Cleavage

[severus68]

Had to register just to address this comment.

Slutwalks exist because people, like myself, are told that we should have prevented rape that was done to us. I was personally out with a group of friends when it happened, in loose, modest clothing (covered from the neck down, although short sleeves that stopped at my elbows were worn). Telling my story in the presence of any man over the age of 40, including clergy, has led to disbelief and comments that I’m lying about the circumstances. Comments that I shouldn’t have gone out with men, even in mixed company have also been made.

Seeing the need for slutwalks equated with being disrespectfully dressed at mass just shows how bad the problem really is, and how much we as a society need to rethink our attitudes towards women.

Edit: For the record, even if a woman (or man, because it happens to them too) is walking around naked she deserves the basic human decency from others of not being raped. If anyone REALLY can’t control themself because of cleavage, look away. Just like I, and many others, do when an image (or passages in a book) appears that they find stimulating.

I am really sorrry about what happened to you and the unChristian comments made by people who should know better.

Great post and thanks for clarifying what slutwalks are about.

 

[Nacho45]

I said look at them with respect, as persons, look at them as you would seeyour sisters, mother.

Yes, and I correct wrongs regardless of where they originate. My family isn’t special and if they dress in a provocative way, I say something. If they are in my immediate family, they change. If we cause another to stumble into sin without a care of our own actions, we share in their sin. Read the scriptures I provided. This isn’t difficult. Self empowerment and emotions don’t play into truth. And how better to ensure someone look at you with respect than to respect yourself and dress and act respectfully? Lets not pretend responsibility is only on the shoulders of the man. Lets not also forget it isn’t only men who look at women these days.

But I do believe we should blame the 14 year old teen boy who can barely control his hormones and Mrs. Smith wears a sexy outfit to Mass. After all, he should not look…right?

 

[Nacho45]

Yes.

It’s a shame Walking Home is the only person to allege this action. No one else suggested such a thing.

 

[Nacho45]

If men looked at women as persons and at their faces, especially in church, they would not notice whether or not they are well endowed.

If women dressed as holy and righteous people, men would have nothing to look at and notice in the first place.

Man looks on with lust = sin

Woman willfully creates scenario knowing men will look in lust = sin

That’s just the way it is and there is simply no way around this truth.

 

[Sarcelle]

Yes, and I correct wrongs regardless of where they originate. My family isn’t special and if they dress in a provocative way, I say something. If they are in my immediate family, they change. If we cause another to stumble into sin without a care of our own actions, we share in their sin. Read the scriptures I provided. This isn’t difficult. Self empowerment and emotions don’t play into truth. And how better to ensure someone look at you with respect than to respect yourself and dress and act respectfully? Lets not pretend responsibility is only on the shoulders of the man. Lets not also forget it isn’t only men who look at women these days.

But I do believe we should blame the 14 year old teen boy who can barely control his hormones and Mrs. Smith wears a sexy outfit to Mass. After all, he should not look…right?

Should we tell this 14 year old boy that it is all Mrs. Smith’s fault and that he is blameless?

Mrs. Smith takes responsibility for dressing more modestly, so as not to give scandal, and the 14 year old boy should be taught self control. Women have a responsibility to dress modestly, and men have the responsibility to control their lust. It is not only women’s fault.

 

[severus68]

“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and **cast out **all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves.”

Sometimes people act inappropriately to be present in the house of God (hence the Vatican’s dress code, etc).

I am not saying that I would have done the same thing that the poster did in this topic, btw.

Jesus did not touch anyone physically. He was angry with the moneylending etc, business being carried out in the House of God, at exorbitant rates, I am sure.
I think dress would have been the last thing on his mind.

Thanks for clarifying that about the original post.

 

[AuditVocemMeam]

Really? Making a personal insult is not on.

First, what I said isn’t an insult (I meant it as a legitimate question to describe the poster’s behavior - the poster is free to contradict this by answering my question). Second, I’m trying to have a discussion and the other poster uses evasion tactics to avoid answering my question. That is rude and not conducive to finding the truth, so I am trying to understand why the poster seems so unwilling to answer a simple, easy question.

 

[Sarcelle]

If women dressed as holy and righteous people, men would have nothing to look at and notice in the first place.

Man looks on with lust = sin

Woman willfully creates scenario knowing men will look in lust = sin

That’s just the way it is and there is simply no way around this truth.

You sure about that? As a college student, I personally knew a group of young men who made it a point to leer and make cat calls at modestly dressed women, in mantillas and ankle length skirts exiting from a nearby church. They found this modesty a turn on.

Quoting from the Billy Joel song Only the Good Die Young

“You Catholic girls start much too late.”

 

[severus68]

And if everyone just didn’t sin, life would be great. Meanwhile in the real world…

In the real world, we pray and try. We aspire to be what God wants of us.
Yes, we fall too, again and again. Look with too much interest at a woman’s breasts, turn away and give yourself a mental slap.

 

[severus68]

Yes, and I correct wrongs regardless of where they originate. My family isn’t special and if they dress in a provocative way, I say something. If they are in my immediate family, they change. If we cause another to stumble into sin without a care of our own actions, we share in their sin. Read the scriptures I provided. This isn’t difficult. Self empowerment and emotions don’t play into truth. And how better to ensure someone look at you with respect than to respect yourself and dress and act respectfully? Lets not pretend responsibility is only on the shoulders of the man. Lets not also forget it isn’t only men who look at women these days.

