Modesty for women and men

[OurBeloved]

(continued…)

Second, and what I have been asking this entire time is on what basis you are making the claim that historical societies approached modesty in the way that it should be approached. Ancient Romans wore togas, but were sexually depraved (sources upon request).

You are now forgetting the problem set-up here. I was advocating adoption of traditional values from societies that upheld modesty as a core value. You are also connecting sexual depravity exclusively with modesty. The dress might not have been the contributive factor in Roman society for an example that lead to wild orgies.

So I think we should keep things in perspective here and not slide in to making connections when their aren’t any.

Third, and most importantly, the basis upon which I am operating for what is modest and what is immodest (as put forth by others) is what is sexually attractive. There remains a total lack of evidence that historical societies were actually basing their decisions on modesty on an empirically sound approach to this issue.

The traditional values were built on experience. To give you a simple view of this process, someone would wear a dress, and depending on the reaction they received over their life time, they gain experience and pass it down their own. The next person might wear a different dress, receive some feedback through her experiences and she will combine that to modify the original dress, then pass it down. This process continues at a very large level over centuries.

Ironically, now you want to argue that they are wrong. They possibly might be wrong. But the biggest issue here is that we have no reason to believe that your standards are accurate given your finite life span and experiences. Do you understand what I am saying?

Given that this is an empirical issue as you said, you are at a disadvantage when going against the collective wisdom and empirical data (experiences) of many before you. This should be pretty clear to you but for some reason you want to dispute this.

So anyway, the best solution seems to be to turn to traditional values and you have not provided any solutions, or at the least, any practical ones.

The rest of your post relates directly to this unaddressed issue, so I am unable to respond.

MOST IMPORTANT

Perhaps it is as I advised you before. The importance here is not that you send me a reply as soon as possible or send me a reply at all. It is more important that you think about what I am saying. Argue with yourself against the objections that you would possibly raise against mine and do some thinking of your own.

Right now, it has become a scenario where you are asking every questions on every little thing which shows a lack of independent thought on your part on the issue. For an example, you are quick to suggest experiments which have not been conducted, no one has plans to conduct, and present no practical solution as to what people should do in the meantime till your experiment is complete. There are also technical issues with your experiment, which you incorrectly seem to think will be solved by large enough sample size (there is a good joke about this sort of thinking in statistics too about trying to solve all problems by making the sample size larger).

So I think a lot has been said on this thread that I think you are finding quiet novel. Possibly why you have so many questions about it too. I think it will do you more good at this juncture for you to sit down and write down all the objections you would write to me, then try to counter them yourself first. This will help you become familiar with my own position, my own thinking and perhaps even help you better understand how to come up with a much better objection against me.

Right now, you seem to be throwing the kitchen sink and everything you got at me with the hope of something hitting. It’s not working because your suggestions are wildly impractical as well. So I hope you think about this before you type the next reply.

 

[severus68]

Well you are not suppossed to understand where I am coming from but rather what I am saying. I think from what you have written, you do understand quiet well what I am saying. Perhaps now you would like to argue about something that you see of the old as unacceptable judging by your current personal experience and our present culture. But as I have explained before to many, such a personal conclusion or that of our present culture would be more likely to be wrong and inferior.

And yes, modesty is more than dress and applies to a lot of other things. But here specifically we are talking about modesty as it applies to dress. So it would be a divergence to engage in discussion as to how it applies to something else.

Why are you avoiding answering certain question? I asked you earlier to explain about those other cultures (non Western) you said you observed but you have yet to respond. Referring to a saree is not a response.
Okay, what are those traditional values you keep referring to, what are some of the values other than modesty?

You have stressed how that modesty of dress is all important and by doing that you have actually made modesty all about dress - the external superficial attire.

 

[AthenaC]

I got a few laughs. If I asked you a straight out question-- If a woman has the intent to tempt a man based on what she is wearing, is that wrong?

Also, since there is so much focus on women for a principle that is supposed to apply to both sexes, I have a hard time empathizing with the concern over what women wear. I look around and see that virtually all men doing their hair, dressing, shaving, and wearing cologne in an attempt to be sexy, yet as a group they get a complete pass on the modesty issue; instead I see everyone trying to micromanage what women should / shouldn’t wear. I find this outrageous.

So, probably not the healthiest attitude for me to have, but in general I couldn’t care less about what women as a whole are wearing as long as there is virtually no discussion of what men should do differently to avoid being objects of lust.

