Modesty

As melissa so perceptively noted, I engage in the occasional contradiction. I think all kinds of things, about all manner of subjects, and much of the time I express opinions on topics about which I have little or no expertise. My opinions are not always tidy and they don't all fit neatly together in a coherent whole. I have a curious and restless mind, and it leads me to ponder across a wide range of ideas. I've been writing here for nearly five years, and I imagine if someone wanted to go on a hunt there are probably dozens and dozens of contradictions and reversals and plain old inconsistencies in my thinking. That is the fact. Mostly, being inconsistent and contradictory doesn't bother me in the least.

Today (without apology to melissa or anyone else), I am interested in trying to think my way through my own conflicted and inconsistent thinking on the subject of personal modesty. I may flatter myself that I am, in this regard, like many others in our society in that I have views and reactions around this idea that are all over the place.

So, what you might ask, and SOME surely will (in their very best snarky voices), does a woman who lives as "the other woman" in a polyamorous relationship, who on some sort of regular basis strips bare in public venues and engages in sadomasochistic "play," who frequently posts photos of her naked ass online -- what does a woman like that have to say about the concept of modesty? (and my good friends, who know better, are probably holding their heads and thinking -- "OMG! She probably has PLENTY to say; don't encourage her!")


I have a whole lot of "trained" into me notions and feelings about this subject -- many of them acquired long before I had the skills or sophistication to examine what was being taught to me.

I never saw either of my parents less than fully clothed. Even if I called out in the middle of the night, sick or frightened, the adult who would appear at my beside was always clad from head to toe in pajamas and a bathrobe. While I often helped to care for the baby brothers as they came along, and so came to know the realities of naked boy babies, once they reached toddlerhood and were no longer in diapers, they too vanished behind the veils of their clothes.

I was educated in Catholic schools in the 1960's. In those days, the teaching was that girls were "the near occasion of sin." It meant, simply, that my just being alive and female was enough to cause me to put some poor boy at risk for his immortal soul. We wore our heavy, scratchy, woolen school uniforms long enough to hit the floor when we knelt. Our blouses were, likewise, heavy, solid, respectable. No patent leather shoes -- they reflect up, after all. There was not one shred of that "sexy schoolgirl uniform" thing that fires the imaginations of some with a particular sort of fetish. By the time I was in 6th grade, we were taught to keep a section of the newspaper in our desks -- so that we could drape it over our laps when we sat, and thus further protect the poor, innocent, young men with whom we shared our classes.

There was little in the way of sex education for us in those days. We all understood that sex was "to be saved for marriage," and if we did not entirely understand what it was that we were saving for marriage, it seemed that suited the adults around us just fine. I proceeded into high school and on to college with only enough working knowledge of my own sexuality to allow me to manage the monthly menses with which I was "cursed." I knew I wasn't supposed to have sex before I was married, but with hardly any information and not a single viable argument or strategy, it was no surprise that I found myself pregnant at the age of 19, and married just a month before my 20th birthday... "Bless me father, for I have sinned?"

Well, the sex genie came roaring out of the bottle for me, and there was no stuffing the brazen fellow back in. What no one bothered to tell my poor little Catholic school self was that sex was fun, delicious, wondrous, intoxicating, and completely irresistable. I woke up sexually inside of a marriage that was really not ideal, but for a very, very long time, I managed to make it suffice. I was a faithful wife. Until I wasn't. But that's another conversation.

Along the way, I had other experiences that caused me to consider what I'd been taught about being "modest" as a child.

Very early on, following the births of my own children, I trained as a Lamaze childbirth educator and labor coach. I was privileged to guide hundreds of couples through the very sexually charged and very intimate process of preparing to give birth, and for dozens of them, I was called in to help coach through labor and delivery. I never lost my sense of complete wonderment at the awesome act of being born into this world. I've never ever had the slightest inclination toward lesbianism or bi-sexuality, but in those amazing hours spent with mothers giving birth, I loved the female form for all its beauty and all its strength. Most women, having given birth, especially in those pre-birthing-room days, would tell you that the process ripped every shred of modesty from them, but I wondered...

Later, when I was in my early 30's I discovered two other sources of great physical pleasure for me. A friend introduced me to Valley View Hot Springs in the southwest corner of Colorado. Valley View is a very rustic, clothing optional resort, and I spent many a blissful time there, basking in the warm waters under clear, blue skies and star-dazzled nights. There, I hiked and swam and pondered the natural world, wearing nothing but my shoes. Days spent naked and pure would send me back to my busy life refreshed, renewed, calm and centered. There, I never felt like "the near occasion of sin." In the high mountain air, I felt completely whole and good. Too, in those years, I would go every couple of months with a group of women friends to a local bath house. Built years before for the use of the local Orthodox Jewish community so that the women could go and perform their ritual cleansing after their monthy menstrual cycles, the bath house became a sanctuary of luxuriant warmth, relaxation and good company. The group of us, tall, skinny, voluptuous, saggy, would lounge together in the heat and the steam and chat and gossip without a single thought for the variances in our physical appearances. We simply rejoiced in being women together.

Years and years into my marriage, I finally found my way to the exploration of BDSM that has charted my course these last ten years or so. There was so very much that was new and unfamiliar in the beginning. I was often shocked, and taken aback by what I saw and what I read. I learned to observe carefully -- both the activity before my eyes, but also my own internal reactions and responses. I remember my first time playing outside my own home. I remember the first time I was spanked by anyone not my husband. I remember that very first trip to a public dungeon. I have very clear images of all the many times since that I have played in public places, and played in my own home with friends and guests. The sense I have of all of that is of power and truth and beauty and passion and triumph and great soaring joy. For all that there are those, even in this circle, who would paint that as somehow sordid and "immodest," it has none of that scintilla for me -- and I was there.

So. My views of modesty are shaded by my experiences; as are everyone's.

Each year, as part of my social studies curriculum, I teach my students (11 and 12 years old) about various cultures and countries around the world. As part of that, we annually encounter the practices of Judaism and Islam. In both cases, there is occsion to discuss the very different values in those cultures related to personal dress, and the connetion that those customs have to beliefs about personal modesty. For children raised in our American society, the notion that there might be some reason to choose to be less revealing and less provacative in one's dress is pretty foreign. Even our Catholic school kids have trouble wrapping their minds around that. It is a very long way from my youth spent with a newspaper draped over my knees...

Oddly, I find it intrigues my students to consider that they have the right and the ability to choose their "presentation" to the world. I insist to them that they are perfect and wonderful just the way they are, and that they do not need to buy into the constant drumbeat that tells them they must have the right jeans, or the right deodorant, or the right makeup, or the right logos on their clothes. Somehow, it seems to me that we have lost our way in thinking about "modesty," and when I am with my children it seems so entirely clear. To be modest is to value who and what you are. To be modest is to be willing to celebrate the beauty and strength of your personhood, to care for it, to protect it, to share it with generosity and integrity, and to come away at the end of each encounter with other humans feeling enriched and knowing that you have been a great gift to them as well.

We have allowed the conversation about modesty to be co-opted by religion, and in doing that, we've lost the ability to talk sensibly about it. We drown in media messages full of sex for sale and general vulgarity and bad taste, and unless we are willing to side with those who would impose the burqha or the veil, we find ourselves with nothing at all to say. That is a very great sadness for each of us, for our children, and for our world. How much better it would be if we could see the human form as entirely "proper" and "good." How much better if we could universally teach our children what they need to know to grow into full possession of themselves and the bodies they inhabit -- giving them the power, all of their lives, to choose wisely for themselves.

swan