A few months ago, I wrote a post directed at parents, teachers, and leaders of young women on the topic of modesty. Today, I've finally been able to collect my thoughts enough to write a companion post- this time directed at young men, their parents, teachers, and leaders.
Now, I've never been to a young men's activity, or sat in on a priesthood meeting before. I don't know a whole lot about what goes on in those settings. However, I do have a general feeling that modesty isn't something that's talked about a whole lot, other than that you should find and marry a girl who is modest, because you want a woman who respects herself, others, and the Lord. Sound about right? I thought so. I'm sure you've also been taught that you should avoid looking at girls who are immodestly dressed, as to avoid having impure thoughts about her. I bet you've been told that you should surround yourself with modestly dressed young women, and to encourage your female friends to dress modestly. I imagine you've been told that young women should be responsible to help you have pure thoughts.
And I'm so sorry that you've been taught these things. These ideas are so very demeaning to women, making all of us seem like objects for you to try not to sexualize too much... but don't worry, because you've been taught It's not your fault if you do. These ideas are also demeaning to you! Are you not more than your thoughts? Can you really not control the way that you think about a woman? Are you completely unable to see a young lady who is exposing more skin than you are used to as a person, as a daughter of God?
Maybe you can't. But maybe that's because you've been taught that you don't have to.
I'm not arguing against the idea that young men's brains may definitely be wired differently. It's possible that it is far harder for a boy to view a girl as a human being and not a sexual object when she is dressed immodestly. But are we not supposed to overcome the natural man? We were given agency and brains that are able to change for a reason. Why are we teaching young men to just avoid immodestly dressed women, when we could be teaching them to avoid impure thoughts on their own? I hate to be the one who has to say it, but woman who believe in dressing modestly are a major minority in the world. Young men cannot be expected to just stay in their houses for the rest of their lives to keep their thoughts clean, and neither can they claim it is the woman's fault if they do, because it is simply not. As I stated in my other blog post, a fundamental principle of agency is that you cannot be held accountable for another person's thoughts or behaviors. You may say that that also means a young man cannot be held accountable for his own thoughts when a woman chooses to dress immodestly, then. Let me try to put it another way:
Suzie decided to eat a bar of chocolate during class. Billy absolutely loves chocolate, and goes into a psychopathic rage and kills people whenever he sees chocolate. 3 people died because Suzie ate a chocolate bar. All Suzie wanted to do was eat her dang chocolate, but now she is being held accountable because apparently Billy was unable to control himself. Suzie no longer feels comfortable in eating chocolate, because she has to worry about every single human being who might go into a psychopathic rage if she pulls out chocolate which then sends her into a nervous breakdown about what other things she could be eating that might send someone into a psychopathic rage and so she just stops eating all together.
Okay, that may have been a little dramatic, but do you get what I mean? It's not fair that we are teaching young women to worry about everything they are doing that could potentially cause a boy to have an impure thought about them, while we teach boys that they should be catered to because they can't help their own thoughts. I feel deeply sad for all the young men that truly believe they are not able to control themselves.
You are more than your thoughts, young men, just as young women are more than their bodies.
If you want to read an awesome satirical article on this, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment