As summer comes upon us, it is helpful to appreciate that the type of swimwear that is now routine was once scandalously shocking, and appropriately so. In this fascinating video, fashion designer Jessica Rey talks about the evolution of the bikini and how woman all over the world are turning to modest alternatives.
I thought it sounded as though she was trying to sell old-fashioned swimsuits, and to my surprise, this being America, it turns out that she is ! Hardly unbiased, then.
Women were already sunbathing and swimming topless in France in the early 1960s. It really is no big deal. Jessica Rey goes back in history very selectively. At the time when rich women were using bathing machines in fashionable resorts, men normally wore no swimming costumes at all, and presumably country girls bathing in rivers didn’t either.
Nudity in private (country girls bathing in rivers) is not immodest, and therefore not relevant to the issue.
It is only “no big deal” if the message in this video is false, but you would need to establish that through counter-argumentation.
The swimsuits she designs are not old-fashioned but have a timeless beauty about them which brings out the true attractiveness of females without reducing them to objects. You can see some of her designs at http://www.reyswimwear.com/.
By “old-fashioned swimsuit” I really just meant non-bikini. I am not qualified to judge whether the designs are truly original, or a bit old-fashioned, or timeless. But if the thing is to cover a certain area and be actually suitable for swimming, there are some limits as to what can be done.
Here is my counter-argumentation:
1) I’m not at all sure that country girls bathing in a river would be entirely private, or intending to be. Near any English village there are a limited number of places suitable for such swimming, and the girls might well be “surprised” by young men intent on swimming at the same time, or at least observed by young men interested in their timeless beauty .
2) In my experience, when girls and women are topless on a beach, the atmosphere quickly becomes perfectly relaxed and everyone tends to forget about it and accept it, even adolescent boyfriends. So much so that young women will stand up and casually stray to the nearest road to queue at an icecream van, still topless. I can detect not harm in this.
3) Unlike Islam, Christianity is surely not a religion in which “modesty” for women plays a large part. Does it loom large in instructions given in the Bible ?
Since you don’t give any evidence for #1, it is purely speculative and therefore hard to actually address.
I agree with you about #2, but you have rather proved my point, or rather another point that is worth making. When girls can go about topless, or with hardly anything on at all, and when this is treated in a relaxed and natural way by the girls themselves as well as by young men on the beach, then what is essentially happening is that the naked body is being evacuated of its implicit eroticism, so that a woman’s breasts becomes as commonplace as her elbow. But this can only be achieved to the extent that gender has been emptied of its implicit sexuality. It is not good for this to happen.
The point relates specifically to the debate about bikinis. It is interesting that bikinis are sometimes defended on the grounds that the women who wear them as swimming suits are not trying to be provocative. While this might be challenged, if it is true it only shows how desexualized women have become if the female body can be almost entirely revealed without the presence of erotic overtones. We are drifting towards being neuter when the signals of our sexuality are treated as anything less. This represents a type of sexual repression that has collateral effects in a wide variety of areas.
The Christian religion does put a high premium on women dressing modestly, as we see from passages such as 1 Timothy 2:9–10 and Peter 3:3.
So, revealing the female form in a swimsuit is ‘immodest’ and should be deterred because women were made in ‘his’ image. WTF? You two imbeciles seriously haven’t got a clue, have you? You hate islam yet you want to follow in its footsteps by making women dress according to your iron-age, misogamist views. No wonder Mrs. Green walked out, eh, Steve.
I look forward to seeing the christian voice ‘burkha swimsuit range’ hitting the streets over the summer. I guarantee that while normal people make their own choices and dress how they want to dress, the only people wearing ‘god’s swimsuits’ will be you two dickheads.
It is pitiful. You are pitiful.
I have included a response to your comments at the end of my latest response to Rox. I have shown how our understanding of modesty is actually the proper alternative to the type of Islamic patterns you refer to.
Thank you for your most interesting replies.
1) I don’t know what evidence you would accept, because it’s difficult to prove a negative from the past. Swimming places on rivers accessible to village girls would just not be private. There was no question of a local council putting up a fence and admitting girls Mon, Wed & Fri, boys Tues Thus & Sat. Anywhere that the boys could access, the boys could access, and I feel quite sure they would do. This was certainly the case when topless swimming in rivers was not unknown in the 1970s in England, but I’m afraid I have no photographs I could send you.
2) It comes as a surprise that you are complaining that “the naked body is being evacuated of its implicit eroticism”. Presumably you are more in favour of strip tease art than of these innocent but pleasant beach sessions for young people. I don’t think they have any difficulty taking advantage of their joint assets when the opportunity arises in private, though, with a suitable partner. French youth in the 1960s would have found your suggestions odd in the extreme.
3) Paul writing to Timothy in the passage you recommend explains what he means by “modestly” : “not with elaborate hair-styles, not decked out with gold or pearls, or expensive clothes” (NEB). Peter makes the same point: “Your beauty should reside, not in outward adornment – the braiding of the hair, or jewellery, or dress”. (3.3 NEB). So topless swimwear appears to be just the ticket: no adornment or expensive clothes. Jessica Rey is offering Christian ladies modest swimsuits mostly for $80 or $90, with an extra $20 or $25 for the added enhancement of a concealed underwired bra. I find it difficult to accept that this is what Peter or Paul had in mind.
Whatever they did mean, it has been largely ignored throughout the centuries (since very few Christian women lack adornment or jewellery), whereas Islam places far more emphasis on the concealment of women, in some traditions to an absurd extent.
With regard to #1, you write, “I don’t know what evidence you would accept, because it’s difficult to prove a negative from the past.” First of all, your claim was not a negative. Technically, the claim that it used to be normal for some village girls to swim naked in semi-public environments is a particular affirmative, using Aristotle’s nomenclature for categorical propositions. I would accept literary evidence to verify this claim, but part of the problem is that you have defined private environment so tightly (“there was no question of a local council putting up a fence and admitting girls Mon, Wed & Fri, boys Tues Thus & Sat”) that almost no place (including private property) could quality as private by your strict standards.
With regard to #2, you write that “It comes as a surprise that you are complaining that ‘the naked body is being evacuated of its implicit eroticism’.” Why does this surprise you? You go on to say “Presumably you are more in favour of strip tease art than of these innocent but pleasant beach sessions for young people.” That is a false inference, and is about as illogical as saying that because I am against Hinduism that I must be in favour of Islam.
Your statement, “I don’t think they have any difficulty taking advantage of their joint assets when the opportunity arises in private, though, with a suitable partner” is a red herring since I never denied this either by assertion or by implication. Don’t forget what my actual counter-argument was. I had argued that the situations you defend results in sexual desensitization by causing a woman’s breasts to become as commonplace as her elbow. Now in order for this counter-argument to hold stream, it would only have to be true in those specific situations you are defending (beach or swimming contexts) and not in every situation (i.e., not in bed during intercourse). Do you agree?
Another problem with your statement, “I don’t think they have any difficulty taking advantage of their joint assets when the opportunity arises in private, though, with a suitable partner” is that it suggests you may not have fully understood what I meant when I spoke of nude bathing in mixed companies having a desexualizing effect. Let me explain further.
The situation you describe – topless women in the company of men, meandering over to queue up for ice-cream, and interacting normally in non-sexual ways—is a situation in which the naked or semi-naked body becomes commonplace and is no longer seen (within that context) as being sexually charged. That is to say, a process of desensitization occurs in which viewing a body that is bare, or partially bare, becomes merely commonplace like looking at someone’s elbow.
Those who have decided to go the whole hog and embrace a nudist lifestyle have testified to experiencing a similar type of desensitization. In 2003 the New York Times ran an article about one of the many youth nudist camps that are becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Kate Zernike quoted a 15-year old camper as saying, “It makes me a bit freaked out that people would think of nudity as a sexual thing.” These words are significant since frequent exposure to nudity does tend to trivialize the human body, emptying it of its implicit eroticism and making public nakedness seem merely common and non-sexual.
In their book Sexual Attitudes, Myths and Realities, Vern and Bonnie Bullough have similarly testified to the desexualisation process that occurred among the early advocates of nudism.
We do not need to travel to nudist colonies to see this process of demystification at work. All we need to do is to listen to some of the common defences women give for wearing skimpy swimsuits. In discussing modesty with young people, I often get a response that goes something like this: “Women who wear bikinis are not trying to be provocative. This is just what women wear for swimming suits these days, and you shouldn’t import sexual connotations onto it.” Although I think this is often naïve and wishful thinking, my response is to take the young people at their word and to assume, for the sake of argument, that there really is nothing sexual in the minds of those women who strip down to a bikini, or those men who defend the practice as “not having anything sexual about it.” I then point out that if the female body can be almost entirely revealed without the presence of erotic overtones than this only shows how desexualized we have become. Indeed, if a woman can strip down to a bikini (or less) in the presence of men without having any thought of the sexual overtones, then this only shows that she has let her body become demystified, that her God-given barriers have been lowered, and that her bare flesh has been evacuated of its inherent eroticism. And this is exactly what early advocates of nudism hoped would happen.
Incidentally, it is also what early advocates of sex education desire to occur. In his book The Sexual Revolution, Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), an early pioneer of the sex-education movement, described the means for achieving a society that would not put any obstacles in the path of sexual gratification. For all his moral anarchism, Reich was perceptive. He realized that in order to arrive at the sexual utopia he advocated, people would first have to learn to dispense with their natural shyness and embarrassment concerning sexual matters. They would have to lose their reluctance to expose erotically important parts of their bodies. Reich attempted to facilitate this by conducting psychotherapy sessions in which he would require his clients to, well, remove all their clothes.
Reich would be pleased to see a European beach today, which is often more in keeping with his ideal than what is found in brothels. In a brothel, the women have had to overcome the natural shyness surrounding erotically important parts of their bodies in order to sell sex. On a sunny European beach, women in various states of undress can be seen to have overcome this natural shyness—with no thought of sex at all. By refusing to acknowledge the erotic implications of revealing attire or nudity, they have so nearly achieved Reich’s goal of overcoming shyness that, for them, sex is flattened of its inherent potency. “Profane” may be the best word to describe Reich’s ideal and its realization, given that the term originally meant “to treat as common,” or as just the latest fashion.
This is important because we are drifting towards being neuter when the signals of our sexuality are treated as anything less. If we reach the point where attire which conceals less than underwear (e.g. contemporary beachwear) is anything short of utterly erotic, disarmingly sexual and totally provocative, then we have actually repressed an important part of our sexuality. If we reach the condition where topless women can wander over to buy ice-cream with no embarrassment at all and perhaps even temporarily forgetting that their breasts are fully exposed, and where the men in their company can interact with these topless women as if it is normal, commonplace and non-sexual, then the natural eroticism of the body is being denied. For what is happening in such contexts is that being in a condition of undress is being unnaturally disengaged from the sexual connotations that ought to accompany it.
Perhaps God never intended for the naked body to be demystified like this. Perhaps seeing someone of the opposite sex in a state of undress (whether on the beach or on television), was never meant to be disengaged from its sexual connotations and to become merely ‘ordinary’ so that we can say ‘Oh, that doesn’t affect me.’ Perhaps we were never meant to become so detached that seeing someone’s genitals becomes like looking at their elbow.
With regard to point #3, I think you miss the point of Paul’s admonitions. In order to understand 1 Timothy 2:9–10, it is necessarily to appreciate the historical context. Roman women would often braid jewelry into their hair and then sprinkle gold dust on it (see also 1 Peter 3:3). Braided hair thus came to be associated with vanity. Paul’s comments about braided hair (or “elaborate hair-styles” in the translation you are using) cannot be absolutized independent of this social context. The point he is making is that women should avoid excesses that attract the wrong sort of attention (see Isaiah 3:16–24), whether it be an excess in what a woman does wear (lack of moderation) or in what a woman does not wear (immodesty). Within this basic framework, it is entirely appropriate for a woman to adorn herself to be attractive without being seductive or exhibitionist and even use accessories to this end (see Ezekiel 16:6–14; Song of Songs 4:10; Isaiah 49:18 & 61:10). It is a matter of attitude. A woman must always ask: is what I am wearing a demonstration of propriety and moderation, chastity and self-control?
