Modesty -- What does it mean for you?

[EltonJ]

Modesty. This is important for the nudist. But it's also important to the clothie. My father was adamant about clothing being worn to cover our nakedness. My wife is adamant about being naked. Sparks would fly if they discuss the "problem" between her nakedness and his clothiness.

The LDS Church has perverted the definition of modesty. In the LDS View: women (or teenaged girls) are responsible for the thoughts of men (or teenaged boys). Young women in the church are taught that all boys are sexual predators, so they should dress to prevent boys from predating on them. (Yes, that's true). In the Church, this has been the cause of many divorces. The Fashion Industry has perverted the definition of modesty just as bad. Nudism has a different definition of modesty: that modesty is not about clothes, but how you comport yourself to others. Most people think that nudism is a sin. This is not true.

Anyway, what is modesty to you? What is your personal definition of modesty, Christian based or no?

Just getting some personal thoughts on the matter. Modesty is discussed on the LDS Skinny-Dippers' Connection boards at length. Since I can't post there (I need my account there to be erased so I can join in). I figure I'll bring the discussion here. Modesty is more about religion, I feel.

[BareSkin]

Modesty is a contrived, learned, societally-imposed restriction on our freedom because it insists our bodies are offensive and must be concealed. If it arises out of organised religion, then the problem of 'modesty' lies with organised religion.
But then, like everything else societal, the whole thing is complicated by human nature - some of that nature being physical and some psychological.

Being blunt about it, males can get away with a lesser investment in reproductive effort. Biologically, their job is to inseminate and impregnate females, and they can theoretically inseminate maybe 365 females a year. Females, on the other hand, are unlikely to achieve more than one pregnancy a year, at far greater physical cost than that risked by the male responsible. Then, while that male might be far away, busy with other females, this female gives birth to his offspring - at considerable danger to herself. She is then faced with the task of protecting and suckling that offspring for several years at least.
Hence, the dichotomy between traditional male and female attitudes toward sex.
For him, it's a pleasurable game, with few adverse consequences..
For her, it's a potentially fatal longterm investment of energy and resources.
He can afford to be cavalier about it. She can't.
She is looking for a reliable male committed to her and to any children arising from the union. She needs that assurance.
So females are much more choosy than males.
Females are therefore logically the 'gatekeepers' of sex, while men are either allowed in or locked out.
Some males find this power in females unacceptable and use their physical strength to force the issue. Hence rape.
Women therefore feel more sexually vulnerable and seek to hide their physically desirable attributes from males. After all, why tempt a potential suitor with dubious motives and risk a forced pregnancy, with all of its potential problems?
So most men don't really care if women see their unclad bodies. It has never had any significant consequences for them if they did. But the reverse is different. Women allowing men to see them naked has traditionally been a potentially dangerous thing to do.

This is why women endorse so-called 'modesty' more stringently than males. It's why it's so much harder to get females to go to nudist resorts and clubs.
It's not their 'fault'.
It's the fault of men; men who have, over the millennia, resorted to brute strength to get what they want.
Women are just employing self-preservation.
So how long will it take before the great majority of females feel confident and safe enough to express their enjoyment of nudity without fear?
I don't know.
Even if all rapes were to cease tomorrow, if there's such a thing as 'race memory', it might take a very long time. If not, then as soon as we get the religious bias out of our system and educate everyone - males in particular - to understand our historical male/female gender differences, the sooner we can ALL put contrived 'shame' and self-loathing aside and go nude!
Any thoughts?

[nudeyooper]

Though most think of clothing when contemplating what is modest, there is more to modesty than that. Certainly clothing does have a part in determining whether a person is modest or not. The full body swimwear of the 1920's may be considered the ultimate in modesty, but it did not hide the shape of the wearer any more than today's much skimpier styles. In my opinion a woman who is nude will be more modest in dress than one wearing a tiny bikini because those small patches of fabric draw attention to the "forbidden" parts. The floppy styles for men may be more modest in design, but there is still enough exposed skin that can show great physique or be a canvas for tattoo artists. The more modest male will likely not have body decorations, and if they do would be more likely to have them covered.
This brings us to a modest attitude or presentation of oneself. How a person carries oneself and presents with voice and other characteristics can be modest or bold. If actions draw attention, modesty has taken a back seat.
Off the beach, clothing will still reflect ones attitude toward modesty. A person can dress to attract attention and covering from head to toe in both men and women will attract attention. I believe that you can be covered less and still be modest. No matter how one is dressed, a female is not responsible for the actions of the male that views her as a conquest.

