Is Christ Sexy?
MaryorMartha at Musings of a Minister’s Wife asks this question in the context of viewing an episode of the TLC show, What Not to Wear. When an Orthodox Jew ends up being placed on the show by her friends, she is convinced that she isn’t dressing sexy enough:
She ended up with some cute modest clothes and some great make-up tips. By looking at recent pictures of her, she was apparently persuaded over to a bit sexier of a look. Still not up to Hollywood’s standards, but she is seen wearing lower necklines and strappier shoes in some of her outings. And, at the end of the day, it’s her choice. She is an actress, and if you want some of Hollywood’s money, you have to look how Hollywood wants you to look. [Reflecting Christ: Is Christ Sexy?]
What’s interesting was not that this young woman was persuaded to dress “sexier”, for I doubt it’s difficult to persuade anyone to wear clothing that shows more off when you start getting the positive comments from families and passers by. Surely, both men and women like positive attention, and wearing clothing that shows more flesh is certainly going to get fit women more attention.
This drew my attention:
When did it become important to be hot? I’m talking to you other Christ-seeking women out there. God does not call us to be sexy, hot, fashionistas. There is nothing modest about that. It is called VANITY, and that is not from God. Yes, he wants you to brush your hair. He wants you to be clean. But I don’t hesitate to say that He is not happy about the materialism that has invaded our Christian culture.
Exactly right. Modesty is about not drawing attention as much as it is about what we wear. The point of not wearing clothing that shows off physical features is not drawing sexual attention, but you can easily wear something that covers and yet still proclaims “look at me!”
As far as God’s concerned, that’s just as bad.
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I totally got your point. I truly believe, especially for women, that you can truly tell that a lady is beautiful if people still turn their head to look at her and she still drew some attention even if she wears the ugliest pair of clothes. For me, it is still the essence of a woman that prevails rather than flaunting all of your skin then complains about why guys disrespect you even if you do nothing. Thanks!
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I think you get it– it’s definitely about inner beauty over outer beauty. True beauty comes from within.
My sister-in-law (who isn’t fashionable at all) would watch HOURS of that show on end whenever we’d visit. I saw maybe two episodes with her and was horrified at some of the things that they would do to these girls who were naturally more modest and lovely as they were. I can’t even think that Christ and Sexy should be combined together as it is. He is the creator of sex, but still. . .He created it as a private thing so it is just weird to hear that someone stated “Is Christ Sexy?”. . . wow.
Anyway, great article!!!
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Amen,sister! Having watched a few myself, it is sad to see them shaming the modest girls. I think one of the most used adjectives on that show is “sexy”. Biblically, it is not appropriate, or moral, to look sexy in public. That should be reserved for your spouse.
Having watched a few shows before this article came out, it really made me think about what standards we, as Christians, are holding ourselves to. You cannot be sexy and modest. You just can’t. I’m not saying you can’t look pretty, coordinated, or put-together, but looking sexy (for anyone other than your spouse) should not be a goal for any Christian.
To flush the topic out a little further, has "sexy" become the modern word for attractive? Should a Christian woman appear attractive in public?
I think that is often the case. My History teacher recently told our class how a university professor of his often said how “we need to make history sexy.” I am pretty sure he just meant that history ought to be presented in an attractive way, not that it needed to have more sex in it. I find this phrasing rather unfortunate, myself, as I think it sort of cheapens the meaning of sexy. We already have words for attractive (attractive, beautiful, pretty) and sexy, IMO, should have a separate meaning that relates directly to sex (hence the word itself). There’s nothing wrong with that kind of sexiness, provided it is in the correct context (which I believe to be between in private between a husband and wife).
I have seen a few episodes of What Not To Wear myself and on one that I saw one of the hosts made a comment saying that she thought the participant should look “sexy” and then went on to amend that she didn’t mean “sexy” necessarily in terms of sex, but “who you are.” So I guess they sometimes use the word in that context? It can be confusing.
While I don’t usually agree with the underlying worldview of the show, for reasons others here have mentioned, I will say that I have sometimes seen them rein in, so to speak, some participants who always dressed over-the-top-sexy (and I mean as in provocative) and showed them how to be more modest, but modesty would not seem to be their underlying philosophy at all, as others have pointed out.
I think that we have a tendancy, as a culture, to take extreme words and use them so frequently that they lose their impact. Hence why there are so many people that believe that cussing is fine and the idea that you only get somewhere if you "push the envelope." At the base of it is mankind’s natural rebellious nature, always testing, always trying, looking for boundaries.
I think I may hve seen four altogether, and while I appreciate it when tey get the sweatpants and t-shirts out of the woman’s wardrobe, I find that often they try to go from drab to sexy when they could have just settled for "beautiful." You know what I’m saying? It’s kinda like the movies like "Sweet Home Alabama" where they have to exaggerate how bad and backwards the person is in order to have the big transformation. This show likes to go to the way other end when the individual didn’t need to go that far.