Modesty for women and men

[OurBeloved]

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I raised my family – to respect. To respect the person – for the human being the person is. To respect the person – no matter the color of the sin, the clothes worn etc… To have the same respect for the short wearing/mini skirt wearing woman – as they would have for the one dressed in so called “modest attire”. To respect the woman – who may have had one drink to many – and not take this as an open door – to take advantage of her. To not use derogatory language-- towards another human being. In my Christian view – this will enable my family – to ward of giving in – to seeing others as objects --to be demeaned via the mind and/or outwards acts. This is the harmony – which is now being instilled in my grandchildren.

That is excellent parenting on your part since you have done well in accomplishing number 2 “2) men trying to develop more and more self-control” on the list I presented toward building harmony.

It is also essential now for women of this world, and you yourself if you are one, to work and encourage fellow women on number 1 “1) women trying to dress as much as possible in a way that does not lead men to temptation.”. We live in a time where society would encourage women to dress anyway they like even if it would clearly lead to appeal to sexual faculties of men and temptation. Society would have us believe the idea that a woman should be careful in her dress is simply a remnant from an outdated mode of thinking. We should all try to correct this together.

When we have established both, we shall have harmony that is directed toward the salvation of ourselves and others.

 

[OurBeloved]

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If we learn to see others through the eyes of God – “sin” – would not “implant” itself in our hearts and minds. The shedding of our Lord’s Blood – not only brought about our redemption – but offered to us the Grace to restore ourselves overcoming Pride/concupiscence.

What I am seeing here – is a fight --against this restoration.

I think you must carefully understand what johnnyjones is saying. He is pointing out the importance of number 1 on my list i.e. the responsibility of women in all of this.

While men work on their concupiscence, women too must make sure they do not lead them to temptation and do everything they can to not be a ‘stumbling block’ as the scripture puts it.

So I think johnnyjones is merely pointing out the other aspect of exactly what you are saying.

Both roles are important for salvation. One by it-self is not sufficient and in fact, violation and deliberate ignorance of either of the roles would be a sin by whoever that commits it; either men or women.

We must not fall in to the error of forgetting that the woman too has a role to play in this matter.

 

[OurBeloved]

The problem is that 1) is undefined. What constitutes clothing that is a stumbling block? What is immodesty? The problem is that the question is not answered explicitly by the Church, and thus people must decide on their own. Then you have people like Portrait claiming that women in good conscience and who are well-formed would not wear X, and that such a decision is “common sense,” and then you have a problem for reasons that should be obvious to the critical thinker.

You bring up an excellent point. The great problem we face today, as I was explaining to Lost Wanderer is that (1) i.e. what causes sexual appeal is seemingly undefined.

But this is really not the case. People who work on preparing commercials, media, costume design, psychologist and fashion designers are well aware of what causes appeal to sexual faculties in an average man.

Many men and women are indeed aware of this knowledge base as well and do follow their advice on how to best appeal to the sexual faculties. It is only when a debate on modesty comes up that many try to reduce this to an unclear state.

Now there is also something kind of unique in our current situation that might contribute to such thinking. Unlike in our past, and in some of the present cultures today that hold modesty as important, our culture today has no cultural plumb lines or heuristics handed down to us by our parents on modesty. This is the unfortunate by-product of our sexual revolution and abandoning of most values and the ever widening gap between the relationship between parents and children. Now no matter how we arrived at this dilemma, what is clear is that we have already arrived at it. This is why today, you and many others might honestly ask the question “what is acceptable dress or what is not?”.

What we need to do is reverse this trend. So we can start by first directing our intent, if we are women, toward avoiding the temptation of others. One can start shunning and boycotting clothing and apparel that they feel violate this standard they have. As they strive to do this, they will become more aware. With time, we will learn what causes temptation to an average person and what does not.

But what is happening today is the opposite. Since we are unable to grasp what is acceptable or what is not acceptable, many would have us believe that everything is acceptable. That is not the case. There is also the issue that unlike you, there are many out there who do believe that they do exactly want to wear sexually appealing dresses to tempt men and their is nothing wrong with it. So for now, what is required is that every woman makes a personal commitment to be more aware of ones dress and strive to avoid wearing clothes that might lead others to temptation to the best of their knowledge. They must also be prepared to receive and seek feedback from others, possibly good solid priests. With a little help from God, they will mature in their knowledge and it will become easier and easier to know what is acceptable or not acceptable.

