![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/335\/2013\/09\/beauty.jpg\" "\\"beauty\\"")
<\/a>Patheos blogger Jennifer Fitz invited me to respond to her comments about my analysis of the so-called \u201cPrinceton modesty study.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 My original post is here<\/a>\u00a0(and is rather cheekily titled, \u201cWomen in Bikinis May More Easily Avoid Potentially Abusive Partners, Study Says?<\/em>).\u00a0 \u00a0 Jennifer\u2019s response is here<\/a>.\u00a0 Go read.<\/p>\nAll caught up?\u00a0 There\u2019s a good fellow.<\/p>\n
I want to start by saying that I agree pretty much with everything Jennifer wrote.\u00a0 I agree that modesty is not just in internal\u00a0disposition but an outward action.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I agree that what I wear and how\u00a0I carry myself does, in fact, say a great deal\u00a0about who I am inside.\u00a0I also\u00a0agree that it DOES in fact matter what a person wears (just not for the reasons many people think).\u00a0 I also agree, of course, \u00a0that actions have consequences that I can be responsible for.<\/p>\n
Where Do We Disagree?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n So why do we seem to disagree?\u00a0 It appears to me that I need to clarify the definition of \u201cinternal control fallacy.\u201d\u00a0 An internal control fallacy<\/em> is the false belief that my actions actually cause another person\u2019s emotional reactions.\u00a0 (For more information on the internal control fallacy, see the last part of\u00a0#7 here<\/a>).\u00a0 The internal control fallacy is\u00a0a well-established concept in psychology and there is a great deal of research that all but proves that this belief leads to unhealthy emotional states and unhealthy relationships.\u00a0 In\u00a0my original post<\/a>, I argued that the\u00a0notion, \u00a0\u201cif a woman dresses immodestly she\u00a0can cause a man to commit the sin of lust\u201d is an example of the internal control fallacy that leads to both an unhealthy internal disposition and an unhealthy attitude toward others.<\/p>\n Jennifer appears to\u00a0think I am suggesting\u00a0that a person\u00a0should not expect his actions to have consequences.\u00a0 She writes.<\/p>\n An employer can reasonably say, \u201cSir, your dress is immodest, and unbecoming of a man of your profession.\u00a0 If you\u2019d like to continue working here, you\u2019ll have to change.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A man can reasonably tell his son, \u201cMy beloved child, that outfit you\u2019ve chosen is associated with pimps and crack dealers.\u00a0 Is that the message you\u2019d like to send with your clothing?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A girl can reasonably tell her suitor, \u201cYou look like a creep.\u00a0 Like the kind of guy who just wants to hop in the sack at the first opportunity.\u00a0 That may not be the message you\u2019re trying to send, but you\u2019re sending it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I actually agree that these are all reasonable possible<\/em> outcomes of someone dressing immodestly.\u00a0 I would even say that they are appropriate responses to someone dressing immodestly.\u00a0 BUT all of these are very\u00a0different\u00a0from saying, for instance, that a woman dressing in a certain way\u00a0must necessarily\u00a0cause<\/em> a man to lust.\u00a0 Or, for that matter that one person\u2019s actions automatically\u00a0cause another person to feel any specific emotion.<\/p>\n Let me explain.<\/p>\n Where Do Feelings Come From?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Most people think that feelings are created as an emotional response to an external stimulus.\u00a0 That is, something happens, and then it makes me feel something.\u00a0 Stimulus\u2014\u2014-> Emotional Response.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not how feelings work.<\/em><\/p>\n For anyone to experience an emotion, there does have to be a stimulus, but that stimulus passes through an interpretation.\u00a0 The stimulus, combined with the interpretation, yields an emotional response.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Stimulus\u00a0+ Interpretation \u2014\u2014-> Emotional Response.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n An Illustration of How Feelings Work:\u00a0 Going to the Mall.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a silly example before we return to the modesty discussion.\u00a0 Imagine you go to the mall.\u00a0 You see your friend, you wave at him but he doesn\u2019t wave back.\u00a0 That is the stimulus.\u00a0 Now, how do you feel about it?<\/p>\n At this point, we can\u2019t know how you\u2019ll feel.\u00a0 First, we have to know your interpretation of that event<\/em> before we can say how you\u2019d feel.\u00a0\u00a0 For example:\u00a0 If you said to yourself, \u201cOh.