Women's Dress and Men's Thoughts

[bsjkki]

10 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I don't want anything deep or meaningful. Please summarise for me what you understand the word modesty to mean as it has been discussed on these 36 pages so that I can genuinely understand why it shouldn't include a sexually graphic T-shirt. Thanks!

Was it tight and revealing...sleeveless or inspire lustful thoughts. I really don’t remember any other comment on this thread involving vulgar printed images or offensive words on clothing.

I think I explained my reference to modesty as expressed on this thread sufficiently, IMO.

[Hamba Tuhan]

Just now, bsjkki said:

Was it tight and revealing ...

I think that would depend on the perspective of the observer. Haven't we clearly established that these are purely subjective measures?

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... sleeveless ...

No.

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... or inspire lustful thoughts.

It depicted copulation. I think that's certainly a possibility.

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I really don’t remember any other comment on this thread involving vulgar printed images or offensive words on clothing.

Can you think of any other context besides clothing where a sexually graphic image would not be considered 'pornographic' or at least immodest?

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I think I explained my reference to modesty as expressed on this thread sufficiently, IMO.

OK. And do you still think I shouldn't have said anything? Remember, it may have been your children who felt so uncomfortable about this that they rang you to come pick them up from their activities early.

[bsjkki]

12 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I think that would depend on the perspective of the observer. Haven't we clearly established that these are purely subjective measures?

No.

It depicted copulation. I think that's certainly a possibility.

Can you think of any other context besides clothing where a sexually graphic image would not be considered 'pornographic' or at least immodest?

OK. And do you still think I shouldn't have said anything? Remember, it may have been your children who felt so uncomfortable about this that they rang you to come pick them up from their activities early.

Well, I think we can all come up with extreme examples. Was this a member of your ward? 

[Calm]

30 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Remember, it may have been your children who felt so uncomfortable about this that they rang you to come pick them up from their activities early.

If youth are complaining to leaders they feel harassed, then something needs to be done to help them feel safe whether it is comments telling them they are immodest or graphics that show sexual acts.  

This is different though than leaders or other non custodial adults establishing what the comfort levels should be, especially if outside the church published standards.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

27 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

Well, I think we can all come up with extreme examples.

That sounds like another subjective judgement to me. I don't find the experience I'm asking about extreme in the least. I've lived it.

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Was this a member of your ward? 

Yes.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 minutes ago, Calm said:

If youth are complaining to leaders they feel harassed, then something needs to be done to help them feel safe ...

Does feeling 'harassed' include feeling uncomfortable enough to not want to be at a particular event?

[Calm]

There is also a significant difference between saying "your tshirt has a vulgar picture" on it (and such is recognized as vulgar in the community) and "your clothing is vulgar because it shows your shoulders, belly button, cleavage, some thigh" which can too easily be interpreted as their body is what they need to be ashamed about, not their clothing choice..

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Does feeling 'harassed' include feeling uncomfortable enough to not want to be at a particular event?

Yes.  A girl who won't go to church because she is fearful or distrustful of leaders because they commented on her body is feeling harassed in my definition.

[Hamba Tuhan]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Yes.  A girl who won't go to church because she is fearful or distrustful of leaders because they commented on her body is feeling harassed in my definition.

Cool. So when my boys in the past told me that a particular girl's clothing choices made them feel uncomfortable enough that they didn't want to be at an activity anymore, would you likewise feel that 'something needs to be done to help them feel safe' at church again? (This is, again, a real-life experience.)

Edited November 1, 2019 by Hamba Tuhan

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

Now I understand our differences on this, I hope.

I should have clarified that my comments have moved beyond flashing and rather focused on your piece of advice about individually learning about modesty and acting appropriately. I think it is a good general rule that would help solve this problem. I wholeheartedly agree. That’s all I meant.

The bolded is probably where the disconnect between us is, because when I said "everyone should just learn to keep their clothes on and certain parts covered" it was specifically about flashing.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

The Church has rules too.  Why not inform them of those?  Modest clothing doesn't have to be fancy or expensive. They might even appreciate it if you were to offer to take them shopping with you and you bought them something to wear.

They have been informed of the modesty guidelines in the FSOY pamphlets.  Their parents are active members and they grew up attending.  And no, they would not want me to go shopping with them.  They know what modest clothing looks like; they choose not to wear it all the time.

We shouldn't assume that people don't wear modest clothing because they are poor and need someone to buy clothes for them.  

[bluebell]

23 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Cool. So when my boys in the past told me that a particular girl's clothing choices made them feel uncomfortable enough that they didn't want to be at an activity anymore, would you likewise feel that 'something needs to be done to help them feel safe' at church again? (This is, again, a real-life experience.)

If she had refused to change her clothing, would she have not been welcome at church?  

