Blog author's note: The following blog post is written in response to the attached article. I recommend reading it to best develop your own opinion, however I have quoted from the article in my post so it is not necessary.
Now I know I’m gonna be in the minority here by a long shot, but
upon reading “Modesty: I Don’t Think it Means What You Think it Means” by
Rachel Held Evans, I felt the need to give a male response to the article. What I’m about to write is something that
most men don’t tell women because of one of two reasons; the first reason being
that we have bought into the modern concept of modesty ourselves, or the second
being that we secretly like immodesty because it looks nice.
In the attached blog post by Rachel Evans, she says, “...men
are responsible for their own thoughts and actions when this happens; they
don’t get to blame it on what a woman is wearing.” She then goes on to say, “regardless
of whatever synapsis involuntarily fire in a man’s brain when he sees a woman’s
body, he alone is responsible for the decision to objectify a woman or treat
her with respect. Placing that burden upon women is unnecessary and unfair.” First off, on the one hand I totally agree
with her. When it comes down to it, every man that looks lustfully at a woman
has to answer for his own actions. However,
without making a judgment on whether or not immodesty is wrong just yet, I want
to point you to 1 Corinthians 8:9-12. “Be
careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling
block to the weak. For if someone with a weak
conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t
that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak
brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When
you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin
against Christ.” Paul is talking here about eating food sacrificed to idols
which is not wrong, but should someone who thinks it is wrong see you doing it
and eat it anyway, then they have sinned and you caused them to do it. (Now ladies, please don’t think that I’m
comparing you as meat sacrificed to idols because I am most definitely
not.) As Ms. Evans says, if men lust,
they are the ones sinning; this verse does not disagree with that. However, if someone causes somebody else to
sin, according to Paul, then “you sin against Christ.” Granted, some men will lust over a woman who
has done nothing to cause him to do such a thing other than the very fact that
she exists. In such a case, I would say that only the man is at fault, however
in many cases, that is not the case at all.
I will be so daring to say that wearing a bikini is wrong. Yes, it looks
good, and no I’m not saying you have to hide your femininity. What I am saying is that, if for no other
reason other than the fact that I KNOW both from experience and others, that dressing
such a way causes guys to stumble. And to
cause someone to stumble is, according to Paul, a sin.
Now ladies, I don’t think you realize how much of a struggle
sexual sin is for men, but suffice it to say that I do not know a single guy
who does not struggle sexually in some way.
For those of us who care about this and try to keep it at bay, it is
very hard to have our sisters in Christ dressing immodestly in such a way that
it makes it harder on us. Let me give
you an illustration to maybe put it into perspective. The first is imagine that
your brother was an alcoholic. You knew that if he had a drink it would make it
very hard for him not to stay sober. The
natural thing to do would be not to have alcohol anywhere near him. You would
probably not only not let him have a drink, but you yourself would not drink around
him. In the same way, if you know that
your male brothers have a tendency to struggle with sexual sin, why would you
not help us in fighting that struggle by dressing in such a way that did not
tempt us? Let me use another
illustration. Now we have all cut out sweets or gone on a diet at some point in
time. Say that you are. Now imagine that you are invited to a
party. Now during the course of the
night, everyone keeps asking you if you want to have a piece of cake. Now if
nobody had asked you, it wouldn't have been too hard to restrain yourself, but
with each person that asks, and each time you see someone eating a piece of
that cake, the harder it becomes to not eat any cake. If you do give in, it will be your fault, but
your battle was not made easier by those offering you the cake. In the same way, yes we can guard our eyes,
but ladies, the more your batter our defenses with these things, the harder it
becomes for us to squelch the temptation!
