L
Litcrit
Guest
OK. I have promised to myself and others I wouldn’t do this, and enough people hate me here as it is… but I cannot honestly leave it be without some closure…
So… what does ‘modesty’ mean to you? At the beach? In the summer? On the streets? In church?
I just spent 10 days on a Greek beach… and after the threads I started here I noticed more stuff than I usually do, European that I am…
I noticed the topless women - usually just minding their own business, just enjoying the beach, not trying to seduce anyone. The mother of two in the thong bikini, there with her husband and kids. The many many many obese grannies in bikinis. The 12 year old girls with budding breasts who perhaps should have considered wearing bikini tops this year but didn’t. A total of** 3** females in one-piece swimming suits - all extremely obese.
Last year I wouldn’t have noticed any of this.
Now I did, and I must say I don’t enjoy it. I, like the vast majority of European folk, just usually pay no attention to people on the beach.
This year, though, my husband and I even had a talk on beach modesty. In effect, he asked me why I didn’t wear a thong or went topless.
So many others did, after all.
I explained to him that there were people that found those sexually alluring, and it was thus inappropriate, and eventually, he agreed, though he didn’t quite understand. BTW, I did wear my black, simple, relatively ‘covering’ two-piece.
So… what exactly makes things modest/immodest in different situations?
In my language, there isn’t even a word for ‘modest’. I recently read a translated travel catalog for an Arab country, and it said that women should dress ‘modestly’ = no jewelry, fancy dresses or expensive clothes]. I was confused until I realized it was a translation from English with YOUR meaning of ‘modest’. A woman from around here, though, might have gone to the Arab country sporting a really cheap and simple thong topless swimsuit and thinking it ‘modest’.
There are so many different ways of interpreting that word - not showing off - not bragging - not exposing sexual parts - not exposing skin at all - etc.
There’s not being dressed in an overtly sexually alluring way - or being dressed in a socially unacceptable way - or being dressed in a way not acceptable for Church (in my country, that means not covering your shoulders, knees, and head). Then there’s the court - one may not legally attend if in slippers, shorts, etc. Slippers are not immoral or sinful, but they are inappropriate. There are so many different meanings and shades of ‘modesty’ that I really do wonder how you know what to wear for every occasion and how come you seem to call this ‘modesty’ every time.
To some, this may seem like provoking. It’s not. I’m just reminding myself and others how trivial and insignificant this is where I live, where people don’t even look at each other while swimming. I’m just also asking how it is where you live and how you cope with it.
So… what does ‘modesty’ mean to you? At the beach? In the summer? On the streets? In church?
I just spent 10 days on a Greek beach… and after the threads I started here I noticed more stuff than I usually do, European that I am…
I noticed the topless women - usually just minding their own business, just enjoying the beach, not trying to seduce anyone. The mother of two in the thong bikini, there with her husband and kids. The many many many obese grannies in bikinis. The 12 year old girls with budding breasts who perhaps should have considered wearing bikini tops this year but didn’t. A total of** 3** females in one-piece swimming suits - all extremely obese.
Last year I wouldn’t have noticed any of this.
Now I did, and I must say I don’t enjoy it. I, like the vast majority of European folk, just usually pay no attention to people on the beach.
This year, though, my husband and I even had a talk on beach modesty. In effect, he asked me why I didn’t wear a thong or went topless.
So many others did, after all.I explained to him that there were people that found those sexually alluring, and it was thus inappropriate, and eventually, he agreed, though he didn’t quite understand. BTW, I did wear my black, simple, relatively ‘covering’ two-piece.
So… what exactly makes things modest/immodest in different situations?
In my language, there isn’t even a word for ‘modest’. I recently read a translated travel catalog for an Arab country, and it said that women should dress ‘modestly’ = no jewelry, fancy dresses or expensive clothes]. I was confused until I realized it was a translation from English with YOUR meaning of ‘modest’. A woman from around here, though, might have gone to the Arab country sporting a really cheap and simple thong topless swimsuit and thinking it ‘modest’.
There are so many different ways of interpreting that word - not showing off - not bragging - not exposing sexual parts - not exposing skin at all - etc.
There’s not being dressed in an overtly sexually alluring way - or being dressed in a socially unacceptable way - or being dressed in a way not acceptable for Church (in my country, that means not covering your shoulders, knees, and head). Then there’s the court - one may not legally attend if in slippers, shorts, etc. Slippers are not immoral or sinful, but they are inappropriate. There are so many different meanings and shades of ‘modesty’ that I really do wonder how you know what to wear for every occasion and how come you seem to call this ‘modesty’ every time.
To some, this may seem like provoking. It’s not. I’m just reminding myself and others how trivial and insignificant this is where I live, where people don’t even look at each other while swimming. I’m just also asking how it is where you live and how you cope with it.