As this suggests, modesty is not an objective absolute if by this we mean a prescriptive schema of external behaviour and dress which must be the same in every time and place. The principle of modesty is an absolute within biblical ethics, but the correct application of that principle depends on context.
he same can be said of other biblical principles, not least the principle of love itself. While 1 Corinthians 13 exhorts us to modes of behavior governed by agape love, the Bible does not delineate how those principles will play out in every conceivable situation we might face. For example, the Bible doesn’t tell us whether this combination of sounds coming out of my mouth at this particular time of day towards this particular person in the room is a loving thing to say. The Bible gives us the principles but leaves us to use wisdom in making the correct application of those principles.
Similarly, the Bible doesn’t tell a man how tight his pants can be before he becomes immodest. It doesn’t tell a woman how low a neckline she is permitted to have before she starts sinning. This is because modesty, like all social virtues, is context-dependent. Just because one type of clothing is considered modest in tribal Africa does not mean it will be considered modest in Western culture. The context must also be taken into account within a given culture. For example, it does not follow that because one type of clothing is considered modest for swimming that the same attire will be modest when walking down the street.
Biblical modesty, like biblical love, begins with an orientation of the heart, or an attitude of mind, which then manifests itself in external behavior. The specifics of that behavior will be governed by questions such as, “What effect will this behavior have on others around me? What message will I be giving if I wear or don’t wear this? Is my priority to see how far I can go without actually sinning, or is my priority to honor God in all that I do and wear?”
Since you and a number of people have mentioned Islam, it should be pointed out that what we are urging is actually the opposite of the Islamic approach since we are not advocating a concept of modesty that is equivalent with concealment. If mere concealment were the goal, then it would follow that women should dress in clothes that obscure any aspect of shape, even to the extent of going completely veiled as they do in many Islamic cultures. The nexus of such practices is the implicit assumption that modesty serves the negative function of removing or suppressing a woman’s sexual identity. Ironically, however, this is the opposite side of the same coin that justifies skimpy beach wear. Whether a woman strips down to a bikini on the grounds that there is nothing sexual about it, or puts on a long dress designed to remove all shape, in both cases her latent sexuality is not being properly acknowledged. On the other hand, Kathleen van Schaijik has suggested that recognizing the value and importance of one’s womanhood is as much a charter for dressing beautifully as it is for dressing modestly. Schaijik points out that
I challenge either you or AgentCormac to tell me what is misogynist about that.
Thank you again for your huge response.
1) Precisely ! There would be very few places which could be considered as not semi-public, especially as it is common in England for a river to have a public footpath beside it. I’m very sorry that I botched the reference to a “negative” from your Aristotelian standpoint, but nonetheless, I am convinced that bathing in rivers with only semi-privacy and without a swimsuit was not uncommon in the past. One negative (as I see it) which you might be able to prove from literature if you thought it necessary is that there were no shops in villages or even market towns selling swimsuits of any kind at affordable prices. Mosaics in Italy show John and Jesus baptising people fully naked in the river Jordan, just as anybody at the time would have expected.
2) If you are only worried about sexual desensitisation in limited situations, such as the beach on hot sunny days when people are on holiday (unless they live near the beach), and not desensitisation in general, this doesn’t seem to me to be too great a worry. It is quite similar to other unusual freedoms which have taken place periodically, such as the Feast of Fools in various guises, and modern office parties. It is more innocent and harmless than either, and yet this appears to be the very quality which you are complaining about, hence my surprise.
3) You say that the Bible ”doesn’t tell a woman how low a neckline she is permitted to have before she starts sinning.”. But you are telling women that they would be better off in Jessica Rey’s swimsuits than in bikinis, in the context of a beach full of bikinis, despite your admission that the whole thing is “context-dependent”. What you have ignored is the Bible’s clear exhortation not to wear “expensive clothes” or “costly garments” (New English Bible, New American Standard Bible, 1Tim 2.9). I did a little research today in my nearest city centre. The average woman buys a bikini for £7 ( i.e. US$10 ), a long long way from the $110 designer jobs you are recommending. (And the shipping alone is another $20 , so that’s $130 against $10 and I call that costly ! ).
But if you want her to avoid the possible sin of too low a neckline for her context, you are barking up the wrong tree. I could see that the pictures of women wearing £7 bikinis reveal no more of their breasts than the garments they are wearing in the street and on buses this hot day in July, often much less. What really seems to worry you most, apart from the possibility of actual frank toplessness which I introduced, is in fact the rather unexceptional skin between the bottom of the bikini top (which is always well-defined and in the same place), and the top of the bikini bottom. It isn’t even thighs that bother you — few bikinis reveal more thigh than Rey’s Ann, Eliza, or Sabrina. Is there a Biblical text proscribing this midriff area ?
Things may be different in America , but I don’t think you should try to lay down (or even recommend) a law for Britain or the rest of Europe. You say “ The specifics of that behaviour will be governed by questions such as, ‘What effect will this behaviour have on others around me? What message will I be giving if I wear or don’t wear this?’ ” The effect of an individual wearing a bikini on a beach where all the other women are wearing bikinis will be negligible. If she wears a lot more than anybody else, she might stand out as freakish. I have a photograph of my grandfather sitting on a beach wearing a black suit and a bowler hat. Nobody would do that now, thinking it was “respectable.” A Muslim woman draped in black like a tent, with only narrow slits for eyes, or a Jewish man in July wearing a massive fur hat, stand out in London as they would not in Somalia or a Ukrainian ghetto. As you say, “just because one type of clothing is considered modest in tribal Africa does not mean it will be considered modest in Western culture.” It may rather draw attention and look silly .
Yet your term “western culture” is not precise enough for your purpose, and you can’t expect “a European beach today” to conform to your ideal for a Christian beach in Georgia, US. If you glance at a map, you will see that Europe is no further west than Africa. In fact, Sierra Leone and Senegal are entirely to the west of Ireland and Portugal, whereas in the east, the Urals are comfortably to the east of Somalia and Madagascar. If you allow toplessness in 19th century Africa, because that wasn’t America, I think you should allow toplessness on 20th and 21st century European beaches, because that isn’t America either, and in the context of the beaches where it is commonplace, it is acceptable .
Rox:
You wrote that “The effect of an individual wearing a bikini on a beach where all the other women are wearing bikinis will be negligible.” Assuming this is true, it is not even relevant to the matter under discussion, since I am addressing the culture of immodesty as a whole, and what is true of the whole is not always true of the parts. But your statement is not necessarily true, since one woman can have enormous influence over her peers, and if she has children then her influence over future generations is significant but not quantifiable.
You also wrote, “You say that the Bible ‘doesn’t tell a woman how low a neckline she is permitted to have before she starts sinning.’ But you are telling women that they would be better off in Jessica Rey’s swimsuits than in bikinis, in the context of a beach full of bikinis, despite your admission that the whole thing is ‘context-dependent’.” Yes, that is what I am saying, and you have not shown that there is a logical inconsistency between my affirmation that modesty is context-dependent, on the one hand, and my affirmation that bikinis are immodest in our cultural context, on the other. Love is context-dependent and culture-dependent, but probably in every culture that exists it would be unloving to spit on someone’s face and then punch them. It may be that in every cultural context a bikini would be immodest, although I wouldn’t want to claim that since in some tribal cultures where nudity is the norm a bikini might actually be modest. Similarly, in the 1890s, the swimsuits of Audrey Hepburn would be been considered immodest but in our culture they are very modest. It’s all context-dependent, which is why I went to such length to describe the Biblical principles that we must apply with wisdom wherever we find ourselves.
I have given arguments to support my claims and if you feel that I am being inconsistent, then you would need to establish that through argumentation. Simply announcing that my statements are wrong or inconsistent is a poor substitute for actually demonstrating this through argumentation.
By ‘Western Culture’ I was referring at least to the culture of America, UK and Europe. Because my rubric is the question ‘What effect will this behaviour have on others around me?” and “What message will I be giving if I wear or don’t wear this?” and because the aggregate effect of a culture in which bikinis are commonplace is that our sexuality becomes desensitized, Christian love requires women not to wear bikinis.
You write, “What you have ignored is the Bible’s clear exhortation not to wear ‘expensive clothes’ or ‘costly garments’”. I am not ignoring that because costly clothes fit right into the principles articulated in the following quote from my last reply:
With regard to your claim about English country women bathing naked in semi-public, it is ambiguous what you are actually claiming. You originally wrote that
Are you suggesting that country girls would have been okay with young men, keen to observe their beauty, coming to swim in the river at the same time, or at least look upon the women from the shore? Are you also claiming that after the arrival of such men, the girls would continue their naked or semi-naked bathing? If the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second question is no, then that proves that the contemporary situation is an anomaly, for in our situation women who swimming semi-naked continue after the arrival of men.
Let’s not forget that your original point about the country girls bathing was presented as part of a three-fold ‘counter-argumentation’ after I asked you to establish that “the message in this video is false.” This being the case, you need to show how your point about the country girls, if true, is actually relevant to the matter under discussion. More specifically, what statement or set of statements did Jessica Rey make that would be undermined by the fact of nude bathing in English village creeks?
I consider your latest reply to be partially dogmatic since in many respects you have simply repeated your conclusion without actually addressing the counter-arguments I presented which, if sounds, undermine your conclusion. Using this method of argumentation, a discussion like this could easily lapse into a series of assertions, denunciations and reassertions without us actually doing business with each other’s arguments. For example, you have nowhere said whether you agree or disagree with my contention that you created the fallacy of the false inference (non-sequitur) or the fallacy of the red herring and the other fallacies I identified. Unless you go back and engage more specifically with my refutation of your earlier counter-arguments, then these series of comments will quickly cease to be a discussion at all, but simply an opportunity for you to repeat your conclusion in different ways.
Your response to point #2 provides a more specific example of what I mean. You say “If you are only worried about sexual desensitisation in limited situations…and not desensitisation in general, this doesn’t seem to me to be too great a worry.” This statement seems to ignore the specific lines of my argumentation since I presented a number of reasons why desensitization, even in the limited context of the breach, is undesirable. Now those reasons I presented may have been rubbish, but to simply repeat your original conclusion that it is not too great a worry without actually saying where you think my argumentation went awry, is dogmatic. You have essentially ceased to argue and instead are simply announcing that your position is correct.
Again, you write, “It is more innocent and harmless…and yet this appears to be the very quality which you are complaining about, hence my surprise.” Okay, but telling us that you are surprised by my argumentation is not to offer a counter-argument, which is again why I am concerned that you are just dogmatizing. If your responses continue to be dogmatic in the way that I have described, then I will have to moderate them and they will not be published.
Finally, this may be a good time to show that the type of desensitisation I was describing is more ubiquitous than merely the beach and effects how we view our sexual identify on a very general level.
In his book Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore?, Rabbi Manis Friedman tells about some campers who sought his advice about a trip they were preparing to take. Friedman was horrified to learn that these campers had no scruples sharing sleeping bags with members of the opposite sex. When he challenged the young people they assured him that “there’s nothing sexual about it.” Now, is it true that there can be “nothing sexual” in just sharing a sleeping bag with someone of the opposite sex? The same question might be asked of other activities, such as using co-ed bathrooms or participating in co-ed wrestling. For many young people today, the answer is, yes; there is nothing sexual in such activities. I am arguing that contemporary beachwear should be understood within this same context of a pervasive de-sexualizing tendency. The bikini is both a symptom of this desexualization and one of the primary causes, since these social phenomena form webs of multiple reciprocities that reinforce pathological plausibility structures.