 

[Portrait]

You bring up an excellent point. The great problem we face today, as I was explaining to Lost Wanderer is that (1) i.e. what causes sexual appeal is seemingly undefined.

But this is really not the case. People who work on preparing commercials, media, costume design, psychologist and fashion designers are well aware of what causes appeal to sexual faculties in an average man.

Many men and women are indeed aware of this knowledge base as well and do follow their advice on how to best appeal to the sexual faculties. It is only when a debate on modesty omes up that many try to reduce this to an unclear state.

What we need to do is reverse this trend. So we can start by first directing our intent, if we are women, toward avoiding the temptation of others. One can start shunning and boycotting clothing and apparel that they feel violate this standard they have. As they strive to do this, they will become more aware. With time, we will learn what causes temptation to an average person and what does not.

But what is happening today is the opposite. Since we are unable to grasp what is acceptable or what is not acceptable, many would have us believe that everything is acceptable. That is not the case. There is also the issue that unlike you, there are many out there who do believe that they do exactly want to wear sexually appealing dresses to tempt men and their is nothing wrong with it. So for now, what is required is that every woman makes a personal commitment to be more aware of ones dress and strive to avoid wearing clothes that might lead others to temptation to the best of their knowledge. They must also be prepared to receive and seek feedback from others, possibly good solid priests. With a little help from God, they will mature in their knowledge and it will become easier and easier to know what is acceptable or not acceptable.

Dear OurBeloved,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. That is a jolly good post, old chap, probably the most insightful one in the thread thus far.

It is surely a monumental failure of the first rank that Catholic parents of the last forty years or so have woefully neglected to instruct their offspring, especially daughters, on the requirement to dress modestly with a proper reserve. Some have simply capitulated to their children’s wishes out of some morbid fear of being thought ‘mean’ or of completely turning them away from the Faith and the Church forever. This has been wrongheaded and downright lilylivered and parents must take some share of the blame for the muddled thinking of their children. Teaching our children to respect others is all well and good, but they need to be instructed in basic Catholic moral teaching as well, so that they will form correct views on, for example, dress and behaviour. Sometimes we must be firm and tell our youth that we will not allow them to wear certain articles of clothing which transgress standards of Catholic decency and good taste, according to the consistent teaching of the Church and the moral sense of the faithful down through the ages. If this makes unpopular for a season then so be it, in time they will respect us much more for being true to our convictions and unculcating to them godly Catholic principles that will put them in good stead for their entire lives.

Alas, we have, even unwittingly, given the impression to our children that we value their approval over and above the teaching of the faith and its arduous requirements, which every man must strive to live up to if he professes religion. We have done them no favours in the long term and, as we see on these boards all too frequently, many of the youth have become imbued with secular and relativistic thinking. Had they been instructed correctly and parents had not witheld all that was profitable for their religious formation in godliness, then they would have been endowed with well-formed consciences that would have enabled them to discern what was immodest clothing and what was not. Sadly they have no foundation or grounding in our most holy religion and even though they might be able to argue their case, they lack the necessary formation/instruction to think with an authentic Catholic mind. So often they just slip into an eristic cast of mind which is more intent on winning arguments and overwhelming their opponents. Thus their position on many issues is seriously wanting and even erroneous because it is just not consonant with the Catholic tradition.

The urgent need of the hour is surely a return to the ancient paths and authentic catholic thinking, free from the influence of relativisim and secular reasoning. Yes, the current trend does need to be reversed forthwith if future generations are to be credible witnesses for the Faith in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile towards the Christian religion. We need men who are not ashamed of the old tried and trusted ways of previous generations of Catholics. Men who will boldly rebuke vice and raise a lowered public opinion; men who will refuse to adopt a hand in hand with the world type of religious profession that makes little or no demand upon them in terms of sanctity and separation from the world.

God bless and thankyou for your excellent post, which I hope everyone will read and ponder carefully.

Goodbye for now, dear friends.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait:tiphat:

Pax

 

[thewanderer]

Someone could do it and speak to a friend about her ‘immodest’ dress. If that friend is rather insecure and will follow not because she thinks her friend is right but she wants to please her/not upset her, what is the point? The one who advises does earn any grace as hers/his is an act of bulling/coercion. Alternatively, the friend spoken to will not want to remain friends. There might be a few cases where the judgement of the inappropriate dress and that the friend is oblivious/without taste, is accurate.