And lest you think I am exaggerating - look at how men are dressed when they go to clubs and bars to try to sleep with women. Invariably they wear fitting clothes in a good color for them, as well as their lucky cologne / hair gel / deodorant / all of the above. They know it has an effect on women, and they know the effect it has. So since they set the bar for other men, it ripples through and even men who are NOT out looking to get laid present themselves this way.

So, what I COULD do is take a page from the book of many of the men on here and say that all men who present themselves that way obviously know what effect they are having on women and are all clearly sinning because they all clearly have the intent of tempting women to sin. OR, I could be a bit more charitable and simply say that maybe modesty is something men should also think about rather than focusing on women. Speck, meet plank.

 

[severus68]

Wear whatever you want, but if your desire is to tempt another (although men are not usually perceived that way) that is something you might want to think through. We have been talking about clothing on women and if there is a premeditated desire to tempt a man. I really do think it is time to start a new thread primarily directed at women about the issue. Theres seems to be an overwhelming amount of male perspective at this point which is not bad, just incomplete.

I do not think a issue here is a woman wearing certain clothes with the intention to tempt men to lust. Yes, that would be wrong.

 

[thewanderer]

No, I didn’t know you were female. If you read through this thread from the begining “everyone” is not in agreement with that belief. Several posters imply that the man must hold pure no matter what the female wears. Although they should try, my point was that a tempter is "guilty’ of sin whether the man looks with sin or not.
Sorry for any misdirected quotes making you a male.

lol

Don’t worry about it, its really easy to make asssumptions like that about people in an online forum. I’m not about to get upset over something like that.

I guess I can see why you brought it up… I just thought we had already covered it and come to an agreement that it is both peoples fault. If anybody dresses for the sake of inciting lust, they sinned. If anybody gives into lust, they sinned. Each needs to take responsibility for their actions. I guess I just figured that seeing as nobody had started arguing against that agreement that was reached, that was a sign that they were all in agreement now.

 

[thewanderer]

OurBeloved,

I am not trying to get into a discussion of nude art in particular. The reason I asked you about whether modesty can be determined by the amount of skin showing is because I am looking for a universal of what makes something to be a trraditional value. I still honestly have no way to determine what are traditional values. I either need a list of particular values or some universal way of determining which particulars are traditional values. The example you gave waas that wearing pants as opposed to a skirt is only a matter of fashion whereas showing an elbow or not would be a matter of a traditional value. The only universal I could think of that would seperate those two examples was that of baring skin. I find it hard to believe that that is a good way of determining what is modest and what isn’t, which is why I brought up my objections to that. I can only assume that this is not what you really meant to be the universal that divides traditional values from others.

Also, I realize that you are assuming that the college I attended broke away from traditional values, again, I have no idea whether or not it did because I honestly don’t know what you mean by traditional values. However, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from assuming that I am incapable of knowing whether or not someone is mature. Perhaps you did not mean it to come across this way, but in your objections to the possibility that the college I attended had a legitimate and modest dresscode you did make the assumption that all the men that I have known and seen become engaged are actually immature even though from my experience with them they appear, on the contrary, quite mature, much more than just about anybody else my age that I know. I am not trying to use my example to prove that you are wrong. I am just bringing it up as something to think about. Yes, of course there is the possibility, however slight, that both me and all the men and women on that campus (including the professers, founders and priests) are deceived in their perception of what is modest. Also there is a chance that I am deceived in the maturity, wisdom and prudence of MANY people on that campus, again including the founders, professors, and priests. But can you please at least keep an open mind to the possibility that that is not the case? If you would be so kind as to do that I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[OurBeloved]

Why are you avoiding answering certain question? I asked you earlier to explain about those other cultures (non Western) you said you observed but you have yet to respond. Referring to a saree is not a response.
Okay, what are those traditional values you keep referring to, what are some of the values other than modesty?

You have stressed how that modesty of dress is all important and by doing that you have actually made modesty all about dress - the external superficial attire.

I am not sure you have even been reading all my posts so I don’t think it is justice on your part to ask me to answer your questions.

Here are couple of reasons why I think the above.

I was always referring to traditional values around modesty rather than modesty as a traditional value it-self. I separated modesty to be a core value of culture. You don’t seem to have grasped the difference and are asking me to give you other ‘traditional values other than modesty’.

Secondly, this thread is specifically dealing with modesty as it applies to dress. While modesty is important in other areas, it is not any less important in dress either. That is a issue we must discuss and is being discussed here. But now you seem to want to discuss something else which I don’t see the point of doing.

