September 21, 2005

Hardcore Modesty

Ariel Levy gives the dish on Pamala Anderson look-alikes, Playboy Olympic photoshoots, and Paris Hilton talking on cell phones during sex - and shows us where it all leads.

Take a beach scene that Ms. Levy recounts, when the male "friends" of two girls pressure them to take off their suits. Soon surrounded by a circle of 40 screaming men, the girls say "no way!" but eventually give in and spank each other to appease the crowd.

Such a girl requires, in addition to perhaps Mace, a compelling alternative to the Female Chauvinist Pig. Otherwise she may well give in to social pressure--not to mention professorial nonsense--and then wonder what's wrong with her when she is not happy with the pig in her bed or the pig she has become.

I would really like to have a daughter some day. I am very concerned about how I would raise her in this overly sexualized culture that demeans and devalues women in a way that makes them think they have been "liberated." It's like paying to get mugged or digging your own grave. Will America learn before it is too late to save a generation of girls who believe that they can only be satisfied and successful by denying who they really are - who God created them to be? What will it take for us to feel shame again? American society will never truly value women as long as their own preference is to be cheap, tawdry, degraded whores.

Madness.

Posted by Blandus at September 21, 2005 04:17 PM
Comments

Dude! Your posts always crack me up.
Folks, Blandus doesn't usually talk like this in real life. I do, however, find "tawdry" to be an underused word. It's useful for so many things, yet for laziness we usually choose the same old adjectives day to day.

Madness!

Posted by: Jake Allen at September 21, 2005 05:07 PM

Oh, the article is by Wendy Shalit. I heard her speak in college. Her basic point is right on . . . your same point about modesty. However, she intentionally radicalizes the issue beyond what we should demand from our sisters and daughters (a reversion to medieval Jewish customs for maidens). Glad she is a voice in the wilderness, but wouldn't recommend her book.

Posted by: Jake Allen at September 21, 2005 05:42 PM

I aready knew that men and women were different. It was a cover story in Time magazine in about 1996, backed up with "research".

Seriously though, the difference has been evident from the begining in the Garden. When asked what is the most desirable trait of the opposite sex, the answer is the same across ethnic and cultural lines. Men are attracted to women who can bear chldren(young and healthy) and women are attracted to men who can provide for them and the children. Women innately require a relationship for satisfaction and no matter how much they try to act like men, they will never be satisfied. There are of course exceptions, but they do not make the rule.

Posted by: dad allen at September 22, 2005 03:46 AM

I have 3 daughters and the last thing I want them to be is tawdry! Blandus you will make a great Dad to a little girl someday. You can't be a wimp and parent girls. Little Blandus needs a baby sister, get busy.

Posted by: j cyrus at September 22, 2005 08:53 AM

Very True and even last night's ep. of South Park backs you up.

Posted by: ~TheAmber at September 30, 2005 03:50 PM

"I would really like to have a daughter some day. I am very concerned about how I would raise her in this overly sexualized culture that demeans and devalues women in a way that makes them think they have been "liberated."

My parents raised 2 modest women in an increasingly sexualized culture by encouraging us to behave like ladies - to be godly in behavior, respectful of others, and modest in our dress. My dad taught us anything he would have taught his sons - he had no part of treating women an less than equal to men. But he had strong beliefs about modest dress. If we wore anything even close to indecent, he'd reprove us, but complimented us when we dressed well and behaved with kindness.

If you instill self-respect in your children and encourage the development of godly character before they get out into the world, they'll be inoculated against the idiocy of this sexualized culture once they get there. I would never have been pressured into taking my clothes off at 17 - I had too much self-respect, and so did my friends. Teach your daughters and sons that their value is not in their physical beauty, but in their character, and they will not fall into this kind of trap.

Posted by: MerryKate at October 2, 2005 02:07 AM