I think you missed the point of what I was saying. Of courseit would be wrong for the friend to bully her into wearing less revealing clothing. (I’m not really sure I would consider her a true friend) I am not advocating bullying in any sense. I was just objecting to the idea that it is never ok to bring up the topic of what costitutes modest dress between people who do not hold the parent-child relation to each other. Because to me that is just obviously false. As an example, I have talked with my sister about what I consider to be immodest/innappropriate clothing in such a way that our relationship has not suffered because of it, in fact, I would say it has even helped our relationship. We still don’t see perfectly eye-to-eye on what is appropriate, but thats ok, I know she is not wearing anything for the sake of ‘getting a man’ or incitting anyone to lust. I know she would be horribly opposed to being objectified by men, as would I. The problem is in large part actually knowing when it is appropriate to have such a discussion and in what manner. That is why I brought up those conditions in the first place. Although, to be honest, I’m kind of glad you brought this up again because I think it cannot be emphasized enough. The importance of not bugging people about immodesty when it isn’t innappropriate is something which it seems to me is not realized by many people, or at least they don’t realize what that practically means in real life when it comes down to it. Going up to a random stranger and saying ‘now, I’m not judging you as a person, or your intent on wearing this article of clothing, however, I just wanted to inform you that this article of clothing is something that you should not wear because it is immodest’ is far, far more likely to instill a negative attitude towards those who think that modesty is a good thing than help them to change their minds about what is appropriate clothing. In other words, even though you might think you are helping out the cause of modesty, in reality it is often the case that you are instead making it harder for someone to accept the fact that modesty is a good thing.

 

[severus68]

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I raised my family – to respect. To respect the person – for the human being the person is. To respect the person – no matter the color of the sin, the clothes worn etc… To have the same respect for the short wearing/mini skirt wearing woman – as they would have for the one dressed in so called “modest attire”. To respect the woman – who may have had one drink to many – and not take this as an open door – to take advantage of her. To not use derogatory language-- towards another human being. In my Christian view – this will enable my family – to ward of giving in – to seeing others as objects --to be demeaned via the mind and/or outwards acts. This is the harmony – which is now being instilled in my grandchildren.

From the responses to this post of yours, it is clear that the need to emphasis the importance of outward modesty acccording to standards set by some, obscures the ability to understand the very important point you make here.

Very well said btw.

 

[severus68]

I think you missed the point of what I was saying. Of courseit would be wrong for the friend to bully her into wearing less revealing clothing. (I’m not really sure I would consider her a true friend) I am not advocating bullying in any sense. I was just objecting to the idea that it is never ok to bring up the topic of what costitutes modest dress between people who do not hold the parent-child relation to each other. Because to me that is just obviously false. As an example, I have talked with my sister about what I consider to be immodest/innappropriate clothing in such a way that our relationship has not suffered because of it, in fact, I would say it has even helped our relationship. We still don’t see perfectly eye-to-eye on what is appropriate, but thats ok, I know she is not wearing anything for the sake of ‘getting a man’ or incitting anyone to lust. I know she would be horribly opposed to being objectified by men, as would I. The problem is in large part actually knowing when it is appropriate to have such a discussion and in what manner. That is why I brought up those conditions in the first place. Although, to be honest, I’m kind of glad you brought this up again because I think it cannot be emphasized enough. The importance of not bugging people about immodesty when it isn’t innappropriate is something which it seems to me is not realized by many people, or at least they don’t realize what that practically means in real life when it comes down to it. Going up to a random stranger and saying ‘now, I’m not judging you as a person, or your intent on wearing this article of clothing, however, I just wanted to inform you that this article of clothing is something that you should not wear because it is immodest’ is far, far more likely to instill a negative attitude towards those who think that modesty is a good thing than help them to change their minds about what is appropriate clothing. In other words, even though you might think you are helping out the cause of modesty, in reality it is often the case that you are instead making it harder for someone to accept the fact that modesty is a good thing.