It seems like your goal is to try and get me a topic you are comfortable with and just spiral this discussion in some random direction. I like to have more confined discussions on topics. If you like to go broad, I humbly and respectfully suggest you find someone else.

 

[thewanderer]

Also, since there is so much focus on women for a principle that is supposed to apply to both sexes, I have a hard time empathizing with the concern over what women wear. I look around and see that virtually all men doing their hair, dressing, shaving, and wearing cologne in an attempt to be sexy, yet as a group they get a complete pass on the modesty issue; instead I see everyone trying to micromanage what women should / shouldn’t wear. I find this outrageous.

So, probably not the healthiest attitude for me to have, but in general I couldn’t care less about what women as a whole are wearing as long as there is virtually no discussion of what men should do differently to avoid being objects of lust.

And lest you think I am exaggerating - look at how men are dressed when they go to clubs and bars to try to sleep with women. Invariably they wear fitting clothes in a good color for them, as well as their lucky cologne / hair gel / deodorant / all of the above. They know it has an effect on women, and they know the effect it has. So since they set the bar for other men, it ripples through and even men who are NOT out looking to get laid present themselves this way.

So, what I COULD do is take a page from the book of many of the men on here and say that all men who present themselves that way obviously know what effect they are having on women and are all clearly sinning because they all clearly have the intent of tempting women to sin. OR, I could be a bit more charitable and simply say that maybe modesty is something men should also think about rather than focusing on women. Speck, meet plank.

Hear Hear Athena!!

Might I also add to your list any man that works either for the police, fire department, or military? Uniforms, especially on men who exercise (often a necessity for such jobs) and take general care of themselves are one of the sexiest things to women. If you want us to be good about not ever wearing something that might turn one of you on perhaps you should think about returning the courtesy by making sure that you never enter one of these professions.

 

[thewanderer]

Dearly beloved friends,

Cordial greetings and a very good day.

Reading some of the posts in this current thread reveals what is fundamentally amiss within contemporary Catholicism, namely an obstinate refusal to see as normative the function of tradition in providing guidance on divers issues, including the one currently under review. This is actually typical of liberalism which always feels that it has come of age and no longer has need of the collective wisdom of yesteryear. As a matter of fact it is prejudiced by default against anything that preceded the day before yesterday and herein lies its chief error. However, it has unworthy reasons for wishing to commence new again with a fresh clean slate, and that is to render acceptable and normal all that was considered unacceptable and deviant in previous generations. It is the arrogance that insists that modern man always knows best and that his insights and values are more enlightened, more intellectually respectable,and more rational. Multitudes have bought into this, including, I am sorry to say, many contemporary Catholics. Indeed, this is why we are having the present debate about modest attire and why people are rejecting the moral sense of the faithful from former generations as unhelpful.

Men today are seriously wanting a reliable and sound criterion with which to judge what is modest and immodest and so it is hardly surprising that catastrophic errors of prudential judgment are being made with respect to the matter of modest vesture. The truth is that many within the Church, especially youth, are all at sea and have no plumblines and thus they invariably take their cue from the prevailing decadent culture and let it decide as to what is seemly or unseemly in the matter of clothing. Moreover, their deep seated antipathy towards tradition prevents them from drawing on the collective wisdom of the ages to aid them in developing a well-formed conscience, which would assist them greatly in making the correct choices, not only with respect to dress, but on a whole range of other matters. When this is coupled with Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Church then I would make bold to say that will never be led astray and will make the correct choices, as many will testify.

Modern man prides himself on living in an age of enlightenment which has cast off burdensome Victorian inhibitions, enabling him to be ‘healthly frank’ in presenting and appreciating the beauty of human beings in the natural state of nudity. Well, the good God designed our bodies male and female. However, the sad fact is that sin has entered our race and man is now subject to concupiscence or evil desire and must contend daily with the reality of his sad predicament. It is no accident that historically our genitalia have been termed our ‘private parts’. Some time ago I recall hearing about a lady reader writing a forceful protest to the editor of a women’s journal which was making its first venture into pictorial representation of semi-nudity. She did not say, ‘This is disgusting’. She did not even say, ‘I am outraged’. She simply remarked, ‘Leave something for my bedroom’. The point was surely a jolly good one. In this sphere we have lost the distinction in our sexualised Western society between the public and the private. Alas, it is just one more of those ironings out of distinctions which mark our degenerate post-Christian mentality. Catholics in the last 50 years have not remained impervious to this outlook and to some extent have become imbued with it because they lack a solid grounding in the collective wisdom of tradition. This is turn has resulted in radically defective consciences that are unable to know what is modest or immodest in the matter of dress - hence the errors of prudential judgment of which I spoke earlier. This is a monumental tragedy and as I said previously in the thread, parents must take a large share of the blame as must also poor catechesis. The need of the hour in these Laodicean times in which our lot is cast is a bold return to the ancient paths and that means allowing the tradition of the past to again be normative in our decision making. For this is to think with an authentically Catholic mind and not a secular mind that is blown about with every opinion; a world in which everybody is right and nobody is wrong; a world in which put up our hands in despair and cry with Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?”.

