The Cult of Modesty and Purity

I COULD NOT RESIST

In the last few months, I’ve noticed a trend happening. The concept of modesty and purity kept coming up. Growing up, I was used to hearing phrases like ‘Modest is Hottest’ and ‘No purple’ (for those who didn’t go to youth group, girls are red and boys are blue so no inappropriate actions mean no purple.)

These were basic understood roles that fell under the umbrella of modesty and purity that were regularly enforced. No tight fitting clothing, short shorts, low cut blouses, ect. No two piece bathing suits or you were forced to where a large shirt to ‘cover’ yourself (Which I never got the t-shirt thing. Wet t-shirt contests exist for a reason.) Basically any form of clothing that could be considered provocative or flaunting our sexuality. As well as the side hugs and when sitting next to the opposite gender we always had to leave room for the Holy Spirit.

Well I’m Puerto Rican and with that came a Puerto Rican body. So no matter what I wore, it would show that I had a figure. It wasn’t till I was 16 or 17 that I started to get upset for constantly being told that my wardrobe could be “crossing the line.”

I think the most disconcerting even that took place was that one of my older male youth leaders told me that my bra strap was sticking out. I snapped at him for even looking. That’s what my girl friends are for. (I also felt the need to re-enact the scene from Stick It.)

This was all done to prevent tempting our fellow brothers in Christ from temptation. Which to me, sounded all too similar to the idea of rape culture. The brunt of this falls mostly on the women. The root of the temptation was usually blamed on the women. Not only is the oppressive, but also sexist in it’s thinking.

The concepts of modesty and purity are done with good intentions, but the damage we have done on so many young girls self worth and value by demonizing their body is too high. The cost was ruining their self-image and a healthy view of their sexuality as well as destroying the men’s concept of women.

We still reduce women to her body parts and reduce them to be something to be shameful of. By trying to not focus on her sexuality, we made her ashamed of it and creating that her only value and worth to others and to God is her purity.

In a nutshell, it’s slut shaming. It allows this idea that certain women can be respected and others can be ‘disrespected’, who are no longer seen as the daughters of God that they are but someone that can be looked down upon because her worth is directly tied to her sexuality.

We thought by teaching a dress code or a set of rules would encourage abstinence and a focus on the women themselves, but by the way we enforce it, we are in fact doing the same thing that pornography and the ‘sex obsessed’ secular culture does- objectify women.

I think in our obsession with modesty and purity has created this warped idea of what sex is. It’s now become a requirement to be a Christian. I would even say sometimes that it has become an idol.

Maybe by doing all of this, we are ruining marriage and sex by causing young couples to rush into marriage (and creating this ‘marriage craze’ and looking down upon on singles amongst young Christian adults). And maybe we have so screwed up our image of sex and the intimacy is creates by worshipping purity that we don’t understand the intimacy we are supposed to have with God.

In our fear of sin or being perceived as sinners, we have avoided the intimacy, the closeness that sex is that we are so uncomfortable by it even when it is finally okay. The intimacy of what sex and marriage is the earthly manifestation of God’s relationship with his bride, the church, is.

There’s a reason why Songs of Solomon has been kept in the bible.

In the end, I’m not advocating the complete dismissal for modesty or for purity. I think it’s very necessary in the times we live in. I think we desperately need to reevaluate how we approach the subject. We can’t solve this by enforcing a stringent dress code on just our girls or shaming the attraction we have for one another. We can no longer use such negative terms in the way we approach modesty for our women.

God created our bodies and our sexuality. We should acknowledge that we find people attractive and teach respectful ways to show it, not discourage it. We need to encourage every girl to love her body and that she is more than clothes she wears or the labels her peers will put on her. That God created her to be leaders like Deborah and created her as beautiful as Esther in her appearance and her heart. We should praise sex as an intimate, loving act that should be saved till it’s finally right, the way God wanted it to be, not as some evil corrupt sin that we have turned it into.

Of False Prophets and Martyrs (A rebel with a cause)

The people who read Vonnegut and Kerouac and Salinger and Bukowski and Palahnuik

Who walk around in their Kurt Cobain clothes 

and James Dean attitude whom Bob Dylan is their God.

