Thoughts on Modesty

Okay, so don’t freak out.  I know all of you are thinking: ‘what? I thought this was a fun blog and now Merskank is going all preachy on us…’  But, please, hang with me for a second.

So, yeah ‘modesty’ is a slightly loaded word—I feel like it is more often used in the negative rather than in the positive: girls in particular are often described as immodest while few are ever acknowledged for having modesty.  But it is a term I have been reconsidering a little lately.

Now, when I was in high school I was very ‘modest’.  I never liked to wear shorts and would never, ever have worn a vee-neck of any sort.  Yet although this behaviour was ‘modest’ I don’t think it was particularly admirable; I think it really was stemming from fear and lack of confidence in my self—I didn’t want people looking at my legs because I was worried that they would think they looked funny, or fat, or ugly, and if I wore a lower-cut shirt I didn’t want them thinking I was a slut, or ‘trying too hard’.  Basically, I didn’t feel good in my own skin.

Luckily, since then, my confidence has risen and I have gradually grown less modest: shorts are now okay, skirts of varying lengths are a go, and sometimes I even wear tank tops.  Generally, I think this change is a good one, but in the past few weeks modesty has come back into the forefront of my thoughts.   Well, my dressing choices have never been wild—to my knowledge no one has ever branded me with the word ‘immodest’—but I think the intent and heart of your clothing choices always matters more anyway.  I am no longer motivated by fear like I was in high school, but lately I keep assessing my wardrobe and thinking: maybe my shirts shouldn’t be tight, maybe the skirt doesn’t need to be short.

I’ve realized that modesty in my life now means something totally different than what it meant to me in high school.  It used to be that I was worried about what people thought but now my motivation is often more personal.  Maybe this sounds a little weird to people, but it relates to how I have been thinking about the body and soul lately.   I think that our body is more closely tied to our soul than people realize—in Old English poetry the body is  called the modsefa (the place of the soul) or feorh-hus (the spirit-house), and in the Bible we get the image of the body as a temple to the Lord.  Both of these images clash with the externally-oriented vision of the body that is pushed in popular culture, one where philosophically you are supposed to judge by ‘intent’ and ‘people’s hearts’ but paradoxically body and image still receive so much attention.

When you first meet someone you don’t tell them your deepest thoughts, your sacred secrets—you wait, get to know them, and then maybe you tell them.  For me recently, modesty has become more like this.  Why would I want some person I don’t know (and probably can’t trust) staring at my breasts or at my butt?   Yet somehow although most of us wait to trust someone with our internal selves, we are happy to display our bodies.  I don’t think those things are as different as we think they are.  Either way you are exposing yourself to others before you know enough to trust them.  And there are always consequences: when you give someone information about yourself it is like you are giving a little piece of your self that you can’t really take back.  For me, recently, I have been thinking that I need to give my body a little more of the respect I give my soul and think twice before I make it a public spectacle.

So, yeah, basically I am not trying to tell anyone else how to live their life.  Modesty means different things for different people and we should be confident loving our bodies and loving ourselves.   I just wanted to share my ponderings and say that maybe next time you dress a particular way, you should ask yourself why.  May the answer provide you interesting avenues for thought.