The strangeness inherent in the bikini, and in co-ed dorms, co-ed bathrooms, co-ed wrestling and even co-ed sleeping bags is not that such things exist, but that they can exist without sexual connotations. This can only be achieved to the extent that gender has been emptied of its implicit sexuality. As I said earlier,
This desensitization spells out in how we approach sexual intercourse itself. It should come as no surprise that those who are so sexually active that they give no second thought to a one-night-stand, and are consequently treating sex like it is no big deal, should find the activity less pleasurable than those so-called prudes for whom sex is still a Very Big Deal. And according to the Bible, sex should be a Big Deal, and not merely because it makes the experience more fulfilling, though it does. A number of independent studies have found, not simply that married women are generally more sexually fulfilled than sexually active single women, but that the most strongly religious women are also the most sexually responsive. Again, it’s because sex is a big deal for them. The naked body or the semi-naked body is a big deal. It all has a huge significance because it hasn’t been allowed to become merely commonplace.
Seen in this way, modest dress, manners, speech and conduct need not be indicative of an under-sexed temperament, as is often thought; rather, it is an acknowledgement and preservation of one’s sexuality as a gift from God. Modesty and chastity are not matters of negation, but of affirmation: affirming the sacredness and beauty of sexuality and committing to preserve the sense in which it is set apart and cherished.
That is why modesty is ultimately more erotic. Women have told me that modesty is important to them, not only because it helps men not to stumble, but also because it helps them place a high value on their own sexuality. They have told me that modest apparel affirms the true importance of their sexual identity, since it proclaims that the body is not a tame, benign, and commonplace thing. Modesty affirms that our bodies in general and our sexuality in particular are special, charged, even enchanted, and too exciting to be put merely to common use and display.
In her book A Return to Modesty, Wendy Shalit makes a good case for seeing modesty as the truly erotic option, since it puts the highest valuation on a woman’s sexual identity, affirming the sacredness of sexuality and displaying a commitment to setting it apart and cherishing it. C. S. Lewis put his finger on the same principle in That Hideous Strength: “when a thing is enclosed, the mind does not willingly regard it as common.” To dress immodestly is ultimately to reduce our sexuality to something commonplace, trivial, and humdrum.
Precisely for this reason, a modest woman significantly upgrades the significance of what is happening when she undresses in front of her husband. As Havelock Ellis observed (stumbling upon the truth for one of the few times in his life), “without modesty we could not have, nor rightly value at its true worth, that bold and pure candor which is at once the final revelation of love and the seal of its sincerity.”
The same point can be made in a different way, by considering things from the male perspective. The anecdotal evidence clearly shows that men whose environment is saturated with immodest women (either because of the company they keep or the images they view) are generally not oversexed, as one might suppose, but just the opposite. In Denmark, where pornography is unrestricted, men are often quoted as saying that sex has become boring. Cristina Odone observed in The Times that advertisers are finding that sex just does not sell products like it once did. The reason, she suggested, is that the advertisers have made sex so banal that it doesn’t entice us any longer. As one 16-year-old was quoted as saying in 2004, “I’m so used to it, it makes me sick.”
Again, this is merely what we should expect. Frequent exposure to semi-nudity tends to trivialize the human body, emptying it of its implicit eroticism. As someone said to me last year, when a man is exposed to too much flesh, it lowers the healthy excitement he should feel when he looks upon the body of his wife because (yawn) he sees that all the time. It therefore takes a higher sexual charge, sometimes to point of extreme perversion, to match the excitement that might otherwise be available in a normal sexual encounter. Could it be that the rise of libido-enhancing drugs is meeting a need created by the libido-squashing effects of beach-wear, pornography and nudity on television?
Because this desensitization is so pervasive, we actually end up being ashamed of our sexuality. Just think of the people who are considered to be “over-sexed.” Among males, such an appellation may apply to a man who cannot concentrate on beach volleyball because the woman playing opposite is dressed in the equivalent of underwear, or who refuses to shop in stores that display explicit magazines. Such a man is typically considered to have a problem with his sexuality, not the person who can detach himself in such things. However, this judgment only serves as an indictment on the contemporary neurosis since it reflects the pervasive assumption that healthy sexuality means a detached sexuality, something a man can keep safely installed in his back pocket. Lurking behind this mentality is surely the very monster that all libertine movements have sought to eradicate: a shame of sexuality. Although we are supposed to have been “liberated” sexually, we are everywhere encouraged to feel ashamed of our sexuality—not having sex, mind you, but being sexual. What we have lost is the ability to be naturally sexual, to have the kind of active, ever-present sexuality that cannot watch your average commercial without feeling visually assaulted, let alone walk down a European beach in the middle of summer.
It is as if everywhere there is an unconscious pressure to become desensitized to sex just as there is a pressure to become gender-neutral. Consider, for example, the justification I have often heard proffered for watching movies with explicit sexual content, namely, “it doesn’t affect me.” The contrast is implicit between “sensitive”—or worse, “over-sexed”—individuals who are affected or offended by such content. However, we see again that the shoe is actually on the other foot. If someone can truthfully say that sex scenes do not affect them, that is the surest proof that it has already had a very marked effect upon them because it shows that they have been affected to the point of becoming able to view such content non-sexually. However, when we reach the point where nothing fazes us, where we can enjoy a beach party with virtually unclad men and women, watch sex scenes in movies or share sleeping bags with members of the opposite sex and not experience sexual feelings, then it is we who are the losers. What have we lost? We have lost the ability to be sexual as God originally designed. Those things which ought to be signifiers of sexuality, and therefore kept private, have been emptied of their meaning. In short, our sexuality has become repressed.
There are some interesting paradoxes that emerge out of this. It seems that a corollary of not seeing sexuality where it should be evident is that we are forever doomed to see sex everywhere it is not. The newspapers are always full of examples of those who see sex behind every tree. The other day I read in the paper that in some places it is now against the law for school officials to give children high fives, since even that type of physical contact is thought to have potential sexual overtones. In another newspaper I saw that a nine-year-old schoolboy in Virginia was accused and arrested for aggravated sexual battery because he pushed up against a girl in the cafeteria. Here in Britain a law was passed which prohibits gymnasts and ballet instructors from touching their students without express permission. I am even told that some women feel sexually assaulted if a man gives up his seat or opens a door for them, as if such gentlemanly behavior is the equivalent of rape. Then there was the case when a 14-year-old Cambridgeshire schoolgirl who “pinged” the bra of a classmate was arrested, fingerprinted, and charged with common assault “of a sexual nature”. More recently I read in a UK paper that a young mother was thrown off a bus and accused of indent exposure for breastfeeding her hungry six-week-old daughter.
Not acknowledging the sexual connotations where we ought to see them, we are cursed to see sex under every bed and behind every tree. As situations and actions which ought to be latent with erotic suggestion are treated commonly, without the respect and honor due to sexuality, so those situations and actions which really are merely common (such as those cited in the previous paragraph) are thought to be hedged about with sexual connotations. But if it is true, as I am arguing, that our society has undergone a de-sexualizing process, then this paradox should come as no shock: sexuality will not be repressed, and to attempt to do so only causes it to emerge in other areas. We thought that by removing the restraints placed on our sexuality we would become liberated, but all it has achieved is to put us into real bondage.
To sum, modesty is the truly erotic option, for modest swimwear (like the one in the picture below) helps to keep us naturally sexual as we resist the hegemony of sexual desensitization.
I’m curious about three things:
1) Do you believe that at one time in history (for example, when they could only get prostitutes to model the bikini), that the bikini would have been immodest?
2) If the answer to this question is yes, then do you believe it would have been wrong for women to wear bikinis in public for any of the reasons I have mentioned or for different reasons?
3) If for different reasons, what?
4) What type of clothes would you consider to be immodest in our specific cultural context?
Publish the relatively long comment which I have already taken the trouble to write for you, and then I shall tell you !
The answer to this is all ready to allay your curiosity.
I’m surprised (if you will permit me to say so) that you didn’t ask for it before.
Incidentally, many young women are walking around the streets (inland) this summer wearing clothes very much like your “truly erotic option” above. Is that OK with you ? Or does actual swimming (which you seldom mention) or at least a beach have to come into it ?
Done! In order to answer your charge that I had taken you out of context, I have now published the censored comment. I eagerly await your answers to the 4 questions above as you keep up your end of the bargain.
The evolution of the swimsuit is just that. An evolution. As ROX pointed out, anyone sitting on the beach in a suit and hat today would be completely out of place, but there was a time when that was the norm. There was also a time when some preacher was railing against the swimwear of Clara Bow in the 20’s and most likely the same argument came from pulpits before the 20th century. No doubt Audrey Hepburn was a fashion icon of her day and Jessica Rey’s swimwear design would probably appeal to many. But what about those who choose to wear a different style – Horror of Horrors !! – a bikini. Granted, there are some who have a little bit too much flesh to fit into a bikini, but for those who compliment a bikini (and a bikini compliments them) why not wear one, Christian or not.
This may be an extreme example, but it always bothers me and seems completely unjustified whenever a girl is raped and the first question asked is “Well, what was she wearing?” Like it was her fault she was raped, the perp is faultless and has no blame. Your attitude seems to be the same, “what was she wearing, how could she go topless in front of me, a man of God?” Regardless of the purpose for someone wearing the bikini, there has to be lust in the heart of the observer. Otherwise, it’s just another day at the beach.
Jesus seemed to spend a whole lot more time talking about the heart and soul of man, and the relationship with Him than more mundane matters. An example: Take no thought for your life……nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat AND THE BODY THAN RAINMENT?
Snoopy, the orientation of our heart comes out in how we dress. That is why I contextualized my earlier comments about modesty in terms of love.
With regard to rape, those who ask ‘What was she wearing?’ never claim that the man who commits the rape is not responsible as long as the woman in question was dressed like a slut. Everyone agrees that criminals are responsible: the issue is whether women can be said to share part of the blame when their appearance in public conveys to men that they are sexually available. In any other area of criminal justice, it is generally accepted that people can do things to try to avoid being victimized. To say that shop keepers should lock their doors at night to decrease the chances of theft is not degrading to shop keepers, nor does it absolve burglars from responsibility. In the same way, to say that women can decrease the chances of being victimized by dressing appropriately is neither to degrade women nor to absolve rapists from guilt.
So women who don’t dress modestly (however you classify that) are less likely to be raped. And where exactly are the stats to back that up, please ?
I think Snoopy and Jesus have put this very nicely. For those who find the Authorised Version challenging, let’s put it this way: the New English Bible has :
“Therefore I bid you put away anxious thoughts about food and drink to keep you alive, and clothes to cover your body. Surely life is more than food, the body more than clothes.” (Mat 6.25 NEB).
It becomes more and more familiar:
“And why be anxious about clothes ? Consider how the lilies grow in the fields: they do not work, they do not spin, and yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendour was not attired like one of these…..How little faith you have! No, do not ask anxiously ….’What shall we wear ?’ All these are things for the heathen to run after, not for you ….”. (Mat 6 28-32 NEB )
Except that ‘Snoopy’ has ripped the ‘lilies of the field’ word of the Lord Jesus right out of context. The Lord was not saying ‘dress how you like’ any more than he was saying ‘eat what you like’. He was saying ‘don’t worry about whether you will have food to eat or clothes to put on.’
Pardon me Stephen but I didn’t rip the word of the Lord Jesus out of context at all. And it’s a bit surprising that you have made such accusation when, in fact, you have taken my comments completely out of context. One would think that a revered and hallowed man of God, rightly dividing the Word, would discern the rich and pity contents of the scriptures.
I completely agree that Jesus didn’t say “dress how you like” and “eat what you like.” He came to fulfill the law and would certainly not have “anything goes” as part of the divine plan. But He also spent a great amount of time to caution against the Pharisee attitude. And if one gets so caught up in dress (or what they will wear) that one loses the fellowship and relationship with Jesus, I think they’ve lost more than just a problem with offending a bunch of beach goers.
I recognize this is your web site and your discussion topics, and you have the right to determine what the rules are and who is published and who isn’t. But you don’t have the right to incorrectly state my position by a wrong application of the scriptures.
As this is your website and you determine what the rules are, Stephen, could you please explain this new rule about counter-argumentation and dogmatism and Aristotle’s canons? I feel that I have been arguing against Robin (as he seems to want) to the best of my ability, and that I am no more dogmatic than him or anyone else.