Your sister and you have a special relationship. She may not agree with you on what you consider inappropriate but she knows you love her and she loves you so will not get offended. I suppose long term good friends may feel the same. not

 

[thewanderer]

JohnnyJones and OurBeloved,

while I agree with much of what you have written, I’m not sure if we are on the same page with respect to the intent of most women. I could be wrong, so correct me if I am, but to me it seems as though both of you assume that most women who wear immodest or too revealing clothing do *so with the specific intent of ‘catching a man’ through making him lust after her. I’m just gonna put it out there that this just simply is not the case! *Yes, car commercials with scantily clad women are obviously aimed towards arousing men as an advertizing tool to make them more interested in their product. *However moost women (and teenage girls) do not always wear such fashions with this intent, if ever. *Now, I am not trying to claim that this never happens, or even that it is infrequent. Rather I’m trying to point out the importance of realizing that it *is quite *often the case that women really don’t have a bad intention in wearing such clothes, especially when they are honestly trying to live a christian life!!! The reason I want to point this out is that if someone only emphasizes the fact that advertizers and some women, even many women, wear such clothing with the wrong intention, it becomes *very easy *to begin having a judgemental attitude towards *anyone *who wears such clothing. This is *not *a good thing. It is often very detrimental to the idea of modesty as a good thing, it causes good people to be unnecessarily judged, and it breeds division among good people when no such division should exist!!

I am from this new generation, and I can assure you with* absolute *confidence that there are many people today who wear things without the wrong intention and wind up feeling judged because of it. Please, please don’t fall into the trap of judging those who wear such clothes simply based upon the fact that they wear them. This is not a good or helpful thing in any way.

 

[Baelor]

Many men and women are indeed aware of this knowledge base as well and do follow their advice on how to best appeal to the sexual faculties. It is only when a debate on modesty comes up that many try to reduce this to an unclear state.

The problem is that the discussion of modesty necessarily involves this discussion. I can throw a naked woman in a shower and sell shampoo on that basis easily. No one needs to be told that nakedness can be sexually stimulating. The problem is in defining marginal cases. Say 5% of men are stimulated by sharp cheekbones. Is this enough to justify women covering their faces? What about bare shoulders? etc.

Modesty involves nuance, which is why such issues come up in modesty threads and not elsewhere.

Now there is also something kind of unique in our current situation that might contribute to such thinking. Unlike in our past, and in some of the present cultures today that hold modesty as important, our culture today has no cultural plumb lines or heuristics handed down to us by our parents on modesty. This is the unfortunate by-product of our sexual revolution and abandoning of most values and the ever widening gap between the relationship between parents and children. Now no matter how we arrived at this dilemma, what is clear is that we have already arrived at it. This is why today, you and many others might honestly ask the question “what is acceptable dress or what is not?”.

I do not think that tradition in this case should be considered, and am welcome to proof to the contrary. Whether something is modest or immodest should be based on empiricism, since the modesty people reduce modesty (much to my chagrin) to a utilitarian level. Thus, that everyone covered up everything 300 years ago does not inform on any real basis whether that practice was justified or not.

What we need to do is reverse this trend. So we can start by first directing our intent, if we are women, toward avoiding the temptation of others. One can start shunning and boycotting clothing and apparel that they feel violate this standard they have. As they strive to do this, they will become more aware. With time, we will learn what causes temptation to an average person and what does not.

Or, we can conduct scientific studies and get an actual answer. The downside of this being…? No one has given me any answer.

 

[thewanderer]

I might also add that people ought to be careful that it is a significant issue before getting involved. I’ve seen too many of these debates devolve into long arguments over details. Maybe one person believes that shoulders should be covered at all times, while another believes that it’s ok in certain cases to wear strapless or spaghetti strap tops. Or one person thinks you can only wear one-piece swimsuits, while another believes that a tankini is ok or even more modest (more stomach showing but less butt - I prefer them for this reason). Reasonable people can disagree on exactly what’s ok and it really doesn’t need to come up.

I definitely agree with you that the significance of the departure from acceptible norms also has to play a part in determining whether or not it is appropriate to address them. Thank you for adding that!

 

[thewanderer]

OurBeloved,

I really hope you don’t feel like I’m just trying to single you out, that is not my intentino at all. But I realized there is something else in what you have said that I don’t think I agree with entirely.

