On a la Modest, I talked about Lolita fashion and its roots from the Victorian age. Even taking bustiers into account, you have to admit that fashion back then was much more modest than today. A friend of mine likes to view dressing modestly as a way to feel like royalty–a princess finely dressed. Centuries might have affected fashion trends, but men’s minds have not changed over the years. This is not to say that men alone are evil. They were made to be visual, and women were made to desire love from men. We just have to cater to our nature of being like this in the right way. Immodesty is like junk food. It satisfies you temporarily and is never good for you. Showing skin to attract men (or even to compete with women) might get you the attention you want, but it is almost never love that you end up getting.

As I like to say, “Keep immodesty within the marriage bed!” Married women can get all the fun they want with lingerie as clothes for their husband’s eyes only! Ironically, I only really took the importance of modest fashion to heart when I got married. I’ve never really been happier with the way I carried myself since I started pushing away my insecurities by not wearing clothes that attracted the wrong attention. I realized that I gave away part of myself to other men through the way I dressed, and essentially stole from my husband what he alone should’ve cherished.

To the single women out there, it is best to start now. I understand how hard it is to even attract men in this day and age, where sexually infused fashion is rampant, but it will pay off one day to be with someone who cares deeply about who you are, enough to protect you from himself. When you incite a man to lust, you do not win him. Lust takes over, and it is greedy. Like any type of greed, it wants more. Do not expect that luring a man with lust will keep him faithful to you. Modesty is not really the end-all to lust, but it certainly helps to keep minds pure.

In addition to its benefits to single men and women, dressing modestly can help couples in a small way by not adding to the temptation that husbands and even pastors have everyday to look at other women lustfully. Let’s not be greedy and steal their minds away. Lust really eats up men, and contrary to the momentary pleasures they might get from it, they ultimately do not like its effects. Doing your part says that you love all men and want to help them see the beauty in you through purity and not lust. Purity goes a long way. It’s not really synonymous with chastity. You can be pure and be sexually active in the context of marriage. Most guys deep down want a girl who will give them everything without inhibitions but only to them. If you give yourself to other men by inciting lust in their minds through the way that you dress, then you are not really saving yourself fully for your future husband. The Bible says that if a man looks at or thinks about another woman lustfully, then he is already committing adultery. In your own small way, by dressing modestly, you really are helping to tame lustful thoughts. It shows that you really care, and in turn, most “husband-material” guys will appreciate this a lot.

Dressing “down” gave me many heartaches. It attracted so many of the wrong type of guys. I’m glad that God was sovereign and landed me with an amazing stud who encouraged me to be modest-fashionably forward (even before we got married).

Check out this video by Jason Evert of Pure Love Club:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80FOpC5oKww

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This article was originally from alamodest.com. Do you “Like” this article?  alamodest.com is now on Facebook!

© Rachel @ alamodest.com for Is This Modest?, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: fashion, husband, love, lust, marriage, modest, modesty, Relationships, romance, Sexuality, Single, style, wife

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As boys and girls become teens and then young ladies and men, there are subtle changes in the way they react to each other.  The physical attraction is still there, and the pressure is still very real, but the relationships that a person goes through and their life experiences can help discipline them or cause them to get on a crash course to certain doom.

Well, perhaps that’s a little melodramatic, but I think you’ll understand what I’m saying in a minute.

A Healthy Desire

God made men and women to desire companionship—and that companionship is on many levels, one of them being physical.

The physical desire is strong in men—and it starts with sight and works its way throughout his being.  He needs female companionship to complete him in all sorts of ways.  He craves it—and that’s part of what feeds his curiosity and his longings to the point of lust.

The desire is healthy, and it’s supposed to reach it’s fulfillment in marriage, but it’s often easy for it to degenerate into lust.

We Weren’t Wired to Wait

Seriously, I know it’s a topic for another time, but the more I read, ponder, and look at marriage historically, the more I’m under the impression that men and women were never meant to wait until their twenties or thirties to marry.  I mean, Adam and Eve were married when they were two days old!

The problem is that there is a lot of pent up sexual desire and no morally acceptable outlet but marriage.  So, the young man struggles with the war going on inside him: wanting, desiring, feels like needing, to have a woman to love—emotionally and physically.

They say that girls can be guilted into sexual relations—I believe that guys can be manipulated as well by the same tactic.  It all depends on who has more discipline in this area.

Discipline

That’s right, self discipline is the key.  The guy exercises it by not being alone with a girl, by making sure to keep his eyes away from things he might be tempted to lust after, and by watching his viewing habits.  He needs to keep his mind focused on other things, or he will find a way to feed that desire and his curiosity.

The godly/modest woman helps him here by not making it easy for him to stumble when looking at her.  It helps him focus on who she is instead of what she is.

Logic would say that all women are equipped pretty much the same as far as having certain body parts.  Except this isn’t logical—men see differences, they compare, and they contrast.

The Gradual Increase of Lust

Lust has a way of growing, it gets fed by an action that requires more.  As a guy sees a part of a girl, it no longer satisfies him—no longer feeds his curiosity or his craving to see that any more.  He must see more.

A guy can lust looking through a J.C. Penny magazine.  He can fill his mind with sex by reading books around the house.

But the modest girl isn’t giving him anything to look at.  She’s not feeding his desire to see more—whereas he might see more with someone else.

So, discipline is key—the guy at this age is looking for a life-long mate, and yet has to be restrained.  Take this with you in your relationships.  If you better understand what he’s thinking and going through you’ll better be able to anticipate where he might have difficulty.

© MInTheGap for Is This Modest?, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Kids and Teens, marriage, purity, Relationships, Sexual intercourse, Sexuality, The Male Mind

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In the case of this comic, we see that the less Janis wore, the better Arlo could remember where she wore it.

Why?  Because specific items carry meaning.  It could be that some special event happened when they were at Perdido Key or the Peabody, but it’s also very possible that this guy loved seeing his wife in next to nothing on the beach, and in the little black dress going out.

Though this is a comic, it’s also true in real life.  The image of a pretty girl that a guy saw can stay with them much longer.  That is also the real threat posed by pornography—that what one has seen one cannot un-see, and that those images take a long time to fade from memory because they’re associated with a physical and/or emotional reaction.

© MInTheGap for Is This Modest?, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Arlo and Janis, clothing, Sexuality

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