[Calm]

35 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Cool. So when my boys in the past told me that a particular girl's clothing choices made them feel uncomfortable enough that they didn't want to be at an activity anymore, would you likewise feel that 'something needs to be done to help them feel safe' at church again? (This is, again, a real-life experience.)

Yes.  What that was would depend on the total context, both the boys and why they felt uncomfortable and the girl's relationship to the Church, its leaders, her caregivers whether parents or others, as well as the actual clothing themselves.

I have had an experience where youth were uncomfortable and rightly so around a very mentally disabled man.  He groped one of the young women because he had been taught that behaviour at his group home.  One of the YW's parents wanted to bar the young man from attending, both because he obviously would continue to be a danger and because her daughter was very disturbed whenever she saw him.  His parent was told and was horrified, but shared their fear of withdrawing his long time spiritual and social family from him.  She did not see him as capable of replacing such relationships, especially in a ward where first exposure would likely have been 'be careful, he is a sexual offender' (as it should be, imo; safety first).  Leaders struggled to know what do.  He had been going to the ward his entire life (40ish years).  Easy safety fix was deciding to have a responsible Elder (maybe two) with him at all times (he was in a wheelchair, so restriction was easy) with no youth allowed within arm's reach.  Fixing the social issues were harder.  His surviving elderly parent went to that ward.  He had many friends there.  In most situations there would be little question I hope over protecting a traumatized young woman vs the abuser, but this was an impossible situation for both.  In the end the man stayed in the ward that knew him well and knew his heart, but made no continuing excuses for his inappropriate behaviour.  The elders supervising him had instructions to avoid the youth areas where possible.  The young woman was told what areas he was restricted to.  The family moved not long after, possibly because that solution didn't work for them.  Restrictions continued.

The decision likely would have been different if he had been aggressive; definitely different if he had been accountable.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

4 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If she had refused to change her clothing, would she have not been welcome at church?  

Are you asking if she would have been told that or if she would have inferred that? I never spoke to her, and she certainly continued to attend. What do you think should happen in this case and in the case of my young man in the vulgar T-shirt? I'm genuinely asking, having been in both situations.

[Hamba Tuhan]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Yes.  What that was would depend on the total context ...

Great. I agree. It sounds like you then disagree with those who have said that leaders should never speak to a young person about his or her clothing choices.

[Calm]

4 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Are you asking if she would have been told that or if she would have inferred that? I never spoke to her, and she certainly continued to attend. What do you think should happen in this case and in the case of my young man in the vulgar T-shirt? I'm genuinely asking, having been in both situations.

I think too much is dependent on individual situations to make decisions based on limited info.  In extreme cases, .I think case by case treatment is best.

[Calm]

18 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Great. I agree. It sounds like you then disagree with those who have said that leaders should never speak to a young person about his or her clothing choices.

I suspect they are assuming you are not speaking of very unusual cases, cases that would be judged as highly problematic in much of the greater society as well for example.  I doubt anyone here would refrain from speaking if a young woman or man walked into sacrament meeting shirtless and they were the closest to them.

I do believe no man should speak to a young woman about her clothing choice unless there is an immediate physical safety issue or something that is obviously nonsexual (your hair is caught in your back zipper, you might want to have a friend fix that for you).  If young women are present at an activity, chances are a young woman's leader is there as well.  If there is an immediate need for some reason, the woman should talk to young women and men talk to the young men.

I also think what are seen as borderline cases should be ignored in most cases (I say most because there may be some bizarro circumstance that requires the youth being informed there is an issue).  I think the problems generally arise when well meaning, but wrong leaders decide to 'help' things along by ensuring their charges stay way away from the cliff, so to speak.  But what they do instead is to create a new cliff and so the cycle has been going since my youth and probably before in the areas of the Church I live in.  I hope there are other areas this is not an issue, but we tend to hear about this type of thing a lot given most visible general leadership currently lives in the US and most were raised in this type of church culture as far as I can tell.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Calm

[california boy]

4 hours ago, Ahab said:

Would you please clarify what looks to me like a contradiction?  Is a woman's clothing alluring, or not? You say there will always be someone who thinks "what she is wearing" is alluring and then you say the problem has nothing to do with what women are wearing.

I take it as a given that we all understand that what a man wants when he sees a woman that is alluring to him is that woman's body, for sexual purposes, rather than wanting to have her clothing.  Clothing that looks good only helps to enhance a woman's appearance.

If no men wanted to have sex with women then we would have a completely different problem. As it is we're just trying to prevent men from wanting to have sex with women they are not married to, or to at least wait until they are married before they have sex with them.

Clothing that helps women to appear more attractive to men can help to increase the population on this planet but we want to somehow prevent the creeps from reproducing themselves, therefore modest clothing helps to curtail the population and enthusiasm of the creeps.