Beloved, my plea is that you prayerfully ponder what OurBeloved especially has written in his responses on these boards, for what he has said is not novelty but is fully in accord with Catholic moral teaching and has the ring of truth.

God bless and goodbye for now.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

I’m just going to say that I certainly hope you are not refering to me in this post. If you are you have mis-judged me greatly and I certainly hope that you are not trying to belittle everything that I am saying by lumping me in with ‘proud’, ‘arrogant’, ‘modern’, ‘liberal’, ‘post-christians’ who believe that the world would be a better place if everyone walked around nude. While I did say that I am very hesitant to accept something *solely *on the basis that it is old or was done in the past by others, I in no way meant to imply that traditions should be rejected simply because they are traditions. I am actually VERY strongly opposed to the idea that change for the sake of change is a good thing. I think that is an idea that is extremely detrimental to society. However I also think, as I said, that traditions must be judged as to whether they are good traditions or not. Every period in history has its good and bad points. Every society and people realize some truths while letting other errors creep into their understanding of the world. (Continued)

 

[thewanderer]

(Continued)

Because of this I am unwilling to accept something is true simply because it was a tradition of a past age. Rather, it must be carefully considered keeping in mind the extent of the authority from which it comes, and each person must use their God-given reason to understand and prayerfully determine what is the best course to take. Of course no single person is going to get it 100% right, but if they follow this coursse honestly seeking out the truth and not being guided by some previous prejudice then they are on the right path and one need not worry about them, even if you disagree about certain matters. And yes I will continue to prayerfully think about what OurBeloved is saying. I am not here to prove a point. I am honestly here to have a good intellectual discussion about modesty, its role and how to know what is modest without falling into the unhealthy modesty which many people (myself included) have suffered from. Whether I come out of this conversation with OurBeloved’s point of view, my own or some modified version of either you can rest assured that it will be the result of an honest search for truth.

 

[OurBeloved]

OurBeloved,

I am not trying to get into a discussion of nude art in particular. The reason I asked you about whether modesty can be determined by the amount of skin showing is because I am looking for a universal of what makes something to be a trraditional value. I still honestly have no way to determine what are traditional values. I either need a list of particular values or some universal way of determining which particulars are traditional values. The example you gave waas that wearing pants as opposed to a skirt is only a matter of fashion whereas showing an elbow or not would be a matter of a traditional value. The only universal I could think of that would seperate those two examples was that of baring skin. I find it hard to believe that that is a good way of determining what is modest and what isn’t, which is why I brought up my objections to that. I can only assume that this is not what you really meant to be the universal that divides traditional values from others.

Ok so your problem is very much different from that of Baelor. You want to locate these traditional values. You can find these values in homilies by different Pope’s, Bishops and Priests as they pass them down or remind them to the congregation in a time where modesty was a core value of culture.

As for this skin issue, modesty does play a huge role in determining what can be revealed and what should not be revealed. In this sense, most standards through traditional values do deal with ‘showing of skin’. If you recall the term personal sensitivity, a large chunk of this deals with what you reveal about a person’s body.

But when it comes to dress, the issue is on how to best present the human body. So I would think, naturally, most of the values should deal with what is exposed and what is not.

Also, I realize that you are assuming that the college I attended broke away from traditional values, again, I have no idea whether or not it did because I honestly don’t know what you mean by traditional values. However, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from assuming that I am incapable of knowing whether or not someone is mature. Perhaps you did not mean it to come across this way, but in your objections to the possibility that the college I attended had a legitimate and modest dresscode you did make the assumption that all the men that I have known and seen become engaged are actually immature even though from my experience with them they appear, on the contrary, quite mature, much more than just about anybody else my age that I know. I am not trying to use my example to prove that you are wrong. I am just bringing it up as something to think about. Yes, of course there is the possibility, however slight, that both me and all the men and women on that campus (including the professers, founders and priests) are deceived in their perception of what is modest. Also there is a chance that I am deceived in the maturity, wisdom and prudence of MANY people on that campus, again including the founders, professors, and priests. But can you please at least keep an open mind to the possibility that that is not the case? If you would be so kind as to do that I would greatly appreciate it.