\u00a0 I guess he didn\u2019t see me.\u201d\u00a0 Then you\u2019d feel nonchalant<\/em> and you\u2019d probably forget about it.\u00a0 But what if you\u00a0think to yourself, \u201cWhat a jerk!\u00a0 He totally blew me off!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019d probably feel indignant<\/em>.\u00a0 Or if you told yourself, \u201cGosh, I wonder what I did to offend him?\u00a0 I must have really ticked him off somehow!\u201d\u00a0 you\u2019d probably feel guilty and anxious<\/em>.\u00a0 Or, if you thought, \u201cHe must really be stressed out and lost in his head to not notice me.\u00a0 I wonder what\u2019s wrong with him, poor guy.\u201d\u00a0 You\u2019d feel compassionate and concerned<\/em>.<\/p>\n So we have at least 4 possible emotional reactions (and I bet we could think of more if we tried) to the stimulus of my friend not waving at me.<\/p>\n Where Do Interpretations Come From?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n None of this answers the question, \u201cWhere do these interpretations come from?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They are largely not conscious.\u00a0 Rather, they\u00a0come from past experience and\/or training & practice.\u00a0 For example: If I was treated as a pariah in grade school, I\u2019ll probably assume my friend was blowing me off.\u00a0 If I was, in\u00a0general, popular in grade school, I\u2019ll probably view the experience nonchalantly.\u00a0 If I was raised by a mom who, when she got stressed out, shut herself in her room, I\u2019ll probably assume there\u2019s something wrong with him.\u00a0 Or if my alcoholic dad told me that his rages were caused by my playing in the house too loudly, I\u2019ll probably assume I caused him to ignore me because of something I did.<\/p>\n The other possible answer for where these interpretations come from is \u201ctraining and practice.\u201d\u00a0 For example:\u00a0 If I was a pariah in grade school and naturally tend to assume that people are prone to ignore me, I could decide that\u00a0 I\u2019m not in grade school any more and work hard to consistently remind myself that my default reaction doesn\u2019t apply anymore, and that, in fact, most people who seem<\/em> to ignore me really<\/em> just didn\u2019t see me.\u00a0 If I remind myself of this new interpretation consistently enough and root it in actual life experiences that back this new interpretation up (which makes this different than mere \u201cpositive thinking\u201d\u00a0 I have to be able to prove the new thought is true by rooting it in real life examples) then I will prime my brain to have a new automatic reference point (these new life experiences) by which to interpret the particular stimulus.<\/p>\n In every instance though, the mere fact that my friend didn\u2019t wave at me didn\u2019t cause<\/em> anything.\u00a0 It merely reminded me of similar experiences in my past, memories which primed\u00a0my brain to interpret things in a certain, idiosyncratic\u00a0manner.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Because we all tend to narcissistically assume that our interpretations are the only legitimate ones that any reasonable person could make, we tend to assume that everyone will react the same way we do.\u00a0 But that isn\u2019t true at all.\u00a0 Because a person\u2019s actual emotional response depends more upon the interpretations they make of an event based upon their unique catalog of life experiences, you simply can\u2019t know absolutely how someone is going to respond.<\/p>\n It is true that we all make assumptions about how other people might respond to us, and since we have a tendency to associate with people who think more like us than not, often, those assumptions are more or less correct\u2013until they\u2019re not.<\/em>\u00a0 And then we get outraged and say things like, \u201cHow could anybody think THAT? I have no idea where you got that from!\u201d\u00a0 Well, of course you don\u2019t, because you don\u2019t have the same catalog of life experiences, the same reference points of interpretation that the other does.\u00a0 We assume we know what others will think based on our own experiences, and sometimes those assumptions are true enough, but if you stop to ask the other people in your life what they\u00a0actually think you\u2019d be surprised how differently they view the world.\u00a0 The truth is, what you believe other people think says a whole lot more about your own life experiences and interpretations than it does about anyone else\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/em>Incidentally, this notion is what we shrink-types call. \u201cprojection.\u201d<\/p>\n Back to Modesty<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n OK, so now that we\u2019ve established that any one stimulus could generate any number of emotional responses based upon a person\u2019s life experiences and\/or training, let\u2019s come back to the modesty discussion.