If there were no creeps on this planet we probably wouldn't need to worry about modesty at all, since no man would want to have sex with any woman unless he was married to her.

 

What I am saying is that no matter what a woman wears, even if  they are covered head to toe, some men will always objectify them and find them alluring.  The problem of controlling thought always is on the person having the thoughts.  It is not someone else's job.

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

I suspect they are assuming you are not speaking of very unusual cases, cases that would be judged as highly problematic in the greater society as well for example.

It has been my experience that young people in the Church may be made uncomfortable at church by things that 'greater society' merely overlooks. We are, after all, a people quite apart in most societies. Church attendance -- and I include all Church activities in this -- is a place where many of my young men specifically sought refuge from the world.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Hamba Tuhan

[Bernard Gui]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

This is our attitude in our ward with the youth.  We have in active girls who come every now and then, and usually their clothing isn't exactly modest by church standards, but we never say ANYTHING.  We would rather have them there and feeling accepted and loved while they are.  The only time I have ever brought up dress as a YW president is when we are going somewhere that has rules about what clothing can and can't be worn.  

Several weeks ago, a young man, about 25 years old, visited our ward. Long hair, beard, ragged clothes, multiple piercings, ear gauges, etc. He sat by the missionaries. They engaged him in conversation. He left after sacrament meeting. No one said anything to him about his clothing.

Two weeks later, our two missionaries had become a threesome, or so it appeared. With them was that same young man dressed in a suit, sans piercing objects and gauges, no beard, short hair. He stayed for all the meetings.

The son of Presbyterian ministers, he had been looking for the true church. He had had some LDS friends, so he decided to check out their Church. Obviously conversant with Christian history, theology, and ancient scriptures, he eagerly participate in the SS lesson from the New Testament. 

The Restoration appeals to him. He has decided to join the Church and is planning to move to SLC and apply to BYU. I don’t know if his change in appearance was because the elders spoke to him about it, that he brought it up, or that he was keen on picking up the visual cues. I’ll have to ask them.

 

On the other hand, once we were at a ward dinner. Someone came up to me and said, “Bishop, there’s a man who speaks only Spanish at the kitchen door.” I went to the door. He was a disheveled Cuban refugee. He said he would wash dishes for a meal.  I said, “Of course! Come in.” He said thanks and observed that everyone he had met looked at him with disgust, but here he felt welcomed. I said that it might have something to do with the swastika tattoo on his forehead. He asked what that meant. When I explained it was the symbol of Hitler’s Nazis, he was mortified. He had seen it in a tattoo shop and decided to have it done because he thought it looked cool. He had no idea what it meant nor why it so repelled people around him.

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

He said thanks and observed that everyone he had met looked at him with disgust, but here he felt welcomed.

For what it may be worth, when my young men told me that a certain young woman's clothing choices made them feel uncomfortable and threatened at church -- 'yucky' was the word one of them used -- we had a good discussion about their need to feel safe and her need to feel safe and how best to balance those competing needs. I was proud of them that they brainstormed ways they could feel OK without making her feel unwelcome in any way.

My understanding is that the Young Women president had a slightly more difficult time with the other Young Women, but I don't know the details of those conversations.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Hamba Tuhan

[bsjkki]

4 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

For what it may be worth, when my young men told me that a certain young woman's clothing choices made them feel uncomfortable and threatened at church -- 'yucky' was the word one of them used -- we had a good discussion about their need to feel safe and her need to feel safe and how best to balance those competing needs. I was proud of them that they brainstormed ways they could feel OK without making her feel unwelcome in any way.

My understanding is that the Young Women president had a slightly more difficult time with the other Young Women, but I don't know the details of those conversations.

What did she wear?

[Bernard Gui]

12 minutes ago, california boy said:

What I am saying is that no matter what a woman wears, even if  they are covered head to toe, some men will always objectify them and find them alluring.  The problem of controlling thought always is on the person having the thoughts.  It is not someone else's job.

Of course, the viewers are responsible for their thoughts....men and women. IMO,  the question that we haven’t been able to answer to everyone’s satisfaction is whether or not the apparel can facilitate, invite, encourage, or increase the objectification, either purposely or inadvertently.

[Calm]

I think most here are talking about every day, typical cases, not the outlier cases.  It is the typical attitudes and behaviors that generally shape culture, it is the rare extreme case that has impact once the case is no longer present (the changes made for the crazy guy at the pulpit, for example, stopped once he was gone and had no impact on how testimony meeting was run).

As iirc Smac has said, hard cases make bad law (making laws based on extremes to apply to every day situations is not prudent)..

[Hamba Tuhan]

2 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

What did she wear?

Is 'standard prostitute wear' a clear enough description?