Modesty is a really hot topic right now, it seems, even outside of the Trad/Christian realm where it’s always being talked about.

There are a few things that have got everyone talking about the ethics of clothing, specifically, women’s clothing (I’ll get into that later): among them, Sydney Sweeney’s racy new ads, and SNL comedian Shane Gillis’s recent comments about women at the gym “dressing like whores.” And then there’s this viral video that popped up in my suggesteds last week:

It’s worth a watch but I do have some issues with it, which I’ll get into later as well.

Not that my opinion matters at all, but I’m going to offer it anyway, partly because I like to think that I, as a female former liberal and convert to Traditional Catholicism who really had to wrestle with this and related issues, have perhaps a slightly more nuanced and curated opinion on modesty than many of the loud, highly-polarized voices out there, so I might have something different to bring to the table that you haven’t heard before; but mostly because, as I always say, this is my stupid little personal blog and I can put whatever I want on it.

This is a pretty long post, so I’ve divided it into sections for you:

Sydney Sweeney is not the problem

I’ll start with this. I’m not mad at Sydney Sweeney, and I think it’s dumb how so many people are. Without a doubt, most if not all of the feminist hatred toward her comes from jealousy (because aren’t feminists supposed to be all “women can do whatever they want with their body” and “sex work is real work” and etc.? And suddenly now that Sydney’s doing it they’re mad about it? Why can’t they get their story straight?). I have no doubt that if the ads featured a fat, ugly, disabled, or queer woman in her undies, the feminists would be applauding loud as heck. Leave Sydney alone.

That being said, do I endorse such things being shown on TV? Is such imagery in public morally permissible? Absolutely not. It’s terrible. Vile, shameful, despicable, a crime, damaging to women’s dignity, all of that.

But unfortunately, nothing about this is new. Literally, there is nothing at all shocking or even slightly out of the ordinary about Sydney’s ads. I watched one. It was, by modern media standards, really pretty PG. Come on. We were walking past giant posters in the mall that were just as racy, back when I was a kid and malls were still a thing. And do you guys remember the hit song “WAP” from a few years ago? On that note, have you ever heard a pop song, at any time in the last twenty-odd years? And now you’re acting scandalized and offended?

The only thing shocking and extraordinary about Sydney’s ads is that Sydney is shockingly and extraordinarily beautiful — imo, completely deserving of all the comparisons to Marilyn Monroe and Transformers-era Megan Fox. That’s the only reason why it draws so much attention when she does it.

(Honestly, people (women, that is) just love to hate this girl. I still don’t get why folks were so mad about the “good genes” thing. I’m all for racial sensitivity, and normally don’t dare to even speak on any racial issues because I’m white and I fully agree and respect that white people should let POC be heard on these issues, but come on, it’s such a ridiculous reach, like your shoulder joint’s gonna be straight popped all the way out of its socket, to try to construe “she has good genes” as having anything remotely to do with racism. For as long as I can remember, any effortlessly-beautiful person, of any color, could be said to “have good genes.” “How does she do it? What’s her secret?” “Oh, she just has good genes.” Are we not allowed to compliment white women at all anymore? That was such a simple, benign comment, no more than a clever little pun. Anyway; I put this paragraph in parentheses because this particular bit isn’t about modesty, just an aside about how people love to hate on Sydney because of her beauty.)

Sydney Sweeney is not the problem. She (i.e. her public image; I obviously don’t know her as a human) is just a product. She is just another symptom of the problem.

Shane Gillis is right

Because there is a problem. Shane Gillis is right, 100%: women do dress like sex workers in the gym, and it sucks that this is such a controversial observation and so many people are up in arms about it. I recently “unfollowed” my longtime favorite fitness influencer for making a post disagreeing with Shane Gillis. (Notice I never unfollowed her simply for the way she dressed, because it’s a very easy mistake to make in this day & age, and I can sympathize with that, but only when she started arguing and defending it after being called out.) Come on now. You don’t get to dress like that, basically naked, very loudly calling attention to yourself whether you consciously meant to or not (I’ll get into that later), and then get mad at people for looking. Let’s not be dumb. It’s not necessary to dress like that.

