Men are pigs, don’t encourage them

*I’ve struggled with what order to do these next couple of week’s worth of posts in. They don’t have quite as logical a progression as the first half of the month’s posts did. But my decision has been made for me by a late night of research and not enough time to perfect any of my other posts–so, here you have the very first Love Month 2010 post I wrote!*

I once read a book, purportedly a Christian book, purportedly a book about modesty, whose thesis could be summed up in six words: “Men are pigs, don’t encourage them.”

I’ll be honest with you. Most of the time, modesty talk rankles me. It drives me nuts. It leaves me gnashing my teeth, but (hopefully) biting my tongue. I hate it.

I hate it because most modesty talk I hear says one of two things, neither of which is true.

How many times have you heard one of the following:

Men are visual. They can’t help it. You need to dress modestly because you don’t want to cause your brother to stumble. (Translation? If a man looks at you and lusts, it’s YOUR fault.)

OR

All men want is sex–and when you dress immodestly, you’re giving them what they want. (Translation? Men are pigs, don’t encourage them.)

I’ve heard both of them too many times to count. And I’m frankly sick and tired of hearing them. BECAUSE THEY’RE JUST NOT TRUE!

Let me walk you through these statements.

Statement 1: Men are visual. They can’t help it. You need to dress modestly because you don’t want to cause your brother to stumble. (Translation? If a man looks at you and lusts, it’s YOUR fault.)

Men are visual. They can’t help it.

That’s true. Men are visual. They are aroused by visual stimulus. They can’t help that. God made them that way. And it’s GOOD that God made them that way.

What isn’t true is that men are visual and therefore can’t help it if they’re lusting. Just as with every other sin, the stimuli (the temptation) isn’t responsible for our sin. We are responsible for what we do with that stimuli. When a man sees something that arouses him, that is not sin. Sin is when he takes what he sees and lusts after it–craves and desires what is not his to have.

So, men are visual, they can’t help it. But men can choose not to lust, regardless of the temptation to do so.

You need to dress modestly because you don’t want to cause your brother to stumble.

This injunction comes from a couple of Scripture passages.

“Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.”
Romans 14:20-21

“But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.”
I Corinthians 8:9-13

Both of these passages refer specifically to eating food sacrificed to idols–a practice which some believers felt was sinful, and others felt was permissible. Paul affirms that this eating food sacrificed to idols is a liberty that believers can enjoy BECAUSE they know that those idols have no power. But for the weaker brothers, to eat food sacrificed to idols wounds their conscience.

Paul encourages the brethren to think beyond what they must or must not do (indeed, they had perfect freedom to eat meat–which Paul affirms). Instead, he encourages them to have a different mindset towards their liberty. Instead of worrying about being “right”, the believers are encouraged to do what is best for their brethren.

Far from laying down a new law of “Don’t eat meat sacrificed to idols” (or, for that matter, “Don’t dress immodestly”), Paul instead reaffirms Christ’s second greatest command: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)

So, the issue here isn’t dressing modestly or dressing immodestly–it’s loving our brothers. Which is where the tricky part comes in, because loving our brothers often DOES mean dressing modestly. But that’s an act of love, not a rule for proper behavior.

Bottom Line: If a man looks at you and lusts, it’s HIS fault. But you have the opportunity to serve your brothers by dressing in a way that would not tempt them.

Statement 2: All men want is sex–and when you dress immodestly, you’re giving them what they want. (Translation? Men are pigs, don’t encourage them.)

All men want is sex.

Most men do want sex. So do most women–I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want sex. The desire for sex is a good desire, a God-given desire that most people (male or female) have.

But to say that sex is ALL men want? That’s just plain wrong. While men do desire sex, they also desire companionship, intimacy, significance, respect, love… In fact, they desire a lot of the same things you desire.

God created us to desire sex–but beyond that, He created us for relationship. He created man and woman in such a way that they were to be complementary–physically, yes, but even beyond the physical. God designed us such that in marriage a man and a woman become one–not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as well. This is what both men and women want. Oneness in a relationship.

When you dress immodestly, you’re giving [men] what they want.

If you were paying attention to what I just said, you can probably see the problem in this statement already.

Sex isn’t all that men want–so dressing immodestly doesn’t give them what they want. It feeds one part of their desire for oneness, but does nothing for the other aspects. In fact, it degrades that desire for oneness by promising physical oneness without fulfilling the desire for respect and honor.

By dressing immodestly, we might be encouraging men to act as pigs–to lust after our physical bodies while denying the desire for true oneness as God intended it–but that doesn’t mean men are pigs.

Sex without relationship isn’t what men want–so dressing in a way that promises sex without relationship isn’t giving them what they want.

Bottom line: Men are human, with the same desires as most humans. We can encourage them to desire whole relationships by not over-emphasizing our sexuality by the way we dress.

Now that you’ve heard all that I think is WRONG with the way we approach modesty, be sure to come back tomorrow to learn about how I WISH we approached modesty.