Specifics change, but the need for modesty doesn't
1999-11-08

As you may or may not recall, I wrote a column a few weeks back about modesty. It was sort of a broad overview (no pun intended) of the importance of modesty. I discussed why the responsibility for modest dress is generally placed on women. (It's not patriarchy, it's testosterone -- men are more visually oriented.) I even quoted Seinfeld. Overall, it seems to have been a very popular piece, judging by the mail I've received in response. But we left a lot of questions unanswered.

What constitutes modest attire? Before you answer too easily, consider this: In his book Living It Up, George Burns described his life as a young man in the early 20th century. He says that he and his buddies used to gather at the corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of a woman's ankle as she boarded the streetcar. That was big excitement to them. If any of you today still maintains that a woman is immodestly dressed when her ankle is exposed -- well, it's a shame George Burns died, because you probably lost your last friend.

Why was it immodest 100 years ago for a woman to expose her ankle, but not today? Why was a woman's exposed calf so scandalous in the '20's, while today not even the most prudish of people hesitates to show a little shin bone? How could wearing something be legitimately wrong in one generation but perfectly permissible in another?

The problem is that, while the necessity for the virtue of modesty is a constant, the specifics of what actually constitute modesty are socially conditioned. What may be modest in one culture or at one time can be terribly immodest in another place or at another time.

So how does one define what is or isn't modest in any one culture or time. The definition is simple: a woman's clothing is immodest when it attracts the attention of the average man in that culture in a directly sexual way, or generates a sexual response in men. Apparently years ago the mere sight of a "well-turned ankle" got a man's juices flowing. Today, not so much.

Why the change? Conditioning. I guess once women started regularly exposing their ankles, it got to be no big deal. So then the women who wanted attention started flashing a little shin. Is this "progress" good or bad? Up to a certain extent, I'm not sure. On one hand, the excessive cover-up of the Victorian era was more than a little constraining for women.

On the other hand, I can't help but think that, if a man saw nothing but ankles his whole life, his wedding night must've been a pretty big thrill.I once saw an old 1950's issue of the Jesuit magazine America. In it, I read an article which defined modesty as dressing in a way which is "in the middle" of the fashions of the time, not to the extreme.

Good advice, but what happens when you reach the point we have today, where fashion itself is so extreme that the sexual parts of the body themselves are regularly exposed. Is that just the "norm" of fashion to follow, or is that exposure wrong in every time and culture? There is always the example of the various primitive tribes in which women live their entire lives topless. Apparently the men in those cultures aren't affected at all by that.

Many in this culture try to extend that example to us. They say that we've seen so much cleavage that exposed breasts are no longer any big deal. They say that, at the beaches of Europe, topless women no longer attract any attention, and those cultures have reached a point where exposed breasts are no longer immodest.

I don't buy it. First of all, when a woman is "wearing" exposed cleavage, where does your attention automatically go? Do you first notice her eyes, or her smile? Doubt it. In fact, it probably takes a certain conscious decision to not look at the cleavage. And as for the beaches of Europe, I've seen those beaches. I've also seen the lines of men up on the cliffs above the beach -- the guys with the binoculars. Don't tell me it's no big deal.

So yes, modesty in dress is important. Yes, unfortunately, much of that responsibility falls to women, what with men's increased visual orientation and all. And yes, the specifics of modesty are very culturally conditioned. So wait a minute. We've reached a rather disturbing place here. Is a woman really supposed to choose her wardrobe based on what's going on in somebody else's mind? Could she actually be sinning based on something she can't even control -- another person's thoughts? How bizarre is that? What are we supposed to do? And do men just go scott free here? What exactly is a man's responsibility in all of this?

We're far from finished with this subject.