#68926 Feet

[Katya]

I will say that it is very difficult to not focus on a nice pair of breasts if they're presented for the whole world to see. It's my fault if I turn them and their owner into objects, but the whole "look at the eyes" concept is hard, especially when you make a conscious effort not to look at anything else. Guess what you're thinking about? Yep. The Twin Girls. Imagine if every man you saw wore a skimpy Olympic Speedo around campus all day and expected you to act like they were perfectly covered, and thought you were an awful person for even looking at their Little Friend.

Would I be distracted by a man walking around in nothing but a speedo? Yes, yes I would. However, such a man would also be very near public indecency. The fact that you present as equivalent a man who is 95% naked (with the rest covered by lycra) and a woman with a low-cut or tight top (who is otherwise covered) is a beautiful example of the double standard in the way men view women's bodies and the way women view men's bodies. Whether it's due to biological nature, social culture, or individual choice, it's something that women have to live with 24/7 that is well beyond their own control.

Here's the thing though, a person can't help what another finds attractive. I am well endowed. I take a lot of care to cover up, not because of any religious reasons, but because I have some personal body issues.

Imogen brings up another great point, in that, given the location of breasts, any woman larger than a C-cup is going to be hard pressed not to be continually "presenting them for the whole world to see." Is a woman who is more well endowed under some sort of special responsibility to hide her body?

[bobtheenchantedone]

That is the joke, that of two women at work wearing the same outfit one will be dressed modestly and the other not because the one is well endowed.

I am also a busty girl and have dealt with some of that. I once ended up in tears after an RS lesson on modesty, because despite my v-neck-and-undershirt combo I was still wearing a more low-cut shirt than most of the women there. However, I have realized that even in a t-shirt I'm going to have curves, and while I do believe in dressing modestly I don't believe that my body needs to be hidden to accomplish that. Also I prefer wearing skirts, which means nicer shirts, which often means lower-cut shirts, which on me often means miles of cleavage. I've come to terms with the fact that one part of my body is likely to attract a lot of notice, and I will go ahead and wear what I want, including a corset. (Man, I got a lot of stares that day. I wonder if that's why I won the card game so easily...) I'm just glad I don't go to BYU any more, and hope that I can avoid swearing if someone decides to confront me about my "indecency."

[Katya]

A friend of mine once observed that he had no idea how hard it could be for a woman to find a shirt that is (1) flattering, (2) comfortable, and (3) modest (by whatever standard) until he got married and started going clothes shopping with his wife. Before he got married, he'd always assumed that women who were dressed immodestly (in his opinion) just weren't trying very hard.

[Defy V]

A friend of mine once observed that he had no idea how hard it could be for a woman to find a shirt that is (1) flattering, (2) comfortable, and (3) modest (by whatever standard) until he got married and started going clothes shopping with his wife. Before he got married, he'd always assumed that women who were dressed immodestly (in his opinion) just weren't trying very hard.

And then you add on easy to nurse in and it becomes nigh unto impossible.

As a side note, I feel like we (LDS people) need to change the dialogue on modesty. Girls need to know there are other reasons to be modest than to keep guys' minds in the right place. It's hard to articulate those reasons, though.

[yayfulness]

Self-respect. Of course, going through the Temple helps a bit too. You treat your garments with respect, you treat your body with even more respect. It's a gift from God--you don't treat it sloppily, nor do you use it as a tool to get attention. You treat it like the sacred object that it is.

[Zedability]

As a side note, I feel like we (LDS people) need to change the dialogue on modesty. Girls need to know there are other reasons to be modest than to keep guys' minds in the right place. It's hard to articulate those reasons, though.

I agree with that. I think it's part of a larger problem in the LDS dialogue about attraction though. Whenever we talk about it, the girl's job is always to make sure the boy doesn't go too far. When Young Women are taught about not going too far when kissing, it's usually presented along the lines of "you have to stand up to a guy and say "no" if he tries to get you to do these things," rather than "you might want to do this, but you shouldn't." It's all about "keeping guys in check," and never acknowledges that girls feel attraction and temptation too. Furthermore, I think it's demeaning to guys to base the dialogue on the idea that they can't be responsible for themselves.

