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…