The Case for Modest Clothing

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Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

If societal norms are such that it’s normal or even expected that some, especially young attractive woman, should embrace their sexuality by dressing in revealing clothing, then that ends up restricting the freedom of those who wish not to be participating in that expression of sexuality.

We probably agree that strangers shouldn’t be looking at other strangers, for the most part, and since I am one of the people who agrees with that, I do my best not to look and make assessments of other people’s bodies when I’m out in public, but I’m finding that increasingly difficult to do, through no choice of my own.

Because if everyone, or at least a significant portion of people are dressed in a revealing way, especially now that it’s summer time again, when I go to a public event in which there are crowds of people, I find myself averting my eyes everywhere I look only to discover that unless I want to be staring at the ground, there isn’t much point in going out to crowded placed.

In other words, my #freedom to simply be in public and enjoy the thing I went to go enjoy, like a concert, a day at the beach, or the rodeo, is now an exercise in finding the slivers of geography where my eyes can rest without seeing body parts that I didn’t ask to see.

We talk about freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of mobility as intrinsic rights, but what about the freedom to be able to open your eyes and not have someone else’s attempt at making a provocative statement about their body imposed on my field of vision.

Because that’s what it is, by the way, and that’s what makes this whole mentality so incoherent. To insist on pushing the boundaries of revealing clothing is to do something provocative and to act provocatively is, by definition, to try to create attention for yourself. But then to insist that people aren’t allowed to give that attention is to insist on a contradiction.

#modestclothing #modestout #chastity

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