FYI (if you’re a teenage girl)

[GregH]

This conversation is now bordering on the ridiculous. You would think some things are just obvious enough that they should not be debated. That there is a difference between a man without a shirt on and a woman without a shirt on is one of those things.

You’re right about that. When did I say that a shirtless man and a shirtless woman were the same? I said they were both immodest. And I’ve given a couple of examples that inform my opinion, while it seems that the main argument for the propriety of ‘the shirtless man’ is from silence.

…is a failure to communicate. Neither JamesK or I have made an “argument from silence”, and while you’ve provided one example, based on your personal observations, it’s obvious that we can’t go any farther than that any longer.

Seeing as this conversations has indeed entered the surreal, I agree with JamesK that it’s time to bow out.

[GregH]

This conversation is now bordering on the ridiculous. You would think some things are just obvious enough that they should not be debated. That there is a difference between a man without a shirt on and a woman without a shirt on is one of those things.

I suspect the closest you guys will get to getting Susan on board is her recent statement “The author in the OP isn’t ‘wrong’, I just don’t think she’s right.” (Not sure what that is supposed to mean though.)

Thank you Greg, I literally laughed out loud.

[Jay]

JamesK- should I just refer to you as Don from here out? It’s kinda hard to kiss your ring over cyberspace, though. ;)

Jay, fundyism already has too many Dons trying to carve out more power and influence for themselves. If I accept the ring to begin with, I would only end up getting knee-capped as I don’t have any seminaries or large churches behind me. I have no ring and will not take one if offered.

Can someone respond to the scenario that speaks to SSA?

If I understand correctly, you are saying that a man in a swimsuit is not immodest in the same way that a woman in a swimsuit is. But this is only true if you are a heterosexual man. For a man or woman with SSA, the paradigm would be flipped entirely. Point being, what is modest for a woman cannot be determined by who is looking at her any more than what is modest for a man can be determined by that either. And if you dismiss SSA as an aberrant desire that cannot be used to determine modesty, then you must also dismiss heterosexual male lust as an aberrant desire that cannot be used to determine female modesty either. Just working with logic here.

Forget how women respond to men, what about all the men and teenage boys struggling with SSA who had opportunity to view Mrs. Hall’s sons shirtless?

I don’t know and can’t speak to SSA. What I can say and what needs to be said is that someone who was attracted to Mrs. Hall’s sons is a pedophile, not just a homosexual or someone with those tendencies. Do we need to debate that now too? ;)

I see your point, Hannah, but I am still in disagreement with you on this. I do think that there would be a massive difference in SSA attraction if you compared, say, Mrs. Hall’s sons to gay porn or something like Playgirl (or whatever it’s called) - because the intent of gay porn, Playgirl, or girlie magazines like Maxim or Playboy (to switch back to OSA now) is to incite and develop lust. That puts it in violation of Phil. 4:8 before you even crack a cover (or look at the cover).

Furthermore, SSA and other sexual deviations (bestiality, necrophilia, etc) are clearly listed as a symptom of a depraved mind in Romans 1:18-27 (HCSB):

For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The males in the same way also left natural relations with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.

It should be noted that SSA is listed as the second (not first) step of rejection by God. The first is that “their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened”. Then, after the exchanging of God’s glory, they are “delivered over to the cravings of their hearts”.

Thank you for addressing my question, Jay

I think it helps me better articulate why SusanR and I see a double standard in this conversation.

1. If a grown man lusting after a 15 yo boy is considered a pedophile, a grown man lusting after a 15 yo girl must also be categorized as such. And if we do, the tenor of the conversation changes immediately.

2. Romans 1 certainly does include homosexuality in its list of human degradation but along with a whole host of other sins that make the point of our alienation from God. I don’t hold a view that sees it as somehow “more” depraved than heterosexual lust. After all, heterosexual lust was Christ’s target in the Sermon on the Mount and a clear violation of the 10 Commandments. And yet we insist on seeing male lust as somehow “normal.”

Again, I don’t want to speak for Susan, but this is the disconnect I see.

It’s not the heterosexual lust is normal but homosexual lust is not. It is that heterosexual desire is normal but homosexual desire is not. Again, there is a difference between the two and they are not equivalent.

But again, we are way, WAY afield (IMHO) from the whole point. A mom has every right to teach her sons about and protect her sons from what she (again, being a woman) views as inappropriate photos that are a danger to her sons.

[handerson]

Thank you for addressing my question, Jay

I think it helps me better articulate why SusanR and I see a double standard in this conversation.

1. If a grown man lusting after a 15 yo boy is considered a pedophile, a grown man lusting after a 15 yo girl must also be categorized as such. And if we do, the tenor of the conversation changes immediately.

I understand your point, Hannah. Lusting after a 15 yo - boy or girl - is a lust / desire issue, and I don’t dispute that. It’s also a crime, so let’s change that to a 18 yo instead.

I do not see explicit scriptural warrant for men to dress in a certain way (“modestly”, as defined by you and Susan R - I’m not sure what you two would consider “modest”, but I bet that you two might disagree on something if you debated it long enough) even though we do have explicit scriptural warrant for women to be characterized by “modest” clothing (1 Tim. 2:9, 1 Pet. 3:1-6). One of the characteristics of the “loose woman” in Proverbs is the way that she dresses (7:10).