1. women trying to dress as much as possible in a way that does not lead men to temptation.
2. men trying to develop more and more self-control

Instead of what you have written for 1 I would change it to something like

1. Women trying to dress in a way that does not lead men to temptation.

I am just afraid that adding the words ‘as much as possible’ will lead some women into the vicious cycle portrayed in the article DarkLight posted

nolongerquivering.com/2011/11/22/how-modesty-made-me-fat/ Some people might find that interesting…I know it’s about the Quiverfull movement, but I can testify to having similar things occur in what was considered a conservative mainline denomination. There are real negative effects on women to some of these modesty teachings.

There has to be a balance. If women are taught that they are sinning if they don’t do everything in their power to avoid leading men into temptation, then it is going to begin to consume them, because there is always something more you can do. Sure, the more you do, the more charitable it is to men, and so it can be a really good thing, but *it is not necessary to go to the extreme, nor should women be taught that it is. *Otherwise it is too easy for them to lose sight of their own self-worth which is imperitive for a correct and realistic view of the world around us.

 

[thewanderer]

OurBeloved,

I really hope you don’t feel like I’m just trying to single you out, that is not my intentino at all. But I realized there is something else in what you have said that I don’t think I agree with entirely. ( I also love to get involved in intellectual conversations… and have wayto much time on my hands right now. )

1. women trying to dress as much as possible in a way that does not lead men to temptation.
2. men trying to develop more and more self-control

Instead of what you have written for 1 I would change it to something like

1. Women trying to dress in a way that does not lead men to temptation.

I am just afraid that adding the words ‘as much as possible’ will lead some women into the vicious cycle portrayed in the article DarkLight posted

nolongerquivering.com/2011/11/22/how-modesty-made-me-fat/ Some people might find that interesting…I know it’s about the Quiverfull movement, but I can testify to having similar things occur in what was considered a conservative mainline denomination. There are real negative effects on women to some of these modesty teachings.

There has to be a balance. If women are taught that they are sinning if they don’t do everything in their power to avoid leading men into temptation, then it is going to begin to consume them, because there is always something more you can do. Sure, the more you do, the more charitable it is to men, and so it can be a really good thing, but *it is not necessary to go to the extreme, nor should women be taught that it is. *Otherwise it is too easy for them to lose sight of their own self-worth which is imperitive for a correct and realistic view of the world around us.

 

[OurBeloved]

The problem is that the discussion of modesty necessarily involves this discussion. I can throw a naked woman in a shower and sell shampoo on that basis easily. No one needs to be told that nakedness can be sexually stimulating. The problem is in defining marginal cases. Say 5% of men are stimulated by sharp cheekbones. Is this enough to justify women covering their faces? What about bare shoulders? etc.

Modesty involves nuance, which is why such issues come up in modesty threads and not elsewhere.

Actually this sort of issue comes up with cases that deal with Scandal as well.

The root cause of this problem, even in the case of scandal, is that our current society is unaware of any collective wisdom and experiences that we can tap in to on how best to act.

So right now, we have two groups

1. The group that knows what is sexually appealing and wants to dress just like that to tempt
2. The group who is finding it hard to see where to draw the line

Now I think we both agree that the 1st group is wrong for sure. So this leaves us with the 2nd group. A possible solution to the ones belonging to the 2nd group would be to simply turn to traditional values regarding dress. This might be considerably harder since fashions have evolved. But with some analysis, some women might be able to analyze the traditional dress code and extract some plumb lines to use even today.

What is sort of common in traditional values is that they do actually tend more toward the average than the extremes of a society over-time. So things like attraction to cheekbones if not a significant problem, will not be present/reflected in traditional values.

I do not think that tradition in this case should be considered, and am welcome to proof to the contrary. Whether something is modest or immodest should be based on empiricism, since the modesty people reduce modesty (much to my chagrin) to a utilitarian level. Thus, that everyone covered up everything 300 years ago does not inform on any real basis whether that practice was justified or not.

You are correct to a certain degree. Just because a culture has worn a certain dress for 300 years will not make it good or necessarily even modest.

But, if the culture has attempted for 300 years to maintain a standard of modesty, and it has come up with some values as a result of the collective experience and wisdom, those traditions are invaluable. They are the empirical results of 300 years put together.

What we sometimes forget is that cultural values were not invented overnight. They came in to being, not just regarding modesty, but even other things, through centuries of insight. So you are correct in that modesty requires some empirical analysis. That empirical analysis however is found in traditional values.