I agree with Snoopy that Robin (and indeed I myself) has spent a disproportionate amount of time and space discussing what women should wear on the beach, although I would allow them freedom to choose what is appropriate in their situation, whereas Robin would force on them his modest dress which is actually truly erotic (a concept I am still struggling with). I do not share his idea of a uniform western culture stretching from San Francisco through Denver, Georgia and New York to London and Brighton, Paris, Cannes, Rome and Naples, to Greece and the former Warsaw Pact countries, up through Munich and Berlin to Scandinavia, and via what used to be in the USSR to Finland, including even Lapland. With his swimsuits de rigeur all the way ! Not forgetting Spain and those holiday islands popular with young people, and Belgium. One wonders if he has actually travelled very much. What it is appropriate for women to wear depends on the context, as he is keen to point out himself. Britain has changed a lot since 1950, France less so really, but even these two countries were very different to start with (and they both varied a lot from north to south as well). The extent of local variations within all these countries and regions is staggering to contemplate. There is no more a uniform western culture than there is a uniform western cuisine. I have never even seen a whippet or a ferret, don’t really know what they are.
I agree that Jesus is referring mainly to getting enough to eat, and to getting some kind of adequate clothing (although the mention of Solomon in his splendour makes this less clear). “The Lord will provide” is the message. But nonetheless, he does say “Do not ask anxiously ….. ‘What shall we wear? All these are things for the heathen to run after’ .” I don’t think most Christians would think that the exact choice of suitable swimwear is of fundamental importance. To pay a great deal of attention to fashion catalogues and to spend a lot of money on clothes is rather a materialistic trait, in modern terms. I certainly don’t do this.
Robin doesn’t tell men what to wear on the beach. I would actually be interested in a quick word of advice on this. Things have in fact gone the other way for men. Old swimming trunks like mine are actually very revealing if a woman looks at them closely, and most young men go for quite baggy shorts to disguise what is beneath. Are my old trunks OK, or should I go for something more modest (possibly in the hope that women will then find me more erotic) ?
This isn’t really a mainstream Christian discussion, is it ? Still, I would like to know the truth.
Rox: I never advocated forcing anyone to dress modesty, just as I never advanced the idea that Western culture was uniform. These are merely straw man arguments that do not actually address my real position. Similarly, I never advocated a “new rule about counter-argumentation and dogmatism and Aristotle’s canons.” All I said was that if you insist on making successive comments that merely repeat your previous conclusions without actually addressing the objections we raise and ignore the questions I pose to you, then this is being dogmatic. If all you wish to do is to utter a series of assertions, denunciations and reassertions that simply announce to us that you are right but don’t actually address the counter-arguments we present, then I suggest you find another forum to put forward your opinions.
I am sorry this is so hard to understand, but I have already tried to explain very clearly what I am talking about, and when I have referred to fallacies that may sound unfamiliar I have included links to Wikipedia articles so that you know what I am talking about.
So that is why I began moderating your comments.
You defend yourself by saying “I am no more dogmatic than him or anyone else”, and yet in the comment I had to moderate you admitted that you were not really interested in having a rational discussion but just repeating your conclusion over and over again. For example, although I identified logical fallacies you had committed and pointed out flaws in your argumentation, instead of addressing this you admitted
Well, all I can say Rox, is that if you are not interested in presenting logical arguments but just repeating your conclusion over and over again, then this is not the forum to do it, although Stephen can override me if he feels I am being too controlling here.
I had actually addressed this to Stephen and was hoping that he would reply.
I’m sure it must be against the rules to quote me out of context, having censored the context so that nobody else can see it !
You had virtually asked me a question, and I replied to it frankly. In retrospect, this seems almost to have been a trap !
Here it is again:
Robin: Your response to point #2 provides a more specific example of what I mean. You say “If you are only worried about sexual desensitisation in limited situations…and not desensitisation in general, this doesn’t seem to me to be too great a worry.” This statement seems to ignore the specific lines of my argumentation since I presented a number of reasons why desensitization, even in the limited context of the breach, is undesirable. Now those reasons I presented may have been rubbish, but to simply repeat your original conclusion that it is not too great a worry without actually saying where you think my argumentation went awry, is dogmatic. You have essentially ceased to argue and instead are simply announcing that your position is correct.
Rox: ¶ 2 . Yes, I am simply disagreeing with you and telling you my opinion. I don’t think that temporary sexual desensitisation in limited situations is anything to worry about. I am not interested in presenting argumentation which logically disproves your argumentation.[ on this point ] . This is an internet forum, not a philosophy class. In my opinion, the concern which leads you to instruct women to buy their swimwear from Jessica Rey and her ilk is in fact nothing to worry about. QED, as far as I’m concerned. Readers of this forum (if there are any left) have now read enough about that, and they can take it or leave it. They may agree with you, or they may agree with me.
The point I am making is that people do have opinions of their own which are not always viewed or justified in what you would call logical responses to other people’s rhetoric, or “counter-argumentation” (not an English-English word, as I have tried to point out). People have the right to simply disagree. This is free speech. But you actually drew attention to the disagreement, and thereby encouraged me to stand firm and repeat it, then censored it. And now you repeat part of it so edited that the specific point which I am not interested in your logical argumentation about has been censored, changing the meaning of the whole (I have added [on this point] above to make that extra clear).
I’m sorry if I have misunderstood you. I thought you were advocating modest (i.e. truly erotic) swimwear for women. Obviously it would be up to Christian women whether or not they took your advice. You are in no position to force them to do it, from San Francisco to the saunas of Lapland.
Now let’s go back to the question of where this does apply.
Robin: Just because one type of clothing is considered modest in tribal Africa does not mean it will be considered modest in Western culture.
Rox : Yet your term “western culture” is not precise enough for your purpose, and you can’t expect “a European beach today” to conform to your ideal for a Christian beach in Georgia,
Robin: By ‘Western Culture’ I was referring at least to the culture of America, UK and Europe.”
Rox (censored) : I don’t think Britain or France (to give just two examples) want to be considered part of the same culture as the USA.
Now you say: “I never advanced the idea that Western culture was uniform.” But you were very reluctant to recognise that it might vary from your American ideal, while remaining acceptable to Christians ! Not that the heart of Christianity is, or ever has been, in the United States.
I am disappointed that you have not made any recommendations for men, despite my request. There is not the same variety of fashion for men. It should be easy enough. As it stands, your advice is one sided. Don’t women notice men’s bodies ?
I would like to end, as I tried to do before but it was censored, with this reflexion. Coming back to the crucial point of whether God would want women to be topless or not, there is the tradition of Genesis . It is in the garden of Eden, after all, that sin and especially the sin of sex is supposed to have first occurred. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made themselves loincloths”. (Genesis 3.7).
I think the New English Bible’s “loincloths” is good, although the Authorised Version has “aprons”, and others even have “breeches”. But there is never any hint of a fig-leaf bikini top, let alone a fig-leaf swimsuit, and thus topless, artists and their Christian patrons have always been perfectly content to depict Eve , a tradition still readily found in the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, France, and elsewhere.
Stephen, I must complain again most emphatically about being misquoted here by Robin. Not only has he taken this passage out of context, but he has censored the middle of it to make it seem a general statement, when it refers to a specific point. You will see this if he allows my latest reply to him (or the original, of course) to appear.
When a quote is taken out of context, that can mean one of two things. Either it can mean that the person quoting the statement has omitted to include qualifying statements which modify the author’s meaning, or it can mean that the person has imposed a context on the quote to make it appear to mean something different. In what sense do you claim that I have quoted you out of context? You express concern that I have made your statement appear general, but even if the above words were only about a specific point, the charge of dogmatism still stands. You penned the aforementioned words in relation to the specific issue of desensitization, but the methodology of simply repeating your conclusions dogmatically is something that has permeated all your statements. But I will republish the censored quote so readers can see that I didn’t quote you out of context.
“Christian love requires women not to wear bikinis”, or so you tell us.
On many European beaches they don’t; just swimming trunks, in effect, like the men. These can be had for as little as £3 .
It was you who said “Reich would be pleased to see a European beach today, which is often more in keeping with his ideal than what is found in brothels.”
Is this equally true of American beaches today ?
I don’t think Britain or France (to give just two examples) want to be considered part of the same culture as the USA, thank you very much, and certainly not just a minor part of it which is failing to live up to its high ideals. How far does your “western” go: for example, does it extend to the broad-minded Finns, and down through America to Brazil and beyond ? What about those traditional naked saunas, usually mixed except in Helsinki ? What about laissez-faire carnivals ? You would be a bit of a Cromwell, given the chance !
I am getting very confused about whether your sexual desensitisation is supposed to happen only while on the beach, or to be permanent (which doesn’t seem to me to be the case, but I can’t counter-argument it adequately). I am also confused about precisely what you mean by “context-dependent” and “demonstrating through argumentation”. I’m afraid my argumentation skills are no match for yours. Following (I hope) the publication of this, I leave it now to the others who disagree with you or perhaps agree with you, because after all, this is a forum, and it is not supposed to be a formal debate between you and me until I break your rules and am disqualified. If you have actually experienced the sight of bikinis yourself, I hope it has left you unscathed. This paradox reminds me of the problematic welfare of censors everywhere.
It is perhaps not irrelevant to comment that the divinely-inspired authors have no objection whatsoever to “jewelled chains… braided plaits of gold set with beads of silver” in Song of Songs (1. 10-11), while threatening to take away “all finery” from a long list in Isaiah 3. 18-24, and “instead of perfume you shall have the stench of decay” in the passage you refer us to, whereas in Song of Songs approvingly “spikenard gives forth its scent” . [ All quotes from NEB ]. To be honest, this is not going to help women to choose their swimwear !
There are no such things as “English village creeks”, and, as you have pointed out, I have no way of knowing the precise details of bathing habits of English people in the past, which no doubt would vary considerably from time to time and from person to person. I very much doubt if it would always be taken in such deadly seriousness as it is by you. Splashing about in water, and being chased by boys, is fun !
I am so sorry if you feel I have been at all dogmatic.
“ For example, you have nowhere said whether you agree or disagree with my contention that you created the fallacy of the false inference (non-sequitur) or the fallacy of the red herring and the other fallacies I identified.”
Sorry, I have no idea. Don’t really understand the question.
¶ 2 . Yes, I am simply disagreeing with you and telling you my opinion. I don’t think that temporary sexual desensitisation in limited situations is anything to worry about. I am not interested in presenting argumentation which logically disproves your argumentation. This is an internet forum, not a philosophy class. In my opinion, the concern which leads you to instruct women to buy their swimwear from Jessica Rey and her ilk is in fact nothing to worry about. QED, as far as I’m concerned. Readers of this forum (if there are any left) have now read enough about that, and they can take it or leave it. They may agree with you, or they may agree with me.
I don’t see why I can’t tell you that I am surprised without being virtually asked to prove it, under threat of censorship if I don’t. In any case, I thought Stephen was the moderator of Christian Voice, not you. There are many many things, not least in religions, which can not be proved: as Shakespeare says “More things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. (Ham 1.5. 166). If you take the trouble to read the rest of the forum, you will find that neither Stephen nor anybody else makes a point of continually demanding “counter-argumentation” , in fact I have only ever come across you yourself using this word anywhere. Nor is it in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1682pp ) or Chambers Dictionary (1832pp) or The New Oxford Dicitonary of English (2152pp). It is simply too rare a word and too refined a concept for us poor British Christian Vocalists to respond to adequately, I’m afraid.
By “co-ed dorms”, do you mean a single dormitory, one single room like in an old-fashioned boarding school, but with beds for boys and girls; or do you mean what in England would be called “mixed halls of residence” in most universities ? In Oxford and Cambridge, all the colleges are like this now, approximately 60 of them. It is only like a normal hotel. There is nothing peculiar about it at all. If you actually mean mixed dormitories, these must be exclusive to the USA, as far as I know. But there are still some traditional mixed hospital wards in England, and this has not resulted in a total disaster of any kind. Also, people snuggle together for warmth in emergency situations on mountains, I have myself, and then it seems more natural for men to snuggle with women, but it’s a matter of preference of course.
No women have ever told me that modest apparel affirms the true importance of their sexual identity, since it proclaims that the body is not a tame, benign, and commonplace thing.
I don’t think that your anecdote about this counts as evidence or “argumentation”
“That is why modesty is ultimately more erotic. “ Do you want the poor things to be erotic or not ?
Coming back to the crucial point of whether God would want women to be topless or not, there is the tradition of Genesis . It is in the garden of Eden, after all, that sin and especially the sin of sex is supposed to have first occurred. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made themselves loincloths”. (Genesis 3.7).
I think the New English Bible’s “loincloths” is good, although the Authorised Version has “aprons”, and others even have “breeches”. But there is never any hint of a fig-leaf bikini top, let alone a fig-leaf swimsuit, and thus topless, artists and their Christian patrons have always been perfectly content to depict Eve.
Speak for yourself Rox when you say that “counter-argumentation [is] too refined a concept for us poor British”, but please don’t implicate all of Britain in this anti-intellectual dogmatism.
It is hard to argue with you because although you posted comments forcefully disagreeing with us regarding the virtues of modesty, you then make your views immune to critique by dismissing any counter-arguments we present by saying that the very idea of counter-argumentation doesn’t make sense to you!
It’s impossible to argue with someone who sets things up like this, because all we are left with is you continually repeating your conclusion without actually trying to engage logically with the objections we raise. In the comment above, you defend this illogical methodology by saying (with respect to the issue of desensitization) “Yes, I am simply disagreeing with you and telling you my opinion… I am not interested in presenting argumentation which logically disproves your argumentation.” Well, we can sit around all day dogmatically repeating our conclusions, but at Christian Voice we have better things to do with our time. If, as you candidly admit in the above comment, you are not interested in engaging logically with our statements, then I suggest you find another forum to post your opinions.
Having said that, I will try to one more time to try to how show you haven’t actually addressed the points that have been raised. Since you have said repeatedly that you don’t understand the categories I’m using and that I have been talking over your head, I will try to make things as simple as possible by asking a series of specific questions that you can answer. (The first question isn’t simple so just ignore it if you can’t understand it.) I will give each of the questions a numerical designation, and when you are answering them I would appreciate it if you could mention which question it is you are answering.
Question #1: When you implicitly dispute that Britain, France and America are part of Western Culture, doesn’t this involve an idiosyncratic notion of Western culture which is discontinuous with how the concept is employed in both the popular and scholarly literature during the last 50 years?
Question #2: How is your question about the boundaries of ‘Western Culture’ relevant to the discussion at hand?
Question #3: How does your statement above about English people in the past bathing actually answer the question that I posed to you when I wrote the following?
Question #4: Are you suggesting that country girls would have been okay with young men, keen to observe their beauty, coming to swim in the river at the same time, or at least look upon the women from the shore?
Question #5: Building on from question #4, are you also claiming that after the arrival of such men, the girls would continue their naked or semi-naked bathing?
Question #6: If the answer to question #5 is no, then doesn’t that prove that the contemporary situation is an anomaly, for in our situation women who swimming semi-naked continue after the arrival of men.
Question #7: When you write, regarding co-ed dorms that “There is nothing peculiar about it at all”, isn’t that just an announcement of your opinion rather than a logical argument?
Question #8: If the answer to question #7 is yes, then aren’t you being a wee bit dogmatic? I had actually presented an argument against co-ed dorms and if you reply by saying, essentially, “oh, it’s normal and okay”, then isn’t that simply a repeat of your conclusion rather than an actual argument?
Question #9: You write that “No women have ever told me that modest apparel affirms the true importance of their sexual identity, since it proclaims that the body is not a tame, benign, and commonplace thing. I don’t think that your anecdote about this counts as evidence or ‘argumentation’.” If I could show you women with college degrees making such statements in books and articles, would that count as evidence?
Question #10: Since the above statement is largely a rehash of your oft-repeated conclusions instead of actually presenting counter-arguments, I am reduced to having to ask which statements or sets of statements you actually disagree with in the FIRST paragraph of my comment here, beginning with the words “You wrote that “The effect of an…”
Question #11: Since the above statement is largely a rehash of your oft-repeated conclusions instead of actually presenting counter-arguments, I am reduced to having to ask which statements or sets of statements you actually disagree with in the SECOND paragraph of my comment here, beginning with the words, “You also wrote, “You say that the Bible ‘doesn’t tell…”
Question #12: Since the above statement is largely a rehash of your oft-repeated conclusions instead of actually presenting counter-arguments, I am reduced to having to ask which statements or sets of statements you actually disagree with in the TENTH paragraph of my comment here, beginning with the words, “I consider your latest reply to be partially dogmatic since…”
Question #13: Since the above statement is largely a rehash of your oft-repeated conclusions instead of actually presenting counter-arguments, I am reduced to having to ask which statements or sets of statements you actually disagree with in the ELEVENTH paragraph of my comment here.
Question #14: Since the above statement is largely a rehash of your oft-repeated conclusions instead of actually presenting counter-arguments, I am reduced to having to ask which statements or sets of statements you actually disagree with in the TWELFTH paragraph of my comment here.
Question #15: Are you saying that because the concept of “counter-argumentation” isn’t a word that is in the dictionary, that this absolves you from having to offer logical replies?
(I find it very interesting that everyone in this forum who has defended girls bathing nude with men around are men themselves. No women have entered this discussion to defend the practice, just as no men in this forum have defended the ethics of men bathing with their private parts on display for women.)
You wrote
I mean a single dormitory that includes mixed bathrooms and mixed bedrooms.
“I am getting very confused about whether your sexual desensitisation is supposed to happen only while on the beach, or to be permanent.” I argued at length here that the desensitisation is both permanent and general. Please re-read the comment and tell me specifically what it is you don’t understand and what confuses you.
“I am also confused about precisely what you mean by ‘context-dependent’.” I’ll try to explain it again. Modesty is not an objective absolute if by this we mean a prescriptive schema of external behavior and dress which must be the same in every time and place. The principle of modesty is an absolute within biblical ethics, but the correct application of that principle depends on context. The same can be said of other biblical principles, not least the principle of love itself. While 1 Corinthians 13 exhorts us to modes of behavior governed by agape love, the Bible does not delineate how those principles will play out in every conceivable situation we might face. For example, the Bible doesn’t tell us whether this combination of sounds coming out of my mouth at this particular time of day towards this particular person in the room is a loving thing to say. The Bible gives us the principles but leaves us to use wisdom in making the correct application of those principles. Similarly, the Bible doesn’t tell a man how tight his pants can be before he becomes immodest. It doesn’t tell a woman how low a neckline she is permitted to have before she starts sinning. This is because modesty, like all social virtues, is context-dependent. Just because one type of clothing is considered modest in tribal Africa does not mean it will be considered modest in Western culture. The context must also be taken into account within a given culture. For example, it does not follow that because one type of clothing is considered modest for swimming that the same attire will be modest when walking down the street. Biblical modesty, like biblical love, begins with an orientation of the heart, or an attitude of mind, which then manifests itself in external behavior. The specifics of that behavior will be governed by questions such as, “What effect will this behavior have on others around me? What message will I be giving if I wear or don’t wear this? Is my priority to see how far I can go without actually sinning, or is my priority to honor God in all that I do and wear?” The specific answers to these questions will vary from culture to culture, and from time period to time period. That is why, as I said before, the swimsuits of Audrey Hepburn would be been considered highly immodest in the 1890s but in our culture they are very modest. The basic principle of modesty is an absolute, but the application of that principle will be context-dependent. I hope that helps to explain what I mean.
Now I want to respond to your comment about jewelry. You write,
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here, but it is consistent with my earlier comments about jewelry and finery in scripture. I had written
Dear Robin,
I have followed your request (not to say demand) and finished in the night my reply to your long posting of 11 July 2013 at 18:07 with its 15 questions. For convenience. I have started here with the earlier part of it (replying to your portion before question 1 ). I must protest, though, that it is now 4.12 in the morning, and I don’t see why this had to be done tonight. I would rather have taken my time over it when I was wider awake. Some of it, as you will see, has baffled me in my present state, and I am now off to bed.
Regards, Rox
As you very well know, it is the American technical vocabulary which you flaunt when you discuss things which is not clear. I have often been called “pedantic”, but never “anti-intellectual”. That really is a first !
You seem to be using “we” to mean just yourself, like the Queen and the Pope. Or are you consulting somebody else all the time ? Sorry, I’m being pedantic, but not I hope too earthy and anti-intellectual for you.
I cannot prove to you logically that I personally do not worry about this issue. It is a waste of time trying to do so. You will have to believe me (or not, as you choose).
You still haven’t made it at all clear if this “sexual desensitisation” is supposed to be temporary while on the beach, or to continue permanently afterwards. Like myself and my son, Snoopy and his son claim not to have been affected by it on into the future. But Snoopy and I both tend to admire the casualness of it, as opposed to the artificial posing of models no matter what they are wearing.
I have answered your four questions, and requested more information to enable me to answer your query about my answer to one of those four questions. I will look into your further FIFTEEN questions later !
(However, it had to be done almost immediately, yet it took a very long time. I hope you are actually going to publish all this ! It has to be thought out and typed, you know ! Apologies for the errors which must have occurred in these circumstances).
1) No. We are talking about beaches. I know very well that people behave differently on beaches in different countries, and people of different nationalities behave differently on the same beach (most noticeable on the Mediterranean).
For example, many English people are relatively mobile and like their beaches to be as wild as possible (although necessarily this is not quite so true in crowded resorts). On the other hand, the Italians love to have a very regimented furnished beach, often with an admission charge and compulsory hire of a sort of fixed bed for the whole day. These beds are laid out on a grid pattern, which is not picturesque. This suits the Germans too, and on less organised beaches (including even in Denmark) they lay out towels to mark their territory permanently, erecting a sign saying “Besetz” (occupied). This is not popular with other nationalities.
France is much the same as England in my experience, but I have less experience of the Mediterranean coast of France than of Normandy and lakes. The Channel Islands are similar to England. However, I haven’t even touched on clothing here. On the Baltic, they use elaborate wind-breaks, which is relevant if you think about it.
The same kind of observations apply to lots of aspects of the culture of different countries. It is well-known that Italians behave quite differently from more northern people, and this is true in , for example Puglia, but in Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto it is not true. The people there are very much like the southern English, in my opinion, whereas in Puglia they are often infuriating. This applies to officially determined administrative things as much as to individual behaviour.
I could go on and on. It has always been recognised that Prussians (who seldom use this term now) are not like other Germans, and they are not. Slovenians are surprisingly like Swiss-Germans. And so on. There is simply not one unified western culture when it comes to the way that people live, and this is what affects how they dress on the beach.
2) It is obvious that women in (for example) France see all this toplessness scare very differently from women in (for example) Georgia. (I keep picking on Georgia because I believe it is in the “Bible belt” and has a coastline. California might be more like France). English people are usually perfectly happy to go along with French ways in France, and do not usually object to similar dress in England (but the weather is seldom so suitable, especially water temperature). Bikinis seem to be universal except in some municipal indoor swimming pools. I don’t see how you can hope to persuade people in different countries to dress as you think suitable on the beach or anywhere else. It is very noticeable that two young men in a particular kind of suit are always Mormons. “Western culture” is not the same everywhere. It just isn’t.
3) This is like an English Literature A level exam, and I had to struggle to understand this question. I really don’t think I would be alone in that. You lack the common touch.
It is really quite simple. Her view of history was that in the past women only bathed when hidden in massive (and very expensive) bathing machines. They became popular amongst the wealthy when George III used to visit Weymouth.
A creek is an inlet of the sea, but my whole point was that most people (especially before the railways) would not be anywhere near the sea. They would be bathing informally in local rivers . Even my own father learnt to swim like this. They would not be able to afford any special equipment at all, even if it was available. So her account of history is very selective. There would be naked girls in those rivers all over Europe (as sometimes depicted in art, sometimes being surprised by young men). Perhaps I should have mentioned that river water is usually extremely murky.
