Modesty: Who's Responsible?

[quiet52]

**Modesty: Who’s Responsible?

culture-of-life.org/e-brief/modesty-whos-responsible**

Whether we see the issue through the lens of “Puritanical” standards, females dressing provocatively, or males “sexualizing everything,” the heart of the matter is something larger: what will best help adolescents and young adults, who are struggling with what it means to be a man or woman, to live a respectable, virtuous life, and prepare for a flourishing future?

So what do you think?

And how can the Church best address this issue, for the sake of forming our young people in virtue?

 

[catholictiger]

Who is responsible I would say both men and women.

Women cover yourselves up those areas should only be seen by your husband in the bedroom.

Men grow in the virtue of purity (same with women too) so that you don’t objectify women.

parents should instill these virtues in their kids more.

It’s wrong to single out one sex one group of people in this, we all play a role in this ever growing culture of sex and death.

What should Church do simple preach the word without fear but with pastoral charity.

 

[AlTheCollegeGal]

Who is responsible I would say both men and women.

Women cover yourselves up those areas should only be seen by your husband in the bedroom.

Men grow in the virtue of purity (same with women too) so that you don’t objectify women.

parents should instill these virtues in their kids more.

It’s wrong to single out one sex one group of people in this, we all play a role in this ever growing culture of sex and death.

What should Church do simple preach the word without fear but with pastoral charity.

I think it’s also prudent to acknowledge that men should be held to the same standards of modesty as women; oftentimes, I will see young men dressed inappropriately, yet it seems to always be talked about that women need to dress modestly. What is “modest” is an ever-changing, individualized, and highly preferential definition; to some, wearing a certain style of pants may be immodest, whereas to another, it is not. Since there is no one “right” definition as to modesty, and since it is impossible to regulate others’ choice of dress, it is most valuable to focus on our own judgments/thoughts rather than the style choices of others.

 

[catholictiger]

I think it’s also prudent to acknowledge that men should be held to the same standards of modesty as women; oftentimes, I will see young men dressed inappropriately, yet it seems to always be talked about that women need to dress modestly.

I agree women usually get singled out in this issue because our culture objectifies women much more than men. But we still objectify both.

 

[TK421]

Well it starts with parents being tough love killjoys towards their kids and making them dress well.

You also, as with everything, have to focus on the heart and the rest will fall into place. It’s not just about dressing scantily. Whether it’s dressing scantily, or wearing a shirt with provocative text, or going out of your way to wear ridiculously loose jeans, etc, etc, people that go out of their way to dress far outside of the norms of their particular culture are doing so in order to make a statement. Maybe they’re not actively thinking that, but it’s still the kind of attitude they’ve adopted, where they try to define themselves by the way they dress instead of by their character. Give people a solid foundation in their faith and they’ll have contentment. That means not dressing to attract attention just for the sake of attracting attention.

 

[styrgwillidar]

Well, here’s how I put it to my kids (my own and those I teach in CCD)

How you dress sends a message about yourself. It communicates something about yourself to others, what you think is important about you. It’s why some occupations have formal uniforms and others unofficial standards of dress.

Lawyers, businessmen, politicians dress a certain way to send a message about themselves to those they deal with. So do car salesmen, TV personalities be it news or entertainment.

What message are you trying to send about yourself? Look at me? Look at this body? Talk to me? Respect me as I obviously respect myself?

And that goes for both men and women.

 

[Kit15]

You are responsible for your own individual actions. Someone who dresses immodestly may be guilty of being vain or selfish or boastful or proud…WHY are they choosing to dress in that way. Asses and reevaluate the motives behind it. Some kind of intangible desire isn’t bringing out the best in you. That is something only you can fix.

But the observer is responsible for their thoughts, eyes, and tongue. What incites Person A might not tempt Person B…or even Person C. Person Z does not suddenly commit sin just because Person A walked into the room, saw Z, and had a dirty thought. Person A’s reaction to something is something that only Person A can fix.

It’s not fair to pass blame on others because of our own shortcomings.

