Modest is Hottest?

[backyard sylph]

I'll confess I grew up in the 1970s and 80s, and so I have found the recent skittering from low-cut jeans that show more panty than line to a sort of puritanical view of fashion I see lately to be exhausting and annoying. By the standards of the people we discuss here, I am not a moderate dresser. I wear spaghetti strap sundresses all summer long, and don't go in much for sleeves in the winter. When I was a teen and young adult, I loved loved low cut backs, or back cut-outs, and now as a middle-aged person, I'm a little disappointed cleavage is not currently in style. It's my main asset these days. ;-) However, I really don't care how anyone else dresses—aside from jeans that always looked on the verge of leaving their owner—as long as they make some effort to clean their shoes, and recognize that some situations call for a bit more effort than others. Extreme reasons for their choices, though, tend to bum me out.

https://medium.com/@joelherbert/modest-is-hottest-is-not-in-the-bible-49b58ed1fdf6

I just realized that my sort of wishing for cleavage baring could be seen as a specific desire to look, well, desirable. And then I realized it was ridiculous of me to worry about whether someone else thought that.

I just like certain kinds of clothing balance, both formal and informal in the artistic sense, and also I am uncomfortable being too covered up for too long. I'd never enjoy being a nudist, but would fit happily in the land of short, light, loose freedom of dress all year round. I would do well on an island that Joel McCrea found himself stranded on after a boat accident.

[SusanDelgado]

Cleavage is always in style 

"Modest is hottest" confuses me greatly - isn't the point of modesty to NOT be hot, to make your looks unattractive or covered up so men don't look at you and lust?  If you're trying to avoid making men lust wouldn't "not hot" be the goal? 

[nomoxian]

If they mean "hottest" as in sweating due to wearing excessive clothing during the summer time, then yes, Moddest Is Hottest!

[Galadriel's Handmaiden]

"Modest is Hottest" is a fundamentalist Christian brainwashing and propaganda tool. While fundies parade it around as "girls should respect themselves," it more closely resembles the same purpose of a gum or candy wrapper: if you are unwrapped, you are unhygienic and damaged goods.

 

The article @backyard sylph linked to is good, it doesn't touch on the root of what makes this philosophy so insidious.

 

17 minutes ago, nomoxian said:

 

If they mean "hottest" as in sweating due to wearing excessive clothing during the summer time, then yes, Moddest Is Hottest!

 

That too!

[backyard sylph]

It's pretty gross that they are literally sexualizing modesty.

But you can sexualize anything at all, of course. (totally sfw.)

[tsukinokawa]

1 hour ago, backyard sylph said:

But you can sexualize anything at all, of course. (totally sfw.)

"uuh"  I need Jesus water to wash my eyes and repure my purity again. Jk 

as personally, I am pants type of woman (and I have been since childhood, my mother always though it was miracle if I agreed to wear a skirt) but when I do wear skirt it is either because I am attending a party or I am alone in my home. I also like to wear hoodies with zippers ( usually t-shirt or top underneath), this is motly because if it gets way too hot I don't need to hassle to remove a layer, simply open the zipper and tadaa. 

[backyard sylph]

On 7/14/2017 at 2:18 PM, tsukinokawa said:

"uuh"  I need Jesus water to wash my eyes and repure my purity again. Jk 

as personally, I am pants type of woman (and I have been since childhood, my mother always though it was miracle if I agreed to wear a skirt) but when I do wear skirt it is either because I am attending a party or I am alone in my home. I also like to wear hoodies with zippers ( usually t-shirt or top underneath), this is motly because if it gets way too hot I don't need to hassle to remove a layer, simply open the zipper and tadaa. 

I wear cardigans over my sleeveless tops in winter, for the same reason. No muss, no fuss, and also with less bulk than regular winter things. And frugal, too. Lots of ways to be frugal that don't involve having warehouse rooms full of random thrift store hauls, but that's another topic, I guess.

[ColeJo]

I think the concept of modesty is misogynistic because it places all the blame on women for wanting to wear what they want to wear, yet men do not have to take any responsibility for their thoughts and feelings. In high school, the boys were allowed to wear tanks with two- finger widths straps and the girls basically have to wear t- shirts because breasts. These same boys were allowed to show bare chest and not get in trouble. Why do women have to take all the responsibility for what a man feels when he looks at a chick?