4) They wouldn’t see very much from the bank (not the shore ! This is not the sea: most of this country is inland). The water is murky, it is not transparent. I have already said that I have no way of knowing or summarising the behaviour of the whole population in these situations over hundreds of years. No doubt they would be merrier under Elizabeth I than under her brother or sister, and merrier under Charles II than under Cromwell. These things go in fashions, but there are always plenty of rebels doing their own thing no matter what the official position is.
5) Same answer as 4. You will have to use your imagination on it, I think. They would be much less exposed in the water than if they came out of the water.
6) Same as 4 and 5.
7) I have never seen American college accommodation and have no opinion on it at all.
Both my son and my daughter went to Cambridge colleges, and each had a room in the college. Some rooms in the college are occupied by men some by women. This is like a hotel. Certainly, it is my opinion that hotels are not peculiar, and nor are Oxbridge colleges. You doubt my point that American and British culture are separate, and not part of the same unified Western culture, but this seems to be an example of it. Virtually all the Government and very many other influential people in all walks of life went to an Oxbridge college, and you will have great difficulty finding anybody who thinks it is “peculiar” that men and women both have rooms in the colleges. They are not monasteries. So I don’t think it is reasonable to complain that this “just an announcement of my opinion”. How could there be a logical argument about whether something is “peculiar” or not ? It is subjective. But it would be logical perhaps to take a vote on it and find that 95% of the population had never had any thought of this being peculiar. Is baseball peculiar ? Is cricket peculiar ? In this country, by the way, people become adults at 18 . When it was 21 , the college authorities acted in loco parentis, but this is no longer so. In any case, the atmosphere is generally very adult and responsible, unlike what I have seen of American colleges in some films, but this is probably false.
You will be asking me if Oxbridge college bathrooms are “co-ed”. I really don’t know. I have never had any reason to go into all this.
8) Well, you have asked me to repeat my “argument” about this, and I have tried to explain it. I think there is a huge misunderstanding about what you mean by a “co-ed dorm”. I did my utmost to clarify this. It is not helpful to use this language when your are the Christian Voice of Britain and Ireland.
An Oxbridge College is not a co-ed dorm. Tutorials are held there. It is in no sense a dormitory.
If your co-ed dorms are dormitories, what does the “ed” mean ? We have “co-educational schools”, but I don’t see education being done in a dormitory, and still less in a “co-ed bathroom” . This presents another problem. In England, a bathroom contains a bath. What I believe you call a bathroom is what in Europe is called a toilet (toilette etc in the various languages) . If you are talking about mixed toilets where several people defaecate at once, no, we don’t usually have them, but they do in France. The cultural differences of toilets in different parts of Europe (and in different parts of France) are enormous ! Yet where toilets are small, even in England and perhaps in America, they are available to either sex, so why not for students ? (I am thinking of two cubicles opening into a single hand-washing area, or just one little room, of course).
Do we have to go into all this ? But it’s got nothing to do with a logical argument. Defining your terms clearly, especially if you speak a slightly different language, is very important, though. Some French toilets are just like an ordinary men’s toilet but with women allowed in as well to use the cubicles (not the urinals). This doesn’t worry French women. They will not be able to give you a logical argument why they are not worried by it. French villages tend to have urinals against the wall of the church. Why doesn’t this worry them ? No logical argument. It just doesn’t worry them. It’s a convenient central place, with minimal building cost since the church is already there .
9) I took “told” to mean that it so happened that women had come up to you and said this to you at parties or something, which has never happened to me. However, I don’t buy the idea that something written down counts more as evidence than something which isn’t written down, not necessarily. I do editing for Wikipedia, and several times attempted to correct a grossly inaccurate article about Twelfth Night in England (it’s gone now). This had references to a grossly inaccurate website. When I described what really happens on Twelfth Night in England, they would not accept it without a reference, regardless of the fact that I actually live here and I know. However, if I had got a friend to write a brief newspaper article about it, I could have referred them to that article and they would then have been happy (even if I wrote the article, with him ghosting it, harmless if it is true).
American women with college degrees may well have written this in books, but it is only their opinion, not an actual logical argument or evidence of how women generally view it. To be at all scientific about it, you would need to do a representative opinion poll.
10) You’ve lost me here, I’m afraid. Which above statement ? “No women have ever told me that modest apparel affirms the true importance of their sexual identity, since it proclaims that the body is not a tame, benign, and commonplace thing.” ? I thought that was a slight rehash of what you said yourself. I don’t understand this question anyway. I am not going to get 100% in this tough exam. I’m a scientist. I’m not up to this kind of thing.
11) Same answer as (10).
(12), (13), (14). Same answer as (10). You have lost me completely. I’m going to fail, arent’ I ? But it is 3.34 in the morning.
15). No, not at all. I think that by “counter-argumentation” you just mean disputation, or to use a more modern word, debate. However, we are not living in the Middle Ages, and this does not have to be done by sticking rigidly to arcane rules of rhetoric. In particular, there are some matters which just do not lend themselves to repeated “logical” questions, particularly “Why do you not worry about something ? Why do you not feel that something is important in your life ? Why do you love somebody ? Why do you prefer warmish weather to very hot weather ?” One may give more or less objective reasons for these essentially subjective things, but basically they are subjective, and repeated demands for “counter-argumentation” are not helpful, nor have I ever come across anybody but you who did this. I don’t think it is a rule of Christian Voice that every comment must be a logical counter-argument to the one before. If it is, then it is a rule which is very often broken.
“As you very well know, it is the American technical vocabulary which you flaunt when you discuss things which is not clear.” Actually both my undergraduate and my postgraduate work was done at UK universities, and none of the technical vocabulary I have used is uniquely American. I would also dispute that it is technical, but you would need to be more specific.
The charge of anti-intellectualism was perhaps unkind of me, but I was referring to the type of dogmatism that I describe here. (I wrote that comment before reading your attempt to address my questions, which I appreciate and which seems to move beyond the dogmatism that has characterized so many of your earlier comments, most of which I deleted.)
The ‘we’ refers to us at Christian Voice.
You write, “You still haven’t made it at all clear if this ‘sexual desensitisation’ is supposed to be temporary while on the beach, or to continue permanently afterwards.” I don’t know how to state it any clearer than I did here when I wrote, “the desensitisation is both permanent and general.” How can I be any clearer?
With regard to Question #1, how is the fact that we are talking about beaches relevant to whether or not Britain, France and America are part of Western Culture, especially when I had never advocated the type of a monolithic understanding of Western Culture that you seem to impute to me?
Question #2 asked how your question about the boundaries of ‘Western Culture’ was relevant to the discussion at hand, but as your answer doesn’t even refer to the discussion at hand it seems to be answering a different question to the one I posed.
With regard to Question #3, I don’t think Rey was making any general claim about all of history.
It’s unclear from your answer to Question #4 whether you are saying yes or no or a third option. I’m not good at reading between the lines, so if you could clarify this I would be grateful.
It is unclear from your answer to question #5 whether you think they would run away or not.
Since Question #6 was a hypothetical, how can the answer be the same as your response to Question #5?
Since Question #7 was about the structure of your argumentation (or lack thereof) and not about American college accommodation, how is your response to this question relevant? Furthermore, empirical observation counts as evidence, but you hadn’t even presented that until now or I wouldn’t have asked the question, and it is unclear which statements or sets of statements of mine you think these observations about Cambridge colleges actually refute?
Since Question #8 was a hypothetical, given a certain answer to Question #7, how is your response even relevant?
Given your response to Question #9, I am curious what you would take as counting as evidence here?
On Question #10, you say “Which above statement?” But I told you in the question itself that I was referring to my comment here, beginning with the words “You wrote that “The effect of an…” Did you read that comment to get the context for the question before writing that you didn’t understand?
On Question #11, you also want to know “Which above statement?” But I told you in the question itself that I was referring to my comment here, beginning with the words, “You also wrote, “You say that the Bible ‘doesn’t tell…” Did you read that comment to get the context for the question before writing that you didn’t understand?
On Question #12, you also want to know “Which above statement?” But I told you in the question itself that I was referring to the TENTH paragraph of my comment here, beginning with the words, “I consider your latest reply to be partially dogmatic since…” Again I’m curious, did you read that comment to get the context for the question before writing that you didn’t understand?
On Question #13, you also want to know “Which above statement?” But I told you in the question itself that I was referring to the ELEVENTH paragraph of my comment here. Again I’m curious, did you read that comment to get the context for the question before writing that you didn’t understand?
On Question #14, you also want to know “Which above statement?” But I told you in the question itself that I was referring to the TWELFTH paragraph of my comment here. Again I’m curious, did you read that comment to get the context for the question before writing that you didn’t understand?
On Question #15, you also want to know “Which above statement?” But I told you in the question itself that I was referring to my comment. Again I’m curious, did you read that comment to get the context for the question before writing that you didn’t understand?
Your language is most certainly technical. Ordinary people do not go round talking about counter-argumentation, for example, or cannons in your sense. I had thought this was partly (only partly) American, like the use of “expiration” instead of “expiry”. But maybe not. You are, however, using a different language, quite apart from some confusing everyday Americanisms. Physicists and Alternative Medical Practitioners use the word “energy” in a different sense. Where we do have words in common, your technical language is akin to that.
In your technical sense, I suppose I am dogmatic, but most people would say that you are being dogmatic because of the tight technical framework that you are insisting I should keep to. You are bound to “win”, incidentally, because only you understand the rules and have played the game before. It is like playing chess with a child and continually shouting “no, you can’t do that, you’re putting yourself in check”, when the child has no idea what this means.
If you don’t consult anybody else about a statement, the “we” means yourself speaking on behalf of Christian Voice. There had for some time been an unanswered question about who and where Christian Voice actually is, but it looks as though you deleted it after I had finally gone to bed. Why the secrecy ?
I have dealt today with the sexual desensitisation ambiguity. Your one statement is clear, but taken with the other statement which perhaps you had forgotten, there appears to me to be an inconsistency. For a long time, I had in my head what you had said in the first place about this.
1) It’s relevant to this discussion about swimsuits, swimsuits, because people do wear swimsuits on beaches. They don’t wear them theoretically within a notion of Western culture which is how the concept is employed in both the popular and scholarly literature during the last 50 years. This is your wording.
I did not impute it to you as your original idea, but you certainly rebuked me for not embracing it, didn’t you ? And you did write “By ‘Western Culture’ I was referring at least to the culture of America, UK and Europe.”
2). Also (1). This is relevant because I am trying to explain to you how different people in different countries do in fact have different cultures, and do have different attitudes towards what might be immodest on a beach. You don’t seem to realise this fully. Do you imagine that Snoopy happened to chance on a European hotel which was full of totally immodest women ? I thought the discussion at hand was about what it was “modest” for women to wear on the beach.
3) Well, she did call it “The Evolution of the Swimsuit”, and it wasn’t about biology. Her “before that, at the turn of the century, women…” is not adequate at all. It is very selective, almost a falsification of history to provide evidence to support her idea of what women ought to wear. “The turn of the century” could be around 2000, although obviously not in this case. But her photographs seem to date from around 1900, whereas the bathing machine was in full swing around 1800 . They were described in 1805 as “ four-wheeled carriages, covered with canvas, and having at one end of them an umbrella of the same materials which is let down to the surface of the water, so that the bather descending from the machine by a few steps is concealed from the public view, whereby the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the advantages of the sea with the strictest delicacy.”
This reference to “THE MOST REFINED FEMALE” may be the evidence pointing towards less refined bathing which you would apparently require. But it’s obvious that these things were only available to a tiny minority of wealthy ladies, and only on the coast, not to Rey’s “women” in general. And what about “BEFORE THAT “, before the bathing machine ? An enquiry into that would have taken Rey’s “evolution” in a direction where she did not want to go. Not very scientific, not properly historical.