The western world has truly lost all sense of decency when it comes to clothes. We ought to be collectively ashamed. I’m with the Muslims on this one; my readers already know I think they have the right idea when it comes to modesty.

But why don’t we talk as much about modesty for men?

“But it’s not fair that we give women so much shit about their clothes, and never men! Why don’t we ever talk about male modesty standards?!” Well, two reasons.

The first being that male and female bodies are different. As much as I stand by the belief that women’s bodies are not advertisements for women’s bodies, and women should be allowed to exist without being sexually objectified, it’s also true that women are, unfortunately for us, built in such a way that our reproductive function is hard to conceal. It’s visisble and evident at a glance (breasts, hips) — more so than with men. (I mean yeah you could argue that a man’s physical strength, which is desirable in a reproductive partner, is also visible and evident at a glance — but although physical strength is desirable in a partner, just like facial beauty or nice hair, it’s not directly linked to reproductive faculty by nature, the way breasts & hips are.)

Women are built beautifully. I mean there’s a reason why women’s fashion is so much more interesting and beautiful than men’s. Think about it — when you’re watching like pre-award show celebs on the red carpet. On the ladies you see all kinds of beautiful, fascinating, exciting, colorful gowns! On men (usually, unless someone decides to be weird and avant garde), it’s just… suit… suit… slightly nicer suit… suit. As it should be! And don’t get me wrong, I love a man in a suit!, but I think it’s obvious that the male form isn’t designed as showily and flowerishly as the female. The difference between appreciating a beautiful rose and a nice majestic tree, if you will. The female form has a special kind of beauty, the same way male birds tend to be more beautiful than the females, and for the same reason. (Why it’s reversed in animals, though, and in their case males are the ones with an outward appearance designed to flaunt their sexiness and attract a mate, I do not understand.)

It’s also undeniably true that men and women have different roles when it comes to romantic partnerships, and as such, different things are expected of them. Men are expected to be providers and protectors. You don’t need immodest clothes to flaunt those capabilities; it’s more a matter of confidence (which is why it’s less easy to predict at a glance whom women will find sexually attractive; like, squirmy little Pete Davidson? Effeminate little Timothee? How do they keep bagging such baddies? It’s the confidence, the attitude.) Women, though, to attract a partner, we are expected to offer youth, beauty, fertility — all physical traits that can be flaunted with skimpy attire. This is another reason why female attire tends to be more immodest. Not saying this is an excuse. Just a reason, a sub-reason of reason one.

Second reason we don’t talk as much about male modesty: male clothes are typically not as immodest! It’s that simple! I mean yeah, sometimes you see men with their pants hanging too low, or men in muscle shirts flaunting their shoulders and biceps (come on now, put those away, you little slut), or posting shirtless gym photos on IG, or men in Speedos or whatever. But that’s not typical to see everywhere in public, the way leggings and sports bras are for women. It’s a no-brainer that extremely immodest female fashion is much more normalized right now, probably because of reason one above.

So it’s not unfair to call out immodest women, as Shane Gillis and the video that I shared above are doing. The video clarifies a lot, and I highly recommend watching it if you’re still confused or conflicted on this issue.

Modesty and comfort (what the video gets wrong)

However, I do think the video gets one thing wrong. It claims that comfort cannot be a reason why women are choosing to dress immodestly, because, it claims, “at home they all just dress in loose, baggy sweatpants and hoodies all the time — it’s only when they go out that they dress immodestly, so they’re clearly only doing it for attention.”

This is simply false. I don’t think this guy knows any women. It’s very normal for women to sit around their house in leggings, booty shorts, tank tops, and crop tops. A lot of women are comfortable in immodest clothing. They wear it at home, then they hop in their car and wear it to the gym because it’s comfy to work out in too. I think the guy who made the video was considering immodest attire of the more bougie variety: little minidresses, tight showy things like the celebrities wear on TV; I think he neglected to consider that the most common immodest clothes these days, like leggings and gym shorts, are actually marketed as comfortable and “functional.”