Or, we can conduct scientific studies and get an actual answer. The downside of this being…? No one has given me any answer.

We can conduct scientific studies on this for sure. In fact, I think many psychologist would probably provide many results on what is and what is not sexually appealing. These are the very things that fashion designers, commercials, or costume designers would incorporate in to their work.

The problem here is that this knowledge is not tapped in to by the women themselves because it has not been recognized that there is really any need to not tempt to begin with. To the contrary, the mentality promoted in our culture is that you should tempt and if you are not sexually tempting enough, you have failed.

Here once again, I think the lack of tradition comes in to play. If it was present, a woman would know how to dress to be attractive and not sexually appealing. But due to lack of any traditional heuristics, she is helpless and might even reduce dressing attractively to having to dress in a sexually appealing way.

So I think you are spot on with using scientific data on this issue. The values of tradition are simply results of a rough scientific experiment that had taken place for centuries. The additional advantage in turning to tradition is that it comes with a complete set of values revolving around other factors as well. Basically, traditional values are the result of an actual large scale scientific experiment that took place.

What happened to us was that with the advent of science, we thought we should just get rid of the tradition completely and even the idea of anything being right or wrong as well.

 

[OurBeloved]

OurBeloved,

I really hope you don’t feel like I’m just trying to single you out, that is not my intentino at all. But I realized there is something else in what you have said that I don’t think I agree with entirely. ( I also love to get involved in intellectual conversations… and have wayto much time on my hands right now. )

No worries I think you raise good points!

Instead of what you have written for 1 I would change it to something like

1. Women trying to dress in a way that does not lead men to temptation.

I am just afraid that adding the words ‘as much as possible’ will lead some women into the vicious cycle portrayed in the article DarkLight posted

Definitely a valid concern. I did however mean it more along the lines of actively wanting to follow it at all times.

To address your concern, I think this is why we again need a bit of tradition and elders who would have been able to advice us. Usually, a woman could know from tradition and advice of an elder as to when to draw the line in perhaps being overly scrupulous.

So I think the question really becomes, if a woman was to attempt to perform (1), how does she go about doing so. In this sense, even (1) as it is right now, could lead to a woman fretting over what is right or what is not right every-time she wants to wear something new. A woman might even go straight to adopting a Burqa.

This is why I think perhaps we can refine it to be

1. Women should try to dress in a way that does not lead men to temptation (by adopting traditional values and advice from elders) at all times

In this case, the elders would have to be good solid priests, nuns or older parents/grand-parents etc. The awareness of what can lead to sexual appeal is something that comes with experience. Anyone who has more experience than us, especially grandparents or seniors, can make good judgement on these things than many of us because of their experiences.

Something like tradition or advice will need to be there to first get the person to get a good grasp of what is good or bad and then after awhile, they will be able to operate on their own. They can then pass it down to their own children with the more refined and collective knowledge they gained and as so forth. Eventually, after enough iterations, it will become such that it is ‘common sense’ to see that a certain dress is bad. This doesn’t happen overnight and it will take time. But if we do strive for it, I am sure we can get there.

 

[johnnyjones]

The simplest statements I can make on this issue to either those who concur with my view or those who oppose it is as follows: Why would a female be given special dispensation from the sin of purposely tempting another? This question has been repeated in one form or another over and over.

Where I think there is a roadbloack, as one poster implied, is the area of consciousness.
Are all females dressing with the intent to induce lust in a man? I think the answer is no.

As I and others have already written, the preponderence of evidence leans toward informed females. This culture is hyper sensitive to sex appeal and thrives on making it known what one can do to maximize that effort.

Yes we must strive to be pure and weed out all forms of lust but we must call sin, sin , whether a male or female is involved in it.

I hope that even if one has realized their postion has evolved based on new information that they will not hold to stubornness. We have pulled this issue apart from end to end. If a woman dresses with the intent to cause a brother to stumble she has sined. No man need look at her for her sin to be “valid”. She is her own vessel and responsible for what she does. As has been said ad infinitum, the man sins by feeding his own lust.

 

[Baelor]

Actually this sort of issue comes up with cases that deal with Scandal as well.

Which people are fine acknowledging involves societal standards, but thank you for calling this one to mind.

This might be considerably harder since fashions have evolved. But with some analysis, some women might be able to analyze the traditional dress code and extract some plumb lines to use even today.

