Does It Jiggle? Be Ashamed!

My breasts defy your rules!

I am quite thin. As in jutting collar bones and clearly discernible hipbones thin. Yet I am still a woman and when I move, things jiggle and bounce. My breasts bounce, my rear wiggles, my thighs jiggle a bit. It's part and parcel of being a woman- your body gets jiggy whether you do or not.

So when I read this (below) about body parts jiggling and strapping them down with extreme prejudice, I had to both laugh and fume. Laugh because I don't care how much duct tape you use, jiggling will occur, and fume because the female body is what is and I'm sick to death of being told all the ways I should be ashamed of it, and all the effort I should put into hiding it. If someone's not mocking my hair, some other asshat is advising multiple bras to keep my breasts from being breasts. Hello! They're fat and glands held in by nothing but skin, what do think is going to happen when I move? Oh, and nipples? Yeah, they happen. Get over it.

The congregation I attend has congregational dancing on Shabbat These are the guidelines for modesty while dancing. :D As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion (modesty) Proverbs 11:22

Or has breasts and dares to leave them untaped!

(I'm just hitting the highlights of this ridiculous list. It's much longer than what appears here.)

Shirts/Blouses/Dress Tops Must not cling to reveal or accentuate the roundness of your breasts, or the curvature of your figure.

How on earth, where on earth, do I find a top that doesn't "cling", "reveal" or "accentuate" what is sticking out from my ribcage? Think about that for a second. During the winter, I frequently wrap a pashmina* around myself, and even with a big swathe of fabric loosely draped around my shoulders, you can still see my breasts exist, and I'm hardly busty. This would be impossible for a woman with even average size breasts.

Well, I suppose I could buy a burqa.

Skirts/Dresses & Pant suits a. Must not cling to the hips, thighs or buttocks to reveal or accentuate the curvature of roundness of them.

Again, hips and bottoms stick out. This is just, I dunno, anatomy, physics, three dimensionality. Again, the burqa is the only logical solution.

And here's the money commandment:

c. Proper Support should be worn. Applicable body parts should be anchored at all times while dancing. (May require sports bras, additional bras, control top pantyhose, etc.) General Rule of Thumb: If it jiggles or bounces, even slightly strap it down. To ensure modesty, a bra that is fiber lined will prevent unwanted protrusions from being visible under blouses.

As I mentioned above, even I jiggle and bounce. A woman of healthy weight much more so. This is a direct command to be uncomfortable, unhealthy and ashamed. Seriously, "additional bras"? I'm not even sure how one wears more than one bra at a time unless they are suggesting a sports bra on top of a regular bra, and then I don't see how anyone is breathing. Control top pantyhose? Ever worn those**? Again, no breathing. "Unwanted protusions"? Oh, right, erect nipples.

I have a solution. The burqa. It's clearly where you are going, just stop tormenting your female congregants with control tops and multiple bras and go with the burqa.

Really, who wrote this out? And how much fapping interrupted this screed?

Who may ascend into the hill of the L-rd? Or who may stand in His Holy Place? He (she) who has clean hands and a pure heart. Psalms 24:4

And duct tape around their breasts.

*My boss' wife picks out the nicest Christmas gifts!

** I have no idea why anyone makes control top pantyhose in my size, but they almost all are control top.

Defining Lust

atheism, atheist, religion, religious, jesus, bible, christian, christianity, muslim, hell, judaism, jewish, orthodox, burqa, modesty, lust
Quasar, over at the SMRT board, has possibly explained a fundy (and I'm speaking of Christian, Jewish and Muslim fundys here) viewpoint that has long confused me- lust.

Fundys make a big deal about sexual attraction, and it's never made sense to me. (Growing up Catholic, you learn a lot about the evils of birth control, but nobody makes a big deal about clothing or lust in general.)

We all know about the burqa and the head scarf, and if you live where I live, you've seen how Orthodox Jewish women dress. Christian fundys aren't generally quite that extreme, but they do make a fuss about modesty.

Quasar's explanation:

Now that I've got you interested with the title... how broad is the definition of lust, and how does this apply to sexually repressed fundies?

For me there are three distinct levels, and I only define the third as 'lust.'

1. The first is simply in passing: I notice a girl, and may not even consiously think about her, but my mind recognises that she has attractive features and I could tell others that she was attractive if they asked.

2. The second is more like 'admiration.' This is simply a platonic admiration of the other persons aesthetics: consiously registering their beauty. An example might be when your eyes fix on someone as they go by. Happens to me a lot.

3. The third is what I call lust, and involves actual sexual attraction. This emotion is extremely rare, and takes a lot to evoke, in me at least.

Now, I'm beginning to think that fundies may have a much broader definition of lust. Consider those who force women to wear head-scarfs to prevent lust from being evoked.It seems to me that they consider even the first definition, simple recognition of attractiveness, to be lust. Something Ray once did (Hi Maragon!) and the general behaviour of fundy christians, leads me to believe that they consider the second definition as lust. Or is it possible that the sexual repression both groups enforce causes them to experience the third definition of lust far more frequently than myself? Or a combination of the two? Chime in! What do you think?

While I find it entirely possible that people who are repressed about sex might end up thinking about it even more (Pink Elephants! I dare you not to think of them!), I think it may well be true that simply noticing a member of the opposite sex, or recognizing their relative attractiveness is what qualifies as lust to fundys.

This is an extremely odd viewpoint because, as another SMRT member noted, one could achieve 1 or 2 with a dog, a horse, a painting or a piece of furniture. Simply acknowledging the beauty in a person is not lust.

To view acknowledging beauty as sin is just mindblowing to me. "God made the world a beautiful place- don't enjoy it or you'll burn forever!" has to be the most depressing theology I've ever heard of.

Now on to 3, real lust. I fail to see what exactly is wrong with lust. For one thing, lust is a desire to act, not an action. For another, we're biologically programmed to lust. Perpetuation of the species and all that. I know, I know, Jesus did say that desire and action are one and the same. Lusting is the same as fucking. Anger is the same as murder.

What a peculiar viewpoint. For one thing, who can control their thoughts? Just writing this is sending me into a really detailed fantasy involving [censored] and it is HOT! What were we . . . oh, yeah, controlling your thoughts. Not possible. I suspect that any religion that puts you in the position of thought sinning is really aiming at a particularly insidious form of control. "You can't control your thoughts, pervert? Better get some Jesus before your burn! Oh, what, Jesus isn't enough to stop you from thinking sinful things? Better start attending church and reading the bible and tithing- otherwise it's the outer darkness for you!"

Thoughts are normal. Noticing another person's beauty is normal. Appreciating another person's beauty is normal. Lustful thoughts are normal. (This fantasy I am having- not so much.) Homosexual thoughts in an otherwise hetero person? Also normal. Getting worked up about it? Not normal, not healthy and not necessary.

We may need a few more bus ads.