La. I haven't posted anything on clothes for a wee while, so here you go. Enjoy!
Yes, total click bait. If I ever start a cult, all members will wear elbow-length sleeves, and knee- length skirts or shorts or skorts with socks or stockings. Even the boys. That way absolutely nobody in western countries can accuse my cult-members of sartorial immodesty.
I have yet to work out if the men should be allowed to wear shirts to their wrists or actual trousers all the way to their feet. Maybe we could have a trouser/ankle-length skirt, sleeve-to-wrist, dress uniform. I just do not understand WHY it has become a societal norm for women to show our legs when men don't. It used to be the other way around. As for arms, how come women show so much arm when men don't?
I just saw a graduation photo: five young men in black-tie dress, all covered up to the chin. Of their skin, only hands and faces could be see. They were with a fellow graduand, a girl in a sleeveless, strapless, skin-tight mini-dress. Why do women choose to go almost naked when men go covered from neck to wrist to shoe? And vice versa? Why, why?
Hands, forearms, shins, calves, neck, face, cult members! That's it!
Wednesday, 15 July 2015
29 comments:
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I don't know about that blog's assertion that no one cares about or talks about modesty. It seems trads can't shut the bleep up about it, and I'm over it.
ReplyDeleteIt's click bait. EVERYONE always gets involved in discussions about modesty. Smart alecs like me drag the boys into it. Is it modest for a boy to look like James Bond? Is he a walking inducement to sin when he looks like he might be a rich and powerful businessman? Discuss.
ReplyDeleteI think it is modest for men to dress like James Bond/a businessman. Then again, I don't care so much about Modesty (TM) as I do about style. And James Bond, while a terrible sexual sinner, has style.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I don't tend to show my upper arms, but that's not because I think that upper arms are immodest. Its because they are currently out of shape.
Oooh! I have a question that's related to the make-up discussion of a few days ago.
ReplyDeleteI am a make-up-lover. I wear it whenever I am in public. I go for a "natural" look, but as many women will know, "natural" make-up still involves quite a number of products, techniques and tools. Bottom line? Make-up makes me look better than I do naturally. I still look like me without it, but it makes a difference.
Let's say I meet an interested man. Eventually, he is very likely to see me with no make-up on, even if that's when we are already engaged. I will look different. It might surprise him. Are men put off when they see their beloveds without make-up? I have good skin and long lashes, but my lashes are pale and so are my brows, so to render them visible, I wear mascara and brow powder. What are your thoughts? Would accusations of "false advertising" be valid?
Nope. Just like you wouldn't be disappointed to see him with a scruffy beard, even if you usually liked him clean-shaven. Any quantitative decline in your appearance would be more than compensated by the increased intimacy of seeing your "private" face.
DeleteI don't care so much about Modest (TM) (Love it, Julia!!), either, but I totally want to join your cult, Auntie Seraphic!!! :)
ReplyDeleteI actually think things like sleeveless shirts/dresses and skirts/dresses that fall slightly above the knee can be perfectly modest, depending on the person. Some clothes are definitely intrinsically immodest, but I think the way the person carries themselves/the situation can have a big impact on whether something specific on a specific woman is modest or immodest. (For example, I think the dress Cinderella wears around the house in the new Cinderella movie is modest and appropriate, even thought it shows cleavage.)
In my opinion, modesty is something that is really hard to pin down to a set of specific rules/measurements, but you know it when you see it.
I think that woman tend to bare more flesh because they also tend to be more likely to look good/think they look good in scanty clothing?
Men can occasionally look good in things like short shorts (Well, some soccer players, anyway!) and sleeveless shirts, but for the most part, they just don't. Whereas a well-cut suit flatters pretty much any male figure.
And I think it's also partially just current styles?
And I totally agree with Julia about style and James Bond! Personally, I think Catholics should stop obsessing so much about modesty and start just trying to dress in cute, stylish clothing that suits them. Because how many women actually do look cute in something that it looks like they've been poured into?
Exactly, Booklover. I met a young guy from another city recently and he told me that the girls in his TLM community tend to go for the shapeless sack-dress thing. It's not the same in my city, where the TLM fashion feel is a little more 1940s.
ReplyDeleteHim: Which city are you from?
Me: [My city].
Him: I knew it.
Me: Why?
Him: Because you dress in a trendy way.
This is exactly the dress I was wearing: http://www.stopstaringclothing.com/abbey-dress-green-1670.html
Seriously, I have more or less given up on shopfront retail. Online is where it's at.
40 degrees Celsius here in Texas. It's shorts and sleeveless shirts for us until the fall! Elsa
ReplyDeleteJulia, that is SUCH an awesome dress. Of course Trad style chez nous is also rather more 1940s, but mostly for the boys. Most of the girls are in Girl Guide inform because most women under 40 are, in fact, Girl Guides.
ReplyDeleteI would be extremely envious except that my mother is making me this dress (with the shorter sleeves, in red: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/331584217291?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&chn=ps&device=c&rlsatarget=&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108
Your dresses are gorgeous, Julia and Auntie!!
DeleteJulia, that is SUCH an awesome dress. Of course Trad style chez nous is also rather more 1940s, but mostly for the boys. Most of the girls are in Girl Guide inform because most women under 40 are, in fact, Girl Guides.
