Clothing matters

I've been reading "Real Sex" by Lauren Winner, which is primarily a reflection on the Christian virtue of chastity but viewed in a larger context. Two chapters have been of particular interest: "Lies our culture tells about sex" and "Lies the church tells about sex".

For the former, one of the lies Winner lists is "How you dress doesn't matter". Of this she writes, "[Modesty] bears discussign because we seem, as a society, to be losing the ability to discern why clothes matter , and what clothing is appropriate when."

She tells a story of when she went shopping for clothes for a friend's 5-year-old girl while her friend was recupreating from surgery. "All the affordable shops...specialize in revealing outfits and tight skirts. Wealthy daughters, whose parents can fford to shop at Hanna Andersson and Nordstrom, still get little girls clothes...But we apparently expect the ir less-well-off cousins to start dressing for sex early."

She addresses the belief that women, through their clothes, are singularly responsible for male sexual behaviour (the old, "She dressed like that she's asking for it) and rejects it, while pointing out that how we, as both women and men dress, do affect the opposite sex. In other words, she makes the true statement that we have influence, and should take that influence seriously, while not stretching that to mean that we are responsible. She points out that the marketplace bears the most responsibility, which I agree with. I have noticed in the last few years that it is becoming harder and harder to find clothes that don't put my breasts on display.

What I found most interesting was her take on casual fridays. "Maybe I'm a glutton for consistency, but it seems to me that if it is important for people to dress up four days of the week - because formal clothing truly shapes how we comport ourselves, how we understand our work and our duty - then it is important for us to dress up on Friday's too. Conversely, if employers find tha tpoeple ar ehappier, work better, and are more present wehn dresse din blue jeans, then we shoudl scothc he silly dres codes the other foudn days...Eiother we're folling ourselves on Fridays, or we're folling ourselves the other four days."

The part I found myself disagreeing with was when she talked about dressing up for church.Noting that dress has changed from formal to informal in the past few decades, she says, "Perhaps we've erred on the side of casual. I've notice dthat I worship differently when I'm wearing more formal, fancy clothes. I'm more inclined toward reverence." I don't necessarily disagree that clothes affect our attitudes in worship, but I don't think we've erred on the side of casual. Having spent a significant portion of my adult life in a church which rightly emphasized making sure we were a welcoming place for people who are poor, I can't imagine many of those people feeling comfortable coming into an atmosphere filled with formal clothes when such things are beyond their financial means. I think it distracts from worship, however, to see someone's thong sticking up from the back of her jeans when we stand up to sing a song.

In the summary: "There is, it seems to me, a certain power in modest dressing, an assertion that though my body is beautrful, I am more than a sex object desinged for your passing entertainment. But the power of dressing is also the power of narrative. For our clothes tell stories, and it would be naive and irresponsible to pretned otherwise."