[Fredjikrang]

So, how is it that guys at universities where women are generally wearing a lot less manage to objectify women less than BYU guys do to BYU girls?

Evidence?

Personal experience at three universities, for starters. This situation wouldn't be tolerated at a secular university.

Grr. I just wrote a big long reply to this, and the internet ate it.

Basically what said was:

Would you mind sharing some of your experiences that make you think that?

Also, I think that some of this might come from the fact that at BYU, people are concerned about controlling their sexual selves, while that isn't as much the case in the world at large. Using the article that you mentioned as an example, the idiot who gave the girl that note was trying to control his sexual desires. Yes, he was trying to do it in an idiotic way, but I believe that that was his intent. In the world at large most young single men are more likely to simply indulge in a sexual fantasy or arousal than be disconcerted by it. And so you have the two sides, men who talk about their desire to maintain control of their sexual selves, and those who simply indulge themselves silently. Which do you think is truly "objectifying" women more?

[Katya]

As a side note, I feel like we (LDS people) need to change the dialogue on modesty. Girls need to know there are other reasons to be modest than to keep guys' minds in the right place. It's hard to articulate those reasons, though.

I agree with that. I think it's part of a larger problem in the LDS dialogue about attraction though. Whenever we talk about it, the girl's job is always to make sure the boy doesn't go too far. When Young Women are taught about not going too far when kissing, it's usually presented along the lines of "you have to stand up to a guy and say "no" if he tries to get you to do these things," rather than "you might want to do this, but you shouldn't." It's all about "keeping guys in check," and never acknowledges that girls feel attraction and temptation too. Furthermore, I think it's demeaning to guys to base the dialogue on the idea that they can't be responsible for themselves.

This is another problem with men vastly outnumbering (and always outranking) women in leadership positions; many things of our teachings (including those about sexuality) are framed from the man's point of view, so women's sexuality gets a short shrift. (The two most recent posts on my friend's blog highlight some serious potential consequences of our treatment of women's sexuality.)

[NerdGirl]

Okay, here's the thing. You're always going to run into people (of both sexes) who are dressing in a certain way because they want to attract attention to certain body parts and they want people to look. Maybe not so much on BYU campus, but certainly in a lot of places you will. But that doesn't mean you have to look. It's your choice. If you're sitting at a restaurant patio and a woman is walking down the street in fishnets with stiletto heels and a see-through corset with a mini-skirt that says juicy on the butt, then it's probably safe to say that she's putting herself out there for people to enjoy checking her out if they are interested. But if you don't feel good about checking women out like that because it makes you have thoughts you don't want to have, then you just look in another direction. What drives me crazy, though, is the BYU types (and I'm not calling out anyone here, because I don't think anyone here is like this) who see no distinction at all between a woman dressed in the way that I just described and a woman who simply happens to have large breasts, for example, and is wearing clothes in her size so that you can actually tell that she has breasts rather than wearing some kind of tent.

[Craig Jessop]

I will say that it is very difficult to not focus on a nice pair of breasts if they're presented for the whole world to see. It's my fault if I turn them and their owner into objects, but the whole "look at the eyes" concept is hard, especially when you make a conscious effort not to look at anything else. Guess what you're thinking about? Yep. The Twin Girls. Imagine if every man you saw wore a skimpy Olympic Speedo around campus all day and expected you to act like they were perfectly covered, and thought you were an awful person for even looking at their Little Friend.

Would I be distracted by a man walking around in nothing but a speedo? Yes, yes I would. However, such a man would also be very near public indecency. The fact that you present as equivalent a man who is 95% naked (with the rest covered by lycra) and a woman with a low-cut or tight top (who is otherwise covered) is a beautiful example of the double standard in the way men view women's bodies and the way women view men's bodies. Whether it's due to biological nature, social culture, or individual choice, it's something that women have to live with 24/7 that is well beyond their own control.