[Bob S.]

BareSkin, your message is the reason why religions came to demand monogamy. They understood the problems that would arise with uncontrolled men impregnating women at will. In that way, they tamed their biological proclivities with the modesty institution called marriage. They needed to have sexual mates to become modest in their behaviours and attitudes toward sex. This modesty also came to be understood that spousal nudity be kept within the marriage only.

So now we have religion as the system that both helps to regulate male behaviour and modest dress within that system. Some people have broken out of that idea of thinking you can't have one without the other and modesty can come with modesty as nudeeyrooper mentioned. Modesty is an attitude as much as it is a state of dress.

Bob S.

[BareSkin]

Thanks Bob S.
Yes, that's right. Religions were established to control 'free love' and tame one of humanity's basic drives. They've brought order to societal chaos by imposing rigorous behavioural requirements on us in the name of a supreme being. Lust, in Christianity, as we all know, is one of the seven deadly sins.
And yes again, I agree with you when you say: "Some people have broken out of that idea of thinking you can't have one without the other ... Modesty is an attitude as much as it is a state of dress". Exactly right.
Some of us have indeed "broken out" and have decided bare bodies are NOT intrinsically offensive at all. We're taught that nude is rude from about the age of 3 years and conditioning like that is very hard to overcome. But the conditioning was evidently deemed necessary by most religions due to the selfish and brutal behaviour of a certain percentage of people - usually males.
So we all need to start inculcating good manners into our children from the cradle onwards.
It all comes down to good manners, which are all it takes to lubricate the wheels of society by modifying our individual behaviour to ensure our own rights don't impinge on the rights of others. Simple!
Not rocket science!
That's a far better teaching goal for our kids than teaching them there's something unacceptable about their naked bodies.

[NowaNudysta]

Wow, just finished reading the last post in this thread and I thought this is right out of left field. I'm not sure if I should read the rest of the posts but it seems that there's a lack of knowledge in the posts and mostly personal perception. Just to get my head around this, you're saying that we don't need clothing, and we should be able to run around and have sex with anyone or anything whenever we choose? Wow.

[NudonyII]

This thread is a little "all over the place." Are we talking about modesty as it relates to nudity or as it relates to sex?

When my daughter was about 2, and her Mom and I had experienced social nudism, we saw that our daughter demonstrated a natural proclivity for staying nude if she was given a choice. We decided it made no sense to burden her with the same "body-shame" we'd both grown up with. So we let her stay naked as long as she wanted; and went nude ourselves, with her, to set a tone of "clothesfreedom" and comfort with nudity at home.

"Sex" was an entirely different discussion. My wife imparted her wisdom to our daughter; and she now carries it through her own life. Completely unrelated to her "shamefree" upbringing. Maybe I'm not totally understanding the topic

[Noodfellaz]

Wow, just finished reading the last post in this thread and I thought this is right out of left field. I'm not sure if I should read the rest of the posts but it seems that there's a lack of knowledge in the posts and mostly personal perception. Just to get my head around this, you're saying that we don't need clothing, and we should be able to run around and have sex with anyone or anything whenever we choose? Wow.

I didn't think he was saying we should, he was saying we could. And in biblical times, it became a problem. I'd add though I do believe men and women are inherently monogamous

[Bob S.]

"Just to get my head around this, you're saying that we don't need clothing, and we should be able to run around and have sex with anyone or anything whenever we choose? Wow."

No NowaNudysya, the idea of modesty was introduced as a reason Bareskin stated was the reason why women were more reluctant to go to nudist parks. Female modesty arose from the innate biological facts that they must bear the pregnancy for nine months. I speculated that religions arose to help tame the male proclivity of immodest sexual behaviour by making monogamy more appealing to them. That is fine and no one here that I know of wants to get rid of that modesty. The problem is that marital modesty got mix in with nude modesty. This is where the problem lies (not to mention the mixture of nudity with sex which has caused problems with innocent childhood immodesty and nudity).

Nudists have overcome the social aspects of allowing others to see them naked while still maintaining their behavioural modesty.

Bob S.

[EltonJ]

Whoa, guys. I just wanted your opinion on modesty as it pertains to nudism or in general. I should have been more clear, sorry guys. I think Modesty as I know it has been perverted by the clothies and the fashion industry. According to genetic studies on the human louse, the two of them became separate species: one lives on our heads and the other lives in clothes. The studies show that the two lice diverged some 50,000 years ago (perhaps one of you would like to check my claim).

Nude recreation became a thing about 200 years ago. I believe nudists are getting modesty right.

[BareSkin]

Wow, just finished reading the last post in this thread and I thought this is right out of left field. I'm not sure if I should read the rest of the posts but it seems that there's a lack of knowledge in the posts and mostly personal perception. Just to get my head around this, you're saying that we don't need clothing, and we should be able to run around and have sex with anyone or anything whenever we choose? Wow.

Thanks for the comment, NowaNudysta, but my intention was never to suggest total sexual abandon without regard to consequences - quite the opposite.

Perhaps you missed this sentence(?):

It all comes down to good manners, which are all it takes to lubricate the wheels of society by modifying our individual behaviour to ensure our own rights don't impinge on the rights of others. Simple!

This was the point of my post. Whether or not anyone is clothed must have no bearing on how we behave. On occasions, my wife has commented on the way some people dress; not in a snide way but just by way of conversation. Sometimes, for example, she might comment that a female is scantily dressed by general standards. My response is predictable.
I say that it's the individual's business what she wears, or whether she wears anything at all.
Unsurprisingly for a nudist, I say a woman (or indeed a man for that matter) should be able to walk down the street naked without anyone having the right to stare, to whistle, to jeer, to point and laugh, or to make lewd comments. And the underpinnings of that attitude come down simply to good manners - under any and all circumstances.
Nobody has the right to make someone else feel unnecessarily uncomfortable for their own amusement.

My other objective was simply to point out that biological reproductive imperatives have an influence on the number of females attending nudist resorts and beaches. Males are naturally more cavalier about sexual activity - it's often seen as admirable among their peers if they're promiscuous, whereas females tend to be looked down on for similar behaviour.
We males would all be happier if the gender numbers among nudists were more evenly balanced but the fact is, they aren't. This is almost certainly due to females being wary of ill-mannered oversexed males leering at them or somehow 'judging' their appearance without the 'protection' of clothing to hide behind.
'Stark naked' is a term for complete nudity which wasn't coined for no good reason.
Most women perceive themselves to be more attractive in slinky clothing or bathing suits because it hides their physical imperfections (and we ALL have them) and there's also the allure of the 'mysterious'. In contrast, a totally naked body is 'stark' - fully on display, without decoration.

If females are ever to gain full societal equality with males, we males have to overcome our hard-wired tendency to ogle and 'evaluate' the opposite sex as though they're just objects of desire. I concede that biologically this hard wiring is an intrinsic part of the mating game but, until we control it with a sufficient veneer of good manners and civility, we can only expect many women to continue to shy away from social nudity.
BTW. I admit my post is full of generalisations and I do understand that the majority of males don't necessarily behave badly at all. But those who do are giving the rest of us a bad name.

[varav]

Modesty is the ability to keep yourself within the limits, to be moderate, restrained, calm. Modesty is understood as a character trait and a way of life of a person, expressed in the following: moderation in all requirements; indifference to luxury and excesses; lack of love of power, the desire to excel, to show oneself. what's wrong here? What is contrary to the spirit of nudism? Or in a consciousness perverted by dogmas, the concept of modesty concerns only the presence of clothes?

[varav]

modesty is the ability to find a middle ground in communication with the surrounding society. Unfortunately, few people manage to do this. The basic rule of modesty is respect for the interests of the people around you, and of course at the same time respect for their individual principles. The golden mean, that's the key to success. This also applies to nudism, or more precisely, your attitude to nudism. It can also be expressed in a variety of clothes or the absence of it. But! Only with the full understanding that this world was created not only for you.