I did not intend to say you are immature or that your colleagues were immature. But what I did intend to say is that compared to the collective wisdom of centuries past, your experiences and those of your colleagues are nothing but a blip (this would include mine as well).

So when you talk about how the experience of your campus contradicts traditional values, this is not a surprise. In fact, that piece of evidence is not a reason to not follow traditional values.

Something your fellow friends might find out as they go in to the real world from the campus is that the entire world is not an larger campus. So when they do live in that world for the rest of their lives, they might actually realize that some of their values were wrong.

But the point of all this is that you tended to use your singular experience of campus life and those of your peers as somehow posing a problem against traditional values. What I explained was how it doesn’t pose a problem and why there is good reason to think that your experiences are just a spurious data point.

Every-time we bring in our own personal experience to support something that contradicts centuries of collective experience, we are at a disadvantage because all we have is our experiences from our short little lives up to that point.

 

[AthenaC]

Hear Hear Athena!!

Might I also add to your list any man that works either for the police, fire department, or military? Uniforms, especially on men who exercise (often a necessity for such jobs) and take general care of themselves are one of the sexiest things to women. If you want us to be good about not ever wearing something that might turn one of you on perhaps you should think about returning the courtesy by making sure that you never enter one of these professions.

Oh wow - the man in uniform. How could I forget? You made me go weak at the knees for a minute, and I’m sitting down now.

Pure thoughts, pure thoughts, pure thoughts, pure thoughts… Gahhhhh!

 

[OurBeloved]

Oh wow - the man in uniform. How could I forget? You made me go weak at the knees for a minute, and I’m sitting down now.

Pure thoughts, pure thoughts, pure thoughts, pure thoughts… Gahhhhh!

this is a funny thought. But just in case you guys are really serious about this, women don’t have sexual attraction to uniforms just as much as men don’t have sexual attraction to cars.

It is just a result of conditioning of our society with its media and perhaps partly a misunderstanding on sexual attraction it-self.

Anyway, the thing to turn to once again is… traditional values… and we will know if this is really a problem or not

 

[thewanderer]

Oh wow - the man in uniform. How could I forget? You made me go weak at the knees for a minute, and I’m sitting down now.

Pure thoughts, pure thoughts, pure thoughts, pure thoughts… Gahhhhh!

I know!!

And if you added to that a man with actual strength of charcater? Do you guys realize how much that can push women over the edge? To see a wise man with true prudence, strength, humility, and charity standing up for what is right???

The point being that there really is no way around avoiding every tempation. This applies equally for men and women, so yes, while caution should be taken its impossible to absolutely get rid of temptation without putting ridiculous restrictions on both genders.

 

[Baelor]

Otherwise, if you consider just the important elements, i.e. goal, observation, revision, all these are what naturally took place in a culture.

I see no reason to accept that statement as factually correct. You have not provided justification that a rational and empirical consideration of each body part, etc. took place while a society developed a moral code. That demonstration is necessary for one to accept your premise.

Well, take even the basic idea of not going topless. That is not something you experimented with but something that was passed down to you as a standard.

That is very obviously false. Consider reactions to nudist beaches. It is very clear through observation that bare breasts are appealing to men.

The church doesn’t have a dogma or doctrine anywhere that you should cover your breasts.

But it would fit under modesty justifiably.

But the debate here doesn’t seem to be on where you can find these values. It seems to be on whether we should accept them. I have given reason to accept them based on the fact that it is the result of experience and wisdom of many over centuries in trying to uphold modesty.

And I have pointed out very specifically the standard that must be met, and you have not demonstrated that it has been.

So in the absence of any real alternative, why are you hesitant to go with traditional values?

See below – my post answered this question specifically.

The answer is simple, we don’t know if they got it 100% right. But it is what we know so far from centuries of day to day living by many before us as they did their best to uphold modesty. So we go with that.

Which is an inadequate response because the fact that they valued modesty does not mean that they approached modesty correctly.

You could also point out to your daughter, as I have done to you, that she cannot figure this out for herself because she hasn’t lived even half of the time that the wisdom was accumulated in.

This argument is very fundamentally flawed. I will come back to this later.

