Modesty and Etiquette

If sex is nothing special or unique, rape is just like any other violent crime. If that’s the case, why should a rapist be punished more harshly than a person that punched someone on the street? Why should a rape victim be given any extra care or resources? Or sympathy?

For example, you're in line at a buffet, and someone reaches for the soup ladle to get their helping of soup at the same time as you. Instead of reaching for it even faster like a kindergartner trying to grab a toy before the other kids can, instead offer to let them have the ladle and scoop their soup first.

Or you're at the grocery store and reach for a can of tomatoes at the same time as someone else, instead of trying to grab it faster like a toddler trying to grab a cookie before their sibling can get it, instead offer to let them take the can instead.

If you can, it helps to make a demonstration of it, such as saying "oh no you go first!" or "oh no you can have it!", or even just smiling and/or gesturing at the thing you're both grabbing for to let them know they can have it first. That way, if this is someone being childish and acting like a kindergartner who wants to just grab things first before other people can have it, you are letting them know that you are letting them have it out of good manners, and not because they "won" by grabbing for it faster than you. It might even make them reconsider their childish and selfish behavior if they see someone demonstrating good manners by consciously letting them have it first.

Most of the time small grabby children are going to be relatively close to each other in size and physical strength. But as we get older we have to learn better because in the world at large outside of a preschool classroom there are going to be even more variances in size and physical capabilities. In a world where everyone regardless of age just reaches faster if they see someone reaching for the can or soup ladle at the same time as them, or rushes faster to get to the cash register first if they see someone approaching at the same time as them, ect. is going to be a world where children, the elderly, disabled people, and anyone just smaller in frame/stature is going to be at a disadvantage and always going to be the last to get the can or the last to get to the cash register, ect.

(Exception: if you know you're going to take a long time, that IS the time when it's okay to reverse-uno them. "Oh no, I'm gonna take forever, you go ahead" is acceptable when you know you've got something going on that's going to make you slow.)

Reaching for the same tin of tomatoes and the other person gives you the go-ahead? You can grab it and offer it to them within easier reach.

Reaching for the same buffet ladle or serving implement? You can pick it up and offer to serve the stranger first.

Do you have to do this? Of course not.

Is it always the most practical approach? No. Use your judgement as to whether you would make a mess or make things more awkward for the other person.

But if you see the opportunity, and someone has just offered you politeness, you can turn it into something even more polite and kind.

the way you choose to conduct yourself in private shapes your habits and therefore the formation of your personhood, and thereby ripples outwards to affect your connections with others--not just in their opinion of you, but possibly in their own actions as well.

you are not an island in this world, and the things you do will be refracted back at you, even if you never speak a word of them. how you choose to grow yourself as a person is important because you are one alongside many. large changes (and their consequences), whether they occur in family, smaller friend circles, or on a society-wide basis, are never enacted from nothing.

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