This does not address the issue of what is modest and what is not modest. Asking for an answer, if one exists, should not be met with an unjustified circumnavigation.

What is sort of common in traditional values is that they do actually tend more toward the average than the extremes of a society over-time. So things like attraction to cheekbones if not a significant problem, will not be present/reflected in traditional values.

Why should I believe this? Trends tend to change. Consider each successive century, with different values, etc. You cannot p(name removed by moderator)oint a moment in time and call it average, nor has there ever been a period of average traditional dress. This makes no sense whatsoever.

But, if the culture has attempted for 300 years to maintain a standard of modesty, and it has come up with some values as a result of the collective experience and wisdom, those traditions are invaluable. They are the empirical results of 300 years put together.

But they are not empirical. No one knows whether the attire at the time was sexually appealing or not. We have no wide-scale studies. Who is to say that many were not in fact attracted to the women of 400 years ago even with their attire?

What we sometimes forget is that cultural values were not invented overnight. They came in to being, not just regarding modesty, but even other things, through centuries of insight. So you are correct in that modesty requires some empirical analysis. That empirical analysis however is found in traditional values.

Again, “traditional values” have never prescribed specific forms of clothing, and I see no reason to believe that what people did in the past is indicative of what is actually sexually appealing or not.

 

[johnnyjones]

Which people are fine acknowledging involves societal standards, but thank you for calling this one to mind.

This does not address the issue of what is modest and what is not modest. Asking for an answer, if one exists, should not be met with an unjustified circumnavigation.

Why should I believe this? Trends tend to change. Consider each successive century, with different values, etc. You cannot p(name removed by moderator)oint a moment in time and call it average, nor has there ever been a period of average traditional dress. This makes no sense whatsoever.

But they are not empirical. No one knows whether the attire at the time was sexually appealing or not. We have no wide-scale studies. Who is to say that many were not in fact attracted to the women of 400 years ago even with their attire?

Again, “traditional values” have never prescribed specific forms of clothing, and I see no reason to believe that what people did in the past is indicative of what is actually sexually appealing or not.

If you live in the modern “civilized” world and do not know what revealing clothes are, that is more a reflection of ones own inability to interpret the influences of the enviorment around them.

Sticking with the modern era, the advertising industry should be a big clue as to what is sexually attractive. Avoiding that alone brings you back to an inability to interpret the enviorment. The answers are before you. All women who put on revealing clothes in this culture or the past with the intent to induce lust in a man are sinning. If the man acts on it he has sinned. If the man does not act on it the woman has still sinned because of her intent.

 

[OurBeloved]

Which people are fine acknowledging involves societal standards, but thank you for calling this one to mind.

This does not address the issue of what is modest and what is not modest. Asking for an answer, if one exists, should not be met with an unjustified circumnavigation.

Believe me, I am not circumnavigating your question. You are simply missing the core idea here.

When a women in society strives to ‘not sexually tempt the opposite sex’, a certain set of plumb lines originate in that society. The point here is that one should follow these values.

Why should I believe this? Trends tend to change. Consider each successive century, with different values, etc. You cannot p(name removed by moderator)oint a moment in time and call it average, nor has there ever been a period of average traditional dress. This makes no sense whatsoever.

The point is not that we p(name removed by moderator)oint a certain time in history. The point is that we adopt traditional values from before and refine it as we go along. The error in our society was that we scrapped it entirely and decided to start from zero.

So at any point in time, one would not know if they are on the average or beyond the standard deviation. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they do the best according to the values of that culture.

While it doesn’t make sense to you, it makes sense for lot of people in different cultures and was how it was done in our own society for centuries.

But they are not empirical. No one knows whether the attire at the time was sexually appealing or not. We have no wide-scale studies. Who is to say that many were not in fact attracted to the women of 400 years ago even with their attire?

These standards came in to place through an experiment. When a society holds certain core values as paramount, and let a society run for sometime based on these values, a certain set of heuristics and values are born through the wisdom and experiences of those in the society to better facilitate the core values.

These core values are what you follow and should continue to refine and pass on to your own young.

Again, “traditional values” have never prescribed specific forms of clothing, and I see no reason to believe that what people did in the past is indicative of what is actually sexually appealing or not.