 

[SusanneT]

Surely it’s up to the individual (male or female) to dress modestly and the observer (male or female) to guard against lustful thoughts.

We shouldn’t dress with the intent of inciting lustful thoughts in others, but an over sexualised man can lust after even the most modestly dressed woman.

 

[Kamaduck]

Surely it’s up to the individual (male or female) to dress modestly and the observer (male or female) to guard against lustful thoughts.

We shouldn’t dress with the intent of inciting lustful thoughts in others, but an over sexualised man can lust after even the most modestly dressed woman.

^This.

Everybody needs to avoid objectifying other people, and everybody needs to dress modestly.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

The only control a person has is the control of self. We can help our children learn self control, but it’s their ultimate lesson in life.

Men need to learn self control especially in matters of lust. This is learning how to treat ALL women with the same dignity owed to women. Too often, men will have tier levels on the respect and dignity owed to a woman. In today’s secular society this is primarily guided by beauty. I remember watching a silly show where they took a supermodel and made her “frumpy” ( messy hair, glasses, bad posture ) and had her ask for help from young men. Most men did not help and gave her no respect. Then they did the same experiment with her dolled up and every man was bending over to help her. So, equality in dignity and respect are diminished to objectification of beauty (aka lust). Mothers and grandmothers also seem to have different levels of respect too. When men repeatingly learn to diminish a woman’s worth based off attractiveness, they will often openly lust over modest dressed young woman too; because this is what they know. Add to that a man who exposes himself to pornography, and this is how he will compare all women to evaluate the dignity and respect he deems is owed.

Women also learn how to gain respect from men. Some woman are starving for respect and conclude violating modesty gains them the respect they are starving for. In some cases they abuse this power they find and other times this leads them to be manipulated into soft porn like sending naked pictures of themselves and reducing themselves to the dignaty men want to give them.

 

[fpt]

**Modesty: Who’s Responsible?

culture-of-life.org/e-brief/modesty-whos-responsible**

Whether we see the issue through the lens of “Puritanical” standards, females dressing provocatively, or males “sexualizing everything,” the heart of the matter is something larger: what will best help adolescents and young adults, who are struggling with what it means to be a man or woman, to live a respectable, virtuous life, and prepare for a flourishing future?

So what do you think?

And how can the Church best address this issue, for the sake of forming our young people in virtue?

Each human being has to avoid the Manichaeism,** the Catharism, the Jansenism, the neo-Jansenism, the Puritanism, the neo-Puritanism, the Victorianism, the neo-Victorianism, the quietism, the fideism, the theoretical providentialism, the quiverfull movements (the quiverfullism), the absolute procreationsim, the absolute physiologism, the primary anti-personalism, the primary anti-phenomenologism, the radical feminism**, the sexism coming from females, the misandry, the negationism of alterity and of the complementarity of male and female coming from women, the negationism of the sexuation coming from women, the relativism of the sexuation coming from women,** the sexism coming from males, the misogyn**y, the negationism of alterity and of the complementarity of male and female coming from men, the negationism of the sexuation coming from men, the relativism of the sexuation coming from men, the philosophical absurdism of the conjugal sexual morality, the theological absurdism of the conjugal sexual morality, the moralism, the rigorism, the externalism, the judgmentalism, the pharisaism, the scrupulism. All those heresies (the christian ideologies) and all these ideologies (the natural ideologies) are morally wrong, each human being has the moral obligation to battle against each one of them.

The education coming from parents, from schools, from priests, from doctors, from ethicists, from the society, from the civil law, from the administrative law, from the penal law, from the culture, from leisures, from sports, from natural philosophy…etc, **has to be done in this way, in this direction: the fact of avoiding those ideologies and those heresies, in doctrine and in practice. **Otherwise, that is very wrong, it is unfair, it is not coherent, it is irrelevant, it is not natural. The natural rights, the natural obligations, the natural duties of each human being are the principles.