See, I think you have been mislead to work with absolutes only I think. But when it comes to actions, there are no absolutes, just best decisions.

An action is either morally permissible or morally impermissible. In that sense, there are absolutes.

For an example, lets say one wants to prevent people from stealing. We know stealing is wrong with absolute certainty. But what we don’t know is how to best accomplish it. One can make a best decision based on what they know but their decision might not turn out to be the actual best (considering the possible options, probably God only knows the truth of all those possible counterfactuals anyway).

This is not a valid comparison because we are not trying to maximize the quality a process (preventing theft), but rather trying to draw a boundary (between what is modest and what is immodest).

We can gather lots of data, but we can’t speed up time or overcome the effect that we would have in artificially observing the system.

Artificially observing the system is everything that we need. If we can be confident in our hypothesis, and there is possible statistically and realistically, why should the data be dismissed?

Your data would be rather of limited use as well because you would be hard pressed to find many persons who have the same goal as you i.e. uphold modesty in your society.

This is utterly irrelevant. Whether people care about modesty is irrelevant to whether something is sexually attractive or not.

As jj and others have argued, modesty should exist in order to prevent sexual temptation. I agree to operate on this basis. I therefore conduct a study asking men what they find sexually attractive. Whether they care about modesty or not is irrelevant, because only one thing matters: wearing clothes that do not generally promote lust in others.

Then there is the greater issue of what you suggest people do and you yourself do until your experiment is complete. If the answer is “do the best you can”, the best you can is present in the knowledge of traditional values.

Not necessarily, for the reason I mentioned.

 

[Baelor]

So I don’t think there is a way out for you anyway. Why exactly are you so hesitant to turn to traditional values? Shouldn’t it be, that given salvation of yourself and others is the most important, and given that there are no standards available for you today, you would rather turn to the only thing you have?

Baelor:

Third, and most importantly, the basis upon which I am operating for what is modest and what is immodest (as put forth by others) is what is sexually attractive. There remains a total lack of evidence that historical societies were actually basing their decisions on modesty on an empirically sound approach to this issue.

The traditional values surrounding the core value of modesty in a culture should always be upheld because modesty is something good.

Baelor:

If modesty is meant to prevent temptation into lust, I think it reasonable to ask how we know that a particular garment is problematic or not. The fact that a past society thought X, or that all societies did, is not an actual justification unless we also assert the infallibility of such societies, and at the same time provide a reason for how they arrived at their decisions.

Quiet ironically you do the same thing everyday and follow the traditional values of our new culture but you don’t seem to realize it. You don’t question it.

Really? Please enlighten me about what I think. Be specific.

As far as practicality goes, for the average person, they cannot conduct strict experiments like the ones you suggested when it comes to social issues of this sort. I even gave you reasons why your strict experimental results would be doubtful as well.

Basic statistics demonstrate that large sample sizes circumvent all of the sisues.

So if an average person is interested in some standards to best uphold modesty, he/she has to turn to traditional values. All the alternatives you suggest either lead to inaction till some hypothetical experiment is completed or produce doubtful results even if the experiment is conducted (for reasons I highlighted in my previous reply).

Baelor:

If modesty is meant to prevent temptation into lust, I think it reasonable to ask how we know that a particular garment is problematic or not. The fact that a past society thought X, or that all societies did, is not an actual justification unless we also assert the infallibility of such societies, and at the same time provide a reason for how they arrived at their decisions.

The fact that people don’t reveal the truth under a certain condition cannot definitely be eliminated by a large enough sample size so I am really not sure what you are trying to say.

I am glad that that is the only one that is the stumbling block, then. I would recommend conducting the study and going from there. I see no reason to believe that men will not be forthcoming about what they find sexually attractive. Consider studies on contraceptive use, masturbation rates, etc.

But EVEN IF we grant you that such an experiment can be conducted, how would you even gather your sample size? Who will perform such a large experiment? More importantly, what are YOU going to do till the experiment is conducted and results are analyzed and conclusions are made? What standard will you adhere to till the results come out?

My own experience and the experience of those whose thought processes are documented on paper or otherwise.

You are now forgetting the problem set-up here. I was advocating adoption of traditional values from societies that upheld modesty as a core value. You are also connecting sexual depravity exclusively with modesty. The dress might not have been the contributive factor in Roman society for an example that lead to wild orgies.

I am not connecting them. I never claimed that that dress caused anything. But the example is confusing, so I withdraw it.

The traditional values were built on experience. To give you a simple view of this process, someone would wear a dress, and depending on the reaction they received over their life time, they gain experience and pass it down their own.