But I do believe we should blame the 14 year old teen boy who can barely control his hormones and Mrs. Smith wears a sexy outfit to Mass. After all, he should not look…right?

I was not being personal and referring to your actual family.
Please don’t bring homosexuality into this now.
A man who lusts as a woman who lusts is wholly responsible for his/her lust

That 14 year old boy should be taught better by his parents and participate in a lot of games and sports activities.

 

[severus68]

We should of course view each other as persons, and sons and daughters of God.

But if your peripheral vision is so bad that you don’t notice a well endowed woman (and please not I said exposed cleavage specifically) even when looking at her face when talking, I think you need to see an optometrist.

There is seeing and there is seeing.

 

[Walking_Home]

Take responsibility for oneself – --co-operate with God’s Grace to transform oneself – have a Christian attitude toward others – no matter the clothes they wear.

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II

I have been told that most of you come from Catholic high schools. For this reason I would like to say something about Catholic education, to tell you why the Church considers it so important and expends so much energy in order to provide you and millions of other young people with a Catholic education. The answer can be summarized in one word, in one person, Jesus Christ. The Church wants to communicate Christ to you.

This is what education is all about, this is the meaning of life: to know Christ. To know Christ as a friend: as someone who cares about you and the person next to you, and all the people here and everywhere—no matter what language they speak, or what clothes they wear, or what color their skin is.

And so the purpose of Catholic education is to communicate Christ to you, so that your attitude toward others will be that of Christ.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1979/october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19791003_ny-madison-square-garden_en.html

 

[severus68]

If women dressed as holy and righteous people, men would have nothing to look at and notice in the first place.

Man looks on with lust = sin

Woman willfully creates scenario knowing men will look in lust = sin

That’s just the way it is and there is simply no way around this truth.

How many women walk around to incite lust? Prostitutes, of course. Most women dress for themselves, other women, their husbands and boyfriends.

 

[AuditVocemMeam]

I think these threads would be a lot better if we could secure explicit agreement on these 3 propositions among all participants:

1. Everyone has a responsibility not to lust after other people
2. Everyone has a responsibility to dress in a manner as not to encourage other people to lust after them
3. Both of these responsibilities are independent of the other, i.e. someone is not excused from one of them because the other is not followed

These are not my opinions, btw - they are the teachings of the Church.

 

[Nacho45]

You sure about that? As a college student, I personally knew a group of young men who made it a point to leer and make cat calls at modestly dressed women, in mantillas and ankle length skirts exiting from a nearby church. They found this modesty a turn on.

Quoting from the Billy Joel song Only the Good Die Young

“You Catholic girls start much too late.”

Am I certain? Absolutely.

And in the situation you describe the women, if modestly dressed, share no fault in the sins of those young men. More than likely it wasn’t a turn as much as it was fun to make people uncomfortable. I was a stupid kid at one point in my life too.

I’m not interested in Billy Joel especially as it has no relevance.

 

[Nacho45]

I was not being personal and referring to your actual family.
Please don’t bring homosexuality into this now.
A man who lusts as a woman who lusts is wholly responsible for his/her lust

That 14 year old boy should be taught better by his parents and participate in a lot of games and sports activities.

Denial is an ugly, ugly thing.

 

[Nacho45]

How many women walk around to incite lust? Prostitutes, of course. Most women dress for themselves, other women, their husbands and boyfriends.

A lot. Women like to feel pretty and be admired. Sadly, too many fall victim to modern culture which teaches that’s gained by sexuality. Women know men look at them. If they help out in the looking, they are just as guilty as the one doing the looking.

This is no different than the get away driver sharing guilt in a robbery. Sure, he didn’t actually rob the bank, but he knew it was going to be robbed and helped lay out the scenario of that robbery but driving his car to and from the bank.

 

[Nacho45]

I think these threads would be a lot better if we could secure explicit agreement on these 3 propositions among all participants:

1. Everyone has a responsibility not to lust after other people
2. Everyone has a responsibility to dress in a manner as not to encourage other people to lust after them
3. Both of these responsibilities are independent of the other, i.e. someone is not excused from one of them because the other is not followed

These are not my opinions, btw - they are the teachings of the Church.

Your thoughts on this matter are very reasonable and I agree with the above statement.

 

[Walking_Home]

Am I certain? Absolutely.

And in the situation you describe the women, if modestly dressed, share no fault in the sins of those young men. More than likely it wasn’t a turn as much as it was fun to make people uncomfortable. I was a stupid kid at one point in my life too.

I’m not interested in Billy Joel especially as it has no relevance.

---

It comes down to this – the lustful man – is going to lust – doesn’t matter what a woman wears. If he doesn’t purify his disordered desired mind – the sickness stays within.

 

[vsedriver]

From the eleventh century to the Victorian Era lots of cleavage showing used to be the norm.

not really. It may have been shown in portraits but in pictures of average working folk women wore a modesty pieces also called a neckhankerchief. this was tucked over her shoulders and down the front of the gown.