You know who I’m talking about, the rebels without a cause

We’ve seen so many of them in our lives, as characters in books and films

the modern muses of tortured starving artists

The prophets and the leaders of a revolution to think for yourself

a revolution that has never come

Many of them were false prophets

just wanting to be cool and aloof and mysterious

So few were true martyrs, unnoticed by most, warning us gently that:

Entertainment and Society still bullies people to death

with marketing and pills and sex

The government still funds the rich and ignores the tired and the poor, 

selling a dream that no longer exists

Church and Religion have forgotten whom they are, 

still playing politics using Jesus as campaign mascot 

(for things He would never support)

Everyone is aware of the problem and complains how none of it is fair

But the thing is that you and I are

We are the problem.

We are society. 

We are the government.

We are the church.

See, that savior we look for who can cause change is always ultimately you

It requires risk, sacrifice, selflessness, change, and thought

Are you willing to no longer be a false prophet, but to be a martyr?

-a stab at poetry by yours truly-

twentythree.

So I turned 23 last Thursday. And can I be honest? I was feeling a whole spectrum of emotions about turning 23.

I’ve been on a HUGE poetry kick lately. (Currently reading T.S. Eliot. Suggestions would be appreciated!) And I thought to myself, why don’t I attempt to write a poem? But it literally would always end up like this:

Oh, on turning twenty-three,

Let me describe the ways on how I loathe thee…

And it would sarcastically continue on about the corrupt system we like to call the American education/college institution and how rigged the economy is becoming. But I can definitely guarantee that those are all other posts for another day.

The real root of all this though was that suddenly 23 sounded so … adult. And I didn’t think I was quite there yet. What does adulthood even mean? And this wasn’t just another twenty-something whining about how our twenties suck. This was about figuring out your life and being honest about who you were created to be. It’s something you deal with all your life.

I think one can approach what being an ‘adult’ means in a few ways. I think most people view it as a checklist: graduate college, getting a job in your field that actually covers the bills, moving out of your parent’s house, maybe finding someone special to settle down with, starting a life.

We know it as having it ‘all together’, a Shangri- La of security. And I am incredibly jealous of my peers who have been able to attain this. I congratulate them that their hard work is starting to finally get them somewhere.

Please believe me when I say that all that I mentioned I truly find it all wonderful. But I knew deep inside that if I attained this all perfectly and debt free, I would never be …satisfied. That this wasn’t for me.

A few years ago, at the church I was attending at the time, whenever I would zone out during service, I would stare at this giant typographic poster of John 10:10, Jesus stating that “I have come so that you can live your life to the fullest.” And ever since then, that verse took root and began to grow in my mind. Jesus came so that I can live my life to the fullest. It was no longer a simple inspiration but it became a challenge to me. Was I willing to accept it?

It is truly terrifying when you have that honest moment with yourself and you finally come to terms that you are called to something different, something against the grain. I know I ran from it for at least 18 months. I started working a few jobs, kept myself busy, and ignoring the gifts God so graciously given to me. It was easier.

This summer, I had come to such a real life fork in the road: to say no to God, (because how could He possibly use me?) or pursue God’s calling in my life and trust Him on everything.

I know if I did not follow God, I would never forgive myself.

(If you ever are trying to figure out God’s will for your life, He will never be enigmatic as you think. God’s will for you is simply this: where your talents, gifts, and/or skills meet the thing that breaks your heart for God aka that annoying cause that always gets you.)

And for me, that is what twenty-three and being an adult means, to finally stop running away and accept the responsibility of that calling God has given me. It’s not going to be easy or fun. It will be bumpy and confusing and a lot of the time it will be incredibly lonely when people just don’t get it.

What is my calling you ask? I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m not quite sure! Not in all the details at least. I do know it definitely has something to do with writing and a little to do with art. I know that I care deeply about the Church and her well-being as well as people taking their world-view a bit more serious. Also I care so deeply that people don’t blindly accept what they are told, to think critically about everything and not be afraid to challenge the status quo. So I have a direction. I know God will take me step by step further out of my comfort zone, to keep pushing me beyond what my small mind could never possible imagine.

In the end, I know taking the road less traveled will be worth it.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth…

…I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost