that's one thing. But most American woman can find it in their budgets to invest (and it is an investment: in your appearance and in your health) in a good bra or two.

Let me say this to the nervous: a mis-placed idea of modesty is no excuse to wear a bad bra. Good support is not immodest; it is prudent and elegant. If a woman's goal is never to have a man think about you, she can certainly achieve that by wearing an ill-fitting bra. But ugly has never been synonymous with virtue.

Check out the slideshow after you read the article. That last bra is so fabulous I might have to buy it, even though I'm about to be relegated to the ghetto of the (well-fitting) nursing bra.

On Girlwatching

Entropy is still thinking over something I said a while back, and since it ties in with a post title I've had sitting in my drafts bin for some time I thought I'd respond with a post, if that doesn't seem like making too much of a conversation. Hey, it's Friday, over 100 degrees, and it's been a long week. Not a bad time for some light topic matter.

I keep thinking about Darwin's explanation for why it's ok to check out women:

...she's probably making some sort of attempt to be ornamental -- at which point a strictly aesthetic appreciation is not necessarily out of order....

It sounds like a fancy way of saying she's asking for it. When you say it like that it brings up all sorts of nasty connotations.

I can't quit thinking about it because I think he's right, she is asking for it.

But I also think he's wrong. If she is dressing provocatively on purpose, that doesn't necessarily make it ok. Do two wrongs (if appreciating--ogling?--is a wrong) make a right?

Now, I hope Entropy won't think me rude to quote a post to which she's given the tag "more questions" but also "embarrassing myself", but this gives me a chance to talk about something which I think often underlies Catholic (and more generally Christian) discussions of modesty.

The starting question, I think, is what one means by "appreciating" or "ogling". I would tend to classify those two words as meaning rather different things: gentlemen may do the former, but only fellows like our lupine friend to the left do the latter.

Conflating the two is, I think, the source of a lot of talking at cross purposes in discussions about chastity and modesty, because I would maintain there is a moral difference between the two. I would think of ogling as being "looking lustfully" at a woman -- an act which is essentially one of trying to take from her, though without her knowledge. I am reminded of the one Beavis and Butthead cartoon I ever saw (someone in college thought I needed cultural broadening) in which the two anti-heroes get themselves beat up as a result of their herculean efforts to get a peek down the blouse of a busty hair stylist. It's a good example because an ogler who is trying to see a few extra square inches of breast by looking down a woman's shirt as she leans forward is trying to take something which is not offered -- and in a subtler sense, the man who is staring at a woman because he's mentally undressing her or because he finds staring at her actively arousing is deriving something from her which she is not (one hopes) trying to give. Even if she is trying to give such an effect (say, if she is the sort of young woman whose profession involves swinging about on a metal pole) a relationship between virtual strangers is not one which ought to involve providing arousal as one of its exchanges.

Now, where I think the more enthusiastic modesty advocates go off the track is in assuming that ogling (as defined above) is the only way in which a man can admire a beautiful woman. We have little doubt that people (male and female) can admire a work of art or a scenic vista without lusting to possess it. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that one can do the same with an attractive person as well. A gentleman who admires a passing lady is not seeking to take anything from her with his gaze, or glimpse anything he's not meant to, but rather appreciating her for what she is.

Of course the difficulty is, the ogler and the admirer are physically doing my the same thing, looking at a woman who passes by, although mentally and morally they're behaving rather differently. This is, I would say, where the gentlemanly rule that you may look, but you many not be seen to be looking, comes from. If a woman sees you blatantly staring at her (and the more so if your eyes are focused too low to meet her gaze) she is likely to assume the worst, and since ogling is essentially a means of taking an unwanted intimacy with someone, she will naturally feel uncomfortable.

So I'm not here to defend any slack-jawed stare-ers, but at the same time I'd say that a man who doesn't find his attention focused on a beautiful woman as she crosses his field of vision is not so very much of a man -- and one who does is not necessarily a cad. So I would say that yes, when we dress attractively, we do "ask for" attention -- though so long one is "looking one's best" rather than "dressing provocatively" I don't see that as a problem. Indeed, there's a socially self-giving element of "looking one's best" for others, just as there's something mildly insulting to society when one purposefully looks slovenly. For instance, when a middle-aged man jiggles into a shop in a sea-side town wearing shorts, ancient deck shoes, and no shirt -- he's essentially telling everyone present: "Sure, this may be the worst sight you've seen all day, but I can't be troubled to put on decent clothes for the likes of you."

While I think it's important to observe the line which divides "attractive" from "seductive" or "provocative", I do at least want to stand up for the social virtue of being attractive to one another -- and for the gentlemen who notice, though hopefully unobtrusively, when that virtue is acted on.

Clubbing Wit' Jesus

As the DarwinVan pulled into its parking space yesterday, another young couple (with one small offspring) emerged from a large, glitteringly hubcapped pickup a few spaces over and headed towards the church.

"Ummmmm. Okay." said Darwin.
"Wow. Clubbing with Jesus," said MrsDarwin.

The source of these cryptic remarks was the dress worn by the female half of aforesaid couple. That it was rather tight, a little low cut, and came down only to mid thigh is perhaps not so unusual these days (even at a suburban Texas parish mass) as to elicit comment -- at least from the DarwinParents whose offspring were already starting to riot in the back of the van. Rather more out of the ordinary, however, was the fact that this particular dress featured a slit up the back of the skirt which went up basically to where the legs themselves divided from what came above. This might have elicited a great deal of attention in a situation where the wearer was going out clubbing, as such things always bring with them a certain curiosity as to whether the wearer is conscious enough of the limitations of her clothing to manage not to move in such a way as to amuse the masses, or not.

However, since the venue was Sunday mass, the outfit -- topped off (or should I say bottomed off?) with high, clear resin heels -- seemed simply to be out of place.

What this reminded me of, however, is the increasing degree to which people seem to have lost the idea of different standards of dress for different places. One's most expensive or exclusive outfit is not necessarily a appropriate for any given venue, even if "dressing up" is appropriate there.

I am reminded of an anecdote I heard somewhere or other in which a priest asked one of his parishoners why he had been so disrespectful as to show up to Sunday mass in a track suit and sneakers. The man replied, "What do you mean, father? This track suit cost me $700. This is the most expensive outfit I own!"