Still Considering Modesty

Things tend to go in cycles, and modesty is back in the news after a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece on the subject.  I have addressed both nakedness and modesty in the past.  But this piece, and a recent commercial for a sitcom have had me pondering the subject again (I’ll spare you visuals).

The author of the piece does not address modesty from a Christian viewpoint.  Yet she can see there is something seriously wrong.  We struggle with our kids wanting to act like adults when they are not adults yet.  But we are complicit in this (she mentions buying said clothes for instance).  We have also given them a warped view of what it means to be an adult!

I have not seen the show Perfect Couples.  But they run the commercial ad nausium on On Demand (it failed, the show is getting the ax).  It is an effective commercial from a purely pragmatic point of view.  The woman catches her husband or boyfriend staring at another woman’s cleavage.  “They’re just breasts.  They don’t have any power over you.  Look at them.”  She directs his head so he’s looking at them.  The camera cuts to the other woman’s very low cut blouse and cleavage.  “You don’t own me” he mumbles.

“Just breasts.”  Our culture really doesn’t know what is going on.  The issue is not clothes or style or cultural differences.  We have to go deeper into the conversation, to a place most people don’t want to go.  This is because there is no such thing as “just breasts.”

First, we have to think in terms of creation (you could explain some of this via evolution, but I won’t).  God made humanity male and female.  They had obvious physical differences (and less obvious emotional ones).  Those differences were not merely functional, though they had functional reasons.  They were also meant to be attractive to the opposite sex.  You don’t need a C (much less a D or E) cup to produce milk.  Big breasts are not essential to nursing babies.  God made women with bigger breasts than men to be attractive to men.  The wider hips and rounder bottom are also attractive to men.  He made Adam and Eve attractive to one another (yes, she didn’t laugh at his penis).  They took delight in one another.

⁵ Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.  Song of Songs 4

This delight is also revealed in the Song of Songs.  In chapter 4 he admires her hair, eyes, teeth, lips and breasts.  Attraction is a good thing.  It draws a husband and wife together (initially).  As we age, it is less about the outward beauty (as time ravages most of us) and more about the inner beauty.  Our enjoyment of the opposite sex’s beauty is exclusive in marriage.

¹⁸ May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. ¹⁹ A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. ²⁰ Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?  Proverbs 5

I am to be satisfied with the breasts of my wife.  When I am not satisfied with or by them, I will look to the breasts of another.  It can manifest itself in looking at other women, or sexual activity with other women.  Either shows a discontentment with the sexual (that includes emotions, not just physical acts) relationship one has with their spouse.

This introduces us to the second important thing: human nature.  Since the sin of Adam, we are radically depraved.  We are broken, twisted and perverse.  In other words, we are prone toward sexual immorality (among other things).  What is attractive has become obsessive.  We wrench the reality of attractiveness out of the intention for attractiveness.  Lust abounds.  We are wayward men and women.

For instance, while pornography heightens lust it was itself created by lust.  It exists because men want to see naked women, and sexual acts.  It starts from the impure heart.  We no longer confine ourselves to the expression of our sexuality with our spouses.  It is like a broken water main spurting everywhere.

One way it expresses itself is in dressing to gain attention, to woo men.  Adult women wearing low necklines and short shorts provide a warped sense of what it means to be a woman.  Those teen girls are just trying to be women.  They think it means to wear too tight jeans, too high hemlines or shorts, or too low necklines.  We have taught them that is how women dress.  And some parents dress their little girls (not teens) in clothing that is similarly immodest.

The other way this expresses itself is in leering, glaring and lusting.  Natural beauty becomes idolatrous and twisted into serving our impure motives. We are teaching many of our kids that men are supposed to be this way.  We give them a warped view of men as sexual perverts, not as something to avoid but to aspire to.

Woman have to realize that men are inordinately attracted to women, and that the more you reveal by tight clothing and missing fabric the more they will stare, glare and violate you in their minds.  You offer them fuel for their fantasies, so you are BOTH to blame if you are immodest.

The way teen girls dress is the tip of the iceberg that the author really doesn’t want to examine.  It is just another symptom of a culture that have been given over to its sexual immorality (Romans 1).  The author mentions how most of the women she talks to wishes they had had less sexual experience, not more, before marriage.  But they can’t seem to grasp the only remedy- the gospel.

The gospel offers us more than just forgiveness.  Oh, we sorely need that.  Our sexual immorality brings objective guilt, not just the subjective guilt we have over “going too far”.  We are guilty not merely in our eyes, or the eyes of our parents, but the eyes of God.  God offers to pardon us as a result of the death of His Son as a substitute for sinners.

The gospel also offers us cleansing from our pollution.  Our sin has made us filthy, unclean.  We’ve soiled ourselves and need a bath.  Like a skunk-sprayed dog, only a particular bath will do.  Only the blood of Jesus can cleanse our consciences.

The gospel offers us the power to change as well.  We do not have to live in the old practices.  I once said “everyone has a sexual agenda.”  Everyone has an agenda for their sexuality.  It could be unlimited expression, spiritual anorexia or something in between.  The gospel gives us the power to bring our sexuality back under God’s agenda for us.  He works in us to put the desires of our fallen nature to death.

The gospel offers us the ability to wisely counsel others, particularly our children.  We can model modesty for them.  We can talk about their heart, not just their neckline.  And Christian parents need to do this.  Start with what YOU wear and ask “why?”.  Get the logs out of your eyes.  Then talk with your kids about their own desire to “dress like that.”

“Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”  Song of Songs

This is one of the refrains of the Song.  It is one of the valuable traits of modesty.  Immodesty arouse or awakens love (and particularly lust) before the proper time.  Our kids need to know there is a time and a place, but now is not that time or place.  If you aren’t ready to marry, don’t stir up the passions by how you act or dress.  As another Proverb states it, can a man put fire in his lap and not be burned?  We must teach our children wisdom since no one is naturally wise.  And the best wisdom comes from the gospel and submitting to God’s design.