*The war of sexes, the war between sexes, the war of genders (traditional accepting), the war of genders (traditional acception) are not acceptable. *

Can be responsible : the mother, the father (the parents), the cultures, the educations, the mentalities, the mental diseases, the spiritual diseases, the religious views, the beliefs…, the wrong interpretation of the moral doxa.

The original sin and his effects are at the spring of that.

Modesty??? Immodesty??? Decency??? Indecency??? Morality??? Immorality??? Prudence??? Imprudence??? Liberty??? The limits of the liberty??? Tha bans??? The punishements???

Definition of those notions??? * By nature, a virtue is moderated and balanced.*

 

[fpt]

Each human being has to avoid the Manichaeism,** the Catharism, the Jansenism, the neo-Jansenism, the Puritanism, the neo-Puritanism, the Victorianism, the neo-Victorianism, the quietism, the fideism, the theoretical providentialism, the quiverfull movements (the quiverfullism), the absolute procreationsim, the absolute physiologism, the primary anti-personalism, the primary anti-phenomenologism, the radical feminism**, the sexism coming from females, the misandry, the negationism of alterity and of the complementarity of male and female coming from women, the negationism of the sexuation coming from women, the relativism of the sexuation coming from women,** the sexism coming from males, the misogyn**y, the negationism of alterity and of the complementarity of male and female coming from men, the negationism of the sexuation coming from men, the relativism of the sexuation coming from men, the philosophical absurdism of the conjugal sexual morality, the theological absurdism of the conjugal sexual morality, the moralism, the rigorism, the externalism, the judgmentalism, the pharisaism, the scrupulism. All those heresies (the christian ideologies) and all these ideologies (the natural ideologies) are morally wrong, each human being has the moral obligation to battle against each one of them.

The education coming from parents, from schools, from priests, from doctors, from ethicists, from the society, from the civil law, from the administrative law, from the penal law, from the culture, from leisures, from sports, from natural philosophy…etc, **has to be done in this way, in this direction: the fact of avoiding those ideologies and those heresies, in doctrine and in practice. **Otherwise, that is very wrong, it is unfair, it is not coherent, it is irrelevant, it is not natural. The natural rights, the natural obligations, the natural duties of each human being are the principles.

The war of sexes, the war between sexes, the war of genders (traditional acception), the war between genders (traditional acception) are not acceptable.

Can be responsible : the mother, the father (the parents), the cultures, the educations, the mentalities, the mental diseases, the spiritual diseases, the religious views, the beliefs…, the wrong interpretation of the moral doxa.

The original sin and his effects are at the spring of that.
The woman is not a nun, the woman is not a sister, the man is not a monk, the man is not a friar, the man is not a priest.*

The modesty or immodesty of garments of babies (0 - 7 years, 7 - 11 years), of teenagers (11 - 18 years), of adults (18 years until the death)??? The decency or the indecency of garments???

What are the practical solutions???

In the past, there were many wrong things, the past time was not much better**. The nostalgia of modesty of past times is an illusion. **

Modesty??? Immodesty??? Decency??? Indecency??? Morality??? Immorality??? Prudence??? Imprudence??? Liberty??? The limits of the liberty??? Tha bans??? The punishements???

Definition of those notions??? * By nature, a virtue is moderated and balanced.*

 

[Portrait]

**Modesty: Who’s Responsible?

culture-of-life.org/e-brief/modesty-whos-responsible**

Whether we see the issue through the lens of “Puritanical” standards, females dressing provocatively, or males “sexualizing everything,” the heart of the matter is something larger: what will best help adolescents and young adults, who are struggling with what it means to be a man or woman, to live a respectable, virtuous life, and prepare for a flourishing future?

So what do you think?

And how can the Church best address this issue, for the sake of forming our young people in virtue?

Dear quiet52,

Cordial greetings and a very good day.