4) I have already said that I have no way of knowing or summarising the behaviour of the whole population in these situations over hundreds of years. I don’t think a yes or no answer is possible.
5) Still the same answer as (4), I’m afraid. If you want to get any closer to the truth as far as that is possible, you will have to use your own imagination to decide the most likely outcome in your opinion, bearing in mind that they would have been much more visible out of the water than in it (a point, incidentally, that Rey makes in reference to the song).
6) I agree this answer should have been slightly differently phrased, as follows : Since no yes or no answer to (4) or (5) is possible, no answer to question (6) is possible either. You can’t prove that the present situation is an anomaly.
7) I think you are more at fault here than me. If you were actually educated in British universities as you now say, you should have known better than to ask questions using American terminology about an unfamiliar American institution on a British website. If I may say so, I don’t think the structure of my argumentation or lack thereof is a particularly important thing to discuss on a public website.
8) My replies don’t necessarily have to be “actual arguments”. I was trying to give extra information, much needed in view of your assumption that the term “co-ed bathroom” was meaningful in Europe. It isn’t !
I actually wrote there : ” it’s got nothing to do with a logical argument. Defining your terms clearly, especially if you speak a slightly different language, is very important, though”.
My repeated attempts to clarify what you mean are very relevant. It would be more helpful if you explained the “-ed” in “co-ed bathroom”, and explained what it is.
9) Evidence of what ?
Evidence of what individual women believe: what they say or write.
Evidence of what women believe in general (in a particular group): a properly conducted statistically valid opinion poll (in the same particular group).
For once, this is an easy question.
10) (11) (12) (13) (14). I’m afraid I haven’t got time to do all these now. It’s already almost four o’clock (in the afternoon this time) and I haven’t had lunch. Also I have other things to do. Are you paid to work full-time for Christian Voice ?
15) Sorry, I simply don’t understand your objection here. I can’t find “Which above statement?” in my original reply, which I stand by, and which was : “No, not at all. I think that by “counter-argumentation” you just mean disputation, or to use a more modern word, debate. However, we are not living in the Middle Ages, and this does not have to be done by sticking rigidly to arcane rules of rhetoric. In particular, there are some matters which just do not lend themselves to repeated “logical” questions, particularly “Why do you not worry about something ? Why do you not feel that something is important in your life ? Why do you love somebody ? Why do you prefer warmish weather to very hot weather ?” One may give more or less objective reasons for these essentially subjective things, but basically they are subjective, and repeated demands for “counter-argumentation” are not helpful, nor have I ever come across anybody but you who did this. I don’t think it is a rule of Christian Voice that every comment must be a logical counter-argument to the one before. If it is, then it is a rule which is very often broken.”
Let me ask you just one question now. Why do you think no women have commented on all this ?
Apart from AgentCormac, there is only myself and one stray American gentleman.
This is all so complicated, I am not sure if this got though, given that I would not be able to read it on the website while it was awaiting “moderation”. If it has got though, it would be with added spacing between the paragraphs.
Your language is most certainly technical. Ordinary people do not go round talking about counter-argumentation, for example, or cannons in your sense. I had thought this was partly (only partly) American, like the use of “expiration” instead of “expiry”. But maybe not. You are, however, using a different language, quite apart from some confusing everyday Americanisms. Physicists and Alternative Medical Practitioners use the word “energy” in a different sense. Where we do have words in common, your technical language is akin to that.
In your technical sense, I suppose I am dogmatic, but most people would say that you are being dogmatic because of the tight technical framework that you are insisting I should keep to. You are bound to “win”, incidentally, because only you understand the rules and have played the game before. It is like playing chess with a child and continually shouting “no, you can’t do that, you’re putting yourself in check”, when the child has no idea what this means.
If you don’t consult anybody else about a statement, the “we” means yourself speaking on behalf of Christian Voice. There had for some time been an unanswered question about who and where Christian Voice actually is, but it looks as though you deleted it after I had finally gone to bed. Why the secrecy ?
I have dealt today with the sexual desensitisation ambiguity. Your one statement is clear, but taken with the other statement which perhaps you had forgotten, there appears to me to be an inconsistency. For a long time, I had in my head what you had said in the first place about this.
1) It’s relevant to this discussion about swimsuits, swimsuits, because people do wear swimsuits on beaches. They don’t wear them theoretically within a notion of Western culture which is how the concept is employed in both the popular and scholarly literature during the last 50 years. This is your wording.
I did not impute it to you as your original idea, but you certainly rebuked me for not embracing it, didn’t you ? And you did write “By ‘Western Culture’ I was referring at least to the culture of America, UK and Europe.”
2). Also (1). This is relevant because I am trying to explain to you how different people in different countries do in fact have different cultures, and do have different attitudes towards what might be immodest on a beach. You don’t seem to realise this fully. Do you imagine that Snoopy happened to chance on a European hotel which was full of totally immodest women ? I thought the discussion at hand was about what it was “modest” for women to wear on the beach.
3) Well, she did call it “The Evolution of the Swimsuit”, and it wasn’t about biology. Her “before that, at the turn of the century, women…” is not adequate at all. It is very selective, almost a falsification of history to provide evidence to support her idea of what women ought to wear. “The turn of the century” could be around 2000, although obviously not in this case. But her photographs seem to date from around 1900, whereas the bathing machine was in full swing around 1800 . They were described in 1805 as “ four-wheeled carriages, covered with canvas, and having at one end of them an umbrella of the same materials which is let down to the surface of the water, so that the bather descending from the machine by a few steps is concealed from the public view, whereby the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the advantages of the sea with the strictest delicacy.”
This reference to “THE MOST REFINED FEMALE” may be the evidence pointing towards less refined bathing which you would apparently require. But it’s obvious that these things were only available to a tiny minority of wealthy ladies, and only on the coast, not to Rey’s “women” in general. And what about “BEFORE THAT “, before the bathing machine ? An enquiry into that would have taken Rey’s “evolution” in a direction where she did not want to go. Not very scientific, not properly historical.
4) I have already said that I have no way of knowing or summarising the behaviour of the whole population in these situations over hundreds of years. I don’t think a yes or no answer is possible.
5) Still the same answer as (4), I’m afraid. If you want to get any closer to the truth as far as that is possible, you will have to use your own imagination to decide the most likely outcome in your opinion, bearing in mind that they would have been much more visible out of the water than in it (a point, incidentally, that Rey makes in reference to the song).
6) I agree this answer should have been slightly differently phrased, as follows : Since no yes or no answer to (4) or (5) is possible, no answer to question (6) is possible either. You can’t prove that the present situation is an anomaly.
7) I think you are more at fault here than me. If you were actually educated in British universities as you now say, you should have known better than to ask questions using American terminology about an unfamiliar American institution on a British website. If I may say so, I don’t think the structure of my argumentation or lack thereof is a particularly important thing to discuss on a public website.
8) My replies don’t necessarily have to be “actual arguments”. I was trying to give extra information, much needed in view of your assumption that the term “co-ed bathroom” was meaningful in Europe. It isn’t ! I actually wrote there : it’s got nothing to do with a logical argument. Defining your terms clearly, especially if you speak a slightly different language, is very important, though”.
My repeated attempts to clarify what you mean are very relevant. It would be more helfpful if you explained the “-ed” in “co-ed bathroom”, and explained what it is.
9) Evidence of what ? Evidence of what individual women believe: what they say or write. Evidence of what women believe in general (in a particular group): a properly conducted statistically valid opinion poll (in the same particular group). For once, this is an easy question.
10) (11) (12) (13) (14). I’m afraid I haven’t got time to do all these now. It’s already 15.30, and I haven’t had lunch. Also I have other things to do. Are you paid to work full-time for Christian Voice ?
15) Sorry, I simply don’t understand your objection here. I can’t find “Which above statement?” in my original reply, which I stand by, and which was : “No, not at all. I think that by “counter-argumentation” you just mean disputation, or to use a more modern word, debate. However, we are not living in the Middle Ages, and this does not have to be done by sticking rigidly to arcane rules of rhetoric. In particular, there are some matters which just do not lend themselves to repeated “logical” questions, particularly “Why do you not worry about something ? Why do you not feel that something is important in your life ? Why do you love somebody ? Why do you prefer warmish weather to very hot weather ?” One may give more or less objective reasons for these essentially subjective things, but basically they are subjective, and repeated demands for “counter-argumentation” are not helpful, nor have I ever come across anybody but you who did this. I don’t think it is a rule of Christian Voice that every comment must be a logical counter-argument to the one before. If it is, then it is a rule which is very often broken.”
Let me ask you just one question now. Why do you think no women have commented on all this ?
Apart from AgentCormac, there is only myself and one stray American gentleman.
I must keep my eye on the ball, and now I am awake again I must continue steadily plodding through your article posted 11 July 2013 at 18:07 with its 15 questions, starting after question 15, which is where I had got to. You write at this point:
“ “I am getting very confused about whether your sexual desensitisation is supposed to happen only while on the beach, or to be permanent.” I argued at length here that the desensitisation is both permanent and general. Please re-read the comment and tell me specifically what it is you don’t understand and what confuses you.”
It confuses me because it seems to conflict with what you had written at a very early stage, which I took to be your view:
“Don’t forget what my actual counter-argument was. I had argued that the situations you defend results in sexual desensitization by causing a woman’s breasts to become as commonplace as her elbow. Now in order for this counter-argument to hold stream, it would only have to be true in those specific situations you are defending (beach or swimming contexts) and not in every situation (i.e., not in bed during intercourse).”
Sexual desensitisation in specific situations is not the same as general permanent sexual desensitisation. I thought that we agreed that the young couple who had apparently behaved very casually together while lightly dressed on the beach, might in a more private place and different circumstances behave in a more sexual way. And I can assure you that French youth in the 1960s did do that. There is no argument about it.
You say that
“Modesty is not an objective absolute if by this ‘we’ mean a prescriptive schema of external behaviour and dress which must be the same in every time and place.”
I agree totally with this, and consequently I don’t understand why you can’t allow that women might want to dress differently on beaches in France from how they do on beaches in your ideal Christian America, while not being condemned as “immodest” or necessarily not properly Christian in their behaviour . This is why I have been to such pains to point out the obvious, that France and the USA are not the same place, whereas you try to prove that “this involves an idiosyncratic notion of Western culture which is discontinuous with how the concept is employed in both the popular and scholarly literature during the last 50 years?” .
The point about the jewellery is that you refer us to a passage in Isaiah which disapproves of it, but it’s very easy to find other passages in the Old Testament which approve of it. And so it is up to the woman to wear what she finds appropriate in her cultural situation, which is not the same all the way from San Francisco to Lapland. You say “A woman must always ask: is what I am wearing a demonstration of propriety and moderation, chastity and self-control?” The answer she gives to herself may not be the same as your answer , particularly your answer in a different country.
Rox, to keep this getting too complicated, please refer to the numerical designation of whatever question you are addressing.
I had said before that in order for my argument about desensitization to work it would need to be true in at least one situation such as the beach, and I denied that it applied to every situation (i.e. all sexual intercourse). The fact that it is true of the many other situations as well that I subsequently listed, including some but not all sexual encounters, and is therefore general and permanent in this sense, simply adds weight to my case. My first point was simply that even if it were true at the beach that would be sufficient for my argument to be sound.
I am happy to engage with the other points you make in the above comment after the original 15 questions are addressed in light of my recent response to your non-answers and if you promise not to be dogmatic in the sense I described here.
I honestly suspect that some of our problems come from “dogmatic” meaning
something different on the two sides of the Atlantic. To me, it is you who seem
dogmatic, though I don’t keep on about it. Have you discussed this word with
Stephen ?
I have just tried to explain to you that in my opinion no rational dispute, no
counter-argument, can prove whether or not I personally am worried about something.
Or important. I don’t think that making a lot of money is important.
You can say “You’re wrong. It is important”.
But in my life, I don’t THINK it is important. You can’t rationally disprove or
counter-argument or dispute whether I THINK that it is important or not in my own
life.
