(I won’t mention who this is because I can’t recall any links right now to prove I’m not making this up.) There was a lady in the 80′s who was extremely famous and extremely beautiful. She even is listed sometimes as one of the most beautiful persons in the world, in her prime. Not only was she beautiful, she was also very forward in her sexuality by the outfits she wore and her attitude.. It was very alluring and attractive. Anyway, she became a Christian! I remember either seeing an interview of her and/or reading about her where she said when she became a Christian that she threw away many of her outfits and old photos and videos of herself because she just knew that she should be modest now. She still is beautiful, physically, even as she’s older, but more so than anything she has a beautiful spirit and a wonderful testimony.

Thanks for this wonderful post, I have linked it to Facebook and sent it to a few Pastors wives. It is fantastic! I often feel even more sickened by the forty year old women who like to expose their breasts. I mean could you put them away?! I don’t want them thrust in my face and at church of all places! Thanks for being so brave and being the “someone who addresses it”!!

Sue,
New Zealand

First of all, in the Bible, modesty seems to be more about not showing off and flaunting your wealth in an ostentatious sort of way. I NEVER hear anyone talk about that and only hear about it from a sexual point of view. For example, MAYBE it’s immodest to wear a $10,000 Rolex watch, drive up in a $150,000 car, and be wearing a $1,500 outfit, (even if that outfit is dowdy and covers up almost every square inch of your body) if you are going to be volunteering at a homeless shelter in Haiti. On the other hand, if you were just going out for lunch in Beverly Hills, this would be no big deal and you would just be fitting in with the culture. In either case, I think the big factor is the person’s spirit. There’s nothing wrong with being rich and having nice things. But it’s another thing to be purposefully prideful and conspicuous about it in order to show others up.

Anyway, I usually run whenever I hear that “modesty” is part of a certain group’s or church’s emphasis. I usually think of some man forcing a woman to dress in a certain way and am more put off by the dominant attitude of men telling their women how to dress than anything else. I have never once in my life told my wife how to dress. To me, that is utterly absurd. My wife is my friend and wife, not a child or a servant.

I was attracted to my wife because she didn’t like wearing bikinis when I met her. She didn’t even wear a 1 piece. If she ever went swimming or to the beach, she just wore shorts or something like that. She was naturally uncomfortable sharing her beautiful body with the entire world. But, and this is a big but , she chose this of her own accord! I don’t “force” my wife to be modest. I chose my wife because we share similar views. To me, it is pathetic and sad that a man has to tell his wife how to dress. But maybe that’s because I’m an American and don’t view my wife as property. What’s really funny is that many men who are hung up on forcing modesty down women’s throats have wives who are so out of shape and unattractive that anyone would run if they saw them in a swimsuit. Maybe if these same men had actually used their heads before they married and found a woman who actually enjoys physical fitness and keeping herself up, by talking about it before marriage, just maybe they wouldn’t be so hung up on sex and how women dress. My wife and I talked about practical things before we got married such as how we would exercise and keep ourselves up and look attractive for each other.

I guess the whole point is that, at least in my experience, I chose my wife because I didn’t have to “tell” her what modesty is. We both had the same values and were attracted to each other because of that. I would NEVER even date a European woman, much less get married to one. Nudity is no big deal in Europe, at least as far as being topless is concerned. There are “family” beaches in Europe where thousands of people congregate and girls and women are topless. I have two points of views on that: It is beautiful and extremely attractive. The girls and women who go topless are stunning and elicit extreme lust. On the other hand, I find women and girls who share their privacy and sexuality with the entire world, literally, pathetic and a major turn off. I would not want a wife who shares her sexuality with any old person in the world.

To the person or people wondering about a one-piece swimsuit, yes, they can be extremely lust-inducing in men. I was going to be graphic and say why, but I better not. If you have any brains or imagination at all you can probably figure it out on your own.

Are bikinis or one-pieces sinful? That is certainly not my place to say. The only thing I can give you is one man’s personal opinion. While I find them extremely attractive, if I were single, I would not be as interested in the gal who shares her intimacy with the whole world to see.

My husband has said he’s tired of Christian conservatives making it sound like men have no ability to be mature and have self-control. He thinks it’s ridiculous that the topic of “protecting our men” comes up so often in the discussion of modesty. (This isn’t to make light of the overall topic of modesty; it is important to weigh and discuss.)

Valerie is right on in that we live in community and need to not think selfishly, but out in the blogosphere and in books I think women being accountable for their decisions based on their own heart condition is not emphasized enough.

The ancient Christians were not living in a squeaky clean society. They had to deal with an abundance of gray areas as well as outright evil, yet God didn’t tell Christian families, “Stay in your houses, don’t go out into the street, or else you’ll be too contaminated!!” Instead, His light overcomes the world, He gives strength, self-discipline (even over thought patterns), and wisdom to not commune with bad company and yet to minister to “the least of these.”

I honestly think that it’s better to train our boys to deal righteously with immodest women and to expect our men to handle things righteously than to treat them like ninnies who must be coddled. Technology has changed, but worldlings (as Spurgeon and Doug Wilson put it ) haven’t. I want my boys to think of their roles as protectors and to be strong men of God, and my daughter to understand her role as a “dangerous woman” for Him.