Inside a Man's Mind: Modesty, Part II

Taken from here. Part I of my fisk here.

In my last post I described how I went from being completely oblivious to the issue of modesty to completely awestruck with how significant of a principle it is. I was "awestruck" for a number of reasons.

QUOTATION MARKS ARE NOT DECORATIONS.

First of all, I wondered how I could have lived 21 years of my life without once considering whether or not there was a right and wrong when it came to dress.

No, you did not. I imagine you knew that some items of clothing are considered appropriate to some situations where others are not. Stop lying.

Secondly, I was amazed by the beauty of it all.

Can we say "fetish", children?

As you may recall, in my last post I recounted my first encounter with my future wife and her sister sitting across the room from me at a scripture study and what my initial reaction was to their appearance. In my ignorance, I could not conceive of any rational reason that would drive two young ladies to show up to a college scripture study in ankle length, floral pattern jumpers.

Neither can I. There are so many ways to be modest without resorting to something that hideous, if the Muslim women in my area are any guide.

Not only had I never seen anyone don such apparel,

or "wear jumpers"

I honestly didn't know if I ever cared to see it again - not because it was displeasing to my eye, but because it was displeasing to my heart. Why you ask?

I just assumed it was because jumpers are tragic.

Look, I went to Catholic schools growing up. I wore jumpers in blue plaid, jumpers in grey plaid, jumpers in brown plaid and jumpers in green plaid. They're horrid items of clothing, uncomfortable and unflattering. If there is a dress code in hell (assuming hell exists, of course) it involves jumpers.

Seeing them "set apart" in their dress made me uncomfortable - more uncomfortable that I cared to admit at the time. I was used to the short shorts, the tight tops, and the form fitting everything else. I had become much too well acquainted with this sort of revealing dress and if I would have been honest with myself, I would have confessed that it had done nothing but aid in the development of many of the vile affections that then abided in my heart.

Bitches always tempting me! I am a man, I should not be held responsible for my thoughts, feelings and actions, damnit!

Scanning the room that night, my eyes came into contact with something that absolutely shook the foundations of my pitiable understanding concerning the issue of dress.

I can just imagine that moment. Don't you feel like this is what happens when Tim Gunn sees the perfect dress made of garbage bags and dead sewer rats? ("This week, you'll be making a business suit using only broken dreams and empty promises.")

As it was, however, I quickly took shelter in counsel of my heart (not the safest place to be) and reemerged from this cellar like nothing had ever happened.

Dude, you know, I love me some clothes, but wtf is wrong with you? I've seen less overwrought descriptions of visions of Hell.

To be sure, I could not deny that there had been an earthquake, but it hadn't phased me. Strange that it even shook me at all. And so, I settled myself by allowing a single word to characterize what I had seen - weird. Case closed. Back to the real world.

It was strange that an earthquake shook you?

Fast forward almost a year later and I was to discover that this earthquake had aftershocks like you wouldn't believe. Passing through the room of this same scripture study, I spotted one of these young ladies (Caroline in this instance) sitting meekly in the corner and the words came to my mind so clearly, "That is the sort of woman you ought to marry."

Meek: Easily imposed on; submissive. Yeah, aren't you just a pleasant fellow.

I had come a looooong way - from "weird" to to wedlock. Now, what I would have you to understand is that I wasn't contemplating marriage on account of what Caroline was wearing, but how she wore it. Her clothing was modest, yes, but more importantly, she was modest. This was what I had but dimly apprehended at the first. My wife was not wearing jumpers because she liked them (she didn't and still does not)

That is so sad. I can understand having standards of dress. I can understand having difficulty finding clothes you like, or that fit or that you can afford. But to where clothes you hate when you could be wearing clothes that make you happy- it's like eating only cream of wheat and never anything with flavor, on purpose.

or because she believed them to be particularly fashionable (they passed out of vogue, oh, some 30 years ago), but because she felt that they were accessory to a modest spirit (that, and they were all her mother could sew at the time, it being very difficult to find anything in the department store agreeable to modest deportment.)

Couldn't she or her mother find another pattern, or visit another store? I see plenty of modestly dressed women during my day and not a one of them is dressed in a jumper. There's no reason for that other than to mark yourself out as being loudly modest.

Here follows a very long, very ignorant discourse on why jumpers are good, but hijab and plain are bad. If you can make heads or tails of it (other than "things I like are good, things I don't like are bad") please let me know.