Show me this thought process in print. Show me where this happened on a wide scale.

 

[Baelor]

The next person might wear a different dress, receive some feedback through her experiences and she will combine that to modify the original dress, then pass it down. This process continues at a very large level over centuries.

Show me this happening.

Ironically, now you want to argue that they are wrong. They possibly might be wrong. But the biggest issue here is that we have no reason to believe that your standards are accurate given your finite life span and experiences. Do you understand what I am saying?

I understand what I am saying. I am not arguing that they are wrong, I am asking for proof that what you are describing as a historical process actually occurred in an acceptable way.

So anyway, the best solution seems to be to turn to traditional values and you have not provided any solutions, or at the least, any practical ones.

I have – conduct studies and operate on known, concrete, and empirically derived knowledge, the explanation of which has been recorded.

Right now, it has become a scenario where you are asking every questions on every little thing which shows a lack of independent thought on your part on the issue.

You keep not answering the most fundamental questions, so I will post them for you.

For an example, you are quick to suggest experiments which have not been conducted, no one has plans to conduct, and present no practical solution as to what people should do in the meantime till your experiment is complete.

I have provided all of this in this set of posts.

There are also technical issues with your experiment, which you incorrectly seem to think will be solved by large enough sample size (there is a good joke about this sort of thinking in statistics too about trying to solve all problems by making the sample size larger).

Try running confidence intervals, etc. and let me know about sample sizes.

 

[OurBeloved]

For my convenience, and force you to actually think about this issue more, I will not address everything you say. Some of the objections and questions you raise, believe it or not, can be answered by yourself if you put some thought to it.

So I will confine my-self to answering things that you might indeed find puzzling, seem to have misunderstood or making a false accusation.

I see no reason to accept that statement as factually correct. You have not provided justification that a rational and empirical consideration of each body part, etc. took place while a society developed a moral code. That demonstration is necessary for one to accept your premise.

That is very obviously false. Consider reactions to nudist beaches. It is very clear through observation that bare breasts are appealing to men.

This is rather unfair reply. The point was raised about a value that you hold that the church doesn’t explicitly teach as doctrine and dogma. After I provide one, you are talking about

And I have pointed out very specifically the standard that must be met, and you have not demonstrated that it has been.

And as was explained to you, your standard of evidence does not exist on these issues and there is frankly no need for it.

Which is an inadequate response because the fact that they valued modesty does not mean that they approached modesty correctly.

Always key to a good discussion Baelor is for you to pay attention.

You presented a flawed argument about Roman Society, it was shown why you were in error.

An action is either morally permissible or morally impermissible. In that sense, there are absolutes.

I think we are really getting in to the heart of the matter here. This is a fundamental error in your thinking that is affecting you.

We only know what act is morally permissible or impermissible i.e. causing temptation, murder, stealing etc.

As to how we build a society that is against those things, it is based on collective wisdom and experience of those before us who tried to do just that.

It will do you good, not just in modesty, if you can wrap your head around this concept.

Artificially observing the system is everything that we need. If we can be confident in our hypothesis, and there is possible statistically and realistically, why should the data be dismissed?

If artificial observation is known to change the behavior of the system itself, then your results are invalid.

This is utterly irrelevant. Whether people care about modesty is irrelevant to whether something is sexually attractive or not.

Oh I think this is a good point.

The error here Baelor is that you have undermined how good the cultural experiment is than yours. Rather than merely sit down and argue what is sexually attractive, they tried out different clothes themselves. From these clothes, they extracted a set of standards on what might cause sexual temptation to the other.

Now it appears that you want to disregard this experiment simply because they didn’t try your approach.

As jj and others have argued, modesty should exist in order to prevent sexual temptation. I agree to operate on this basis. I therefore conduct a study asking men what they find sexually attractive. Whether they care about modesty or not is irrelevant, because only one thing matters: wearing clothes that do not generally promote lust in others.

So what do we do until someone completes this study? Which values do you follow till then? Why should we trust your knowledge, wisdom and experience in conducting this study over the collective experience of centuries?

See Baelor, you really aren’t thinking things through here.

 

[OurBeloved]

Basic statistics demonstrate that large sample sizes circumvent all of the sisues.

Hahaha, are you seriously kidding? If I design an incorrect experiment that cannot give me valid data, you are telling me a large sample size can circumvent the issue ?

I would like to ask you to think hard Baelor.

