I was watching a detective show recently (doesn\u2019t matter which one) featuring a smart, competent, nerves-of-steel female lead.\u00a0\u00a0 A genuinely likeable character.\u00a0 I was irritated that while the male characters all dressed like the serious business-types they were, there seemed to be a mandatory minimum of exposed flesh for all their female colleagues.\u00a0 It was as if the female characters were being cast for their cleavage.<\/p>\n
I like detective shows, so I set aside my feminist indignation and watched anyway.\u00a0 The bad guys captured one of the stars, and now they are following the happily-married male co-lead; they snap a picture of him meeting with his female colleague.\u00a0 \u201cWho\u2019s that?\u201d the bad guys ask their hostage, pointing to the photo.<\/p>\n
Hostage doesn\u2019t want to give away the female lead\u2019s identity, so he thinks fast and floats a lie: \u201cShe\u2019s a prostitute.\u201d<\/p>\n
How on earth could such a lie be expected to succeed?\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t because the two in the photo were doing anything unchaste.\u00a0 Neither character had a reputation for loose morals.\u00a0 It was the clothes.<\/p>\n
When Thomas Aquinas writes about modesty<\/a>, scantily-clad ladies aren\u2019t the main topic.\u00a0 He mentions the lust-situation, but spends more ink on questions of humility: Is the clothing ostentatious? Attention-seeking?\u00a0 The sins of pride and vanity are more a concern than sins of the flesh.\u00a0 You might conclude that this is because modesty has nothing to do with sex; the Catechism says otherwise<\/a>.\u00a0 Firmly.<\/p>\n I\u2019d propose that Aquinas\u2019 failure to worry to about short skirts and tight pants had something to do with the bit about how short skirts and tight pants weren\u2019t all that fashionable in his day<\/a>.\u00a0 The immodesty problem in clothing was, in the 1200\u2019s, mostly a question of elaborate displays of wealth.<\/p>\n (And when tight pants did come into style in subsequent years, it was chic young men displaying their masculine glory.\u00a0 Dear Gentlemen: Please. Unless you\u2019re singing soprano, we assume you\u2019re adequately equipped in the manhood department, kindly skip the tights.\u00a0 Sopranos, you skip the tights too. Thanks.<\/span>)<\/p>\n Modesty concerns far more than clothes, of course. It involves our actions, our words, the things we buy, and the way we live.\u00a0 It can\u2019t be boiled down into little snippets of snark, as if everything hinged on \u201cfitting in\u201d or \u201cavoiding leading others into sin\u201d. It is complex.\u00a0 It is a language.<\/p>\n I can commit all kinds of sins locked alone in the bathroom, but immodesty isn\u2019t one of them.\u00a0 Even though immodesty concerns my personal intentions and actions, immodesty can only occur in the context of community.\u00a0 Immodesty requires an audience.<\/p>\n Modesty is the language of virtue.\u00a0 It is the things I do, or don\u2019t do, that communicate my intentions and values.\u00a0 It can involve clothing, certainly; think of how putting on a tuxedo communicates something that putting on a pair of overalls does not.\u00a0 It can also involve my actions: A peck on the cheek communicates something different than a passionate kiss on the lips.\u00a0 There are 10,000 kinds of smiles, some of them friendly, some of them deadly.\u00a0 Am I laughing with you, at you, or in utter disregard of you?<\/p>\n As in any language, we can use modesty to lie.\u00a0 He plays the part of the devoted husband, but he\u2019s sleeping with his secretary<\/em>.<\/p>\n As in any language, we can say one thing and communicate another. There\u2019s the apocryphal nun so pure she could walk down the street naked in perfect modesty; in real life, we\u2019re far more likely to meet the character at the other end of that spectrum, the one who manages to make Amish look sleazy.<\/p>\n As in any language, the same exact word, action, or gesture can have different meanings in different parts of the world.\u00a0 Think of the astonished nervousness with which American teenagers learn the French word for \u201carm\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0 Am I really expected to say that word out loud in class?\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n When we travel, we play a game of give-and-take with our manners, finding the balance between our native sensibilities and respect for the customs of our hosts. Allowances are made for outsiders, but not always the allowances we hoped.\u00a0 Do I tolerate the brusque manners of that native Chicagoan because I know that up north people act that way without meaning to be rude?\u00a0 Or do I tolerate it because I suspect that despite their other virtues northerners are in fact hopelessly rude \u2014 they don\u2019t know how to act, bless their hearts.<\/p>\n Let us assume, for a moment, that you and I are virtuous people wishing to behave modestly.\u00a0 Imagine it\u2019s Sunday morning, and we\u2019re sitting at church.\u00a0 Across the aisle, the parish gossip Mrs. Slander spies us with a gleam in her eye. She leans close to the ear of her pewmate Mrs. Nicely, that venerable church lady you know from seven different committees.\u00a0 And she whispers the worst of kind of lies you can imagine.\u00a0Did you hear what Jennifer and her friend did?<\/em> Horrid stuff. Things you and I would never do.\u00a0 Sins we\u2019re not even creative enough to imagine, let alone commit.<\/p>\n What is Mrs. Nicely\u2019s reaction?\u00a0 Does she think Mrs. Slander is at it again with her ridiculous stories?\u00a0 Or does she glance our way and think maybe the accusations are believable this time?\u00a0 How well does what she hears match what she\u2019s seen us do?<\/p>\n Modesty doesn\u2019t answer the question are the accusations true?<\/em> I can behave modestly and yet be guilty of all kinds of horrid sins.\u00a0 (Only up to a point: Sooner or later the bonnet comes off, so to speak, or there is no sin.)\u00a0 Likewise, I can behave immodestly, and yet never cross the line from communicating<\/em> to doing<\/em> \u2014 I may sin in my immodesty, but without committing the sins my immodesty advertises.<\/p>\n Over the past century, standards of modesty in dress and action with respect to chastity have changed dramatically.\u00a0 We could say the language of chastity has changed \u2014 think of ourselves as living through the great vowel shift<\/a> of western fashion.<\/p>\nYou Can\u2019t Be Immodest Alone in the Shower<\/h3>\n
Could I Pass the Slander Test?<\/h3>\n
The Language of What Country?<\/h3>\n