Surely, if you insist that everything, including people’s personal feelings, can
and must be proved or disproved by counter-argumentation (which would be an odd
stance for a Christian leader to take), it is this which would be dogmatic, as I use
the word “dogmatic” ?
I think there must be a misunderstanding here.
Since when has the issue under dispute been whether or not you personally care about this issue or not? If you say you do not care about this issue then I believe you, but we were discussing the ethics of contemporary swimwear, not our own states of consciousness. I have no more interest than you in proving other people’s personal feelings, so this again is a red herring that avoids the real issue that I try to keep drawing you back to.
I find it incredible that you could suggest we are equivocating on the word ‘dogmatic’ when I went to such lengths to explain exactly what I meant, and to give specific examples of where I claimed you were being dogmatic. I will try to explain again, and this will hopefully shed some light on why I have been deleting your comments throughout this evening.
To be dogmatic is to simply repeat your conclusion over and over again without actually attempting to offer a counter-argument to the objections that have been raised against your position. To be dogmatic in this sense does not mean that you care about the issue or are particularly worried – in fact, it could be a symptom of not being particularly concerned about it. However, the result is that it becomes impossible to argue with you because although you post comments disagreeing with us regarding the virtues of modesty, you then make your views immune to critique by dismissing any counter-arguments we present by saying that the very idea of counter-argumentation doesn’t make sense to you. The only thing that seems to make since is repeating your conclusion over and over again.
It’s impossible to argue with someone who sets things up like this. You have even defended this illogical methodology by saying (with respect to the issue of desensitization) “Yes, I am simply disagreeing with you and telling you my opinion… I am not interested in presenting argumentation which logically disproves your argumentation.” Well, we can sit around all day dogmatically repeating our conclusions, but at Christian Voice we have better things to do with our time. If, as you candidly admit, you are not interested in engaging logically with our statements, then all we can do is keep pressing the delete button.
I hope this helps to explain what I meant by dogmatic. I have given specific examples from your own comments of where I believe you were being dogmatic here and here and here and here and so far you have not addressed any of these. Instead of addressing the actual statements you made which I alleged in the above links to be dogmatic, you simply suggest a new definition of being dogmatic that I never put forward (“if you insist that everything, including people’s personal feelings, can and must be proved or disproved by counter-argumentation…it is this which would be dogmatic, as I use the word ‘dogmatic'”). In other words, if I allege that you are being dogmatic and explain what I mean by ‘dogmatic’, you are not absolved from answering these objections merely by offering a new definition of dogmatic to which your behavior does not conform. I could have used another term other than ‘dogmatic’ – for example, I could have said you were arguing in a circular manner or I could have made up a new word to describe it – and provide I was clear what I meant, my objection would have coherent content that needs to be addressed.
Now I may be completely wrong in everything I say, but you would need to show that through argumentation. According to the canons of logic that have been understood since AristotleIn order for an argument to be unsound, either
1) the premise must be false
2) the conclusion must not logically follow from the premises
3) the terms of the argument must be equivocations
If even one of these three conditions are realized, then the argument is unsound.
Ergo, in order for you to show how the arguments I presented are unsound, you would need to compare my argumentation to the above criteria. Have I used premises that are false? Have I posited conclusions that do not logically follow from my premises? Have I used ambiguous terminology and so equivocated?
You say that you are curious about three things, but don’t explain which of the four you are not curious about. No matter. I will answer them all.
1) Do you believe that at one time in history (for example, when they could only get prostitutes to model the bikini), that the bikini would have been immodest?
“They”, the company intent on marketing bikinis, could no doubt have got models to model bikinis, particularly as at that time “models” were often felt to be much the same thing as prostitutes (e.g. Christine Keeler a little later). Jessica Rey seems to think that artistic dancers in respected establishments were much the same as prostitutes. Micheline Bernardini (the model used in 1946) was not primarily a prostitute, she was a dancer at a famous Parisian music hall . I have already complained about this libel, but you censored it. Not all that long ago, all actresses were sometimes assumed to be prostitutes, so I suppose it goes with not baking cookies at home all day.
The word “immodest” has to be defined. “Modest” seems to have a lot to do with moderate or average, so except for nowadays they would not have been modest in that sense simply because there were not enough of them. However, as I have already pointed out but you censored it, representations of pre-Christian garments very much like bikinis have been found in Sicily, Turkey, and Pompeii. I doubt if they were common enough then to be termed “modest”, yet as in mediaeval times, responsible nude bathing was probably not considered immodest because it was necessarily so commonplace.
2) If the answer to this question is yes, then do you believe it would have been wrong for women to wear bikinis in public for any of the reasons I have mentioned or for different reasons?
The representations which I have mentioned mainly seem to depict women dancing. Women do wear unusual clothes for dancing on the stage, for example the tutu so familiar in classical ballet. I don’t think anyone much in ancient times would have thought it wrong to watch these dancers, or they would have been stopped and punished, and would not have been depicted in mosaics and statuary displayed publicly and in people’s homes.
3) If for different reasons, what?
Not applicable. It can’t have been considered wrong.
(To consider for all the questions so far the late 1940s,
I don’t think the bikini was really all that strikingly different from existing two-piece swimsuits. Pictures of the “original” look just as old-fashioned now. The public probably just thought of it as a strikingly new style of two-piece, but not generally as “wrong”. The breasts are completely covered, and in France, there would have been little fuss even if they had not been, owing to a strikingly different cultural attitude to this. The slightly greater showing of the midriff would have been very comparable to hemlines going up and down, showing more or less leg, about which a LOT of fuss used to be made, but it doesn’t seem to bother you at all ).
4) What type of clothes would you consider to be immodest in our specific cultural context?
The kind of clothes used in American entertainments where complete nudity is forbidden by law, and so absurdly small adhesive patches cover the nipples, but often with attachments which the dancer can whirl about, or something of the sort. However, this is YOUR specific cultural context, not OUR specific cultural context . I believe you call these things nipple pasties. I would rather see a healthy topless English girl eating a Cornish pasty on the beach, desexualising or not.
It’s not clear from your answer to #1 whether you are saying yes or not or some third alternative. You have complained that I have been talking over your head, so I have tried to be VERY clear in my questions and I would be grateful for reciprocal clarity in your answers. So again, do you or do you not believe that at one time in history the bikini would have been immodest, according to how I have contextualized the term immodesty? (This is Question #16) Once this is clarified, I will go on to address your other answers.
Sorry, I have already asked you for help in answering question (1) to your satisfaction, but you have deleted this and I do not seem to have a copy of it. It involved redefining what you mean by “immodest” and “having contextualised the term immodesty”. I’m not even sure what contextualising a term means. I think I suggested finding a word other than immodest.
After all, you have written:
“Modesty is not an objective absolute if by this ‘we’ mean a prescriptive schema of external behaviour and dress which must be the same in every time and place.” I agree totally with this.
This being so, it is exceptionally difficult for me to tell you what would have been immodest in ancient Anatolia. You are asking me (unusually) what I believe. I don’t believe that it is possible to translate the word “immodest” accurately enough into the language used there at the time to get a meaningful answer from them, even if we could ask them, which we can’t. So I can’t expand much on my original answer. Let’s say they would have been risqué but not pornographic or illegal.
It’s easier to answer for the 1940s. Risqué, but not so immodest as to be wrong, let alone pornographic or illegal. No more immodest than a fashionable skirt which was considered short at the time.
I hesitate to redefine what I mean by modesty because I have already gone to great lengths to define it and because you keep saying you don’t understand what I mean.
But it’s not fixed in time and place.
You said :
“Modesty is not an objective absolute if by this ‘we’ mean a prescriptive schema of external behaviour and dress which must be the same in every time and place.”
I do understand this, and I totally agree with it, as I have said. That is why I can’t tell you if particular garments in ancient civilisations were modest. Does this matter to you a lot ? Why ? Tell us if you think they were modest. I don’t know.
I am happy to reply to this if you promise not to be dogmatic in the sense I described here.
But you write things like : “According to the canons of logic that have been understood since AristotleIn order for an argument to be unsound, either
1) the premise must be false
2) the conclusion must not logically follow from the premises
3) the terms of the argument must be equivocations
If even one of these three conditions are realized, then the argument is unsound.
Ergo, in order for you to show how the arguments I presented are unsound, you would need to compare my argumentation to the above criteria. Have I used premises that are false? Have I posited conclusions that do not logically follow from my premises? Have I used ambiguous terminology and so equivocated? ”
This sort of thing is all much to difficult for the average customer of the Christian Voice website to commit to. I suggest you consult with Stephen and (if he so suggests) moderate your demands. It is useless to threaten me with excommunication if I stray into a sentence that you consider Aristotelianly dogmatic. Wasn’t Aristotle a pagan, anyway ? You are just discouraging ordinary people from attempting to express their thoughts.
I’m sorry Roger, but I think we’re approaching this discussion completely differently and it would probably be fruitless to continue. If the only way you can defend bikinis is to start attacking the rules of logic, then there isn’t much I can say. I’m not prepared to use this forum to defend the legitimacy of logic. You have made clear that you “[are] not interested in presenting argumentation which logically disproves [my] argumentation” and consequently I consider any further discussion purely a waste of time.
[…] verbally rolled his eyes at Christian modesty. In his blog post, he was responding in protest to Jessica Rey’s video about the history of the bikini. I’m hoping his attitude doesn’t reflect a trend, but […]
[…] We unwittingly created a storm of controversy earlier in the month when we posted Jessica Rey’s video on the evolution of the swimsuit. […]
You Americans are just so unbelieveably WEIRD. Here in Croatian we swim naked all the time, lots of our beaches are nude ones and we don’t hope in and out of bed with each other or anything like that. We are not completely OBSESSED with the body the way you are, breasts are sexual, but they are also for feeding babies, so you might see a naked woman on a beach having a swim and then feeding her baby. It’s just a body. I’ve seen mens’ penis’ since the time I can remember. And those swimsuits she is selling – here they would not be allowed in public swimming pools as there is too much material and it is dangerously full of bacteria which could be harmful to other peoples health and hygiene. Swimming naked is the most natural and normal way to swim, those disgusting costumes should be banned. In Scandinavia men cannot use public pools in those “board short” floppy type of swim trunks, only the smallest speedo types due to the hygiene factor. Get over yourselves, stop obsessing about the human body and immodesty (must be american invention) and then being the biggest consumers of porn on the planet.
Is there any evidence that covering up our genitals when we swim allows a dangerous amount of bacteria to get into the water, so that swimming naked is the only safe option?
I think she is referring to an excessive amount of bacteria harboured by large garments anyway, nothing to do with the genitals, and not least if the whole day has been spent sun-bathing and generally lounging about, which in lakeside resorts and elsewhere in continental Europe is almost as likely to be done on grass as on sand or shingle. In these circumstances, swimming could be likened to washing oneself in the water used for washing dirty clothes, which does not appeal. However, I think it is an extreme view myself.
Since our previous correspondence, I have actually been back to the lake in France on which I based my previous comments on topless swimming and sunbathing ! Toplessness saw I none. Fashions have changed completely since the 70s and 80s , when it was almost universal. I saw none whatsoever whatsoever (although changing is still perpetrated on the beach with no special facilities for it).
So the French have become more modest and more godly. You must be pleased. However, I couldn’t help noticing that in the local cathedral there are only now TWO services a WEEK ! Far less than in Croatia. In England, between 20 and 30 services a week seems normal in a cathedral, whether Church of England or Roman Catholic.
I am forgetting that it is bikinis you are so much against, and they were definitely being worn by almost all the women at the lakeside beach. I don’t think they are responsible for the poor church attendance, however, because they are also worn in England. I myself still explain the variation in swimwear styles in terms of fashions at different times and in different places, and attach very little importance to it.
When you write of “Western Culture”, do you include post-communist Croatia in with America ?
[…] The Evolution of the Swimsuit […]
Wow ! This has become really topical again with the big burkini crisis in France. Some French women are actually saying “We are decent Catholics. We wouldn’t wear these things on the beach” !
We haven’t heard much from Robin for a long time. But would he prefer the bikini or the burkini ?