I am glad that that is the only one that is the stumbling block, then. I would recommend conducting the study and going from there. I see no reason to believe that men will not be forthcoming about what they find sexually attractive. Consider studies on contraceptive use, masturbation rates, etc.

So you aren’t asking the question. What reason do I have to think that Baelor, who thinks that large sample size is the solution to everything, possibly came up with any valid results over the collective wisdom of centuries?

My own experience and the experience of those whose thought processes are documented on paper or otherwise.

So just because they put it in to paper, it became valid?

I am not connecting them. I never claimed that that dress caused anything. But the example is confusing, so I withdraw it.

Good.

Show me this thought process in print. Show me where this happened on a wide scale.

Not everything needs to be in print. Not all of Sacred Tradition was in print. Do you reject that too?

Somethings my friend, we need to figure out for ourselves. The sort of sad thing here is that you are not making any attempt to do so. You basically want me to spoon feed this to you. That is not how it should work.

Perhaps it is because you are still implicitly engaged in a debate. In a debate, the responses are quick and the attempt is to somehow win. In a discussion, the idea is to understand the other person’s position and learn something from it. Ponder by yourself, then bring a good objection to the table. Discuss it further, and so on.

But right now, this is not happening. For nearly 10 posts now, you have just been asking questions, some which are simple enough that you would answer yourself if you understood the position I am bringing forth.

So as I suggested in my replies to you, perhaps you need to think a bit more. No need to type line by line replies to me. Just think about it and give me one solid objection after trying to answer it yourself.

 

[Baelor]

Let me try something different. We are going to take many steps back. What you perceive as lack of independent thought is not that, but rather an inability to get you to justify your positions despite my very specific questions.

It seems that you simply are unable to recognize what I am actually asking, and so are misunderstanding my larger issue with your train of thought. Perhaps my posts are confusing, or perhaps you are responding too quickly or without reflecting on what I am saying, because I am actually following a single thesis.

So, from the beginning:

Premise: Modesty is good.

Premise: Modesty’s goal should be to prevent lust in others. I do not personally believe that modesty should be considered only in this context, but others in this thread do, so we will work with it.

Therefore, the question of what is modest and immodest comes down to whether it unduly incites lust in others.

The natural question arises of how one may determine whether something unduly incites lust in others.

Let us return to the example of my daughter. She wants to know whether bare shoulders are immodest or not. I want to be able to provide her with a “yes” or a “no.”

What she is asking, then, is whether bare shoulders incite problematically lust in others.

Now, let us turn to your response. You say to turn to traditional values.

I am not very intelligent, and I am exceedingly provincial, having lived in communist, capitalist, and socialist societies that range from iconoclastic to rigidly conversative in three countries on two continents and having traveled to over thirty countries. I am very young, and know nothing except my degenerate friends. I am lost, since I am incapable of reading anything that was written more than fifty years ago. All these ideas in this thread are extremely novel to me because clearly the idea of listening to my religious and intellectual forebears is something that I have never, ever considered because I am a token product of my isolated and self-absorbed age.

Thus, I simply cannot for the life of me understand how to make the leap from the fact that it is a traditional value to the knowledge that it is, in fact, correct.

If I cannot make this leap, then how would you suggest I approach the issue of determining what is modest and what is not? I am not interested in approaches that are maybe correct, I am interested in an approach that will permit me to identify precisely what is modest and what is not.

I am looking for a metric that will enable me to take a body part, apply the criterion in question, and produce an answer of “modest” or “immodest.”

Thus, two things are necessary:

1. A clear statement of what constitutes problematic incitement of lust v. unproblematic incitement of lust.
2. A clear methodology for approaching a determination of how to implement 1). Note that “traditional values” is not a complete answer, because those traditional values still required a methodology for being determined.

Specifically, although one could claim that the collective wisdom and experience produces an answer (which seems to be your claim), it is not clear that 1) has been achieved beforehand, which makes the collective wisdom and experience irrelevant because it has no basis, and that even if 1) were to be demonstrated, that the methodology involved is justified.

In other words, I am looking for something that would satisfy Socrates at the time of his interlocution with Protagoras. Of course, I am just guessing what this would entail, because the idea that I have read so old and seminal an author is, of course, absurd to you.

I will even be generous. Let us assume that traditional values are correct insofar as the attire that has been handed down is appropriate.

How do I know how far deviation from that attire is acceptable, and how do traditional values tell me? In case you need reminding, I am not very well-educated, and many of my friends get frustrated with me because I cannot grasp even the most basic of concepts.