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.”

The Problem of Pants

Yes, dear readers, if you needed proof that there are Very Silly People out in the Catholic blogsphere (and you didn't really need that, did you?) one need look no further than this sort of thing. What is the great threat to the world, to your morals, to your eyes, to your wife's virtue? PANTS! Don't believe me?

REGARDING NOT WEARING THE PANTS
...
1.Regardless of your size, shape, or age, the attractiveness of your female figure is virtually always enhanced, while adding to your modesty, when you wear a dress.

2. Do this for us, the minority of chaste men who merit the gift of enjoying your beauty in such a way as to be grateful to your creator without temptation. Make it so it is good for men to look upon you, rather than requiring us to look away (which is a tragedy).
...
4. Sadly, and we understand you may not be aware of this, but almost every style of pants reveals private information about your figure (by way of contour) what only your husband (and if not him, no man, including your sons, if you have sons) should perceive.

5. Thus, even a woman endowed with the most spectacular genetic form, in the bloom of her youth, can be given the illusion of ugliness, if not cheapness, by wearing pants. Likewise, pants rarely do anything but exaggerate extra volume on our figures.

Or more briefly: Ladies, you'll be much more pure and beautiful if you wear skirts (which holy men like yours truly will en-joy) whereas if you wear pants men will lust after you, because they'll make you look bulgy, you fat cow.

You know, I have to break it to you, but this whole question of whether skirts or pants is inherently more pure is just silly. Some women are hot, some are less so. Some outfits are hot, some are less so. Some guys are leches, some of us flatter ourselves we can enjoy a nice view pretty disinterestedly, and some are obliv. And all this goes on whether women wear pants or skirts.

Of course, who better to handle these difficult situations than the always-entertaining Simcha, who for those wanna-be patriarchs out there who are worried some lady they see on the street may be out in pants against her husband's wishes (because, you know, that would be terrible) has developed the pants pass.

Does it get better? I think not.

I am hereby issuing MrsDarwin (and, what the heck, all women -- What, that's bigamy? It's big of them too. Let's be big for a change!) a pants pass, a dress pass, a skirt pass, a high priority mini-skirts pass, and for use within the domicile, a lingerie pass. However, I'm taking her capris pass and putting it through the shredder. A man has to put limits somewhere, and by the power invested in me by my Y chromosome, I declare capris to be an offense against God -- but primarily against man.