Challenging Assumptions about Modesty

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Haha no I just mean Ed and I have verbally sparred before. I think we just find each other’s world views completely incomprehensible so I’m not going to engage too much with it because it just ends with one of us throwing up our hands and writing the other off as a nut job.
 
I kind of feel like this is the sort of thing, if it’s easy and obvious for men, but a bunch of women are saying it’s not that obvious for them…I get the sense if it’s not so obvious for those whose bodies it’s on, it’s not that obvious.
 
Except there are multiple women here saying it’s not clear or obvious and that we get feedback that we’re inappropriate or immodest even when we wear the same clothes and fit as more “modest” women. It’s also not nearly as clear when you’ve been repeatedly harassed and told you’re asking for it even if you’re wearing a long skirt and a blouse up to your neck. (Trust me, if modest clothing actually did anything to reduce the creeps, a lot more women would be wearing it. I’m in favor of modesty, but let’s not pretend it’s going to stop a guy who’s already set on objectifying women. Some of them even get off on bothering women that they think are more likely to be upset.)
 
How are men socialized today? By the media? By friends? By their parents? Modest clothing should always be promoted and creeps will always act the way they want. I think family, including relatives, should provide some rules for young women and young men. It’s a bit much to hear a young guy tell his parents: “When I turn 18, I don’t gotta listen to you anymore!” This ‘18 and out’ mentality needs to stop.

Freedom does not mean people can ignore respecting other people.
 
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I think they should, but I think they also have to be careful to provide rules in a way that promotes genuine respect. A lot of us as young women got rules presented in a way that very much came across as “your body is bad and you should hide it because otherwise someone might think about you sexually.” The flip side, from what I’ve been told by men, is that they got the message that any sexual thought or impulse towards a woman was a sin.

It also got some weird mix with class and femininity sometimes. For some reason every example of modest clothing involved pastels and floral designs. I plan on wearing basketball shorts and an old t-shirt tomorrow because I need to go to the laundromat. That is neither feminine nor elegant, but it’s modest and it’s practical for doing my laundry.
 
DarkLight said:
It’s also not nearly as clear when you’ve been repeatedly harassed and told you’re asking for it even if you’re wearing a long skirt and a blouse up to your neck.
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Yep!

Even when I was in my catholic school uniform complete with Cardigan and plaid pleated skirt or jumper that went two inches below my knees.
 
The fashion and cosmetics industry are making a lot of money. So, “your body is bad” is a mixed signal. Men are responsible for the ‘custody of their eyes,’ which some seem to think is difficult (it can be at times, but when you realize it, you stop looking). I’ve known model (healthy) beautiful women, including one who competed in beauty contests. It was easy for me to treat them with respect, to develop a friendship and to be honest without overstepping any polite boundaries.

Class does come into it but it depends. Some women want a lot of material things. Others know what a budget means and are willing to have things they can afford. A little more would be nice but not absolutely necessary. The same for the guy.
 
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At this point I think everyone knows there’s quite a thriving “catholic school girl” fetish market. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t changed up the uniforms. I know it was hard on some of the families too, especially with larger family sizes and the tendency of preteen and teen girls to suddenly be a few inches taller. It would have helped them to not have to special order.
edwest said:
Class does come into it but it depends. Some women want a lot of material things. Others know what a budget means and are willing to have things they can afford. A little more would be nice but not absolutely necessary. The same for the guy.
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Honestly, as far as class, I’m mostly thinking that the outfits tended to the “classy lady” who wasn’t getting her hands dirty. They might be pretty outfits, but sometimes you just want clothes that keep you covered with no fuss. I’ve worked my share of physical jobs and I know no one considers cargo pants and an oversized polo classy - but they did what I needed well enough.
 
I’m glad they haven’t changed the uniforms. And if there is a ‘fetish market,’ it’s on those who involve themselves with it. If it’s wrong then just don’t participate in it.

I’ve been with classy and elegant women. Floral prints and things that were a bit more dressy was the norm. And in both cases, they knew how to get their hands dirty. And they wore more practical clothes at other times.
 
As a woman, it’s pretty easy for me to draw a line in my head and go, “I’m being immodest”. That doesn’t mean I never crossed the line, but I didn’t agonize over where the line was.

From time to time, other people, like my mom or some men, may have claimed something I was wearing was immodest when I felt differently and thought I was decently covered. In hindsight, I would say that sometimes I may have used poor judgment when I was young or mentally stressed, but most of the time I think what I wore was okay for the time and place.

I don’t think this is a hard question for women to figure out if they just make a decision and stick to it. Ignoring the feedback one gets from just about everybody on the planet and using your own judgment is a good start.
 
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DarkLight said:
At this point I think everyone knows there’s quite a thriving “catholic school girl” fetish market. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t changed up the uniforms.
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People will fetishize everything. Non-Catholic school uniforms get fetishized too. As do nurse’s uniforms and just about every other uniform out there.

Why should schools change the uniform just because there are sicko pedophiles in the world? The uniforms are not particularly revealing as long as the skirts don’t get too short/ tight because of the kid growing.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Why should schools change the uniform just because there are sicko pedophiles in the world?
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It’s not necessarily pedophilia. Sexual response can get baked in early. A middle aged guy who likes the plaid skirt and white blouse look might respond that way because that’s how the girls looked when he was coming on line sexually/hitting puberty. Some unconscious part of his mind now associates that outfit with arousal.

As long as he wants to see age appropriate women in it and not actual teenagers, i dont necessarily see a problem.
 
I suspect this is one of those things that really depends on your own background. If you have it drilled into you for years that it’s your responsibility to keep men from lusting after you, and then offered clothes you frankly hate and know you stand out in as the modest alternative, it’s going to be more of a struggle as an adult. (I still remember those awful “modest” jean shorts I had to wear as a kid - I wish someone could at least have bought me some real shorts that didn’t look like two pale sticks coming out of leg sacks on me.)

It absolutely was a struggle for me and it took me a long time to not feel exposed in anything other than baggy pants and oversized tops. Most teens and young adults aren’t very good at deciding the feedback they get from their parents, church, and peers is all nonsense - and the feedback I got was almost 100% “if you get creeped on that means you are immodest.” (And if you’re ignoring everyone’s feedback, where are you getting your ideas anyway?)

I’m hardly the only woman here reporting feeling shamed for being curvy, or having difficulty with it. So I doubt it’s all as simple as just using some basic easy sense.
 
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If it’s the case that a guy will associate whatever he sees pubescent girls wearing with sex for the rest of his life, then whatever they change to will just become the new fetish.
 
Just because a whole group of women think in a particular way doesn’t make it helpful or constructive.

I’ve always found a lot of that group think to be very unhelpful. I would turn to my mom, husband or boyfriend and say, “Look, all these women are worried about X and I’ve never even thought about that. Should I be worried about it?”
The husband or boyfriend would say, “Nah, who cares?” If it was my mom, she would say basically the same thing and throw in a few remarks about her thoughts/ experiences with women.
I would go about my business.
 
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