Are formfitting shirts appropriate?

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alphonsus1 said:
I disagree with just brushing off St. Alphonsus’s advice.

(1) He has gotten more Magisterial affirmation than any other Saint. Denzinger 2725, by the Holy See, even said that his opinions could be quietly accepted just by virtue of him having held them. Wow, just wow.

(2) St. Alphonsus backs up every one of his opinions with a plethora of other Doctors of the Church who taught the same thing.

(3) St. Alphonsus backs his arguments up with the Magisterium and with scripture. He is not just making things up, his logic is impeccable! He was a prodigy who got his Ph.D. at age 16.

(4) He is the Patron Saint of Confessors! If anyone would know something about confession, it would be him.

If we go to experts to get to the answer regarding questions like climate change (because we ourselves are not experts in climatology), then how mistaken is it to not also go to the Doctors (advertised to be “safe”), the experts in moral theology, to get to the Truth?
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A perspective on St. Alphonsus for our times:

https://scrupulousanonymous.org/2019/04/01/conscience-st-alphonsus-on-scruples/
During the life of Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)], the effects of Jansenism and rigorous moralism on sensitive people contributed to an increase in the illness of scrupulosity. The fundamental appeal of Alphonsus is to the authority of the confessor (that is, for him, of God). How applicable this might be in a different world of differing cultural experiences is not immediately obvious. It remains useful to be reminded that “bad thoughts” are not the problem, but the consent given to them. The necessity of freedom for formal sin retains its importance. The terror-inducing tactics of former times may have disappeared. The dominance of sexualized imagery in contemporary life can cause another sort of scruple-related anxiety for sensitive people. The Alphonsian acknowledgment of freedom as necessary for sin remains valid in this context.
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It is ironic how Alphonsus is sometimes quoted to propose a rigorous morality of the type he strove to eradicate.
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I never said women should wear inappropriate things. I was replying to Alphonsus that refuses to have men take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions.
 
Please read my posts. Not only do I think men have fortitude, but I also think that they should have complete control. Men should throw off each lustful thought instantly. (that comes into the mind uninvited and unwanted).

Finally, listen to the words of St. Alphonsus in the words of St. Thomas. (circumstances have changed so this advice no longer applies). Do Saint Alphonsus and Saint Thomas, who with Saint Augustine had the most impact on moral theology, really think men are weak, or do they understand that fleeing from sin is of the utmost importance?

St. Alphonsus:
“Hence you must, in the first place, keep a restraint on the eyes, and must abstain from looking at young females. Otherwise, says St. Thomas, you can scarcely avoid the sin.”

Finally, lustful suggestions are not men’s responsibility, for where there is no consent there is no sin. It is throwing those thoughts off instantly that is within men’s control. And it’s not mutually exclusive: men can practice custody of their eyes and women can dress modestly.

Finally, I am asking for the absolute bare minimum in terms of modesty and still getting push back!
 
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We’re hardwired to defecate to wherever we want and yet a great deal of effort is put in to biding our time and waiting for the right place.

We can control natural impulses, including sex.
 
alphonsus1 said:
If women could just not show those areas of the body that should not be shown, that’s all I’m asking, then guys lives would be so much easier!
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If someone would just give me a million dollars my life would be so much easier. But, that’s not going to happen so I have to take care of, and be responsible for myself.
 
With all due respect, I don’t get dressed in the morning wondering what an anonymous and distant CAFer thinks of my outfit. But for your information, my closet if full of yoga pants - very comfortable and fit me better than those made-in-China, straight-body jeans. And short of a turtleneck (in 90±degree heat, I might add), there’s very little that we pectorally enhanced women can wear that won’t show at least a 1/2-inch valley when we reach over to get our purses. If you disapprove of my clothing choices, please avert your gaze and don’t assume that my motives are those of a home-wrecking housewife.

Granted, I’m not the hot item that I might have been 30 pounds and 7 crows feet ago, so in the unlikely event we cross paths, it won’t even be an issue. 😏
 
niceatheist said:
How about teaching young boys and men to not treat every encounter with a woman as being laden with sexual connotations?
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There’s a joke:
A woman says to a man, “I like your sweater.”
To the woman, this means, ‘I like your sweater.’
To the man, this means, “I want to go on a date with you.”
 
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There was one actress, I forget her name at the moment, who would be sewn into her gowns on set.
 
That would describe Mae West, whose double intendres would make even modern audiences blush. Frankly I don’t know how she got away with some of her outfits and dialogue in the Production Code era.
 
alphonsus1 said:
If women could just not show those areas of the body that should not be shown, that’s all I’m asking, then guys lives would be so much easier!
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Although I agree with Tim Gunn that yoga pants are not pants, I think if men would stop assuming that a woman is advertising for sex when she shows those areas, women’s lives would be so much easier.
 
No, you cannot control (stop) temptations.

I say the opposite every single time, that we SHOULD resist temptations.

You cannot stop from feeling hungry if you’ve been fasting for a day. But you can resist the urge and still fast. And given lustful suggestions are so easy to lead to consent, I am saying we should flee from what puts those unwanted thoughts into the mind in the first place, by practicing custody of the eyes/ vigilance.
 
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It may have been Mae West, but I’m thinking of another one…more glamorous and high society.
 
St. Alphonsus is right where the Truth is. A thought is not a mortal sin without consent and knowledge, but:

(1) bad thoughts, by delectation, by their pleasing appearance, can easily lead to consent.
(2) complacencies, failing to throw off lustful thoughts immediately, is another mortal sin beyond just bad thoughts. It is proximate danger to mortal sin to fail to throw off a bad thought instantly. Since it is proximate danger to fully consented to lustful thoughts, it is also a mortal sins.
(3) a lustful thought can be consented to in a second (just like other sins can be committed quickly)
(4) We must be vigilant and flee from sin at all times, since it is possible to commit so many mortal sins of lust that you cannot count the number that you committed the next time that you go to confession.

This position is not rigorous, it’s where St. Alphonsus is at, and where the Truth is likely at (also I am taking into account changing circumstances today). St. Alphonsus became a Doctor of the Church for reconciling the rigorist and laxist positions. That is why you should go to him and read his sermons/ moral theology.
 
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Since we live in a world where a majority don’t agree with you or the much venerated St. Alphonsus, just what is it you propose easily aroused men to do?
 
I can’t tell you how many times at meeting and just at work in general that I would get leared at my male co-workers and I was wearing nothing close to a tube top or yoga pants. I was in a knee lenght skirt and jacket. Sorry, whatever was going on in their minds was their fault; not mine.
 
For the record I said as a “teenager”…I’m a grown man and I’m more then capable to controlling myself now.
 
Men can “control” themselves. I have never said otherwise!

My position is that unwanted thoughts are by definition unwanted, but whether or not you are an adult or a teenager, regardless of age, you can control yourself by throwing off bad unwanted thoughts instantly, turning your mind to a neutral object, resisting the onset of temptations, and practicing custody of your eyes!
 
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alphonsus1 said:
My position is that unwanted thoughts are by definition unwanted, but whether or not you are an adult or a teenager, regardless of age, you can control yourself by throwing off bad unwanted thoughts instantly, turning your mind to a neutral object, resisting the onset of temptations, and practicing custody of your eyes!
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Wonderful. So this should put an end to all the recriminations about what women wear
 
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