Seeing as it's summer time yet again, social media is a flutter with the talk of modesty and clothing choices within the Christian sphere. I've seen quite a few posts containing varying different views from male and female alike, BUT in every single post I've read regarding female modesty there still lies some misunderstanding.
Within this current movement I've noticed two poisonous ideologies floating around:
1. Christian men should be able to "respect" aka "not lust after" a woman regardless of her apparel.
and
B. Christian women should not have to dress themselves for anyone else but themselves, and they reserve the right to be comfortable as well. Men should just man up!
(Look, I know it goes from 1 to B, pay attention).
So in order, let's discuss why these viewpoints are misguided.
When men lust after women, it's primarily the body parts that society has deemed sexualized. Here in the West... well it's you know... Erherm. Can somebody get me a glass of water? All joking aside, the breast, buttocks, and genitalia of both sexes are usually considered the sexual parts here in the United States.
Common sense would suggest that exposure to sexualized body parts would lead to sexual thoughts within the mind. So, if you're running around in revealing clothes, especially bikinis, you're not covering your sexualized areas.
Where the male becomes guilty, is when he fixates on what he saw and lusts after it, not upon first glance. Now mind you, this is not to say men are not responsible for their own actions. Contrary to popular belief, we CAN choose to lust after a woman or not. Though with this in mind, you cannot unfairly expect perfection out of man. We are all fallible human beings, and are completely incapable of keeping ourselves from sin. Sin can happen one way or another, and the individual will not always be strong enough to fight it.
If your next thought is, "just don't look" then allow me to educate you on some things that I learned while in design school. Men and women are visual creatures. We notice contrast, color, shape, movement, patterns, etc. We're even attracted to it. (Visually, don't be silly). Within design, you are even taught to arrange and design in such a way as to place focus or draw attention to the main focal point of the design. Do you honestly think that clothing designers behave any differently?
Ex: You have a woman wearing a bright yellow bikini. Where are your eyes being drawn?
Just to be fair
Ex B: You have a man wearing a red Speedo. Where are your eyes being drawn?
Lastly, you want Christian men to respect you, when you don't even respect yourselves. Part of being a respectable Christian is having discretion, which means also having modesty. By God's design, when we're naked, we should either be alone, or with our spouses. What you're doing is exposing indecent areas of your body to the rest of the world. You're giving every person that sees you a special little glimpse in to your marriage bed. So when a Christian man asks you to cover yourself, he's really asking you to show yourself some respect, because he wants to respect you the way you deserve to be.
Okay, on to part B, "I wanna be comfortable".
So is this suggesting that Christian women should dress as scantily as they wish, and that men should just get it together? Is comfort level more important than chastity, or are you allowing culture to define the proper slope of your décolletage. As a Christian, we're called to be charitable and selfless. If your actions offend, impede, or inconvenience another person, you're being selfish, and sometimes these selfish actions lead to serious consequences. I mean, sure we all would like to be comfortable, running around naked sounds like the bees knees, but it's not acceptable. What you wear, or don't wear, can cause someone to stumble. Hmmm... Doesn't that sound like something familiar... I think somebody famous said something about tha... Paul! BOOM!
1 Corinthians 8 (It's alright, I'll wait...)
Now you may say this has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but take a closer look to Paul's response. He tells them to make sure that their liberties, or free choices, don't hinder the weak believers. Understand, I am not blaming women for the mistakes made by men. In the end, we are held accountable for our own actions, but likewise one must also be accountable for being a stumbling block. If you are dressing in a sexually provactive way, ie exposing socially sexualized parts of the body, then you are being a stumbling block and Jesus has something to say about that too. SLAM!
Matthew 18:1-7 (Feel free to pick your favorite translation.)
Moral of the story: not all men struggle with lust, but I would say the majority do. It's a common struggle. It's not your fault. Sin corrupted the natural attraction that we were supposed to have for you ladies, and sometimes it gets out of control. Why not join us in our fight and help strengthen us, instead of possibly impeding our progress?
