{"id":3255,"date":"2014-05-14T16:26:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T20:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/?p=3255"},"modified":"2014-12-30T11:28:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T16:28:50","slug":"desire-lust-and-daisy-dukes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2014\/05\/desire-lust-and-daisy-dukes.html","title":{"rendered":"Desire, Lust, and Daisy Dukes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lots of nuttiness and hysteria has ensued since my post yesterday, notably on Mark Shea\u2019s wall. Also, other sides of the story have come to light, along with more than a few accusations about me picking one side of the story and running with it.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, I picked the story up immediately after it went up on Gawker<\/a>, read Clare\u2019s account<\/a>, did a perfunctory Google search and found no contradictory accounts, wrote a slap-dash post because I was fuming but also needed to make dinner, and called it a day. I didn\u2019t investigate because I\u2019m a blogger, not an investigative journalist.<\/p>\n

In the interest of fairness, there seem to be about a thousand conflicting \u201ceyewitness\u201d accounts about what happened. Many insist that it was Clare\u2019s suggestive dancing that got her kicked out (although she claimed that she wasn\u2019t dancing at all), and not her dress. If she was twerking like Miley Cyrus all over the dance floor, then sure, different story entirely. I have no idea what really happened, but the reason I wrote that post is more about the larger picture than this particular incident.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I picked this story up is the mindset that it reveals. You can see this mindset over and over in the comments, and even in the one rebuttal to Clare\u2019s post that I came across.<\/p>\n

Women use clothing and actions to attract men all the time, but as Christians and really just as moral people, ladies have a duty to dress in a way that earns respect and doesn\u2019t tempt men and that is what this entire situation comes down to.<\/p>\n

(Read the rest here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gosh, y\u2019all, I\u2019ve said this till I\u2019m blue in the face and I guess I\u2019ll just keep saying it till I fall over and actually die, because it is VITAL for Christians to understand and admit this if we ever want to have any kind of real conversation about true charity and true chastity. It is impossible to prevent any man from ever being tempted by you, no matter what you wear. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You can wear a sack, you can wear a bag, you can wear a mumu, you can wear a friggin\u2019 burqa and still, it\u2019s entirely possible for a man to be tempted when he looks at you. I wrote about this once before, and I\u2019m not sure I can say it any better now.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s simply impossible to prevent every single situation that might arouse a man. Some men have a foot fetish. Should we really all give up our flip-flops and cover our pedicures so that no man with a foot-fetish ever stumbles again? Sometimes men get turned on by nothing in particular. A smell, maybe, that triggers a memory, or the sight of a curl falling against a girl\u2019s neck. Do we invent an olfactory-suppressing anti-perfume? Ban curls, necks, girls?<\/p>\n

The fact is, women\u2019s bodies have the potential to make men lust, even the disfigured and mutilated feet of Chinese girls<\/a>. All good things can potentially be turned and twisted by evil and sin. The flowy skirt you choose for Mass could be swept against your legs in a sudden gust of wind and the outline of your legs could catch a man\u2019s eye. It could spark his desire. But the move from attraction to lust is on him.<\/p>\n

Lust, as I understand it, is neither attraction nor desire. Lust is the entirely selfish desire to use another person\u2019s body for your own pleasure.<\/p>\n

(Read the rest here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, though. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s okay to wear a tube top and daisy dukes to church (or anywhere, for that matter, except maybe to bed). That\u2019s an offense against chastity and<\/em> against charity. It\u2019s a double whammy,\u00a0 because to intentionally provoke lust is to treat both yourself and the object of your provocation as a thing instead of a human being<\/a>. It\u2019s an offense against human dignity. It\u2019s serious business \u2014 much more serious than the sin of lust.<\/p>\n

But if the man you\u2019re trying to provoke sees you, is immediately assailed by all kinds of sexual desires, feels helpless in the face of temptation and so removes himself from your presence in a desperate attempt to not buckle under the weight of concupiscence, then he\u2019s a hero. Period. He is like the Iron Man of chastity. He\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

Wait, but he had sexual desires<\/em>? Isn\u2019t that a sin?<\/p>\n

Nope. It\u2019s not. Thoughts you cannot control are not sinful. Indulging in them, cooperating with them, turning a thought into an elaborate fantasy or, even worse, a reality, those are sins. This is why it is so grossly <\/em>unfair to hold women accountable for possible temptation, or even actual temptation! It does not acknowledge that we all of us<\/em> have thoughts that spring unbidden into our minds, and we must learn to reject them. That is self-control. That is temperance. It\u2019s a virtue. But it\u2019s a virtue that men are denied the chance to learn when they are told that those unbidden thoughts are the fault of women.<\/p>\n

This is why I picked up Clare\u2019s story. In her post, she said that she was being asked to leave because she \u201cwas going to cause the young men at the prom to think impure thoughts.\u201d It is horribly unfair to put the burden of someone else\u2019s thoughts on a young girl, or a girl of any age, or a boy, come to that, because (spoiler alert!) girls can think \u201cimpure thoughts\u201d about boys too. A distinction absolutely must<\/em> be drawn between deliberate provocation and being attractive.<\/p>\n

Sure, there are going to be a thousand shades of gray in between those two things, and probably they are mixed together a good deal. But when it becomes a question of addressing young women and young men about desire and lust, it\u2019s simply wrong to blame the girls for causing desire. As one of my commenters said, \u201d \u2018causing the young men on the dance floor to have impure thoughts\u2019?!? Oh, foresooth! What does that require for such \u2018young men\u2019? As I recall that age, a warm breeze could \u2018caus[e] \u2026 impure thoughts\u2019.\u201d Instead, talk to the boys about self-mastery, and the difference between desire and lust\u2026and at the same time, talk to the girls about the daunting struggle their brothers in Christ are facing. Talk to them about charity. Talk to them about chastity. Talk to them about rightly ordered love. Explain that while a man giving in to lustful thoughts is a sin, it is nowhere near as serious a sin as deliberate provocation, when to carry through on such a thing would be sinful for them both.<\/p>\n

There is a time and a place for deliberate provocation, and when you\u2019re married, deliberate provocation is freaking awesome and totally fun\u2026if you have learned chastity, charity, and rightly ordered love. If you haven\u2019t, it\u2019s painful and disappointing and damaging. These teenagers need to be allowed and encouraged to develop these virtues now, because they are the same virtues required of married people. Blaming girls for being shaped like girls and getting hysterical over unbidden sexual desires does not teach virtue. If anything, it cuts the legs out from under these kids, giving them reason after reason to avoid the hard and heavy work of learning to be good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of nuttiness and hysteria has ensued since my post yesterday, notably on Mark Shea\u2019s wall. Also, other sides of the story have come to light, along with more than a few accusations about me picking one side of the story and running with it. Truth be told, I picked the story up immediately after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,142,143],"class_list":["post-3255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blog-brawling","tag-modesty","tag-virtue"],"yoast_head":"\nDesire, Lust, and Daisy Dukes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lots of nuttiness and hysteria has ensued since my post yesterday, notably on Mark Shea's wall. 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