An obligation is laid upon both men and women to be clad in modest attire. Undeniably, men are responsible for the custody of their eyes (cf. Job 31: 1) and there can be no doubt that many an impure thought is the primary cause of the enflaming of evil desire. However, women also have a duty to “adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety” (I Tim. 2: 9), so that they do not needlessly stimulate lustful desire in men. Thus as regards modesty in vesture, it is not a question of either/or but of both/and, with both sexes doing their bit to minimise and neutralize the strength of concupiscence. Here is how one manual of instruction for Catholics put it:

"What is the virtue of modesty?

The virtue of modesty is the virtue which protects chastity by inclining us to guard our senses, so as not to invite temptation, and be considerate in our dress and behaviour, so as not to cause temptation to others".

(Christ In Us: Instructions in the Catholic Faith, Killgallon & Weber, Sheed and Ward, 1958, p. 269)

Modesty in attire, dear friend, has always and rightly been considered by Catholics a bastion against sexual license and the elimination of opportunity. Both men and women are, as it were, co-operators together in the battle for chastity and purity and so actually need one another to keep evil desire in check. It is only a warped radical feminism that would seek to place the burden entirely upon the man’s shoulders and free a woman from all responsibility to dress in a manner that does not offend decency.

Unfortunately, dear friend, many contemporary Catholics, especially the youth, have indiscriminately adopted the seductive style fashions of our godless Western culture (e.g. the mini-length skirt, tightly fitting garments or low-cut tops that reveal cleavage). As a result of poor catechesis many of our young people lack a properly formed conscience and are therefore wont to make catastrophic errors of prudential judgment in their clothing choices. It admits of no doubt that this tragic loss of moral sense blights the modern Catholic Church and the clergy must do more at grass roots level to instruct our youth to dress in a manner that does not transgress the boundaries of propriety. No, women/girls do not have to ensure that every square inch of their bodies are covered, but they clearly must not be scantily clad or don tightly fitting garments that accentuate body parts. On the contrary they should endeavour to be circumspect as regards their attire, as befits women who profess the holy religion of Christ.

Whilst it is quite true, dear friend, that Holy Mother Church has not mandated any one choice of clothing, a well-formed conscience, coupled with some good old fashioned sanctified common sense, should steer both sexes well away from garments that are manifestly provocative and which draw attention to body parts and shape - “Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing” (CCC, para. 2522). It is one thing for a woman to make herself attractive, but it is quite another for her to make herself look tarty and therefore unseemly. Woman do know the difference and so do men. The moral sense of the faithful has always held it to be wrong and uncharitable for a woman to dress so as to incite lust in the male sex. That remains true in 2013, notwithstanding what secular feminism says to the contrary.

It is deeply saddening, dear friend, to hear contemporary Catholics asking what modesty is or to be provided with some concrete criterion, as if they expect the Church to spoon feed them as to which specific garments are modest and which are not. Holy Mother Church assumes that a well-formed conscience will do this and thus aid a man or woman in making the correct clothing choices. However, any clothing which gives unseemly prominence to body parts/form and exposes an inordinate amount of flesh is manifestly inappropriate and exceeds the boundaries of propriety and good taste. Who can honestly deny that a mini-skirt, tightly fitting jeans and a bikini does not fall into this category? There can be little doubt that immodest and indecent attire has resulted in the disordered fixation with body parts, which in turn has resulted in the hypersexualisation of Western culture and the prevalent decadence which is a sad feature of it. Unless Catholics wish to be implicated in this aggressive sexualisation of our culture they must steadfastly refuse to be clad in unseemly attire, for "modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and pressures of prevailing ideologies (CCC, 2523). The urgent need of the hour is for Catholics to raise a standard and dare to be different in the matter of their vesture.

God bless.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[mafh]

**Modesty: Who’s Responsible?

culture-of-life.org/e-brief/modesty-whos-responsible**

Whether we see the issue through the lens of “Puritanical” standards, females dressing provocatively, or males “sexualizing everything,” the heart of the matter is something larger: what will best help adolescents and young adults, who are struggling with what it means to be a man or woman, to live a respectable, virtuous life, and prepare for a flourishing future?

So what do you think?