\u00a0\u00a0 It is simply not true to say that anything a woman wears MUST create THIS SPECIFIC RESPONSE (i.e., lust) in a man.\u00a0 That is just one possible response out of hundreds.\u00a0 If a man was taught by his life experience and training that women were meat, then if he saw a woman dressed in a revealing fashion, he\u00a0probably would<\/em>\u00a0lust. (i.e., allow her beauty to be an invitation to use her as an object as opposed to see her as a person).\u00a0 AND, if a man was raised to believe that the body was shameful and that women who dressed in a revealing way were sluts and whores, he would probably feel disgust and indignation, possibly even rage.<\/p>\n But<\/em><\/strong> a man who was raised in a home where his parents taught him to think this way<\/a> about women, would respond in a\u00a0manner that indicated his respect for the woman.\u00a0 Depending on whether\u00a0the woman in question\u00a0was dressed more or less appropriately for the context she was in, he might be moved to either praise God for her beauty or try to serve her in some way as a sign of his respect (hold the door, get her a drink, give her an honest compliment).\u00a0 If she was dressed inappropriately for the context she was in he might be moved to pity and a loving concern for her well-being (offer his jacket, take her aside to see what was the matter).\u00a0 In either case though, for this well-trained man, the woman\u2019s beauty becomes an invitation to love her and work for her good, not to see her as an object of desire or disgust.\u00a0 This, by the way, \u00a0is exactly<\/em> what Pope John Paul II wrote in Love and Responsibility <\/em>about how <\/em>we should train ourselves and our children to think when we are confronted with the beauty of the opposite sex.\u00a0\u00a0 And before you say that this is too pie-in-the-sky idealistic, I personally know many men who were raised this way and who do view women in this manner.\u00a0 I admit we are in the minority, but we exist, and it is unfair to assume that all men are dogs or pigs just because some or many weren\u2019t raised properly.\u00a0 It is even more inappropriate to fail to try to be men or raise men who can think this way because \u201cit just isn\u2019t possible.\u201d\u00a0 The fact that some men are this way proves that it is possible.<\/p>\n Assuming and Challenging Others to Be Their Best<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n More to the point, Christians have a responsibility\u00a0in charity to assume the best about others and challenge each other to be their best.\u00a0 God knows that pleasure can be abused but he still gives us pleasures, not\u00a0in some\u00a0nasty attempt to trap us in sin, but as an ongoing invitation to see life as his gift to us.\u00a0 In the same way, our beauty certainly can be a temptation to sin, but it could also be an invitation to rejoice in how fearfully and wonderfully God has made us (c.f., Ps 139:14)!\u00a0 We have an obligation to extend the invitation to rejoice in God that is contained within beauty, not hide that invitation out of fear that someone might abuse it (c.f., Matt 25:14-30).<\/p>\n So, am I saying that a woman, or man for that matter, should dress any damn way they want without regard for anyone around them?\u00a0 Should\u00a0we all parade around naked defying the world to look upon us with purity of mind and heart?\u00a0 Of course not.<\/strong>\u00a0 We are all fallen.\u00a0 Even though we can\u2019t cause feelings in another person, we know that acting in a certain manner tends to create a certain set of emotional choices for most people, given what is expected in a particular context.\u00a0Modesty requires that we dress in a manner that we deem appropriate for the context we are in and in a way that is not intended to make it unduly difficult for any reasonable person to see anything other than our physical appearance.\u00a0 But that leaves a lot to prudential judgment and much more than most people who are concerned with modesty are willing to admit.<\/p>\n Teaching Authentic Modesty in 5 Steps<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Training our young people to be modest should not be based upon some fallacious guessing game about how other people might or might not see them or an impossible concern about what they might or might not \u201ccause\u201d in someone else.\u00a0\u00a0 To my mind, \u00a0this kind of thinking\u00a0is an offense against both charity and beauty.\u00a0 It is an offense\u00a0against charity because it assumes the worst\u00a0about people and does not challenge them to be better than they are.\u00a0 It is an offense against beauty because it causes us to be fearful of beauty instead of embracing and rejoicing in\u00a0beauty and seeing it as a sign of\u00a0the joy we will experience when we look at God\u2019s own face.<\/p>\n