Okay. Guilty as charged. But might I add that, as usual, Marduk said what I meant in, as usual, a far more articulate way.

[Portia]

As a side note, I feel like we (LDS people) need to change the dialogue on modesty. Girls need to know there are other reasons to be modest than to keep guys' minds in the right place. It's hard to articulate those reasons, though.

I agree with that. I think it's part of a larger problem in the LDS dialogue about attraction though. Whenever we talk about it, the girl's job is always to make sure the boy doesn't go too far. When Young Women are taught about not going too far when kissing, it's usually presented along the lines of "you have to stand up to a guy and say "no" if he tries to get you to do these things," rather than "you might want to do this, but you shouldn't." It's all about "keeping guys in check," and never acknowledges that girls feel attraction and temptation too. Furthermore, I think it's demeaning to guys to base the dialogue on the idea that they can't be responsible for themselves.

Seconded. This is STILL a problem in my life all these years later. I NEVER am the non-initiator.

[Katya]

But might I add that, as usual, Marduk said what I meant in, as usual, a far more articulate way.

Maybe we should all start outsourcing our arguing to Marduk. (Eventually, he'd just have long, articulate arguments with himself.)

Would you mind sharing some of your experiences that make you think that?

Basically, girls at BYU get harassed or shamed for wearing clothing that is much more conservative than what girls are wearing at other universities, without even turning heads. (There's a really great question in the Board archives that I can't find about someone whose friend came to visit him at BYU and she was wearing a tank top or spaghetti straps and she was made to feel very uncomfortable by both the men and women on campus.) Marduk raises a good point about the expectations of different communities, and BYU obviously has very conservative expectations with regard to dress, but that shouldn't make us completely incapable of having a polite interaction with someone who is appropriately dressed, by general 21st century American standards.

Also, I think that some of this might come from the fact that at BYU, people are concerned about controlling their sexual selves, while that isn't as much the case in the world at large. Using the article that you mentioned as an example, the idiot who gave the girl that note was trying to control his sexual desires. Yes, he was trying to do it in an idiotic way, but I believe that that was his intent. In the world at large most young single men are more likely to simply indulge in a sexual fantasy or arousal than be disconcerted by it. And so you have the two sides, men who talk about their desire to maintain control of their sexual selves, and those who simply indulge themselves silently. Which do you think is truly "objectifying" women more?

I don't have access to what men in these situations are thinking or silently indulging in. I only have access to the way I've observed them treat me and other women. Why should women bear the burden of being harassed in order for men to feel like they can control themselves? (Isn't that the same logic used to mandate burqas in fundamentalist Islamic communities?)

I will fully admit that the guy who wrote this note probably has some challenges when it comes to appropriate social interaction. And if this was just an isolated incident, I could probably shrug it off. However, this incident took place just a few weeks after a somewhat similar incident at BYU-Idaho and if you read through some of the comments on the original blog post, you'll learn that the BYU girl was privately contacted by many other female BYU students who had had similar experiences, including one who was publicly shamed in a classroom setting. Also, one of the anonymous commenters says she is a BYU professor who has received this sort of harassment on her teacher evaluations. That crosses the line into workplace sexual harassment, which is illegal.

What I'd really like to know is how Mormon guys at not-BYU deal with this situation, since they're going to have the same goals of keeping their thoughts clean, but they're going to be surrounded by coeds in revealing clothing. How do they handle it? What could the BYU guys learn from them?

[UffishThought]

One of my guy friends has told me that when he's away from BYU, and short shorts and low cut tops for women are the norm, it's no big deal. But when he's at BYU, and the norm for women is much more conservative, he has a harder time controlling his thoughts when he sees a lot of leg or cleavage.

He agreed that the burden was on him to think and act appropriately, regardless, but he and I both found it interesting that context had so much to do with how he perceived women and their dress.

[Marduk]

Maybe we should all start outsourcing our arguing to Marduk. (Eventually, he'd just have long, articulate arguments with himself.)

Hoo boy, sometimes it feels like it.