Oh Look, Another Piece of Modesty Content Just Dropped.
A video on modesty titled "The Modesty Paradox: How We Know Revealing Clothes Are Wrong" just dropped by YouTuber Brian Holdsworth, and gee, do I have some thoughts.
The frame of the video is the speaker, Holdsworth, standing in a checkout line surrounded by women wearing leggings-- apparently, the extremely tight, ass-hugging variety. I'm imagining the one with the booty strunch thing, idk. He said EVERY part of the women's anatomy was showing and nothing was left to the imagination, so my impression of leggings as thick, middlingly tight athletic garments cannot possibly be what these women were wearing.
Here is what I imagine:
Here is what he must've been imagining:
Now, this could also be an issue of anatomy. The woman in my example is much less curvy than the model in the leggings ad. Unlike what a lot of modesty commentators say, what is immodest or immodest IS different based on the body type you have. Sorry about it. Consider getting over yourself.
But let's put aside the issue of leggings.
Holdsworth said that we can all tell certain things are immodest and immoral to wear because if he (or any other man) commented on the beauty of a legging-clad woman's ass, she would take more offence to that than if a man commented on the beauty of her hair, nails, or sandals.
This is not a coherent argument. Hair is not a living body part and has been reduced to the status of an accessory. Nail polish and shoes are literally accessories, not body parts. There is a difference between complimenting someone's clothing or accessories as opposed to someone's body part. A better example would be the difference in offence a woman would take from a man complimenting her buttocks vs another body part. There's a problem with this because, unless you have some kind of unusual physical form (abnormally high cheekbones is literally the only thing that comes to mind), about the only acceptable body part for a man to compliment a woman on is her eyes. Yes, eyes are not immodest to show.
But I would be greatly offended if a man I didn't know made a comment about how beautiful he finds my lips. I would take it as sexual harassment because that's what it would be. But obviously, lips are not immodest to show. Yet, they are sexual and sexualized.
I am struggling to think of a body part a man could compliment that would not make me feel uncomfortable.
The second reason this is incoherent is that Holdsworth, Bless him, does not know what women know about the psychology of men who make gross comments on our bodies. We know that it doesn't really matter how you're dressed. Street harassment is not about the woman; it's about the man. Further, it's mostly dependent on geography and demographics. In the city I lived in for college, to get to church (one time), I had to walk through a dangerous neighborhood and men just uttered casual rape threats. Was my ankle-length black dress just too much for them? Was I riling them up with my kirtcheif? Was my lily perfume sending them into sexual frenzy? No. No, of course it wasn't anything I did or was doing. They blurted out their thoughts on my wholly unexposed anatomy because a certain kind of man doesn't need to be brought to stumbling; they're already rolling around in the dirt.
Upright men who stumble are, I would guess, not in the habit of shouting "wut dat mouf do" when they're drawn into lust. Even a woman who is wearing revealing and sinfully immodest clothing would not and should not assume it's her clothing getting her that attention. She would rightly assume she'd just encountered a disgusting man.
The stronger element of Holdsworth's video comes near the end where he says that regardless of our intentions ("heart posture" in women's ministry lingo), the clothing we wear affects people in certain ways, and it is our duty as Christians to be cognisant of that and not cause our brothers and sisters to stumble. The issue there is that it's hard to know what causes people to stumble and what doesn't. With things like leggings, it's heavily context dependent, and there are messages from all sides telling women that they're either fine or garments of satan.
The weakest part of his video, weaker than his main argument, is his understanding of what modesty is as a virtue and as a concept. At the end of his video, he praises his wife and daughters for their modesty, and informs his viewers that it's great to dress modestly "because they always get so many compliments when they go out wearing modest dresses!" It's a section of a larger polemic that is about how you can still be beautiful and value your appearance while being modest.
I will say this gently:
It is not modest to go out attracting attention-- attention of any kind. That just isn't what modesty is. Modesty is, and I will say it again, about blending in, fading into the background, and allowing others to see Christ before they see you.
This means, in the fullest sense of it, dressing plainly, conservatively, and kind of boringly-- not like a fashion disaster (as that would also draw attention), but not like a fashion icon either.
By the number of compliments and the kind of compliments ("from charming old men"), I get the impression that his wife and daughters must be wearing what are essentially costumes, as opposed to outfits.
Visiting the grocery store dressed like this:
is in no way modest. You may as well be putting on a Snow White costume and serenading the cashier. You MIHGHT AS WELL walk around in Daisy Dukes. You should not do either.
Dressing like this, on the other hand:
will probably not rake in as many compliments, but it is much more modest in an actual sense. Even this would be better:
I hear, dear reader, you saying to me, "Gregoria, but I love fashion! Getting compliments is so nice! I feel better when I'm dressed like a fashion icon!" That is great. I'm not telling you to not do that. I'm not telling you not to dress cute or in a way that makes you happy. I am telling you that it probably isn't the most modest thing to do. Luckily, modesty is not the height of Christian Virtue.
Truly, modesty is not a fruit or gift of the Holy Spirit, it is not a heavenly virtue, and as far as I know, it cracks ZERO virtue clusters in Scripture or in Church teaching. This is not to say it's unimportant, but it is to say there is no need to crane your whole life around what is or is not modest-- I'm already doing that enough for all of us.