?? traditional values have indeed prescribed clothing for centuries. It continues to do so in cultures in the Eastern parts of the world that didn’t abandon their cultures. You might have been misinformed by someone.

The church has, in the past, objected directly to certain forms of dress. Various popes have advised the faithful in a given culture about what is appropriate and what is inappropriate form of dress. They didn’t get these things out of the Bible. They got the idea that one should be modest from the Bible. Then they got the ideas on how to do it from tradition.

Just an observation here though, you are making this too personal. I am not your enemy and this is not about you proving that you are right. If you are out to prove that we should just abandon modesty and reduce it to something every individual privately decides, then its false.

Always good to remember is that I am a fellow brother of yours as you are mine, in Christ. We are having a discussion on an issue and ways of solving it. Simply to try and attack me should not be your goal. It should be to analyze what I said, and think about it.

Right now, in my experience, you just attack and attack until the other person either abandons his position or agrees with your own position. There is no refinement of ideas on your part but an all out attack. This is not how discussions take place. What you want would be a debate. I would love to have a debate with you but this is a Catholic forum and not the place to do so.

If you continue to just be confrontational, I hope you understand if I avoid replying to you.

 

[Baelor]

If you live in the modern “civilized” world and do not know what revealing clothes are, that is more a reflection of ones own inability to interpret the influences of the enviorment around them.

Again, you are oversimplifying and ignoring the actual issue that is under review: the liminal cases. No one is arguing that wearing a piece of string as clothing is revealing. But are bare shoulders? If a poll were conducted that suggested that mouths were more sexually appealing than shoulders, would it make sense to prohibit bare shoulders but permit visible mouths? etc.

Sticking with the modern era, the advertising industry should be a big clue as to what is sexually attractive. Avoiding that alone brings you back to an inability to interpret the enviorment. The answers are before you. All women who put on revealing clothes in this culture or the past with the intent to induce lust in a man are sinning. If the man acts on it he has sinned. If the man does not act on it the woman has still sinned because of her intent.

No one is questioning any of what you say. But for reasons that I have mentioned earlier, the advertising industry is not capable of providing all the answers.

 

[Baelor]

Believe me, I am not circumnavigating your question. You are simply missing the core idea here.

That is the core idea that I am interested in discussing. The question is not irrelevant, because being immodest is a sin. Therefore, asking what counts as immodest is most certainly relevant, and asking for an employable definition of what that is is most certainly a core idea, if not the unique one.

When a women in society strives to ‘not sexually tempt the opposite sex’, a certain set of plumb lines originate in that society. The point here is that one should follow these values.

This does not follow. That same line of thought holds true in other societies that have different clothing standards, e.g. Islamic society. Many men, I can only assume, find various features of faces attractive, yet those remain visible while knees (god forbid the alternative) are covered. I am not convinced that knees are more attractive to men than faces. I am not convinced that we need to go to the extremes of Islam. I am also not convinced that the plumb lines are accurate.

The point is not that we p(name removed by moderator)oint a certain time in history. The point is that we adopt traditional values from before and refine it as we go along. The error in our society was that we scrapped it entirely and decided to start from zero.

Define “traditional values.” Are the dresses in this picture too revealing? What about dear Ms. Farnese? Perhaps we should look to Archduchess Maria, or maybe instead Mary Tudor. It may be that the subject of Greuze’s painting is more to your liking.

And I have yet to receive an answer on why the opinions of our forebears on modesty should be considered empirical evidence that their attire was justified, given that we know for a fact that the typical attire today is unjustified.

These core values are what you follow and should continue to refine and pass on to your own young.

Why, if they are unfounded?

?? traditional values have indeed prescribed clothing for centuries. It continues to do so in cultures in the Eastern parts of the world that didn’t abandon their cultures. You might have been misinformed by someone.

“Traditional values” cannot because “traditional values” is not a singular entity. That is why they are not prescriptive.

The church has, in the past, objected directly to certain forms of dress. Various popes have advised the faithful in a given culture about what is appropriate and what is inappropriate form of dress. They didn’t get these things out of the Bible. They got the idea that one should be modest from the Bible. Then they got the ideas on how to do it from tradition.

And again, I ask why tradition in this case should be considered of paramount value when no reason for it being considered empirically accurate has been presented. Do the Church’s teachings 400 years ago on dress all apply to dress today?