And how can the Church best address this issue, for the sake of forming our young people in virtue?

A Muslim once told me that in Islam, the woman is responsible for covering herself, but the man is responsible for not noticing her “attributes”, whether or not she is covered. That way, if one side fails in his/her responsibility, the problem is still averted by the diligence of the other side.

With some alterations, this seems like a decent rule: Dress modestly, and fail to notice any lack of modesty on the part of other people.

 

[Walking_Home]

The more a person responds to God’s Grace – the more the person is apt to see the other as a child of God – no matter what the person wears.

 

[severus68]

The more a person responds to God’s Grace – the more the person is apt to see the other as a child of God – no matter what the person wears.

Exactly!

 

[severus68]

:

fpt:

 

[EasterJoy]

The issue I see now goes well beyond some question of whether the skin is covered here or there or not. It is the extent to which feelings of self-worth are being tied to whether or not one is an object of lust. It probably started in advertising–I mean this feeling of insecurity sown in the area of whether or not other people see one as an object of sexual desire–but now it is ubiquitous. The prevailing sentiment is that we’re all supposed to be sexy and we’re all supposed to judge others on whether they make a sexy presentation of themselves or not.

In this way, the very self-respect that would naturally underlie a healthy and happy willingness and desire to be modest has been undermined, because of course everyone is (consciously or not) put in competition with impossible air-brushed standards of perfection on top of it all. It’s not just sex. It is housekeeping and eating the “right” food and all the rest. How can we ever hope to be modest if we’re constantly being told we need to show off and expect to be offered congratulations about everything we do? In place of true self-respect, setting people in pursuit of an impossible and false sense of self-respect has made everyone think that their dignity depends on whether or not they are turned out in a way that makes them sexually desirable and in every other way enviable…and do it for life! Meanwhile, the virtues that really are praiseworthy and worth the admiration of all are falling in public esteem and even make someone the target of criticism–that someone is “uptight” or “frigid” or a “goody two-shoes”, not to mention “dowdy” or “out of date” and who-knows-what-else.

If you have these two messages–thou shalt be modest and thou shalt be thought desirable or enviable–you put everyone in an impossible Catch-22 that can result in shame both over displaying too much and over not garnering enough catcalls to have made it all “worth it”! On that account, I agree with those that the biggest issue of our time is not getting people to cover up enough, but to convince them that they have a dignity worthy of clothing in the first place, whether they cover it or not, letting the covering up follow after that. Innoculate against shame first, that is what I mean. A purity with shame as its foundation defeats the purpose of keeping pure in the first place, after all, and shame leaves one vulnerable to every sort of spiritual ill, including despair.

 

[Country_Gal]

**Modesty: Who’s Responsible?

culture-of-life.org/e-brief/modesty-whos-responsible**

Whether we see the issue through the lens of “Puritanical” standards, females dressing provocatively, or males “sexualizing everything,” the heart of the matter is something larger: what will best help adolescents and young adults, who are struggling with what it means to be a man or woman, to live a respectable, virtuous life, and prepare for a flourishing future?

So what do you think?

And how can the Church best address this issue, for the sake of forming our young people in virtue?

I have two daughters. When they were in middle school time, I was very clear about the clothing that was acceptable. I told them about how men’s minds work, and how visual they are, that that if they dressed too provocatively, dirty old men would be thinking nasty thoughts about them!

They are now 17 and almost 19, both virgins, both beauties, with great senses of style. My older daughter won best dressed in her senior yearbook, and has never dressed like a tramp.

I lay the responsibility on the mother’s shoulders entirely.

 

[mek42]

I think if men publicly admitted that we are weak willed when confronted by the innate beauty of the female form, fewer women would discount modesty as mere prudishness.

To put my money where my mouth is, I was in a store earlier this week and a woman wearing a modest dress that came down somewhere around her knees was on one knee examining items on the bottom shelf. My gaze lingered and I chose to admire her inner thigh for a moment before tearing my eyes away. The fault was not in any way hers.