Then comes this:

After meeting Caroline and her family, I was introduced to quite a few other ladies who were careful and considerate of their appearance - not too be revealing with the clothing they wore. Not all of them were modest. The one's that were the most modest in their dress were, in many instances, the least modest, if you follow me.

It's not enough to put on a jumper and assume you're good enough for me! You're going to have to work harder than that!

I could go on and on about why I think this is, but I shan't, for the Modest Mom says I should draw this post to a close.

When the meekly meekest meek woman tells you to shut the fuck up, you really need to shut the fuck up.

I hope you will not take my comments as license to dress like everyone else for they are in no way intended to encourage such a course, for although it is possible to be truly immodest while modestly dressed, it is impossible to be immodestly dressed and truly modest.

I think they may require some sort of chart to follow.

No, my post is intended to encourage the cultivation of a modest spirit and all that it implies - and yes, this process involves taking a good hard look at your standards of dress and adjusting them if necessary (whether you dress modestly or not).

So . . . if I'm dressing modestly, I need to adjust my manner of dress until I am modest? lolwut?

In the end, modest clothing does not the Modest Mom make, but they are an appendage unto her.

What kind of appendage? An arm, a leg, oooh! Is it a tail? Wing? Are wings appendages?

If it were merely modest clothing that adorned my wife when first I met her, I would have dismissed her taste in clothes as sadly misinformed by some obscure, puritanical interpretation of scripture. As it was, however, she wore a meek and quiet spirit which was, and is, of great price in the sight of God, and it had the blessed effect of drawing me nearer to my Savior.

Ugh. I would hope you found your wife special. You did marry her, after all.

Inside a Man's Mind: Modesty, Part I

(sigh. I already wrote this post and then blogger killed it, so, you know.) A man's view of modesty:

I wanted to rehearse for you how I first became acquainted with the principle of modesty, how it radically altered my perspective concerning women in general, and how it has continued to shape my interaction with them.

"Rehearse"?

To be brief, my first exposure to modesty (not sure those two words are comfortable in the same sentence)

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

was upon seeing my future wife and her sister sitting across the room at a scripture study at college. I was 20 years old and I believe I can honestly say that the issue of modesty had never crossed my mind - ever. I hadn't, up to that moment, paused to consider if there was a right and a wrong when it came to dress, much less the behavior which endues our appearance with a particular spirit.

Really? You never considered if there were a right and a wrong when it came to dress? Not ever? So you felt perfectly free to wear saran wrap to a wedding, huh? C'mon now.

So, there they were, meekly

Get used to that word, "meek(ly)". He likes it. A lot.

seated across the room from me, completely separate in their attire from every other young lady in the room, very nearly glowing in their probity, and I had the thought come to me, "Those girls are just plain WEIRD."

". . . glowing in their probity"? You know, I have a permanent crick in my neck from looking sideways at this sort of writing, as if it might help to view them from a 45 degree angle. It doesn't.

Perhaps not the epiphany you were expecting. Something significant, though, had happened to me, something which set the stage for the cluster of revelations which were to come regarding this issue - I had actually seen modesty, and everything it implies, with my own eyes.

Dude, it's a woman in a jumper, not the Ark of the Covenant. Calm down.

Strange as it was to my carnal mind at the time, it was undeniable in its distinctiveness - that is, there were definite, purposeful motivations driving the young ladies to dress as they did, and in the nearly abandoned, certainly neglected center of my heart, I knew it.

Or they have no sense of style. Pick one.

It would take me another year or so to acknowledge this and summon the courage to ask at least one of the young ladies - WHY?

WHY ARE YOU SUCH A FREAK?!*

If I shared all of what transpired on this little journey of my mine, it would make for lengthy reading.

Considering the length of the two posts he wrote on the subject, I can only imagine what he considers length- long. Long is a fine word. I never met an adverb I didn't like and you're pissing me off.

Suffice it to say that only God could have arranged matters in such a way that a year later, I found myself the head of a small group study with a certain young lady assigned as one of my "students."

Yes, because in a small city with a limited number of people meeting your definition of Christianity it is absurd that you would run into her again. The odds were like, what, 95% that you would? Had to be god. Also, the sarcastiquotes around student make me uncomfortable. "Oh, yeah, she was quite a student, yes she was."

I expect it is rare when a teacher learns more from his student than she from him, but such was my experience over the course of the next few months.

