Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

My sister brought up an interesting point to me about modesty.
She said, "Is modesty an natural thing?"
And I said, "Yes."
At first it seemed like we disagreed, but it turned out we simply saw modesty under different catagories and we did agree.
My sister asked if it was really wrong to be naked or wear revealing clothing (she is a modest person by the way). My first reaction was yes, because to me, it would be wrong.
As we wove through our discussion we both tugged on two main examples: Playboy Bunnies and certain tribes that people just go naked in.

In our society, unless if it's in a nudist colony, going about naked is just wrong. While in another society, the said tribes, it's perfectly acceptable.
Also, in our society, wearing revealing clothing by anyone with modesty is just bad.
Cally began with our natural state, how we are born, is naked. I said the Bible requires us to be modest and that and idiot knows that peoples' natural states aren't right all the time. After all, if no one noticed, we're all pretty flawed. Cally said, well how do you judge what is modest, does it specify in the Bible. No, it does not. I, in a moment of revelation of my own thoughts said that in our society, people who go about naked do not have self-respect.

...

To be blunt, the argument wound down to this.
Modesty is dressing in a manner that is self-respecting. In a nudist colony, the people going naked are not displaying their bodies in shameful, derogatory manners, like, say, a playboy bunny. Why are they naked? To show themselves sexually. Granted, some bunnies are so stupid they are simply like children who are too ignorant to know perverts are checking them out, but that's something differently.
In certain tribes, being naked is acceptable, and what makes the difference is if a person is flaunting their body in an immodest manner. Modesty is, then, a concious idea of displaying yourself in a self-respecting, nonderogatory manner, and has nothing to do with specific dress codes which societies have put in place.