This is not to say that ‘anything goes’ for guys, which is not my position at all. This isn’t me giving men get a pass to wear whatever they want whenever they want. What I disagree with is that you or Susan (or anyone else) are declaring that men must “be modest” without a definition of what is and is not “modest” for men from you two. I’m not disputing the ‘modesty’ part as much as what I see as a subjective basis for what is and isn’t “modest”.

I guess what I am saying is that:

1. I don’t think that women are as visually attracted as men are, hence the warnings for men to guard their eyes. Yes, they are attracted visually, but not to the extent men are.
2. Because God knows this, He commands godly women to dress modestly - for their own ‘protection’ (as much as I don’t like that term in this particular setting - it’s to keep them from being denigrated to just an object instead of an imagebearer of God in others’ eyes) and so that they are not providing opportunities for their brothers to stumble (Romans 14). Men are explicitly commanded not to lust after a woman on the flip side of that.
3. Even the unsaved have ‘modest’ dress standards although they change (usually for the worse). Those cultural norms are part of our guideline for modesty - which is why we don’t have divinely inspired absolute dress standards (as in what is and is not “modest” for the believers).

Does that make sense?

But again, we are way, WAY afield (IMHO) from the whole point. A mom has every right to teach her sons about and protect her sons from what she (again, being a woman) views as inappropriate photos that are a danger to her sons.

YES.

@Jay,

The funny thing is that I don’t think we’d disagree with each other in application. But obviously there is profound disagreement with how we get there. Regardless, I think we’ve done this thread justice and we should all get gold stars for keeping SI’s numbers up.

[Jay] I do not see explicit scriptural warrant for men to dress in a certain way (“modestly”, as defined by you and Susan R - I’m not sure what you two would consider “modest”, but I bet that you two might disagree on something if you debated it long enough) even though we do have explicit scriptural warrant for women to be characterized by “modest” clothing (1 Tim. 2:9, 1 Pet. 3:1-6). One of the characteristics of the “loose woman” in Proverbs is the way that she dresses (7:10).

This is not to say that ‘anything goes’ for guys, which is not my position at all. This isn’t me giving men get a pass to wear whatever they want whenever they want. What I disagree with is that you or Susan (or anyone else) are declaring that men must “be modest” without a definition of what is and is not “modest” for men from you two. I’m not disputing the ‘modesty’ part as much as what I see as a subjective basis for what is and isn’t “modest”.

Modesty standards for women are also subjective, which I have pointed out more than once. How tight is too tight? How short is too short? How low is too low? Where are your definitions of modesty for women?

There are verses in the Bible that address the subject of clothing- and clothing is needed first and foremost to cover nakedness, which is an offense to God. For instance, the need for coats for Adam and Eve, because an ‘apron’ was not enough to cover their nakedness before God. Who else was there to ‘lust’ after them? Why bother if it’s just them and God, and clothing is just to cover ‘sexual’ parts of the body?

The priests wore britches to cover their ‘nakedness’, which was from the “loin to the thigh”. Again, the offense of exposed flesh is to God, as well as others.

Secondly, we wear clothing to be modest as in not being an offense to others as an object of lust, as well as in the sense of not being extreme, or elaborate.

Our culture defines nakedness as exposing specific parts of the body that have a sexual function. I don’t find that limited definition to be consistent with Scripture, and accepting that idea would mean that women could actually wear very little and be covered enough to be ‘modest’. A girl in a towel is then modest, because she has covered the essentials. But then according to Mrs. Hall, this became immodest because a girl did what- put her hand on her hip and made a pouty face? Who’s really being subjective here?

The problem is - as long as the ‘standards’ of modesty are based on who is lusting after whom, the answers to any and all questions about modesty will be subjective. What one person finds alluring is different than another’s.

We understand that commands directed at certain persons (“husbands, love your wives”) don’t negate the importance or application of that commandment for everyone else. After all, women aren’t directly commanded to not lust after men. However, “Let your moderation be known to all men” aims at the very root of our appearance and behavior, and applies to everyone, because modesty is not just about dressing in a way that doesn’t incite lust. It is about being proper, meek, self-controlled, and not guilty of excess, especially in any area where we also have liberty.

Susan, if the standard of modesty is how God clothed Adam and Eve, then I should be wearing a knee-length, sleeveless tunic, if that is indeed what the word means. I think the idea there is just that he clothed them, without going into much detail. And of course, 99% of the time, it IS more appropriate for men’s chests to be covered.

But I think the most relevant verse is the one you pointed out, that the priests’ “nakedness” was from the loin to the thigh. That would fit the region covered by modern men’s swimsuits.

Susan, if the standard of modesty is how God clothed Adam and Eve…

How do we even KNOW what to wear?

Genesis 3:21 - The Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.

I don’t see any description of tunics, pants, shirts, robes, or other articles of clothing there. Just a brief description that He “clothed them”. Is there some other verse that I’m missing that tells me what they wore?

Gold Star +1 :D