ReplyDeleteI would be extremely envious except that my mother is making me this dress (with the shorter sleeves, in red: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/331584217291?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&chn=ps&device=c&rlsatarget=&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108
Love it! Wish I could make dresses!
ReplyDeleteHa ha, my tlm friend told me yesterday her priest gave a good homily on modesty recently, and one woman got very angry because he's preaching to the choir. My friend agreed (she's the only one at that church that dresses trendy, and all are over-obsessed with modesty), but said that its not something discussed enough "in general." I'm totally over that discussion, sorry. It's WAY too discussed, in general.
ReplyDeleteAnd right now I just feel sorry for the men because its 100*f (40c). I'm glad I can wear dresses with spaghetti straps!
Julia, “you dress in a trendy way” – hahahaha! (By which I don’t mean that I don’t like your dress – it’s gorgeous!)
ReplyDeleteSo we’ve still not satisfactorily discussed whether it is modest for men to wear cassocks, monks’ habits and liturgical vestments. Broad-shouldered, tall, handsome altar servers in albs. They CAN be an inducement to... at least think about other things than Mass.
Yes how come men can't wear spaghetti straps when it is 40C? I shall ask B.A.
ReplyDeleteB.A. says, "Because that would be a wifebeater." Apparently they are called "vests" only they don't really have spaghetti straps.
I wonder what women used to wear when it was 40C outside!
By the way at swing-dancing class, nobody was wearing my cult uniform, not even me. I was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with my below-knee skirt. I am considering relaxing the sleeve rule for athletics, including dance classes. So my cult members can have short sleeves as long as their shoulders are still covered, but they still aren't allowed shorts that don't touch the knee.
ReplyDeleteThat blog post reads like actual satire. I had to check over twice to make sure it wasn't a parody.
ReplyDeleteIt seems unlikely that the great and holy priest Don Vincenzo Cuomo, a well known and beloved confessor and exorcist, was a "parodist"... He probably wrote and spoke from experience... and from a deep knowledge of human nature, and the innermost nature of men and women, that, as he says, have not changed in the past 100 years.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the readership.
Have it your way... I, for one, have never observed naked people in church (except maybe in the paintings and stained glass windows).
DeleteAs a trad, I'm happy to send readers your way, New Catholic. I do wonder, however, what Don Cuomo would suggest women wear to, say, S.ssma Trinitá in Rome in July.
DeleteSaint Francois Laval, as well as some of his successors, would write commanding his diocese that the women should stop wearing their sleeveless dresses or with their skirts tucked in their belts resulting with the hem being above the knee - in the 1660s! To his credit, he also told the men to stop talking, smoking, and racing horses during Mass. Without the date, though, it reads like some of the traddy/homeschooling fanatics of today. Don't get me wrong, I think shoulders and knees should be covered, but the way it is approached in some places is probably leading the same number of people to sin through spiritual pride and/or the resultant anger as the actual immodesty.
ReplyDeleteAhem! I think you mean traddies/homeschoolers who are also fanatics. :-)
DeleteYes indeed!
DeleteI wonder how many women (outside India) go to Mass wearing crop tops? I suppose it is true that girls do wear stupid things to Mass without thinking about it. Years ago I saw a lady wearing a sports bra that had "SEXY" written across it in rhinestones. I forget why this was visible; she must have been wearing a shirt cut very low in the back. Anyway, this was at trad Mass.
ReplyDeleteThe solution is probably for the church bulletin to print every week that for the sake of each other, and out of respect for the holy place, everyone who comes to Mass should dress appropriately, e.g. no shorts, no mini-skirts, no crop tops, no muscle shirts.
If only they'd also write something about no runners with skirts and no hoodies.
ReplyDeleteWoot! Although this is an insult to the eyes, it cannot possibly be considered a crime against modesty. I'm not sure how far we can police what people wear. B.A. and I are still duking it out over whether or not the state should ban the burkha.
DeleteOur parish, which has the traditional Latin Mass every Sunday as well as very reverent English Masses, has a dress code sign in the courtyard which is pretty much common sense stuff. No tank tops, bare midriffs, or shorts for men; no plunging necklines, bare midriffs, sleeveless tops, shorts or min-skirts for women. (And yes, trousers for women are okay.)
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't think that a sleeveless dress is immodest or sexy in our culture/time period, but I can accept it as a church dress code. Especially because I suspect that the "no sleeveless" was probably an effort to avoid the legalism that would crop up if they'd said "no spaghetti straps." ("How narrow does a strap have to be to count as a spaghetti strap, Father?")
Most of these "modesty in church" discussions could be eliminated if people could just wrap their heads around the concept of appropriate dress. Modest dress and appropriate dress can intersect, but not always.
Appropriate dress varies depending on the venue. What's appropriate dress in the bedroom is inappropriate on the front porch. Your gardening clothes are inappropriate wear for a state dinner. And perfectly modest clothing, such as a baggy, ratty, stained sweat shirt and sweat pants (when you have other clothing you could have worn) is inappropriate at Mass. This is not rocket science, so I don't know why people on both sides have so much trouble with the concept of appropriate dress.
I completely agree with you!
DeleteThanks for the best (non) modesty talk. It's very common sense.
Delete