Which is why I don’t think we can really blame most women. I think a lot of women just buy what they think is normal. They just grab what’s available on the shelves at stores, whatever everyone else is wearing. “I need something to work out in, what does the store have? Just leggings? Okay, got it, this is what people wear to exercise.”

Thus the blame doesn’t lie on individual women, it lies on our society and culture for normalizing this whorish attire. In this modern western world, you really can’t expect much better of most people; we’re all being taught that this is okay and normal. (Now, if the immodesty is pointed out to you and you get all defensive about it, like my former favorite fitness influencer, then sorry but you maybe have some work to do, and you are no longer so blameless.)

Decency is real and exists for a reason. As the video pointed out, modesty is not about catering to men; it’s not about covering yourself up so that they don’t have to do the work of curbing their urges; most of us, myself included, let’s face it, aren’t hot enough to elicit lust in random men, anyway. The average woman’s body probably isn’t going to affect a man that way. Hot or not, all we are doing by dressing immodestly is communicating to the world that we are just exceedingly, pathetically desperate to have our bodies sexually objectified. Even if that’s not your conscious intention, that’s what you’re communicating.

As it says in the video, our attire communicates something about who we are in society, about what we are here to do. If you put your sexy bits on full display, then, yes, that is what you are communicating.

“But Mith, I dress like this for comfort and function! It’s easier to work out in leggings. And it’s so hot in summer, I just need to wear booty shorts and spaghetti straps!” — sorry, false; nothing is stopping you from hitting the gym in sweatpants or longer shorts and a t-shirt. If you’re a pilates instructor or a ballet teacher and you need your students to see your body for demonstrative, educational purposes: sure, that’s legit, but keep the attire in the (all-female) dance studio, and throw something else on over it before you walk out. It’s not hard.

And heat? Please. I live in one of the hottest regions of the US and I do just fine in summer in my lightweight maxi skirts and loose cotton tees, in fact it’s actually worse to expose that much of your skin to the summer sun, so your argument is invalid, your outfit is not functional.

And even if dressing more modestly did mean sacrificing some of your comfort — ya know what, maybe that’s okay. Maybe people need to be less comfortable. Maybe we need to stop “normalizing” everything, and feel shame for once. Because yeah, decency matters. Ladies made do in the olden days, didn’t they, in all those layers of petticoats and hoop skirts? And they didn’t even have AC. What’s our excuse?

In Conclusion

And listen, I’m not a girly girl. I’m not Little Miss Feminine Fashion over here preaching at you to wear pretty church dresses and look appealing all the time. I’m not telling you you should try to look like a beautiful flower. That is not me. I simply think we women should cover our bodies appropriately, even if it’s in a casual or tomboyish or not conventionally beautiful or sexually-appealing way.

And contrary to popular belief among Western Christians, modesty is not just about having fabric covering your skin.

I saw some reel on Facebook a while ago that showed a young woman entering a church to go to Confession dressed in a tight fitted jumpsuit. Several people in the comments politely called her out for dressing like that in a church — and can you believe others were replying to those comments arguing that she was dressed modestly??! Simply because her skin was covered, technically, even though you could plainly see the entire shape of both individual ass cheeks? So I guess if I spraypaint my naked body, that’s modest now? Good grief, you guys! How have we gotten so dumb!

The west has fallen so far, it’s depressing. And no, I don’t feel bad or hypocritical for saying that, because it’s no secret, it’s just a painfully obvious observation. I’m not saying I’m holier than anyone else. I’m actually one of the least holy people that I know. It just bothers me that so many people are so closed-minded and brainwashed about this topic, so determined to defend their “right” to dress like whores. I mean even a secular person ought to be able to appreciate common decency. You don’t need to be a Christian for that.

It’s not Sydney Sweeney’s fault. It’s not any individual’s fault. All these immodestly-clad women are just symptoms. But to cure the actual illness, we all need to wake up and intentionally step up. That’s the only way to de-normalize the indecency. Just do your part. Just be a big girl and put on some clothes.