No, this is a fairly common sentiment among teachers.

I am not ashamed to admit this, but I sat at my future wife's feet that semester and was schooled in the ways purity.

Is there any part of this story that isn't going to sound like poorly written BDSM erotica?

She never would have done this had I not been so inquisitive. By this time, the thought in my heart concerning her appearance had greatly matured from "strange" to "I absolutely must know why this lovely young lady dresses, no, more than dresses, IS the way she is! What scriptural exegetic is she tapping that drives her to live thus?!" I was transfixed by her "way of life" and I absolutely had to get to the "why" and "what for" behind it. Her answer came with a gentle and quiet confidence, "It's really quite simple..."

And it is, and always will be.

Look, I'm not going to question what attracts one person to another. You may look at a square-jawed, clean shaven GQ sort with neatly cut hair and think "Hot!" while I'm salivating over the guy with the stubble and the unkempt hair and the dirty jeans and that's okay. There's no right or wrong to it.

So I don't care that jumpers turn this guy on. More power to you, buddy. What does bother me, among other things, is this apparent assertion that his turn on is a commandment from god we should all be following.

You see, as I scheduled a curious number of group "discussions" that semester,

Was it 7? I've always thought that 7 was a particularly curious number.

I took the opportunity to probe Caroline

LOL!

concerning the decisions she had made concerning her walk with God. Nearly all of her decisions could be viewed as accessory to her decision for modesty.

So I guess she wasn't helping the poor or comforting the sick, huh?

In other words, her decision for modesty governed her decisions in many other areas of Christian import. Having said that, modesty itself is an appendage to femininity and femininity to godliness.

Hee! I'm so feminine, I'm lucky I haven't transmogrified into Barbie and I'm an immodest atheist. But thanks for the diesel dyke reference there.

Caroline never came right out and said this, (would never have even thought it) but what I kept hearing throughout our discussions was, "I am a woman, made in the image of God, and if you were a true man of God, you would treat me, with all dignity and honor, according to the rights and privileges afforded to me by my Creator."

The right to wear ugly clothes and the privilege to be submissive to men.

This was completely new to me. I just thought that, well, I'm not sure what I thought about women. With a few notable exceptions (my mother, grandmother, precious few church women) seeing women aspire to and attain unto every role men traditionally displaced was all that I had ever known.

Fucking bitches, thinking they can be doctors and lawyers and mow the lawn and fix the leaky toilet! How dare they? I have a penis, damnit, and I should get to be superior to half the population just by an accident of birth. Why should I have try at things and earn people's respect and praise? Whores!

Even most of the dwindling number of housewives in my experience looked and acted like feminine men with slightly longer hair.

Given that men and women are both human, what exactly is the difference other than that, really? I mean, what do you want? Oh, right, jumpers. Submission. Meek.

Yet here I was was talking with a woman who hadn't the slightest desire to look, act, or compete with, me. And bless God, it affected her appearance (for the better I might say ; ).

Hur! Ugly feminist lesbos, hur!

Side note: remove "or compete" and what he said was "look or act with me". Okay then. I can see why you wouldn't want me in the game with you. I'd trounce you in the first five seconds and spend the rest of the time making fun of your shirt.

That's really what it is, what all this boils down to, isn't it? He knows he's not the smartest person around, not the most accomplished, probably a bit lazy, and it just grates on him, all those women outshining him effortlessly. Don't they know he's better than they are? Don't they know that having a penis is supposed to be an automatic win? Sluts.

Now, hear me, I have no desire to disparage any of the other young ladies that I attended the scripture study with for I believed, and still believe them to be sincere in their devotion to Christ and they blessed me in many ways.

But they are ugly and probably lesbians.

When I think of my wife, however, in chastity, virtue, and yes, modesty, my heart can only borrow the words of King Lemuel's mother, "...but thou excellest them all." It was on account of these undeniable qualities which my eventual wife exhibited that completely captivated my heart, and I, with much trembling, resolved to win her.

It proved only to be the beginning.

Read that last line in movie guy voice. It's awesome.

Wait until I snift? no. fist? no. oh, fisk, that's right. Part two. Most of it is a bizarrely ignorant rant about Muslims and the Amish. Yes, the Amish.

*Sorry, I'm eating falafel in a pita as I type this, which apparently makes me a bit shouty. OM NOM NOM NOM.