Womanly virtues Friday ...

The problem is that there isn't much to say about modesty
Last week over in the Catholic blogosphere there were a couple of pieces that drove home the utter futility of the whole modesty thing. They revealed the way the people who discuss modesty most are actually obsessed with, as Simcha Fisher (the author of both pieces) put it, sex, sex, sex. She started with a comment by one of her readers:

I am distressed at least a little by the way that these modesty discussions inevitably draw so much description of the female body, clothed or barely-clothed.

I'm sure she is, but what else could you talk about when talking about modesty? I mean this as a serious question.

Here is another way to think of it: what is the opposite of washing your feet? Not washing your feet? That doesn't really work does it? You can't say much about the activity of not washing your feet because it's not an activity. And you can't say much about the virtue of modesty because it's not a virtue. (And that is why I keep pounding on this Catholic bloggers who write about chastity as if it meant abstaining from sex. If we define chastity that way, then chastity means nothing at all.)

Catholic writers talking about modesty and chastity always end up talking about either sex or, worse, come off as imperious busy bodies telling women what they can't do because there is nothing to say about modesty or chastity.

Here is why it has to fail. You are your body and your body is sexual. To deny that sexuality is to deny your very being. Being sexual doesn't mean having sex all the time but it does mean being sexual all the time and the more you try and tell yourself otherwise the more dramatically you will fail.

Let me give you an example of just how deep this sex stuff runs. First, a clarification. I love Betty Beguiles, I have her in my Blog List. I think she has exactly the right attitude. I don't mean to criticize her. Okay? No one could reasonably accuse her of immodesty. So let's look at an apron she likes. That's right, an apron. Here it is:

Okay, a woman waltzes into church kitchen and whips that on before cutting up squares to serve during the weekly meeting of Concerned Catholic Women Promoting Modesty. Someone, could be a man, could be another woman, says, "What a darling little apron". And the wearer thanks, them, smiles and stands up nice and straight and describes where she found it and the admirer looks at her "apron".

I don't mean to be difficult here, I really don't, but it is pretty obvious what's really going on here isn't it? In French the expression for highlight is "mettre en valeur" (literally "put into value") and it gets the point better than "highlight". The apron highlights her breasts by framing them. It puts them into value. It gives you an excuse to look at them and the wearer a chance to show off her breasts.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that. To the contrary, I love it and any time I see a woman wearing that apron I'm going to make a compliment in the hopes that she will stand up straight and thank me while I admire her apron. And I discriminate. I walk into a kitchen and I see two women, and one is wearing this apron, the woman in this apron is the one I offer to help every time.

There is a lot to say about dignity if you want to talk about that but modesty is an empty shell. Modesty means not being immodest and that is all it means. It's like talking about not playing chess, or about not swimming or about not eating. It has no content of its own. That's why Catholic bloggers always end up talking about sex when they mean to discuss modesty.