While I don’t necessarily share many of your beliefs (though I’d say there is always common ground between people, and I’ve no doubt I share some of your values), I wish you well for the future, and will continue to dip into the site every so often.

Many thanks for taking the time to at least offer a reply.

Pete

I’m afraid your second paragraph is baffling to me. The few survey endorsers who have ministries directly related to issues of sexual purity have created those ministries because they care deeply about those issues and about other people. Personal attacks on the character of the endorsers doesn’t help your position.

Also, the survey did not ask young men to give their input on female dress. Christian young women asked Christian young men to give input on female dress and the survey facilitated their request. As you should know from reading other posts on the subject, guys did not come up with the idea for the survey. The idea and the questions were submitted by Christian teen and college-age girls.

Finally, we do allow debate in our comments sections, provided it is productive. That requires there to be common ground on which to proceed. Unfortunately, I do not see that common ground here. You do not share our belief in the importance of modesty and you take issue with the very idea of the survey. Because of that, I need to ask you to stop. Thanks for understanding.

And as for the endorsers: I understand that Christians have an interest in modesty, but my point is that many of these endorsers actually profit from that interest (since I assume that the books they have written are for sale not donation), and will benefit from anything that perpetuates their particular take on what constitutes modesty (e.g. your survey). I would extend similar objections to interested parties endorsing studies that are nothing to do with Christianity.

And finally, the survey is asking boys/young men to judge what they consider to be modest or otherwise in girls/young women. You have said elsewhere that there may be an equivalent survey where the subjects and judges are reversed, but I feel that it is telling (and unsurprising) that the original survey (along with most modesty-based discussion within conservative circles) focussed on females, not males.

I appreciate you posting my comments. I hope they come across as debate and not offense.

Elsewhere on your site you acknowledge that this survey does not stand up to statistical rigour, yet here it is being encouraged as spot-on. Endorsement from an array of characters whose p.o.v. predisposes them to a particular view of modesty only add to the craziness of it all. Indeed, many of the endorsers are writers with publications focussed on girls’ modesty of dress: a vested interest in getting teens to explore this topic, one might say.

Susan - your point is a good one. Unfortunately, this topic cannot be divorced from judgement, since that is what is relied upon as a means of assessing modesty or immodesty in this survey, and the posts of those taking part in the survey demonstrate this.

How deppressing. Ladies: prepare for further judgement…

Secondly, I’d like to talk about how the focus has always been on women being a stumbling block for men, but very rarely do we talk about how men are a stumbling block for women. Maybe it’s because the physical aspect is more blatent that the emotion, but the fact of the matter is that emotion “immodesty” is very damaging. We worry about a girl wearing a tanktop or low-rise jeans, but no one ever talks about how guys can emotionally hurt and damage girls by their actions, unintentionally. When a guy winks, touches a girl arm while talking, hugs just a little too long, flirts carelessly, etc., this makes a girl’s imagination run wild emotionally…”does he like me?”…”what would our wedding be like?”!!!! And then girls see them do the same with other girls and they don’t understand why. “If he’s flirting with me that means he must like me…so then why is he flirting with her?” This leads to broken hearts.

I hope this topic of modesty (physical and emotional/ men and women) can be merely informative and non-judgemental.

I agree with you that a woman who wears pants or a modest swimsuit is not necessarily responsible (and is never fully or even primarily responsible) for men’s reactions to her clothing, provided she was not wearing them for the purpose of drawing that kind of attention. However, I would be very interested in hearing you support your implication that a woman who poses au naturel for a magazine is not at all responsible for men lusting after her.

You are concerned that men place all the blame on women, but you seem to want to reverse the offense and place all the blame on men. I think if you were to read more of the survey (especially the Open Questions) you will find that the guys who took the survey are not blaming women for their own sexual sins. I would also recommend that you read The Responsibility of Modesty (Part 1) and Part 2 which explains very accurately what we feel is the biblical responsibility of men and women in this area.

I am an adult woman (almost 30) who grew up in the home school movement, where women are frequently blamed for the sexual sins of men.

When I read the results of your modesty survey, I was alarmed at the “Blame-Game” nature of the questions. The questions were phrased to suggest that women are responsible for the sins of lustful men.

If a woman poses au naturel for a magazine, is it her fault you picked it up?

If a woman is wearing pants, and you lust, is this her fault?

The attire of women, modest or immodest, is not going to impact the condition of a lustful heart.

Next time you lust for a girl in a swimsuit, instead of judging her, get on your knees and ask God to help you develop a sexuality surrendered to God.

Men need to take responsibility for their sexual sins and STOP blaming women.

This is not to say women shouldn’t dress modestly. It’s just saying men should focus on what THEY can do to change, and not run around blaming knee length skirts for their arousal.