Proper Summer Attire in Louisiana
I have read elsewhere that the Student Honor Association at Brigham Young University has been pushing modest attire for young women (apparently, nobody cares what young men wear). This is not a new thing, and I've read about the push for modest attire for women in several places, such as the Church News, and the Ensign.
I am a prude. Really.
But I live in southern Louisiana, and it's HOT. I mean, really hot. Like, glasses fog when you leave the grocery hot. Like plastic bins left out in the sun to dry never actually dry hot.
I also am attending a school with a minimal non-traditional student population. Almost all the students are 18-25 years old, and 2/3 are women. Young, beautiful women. Most of them wear shorts and tank tops, and maybe it's just what I'm used to seeing, but I don't think they're immodest at all. They're just dressed for summer. It's hot!
But then, there's this one young woman...she also wears a tank top, but she wears REALLY lo-rise track pants. You can see the top of the V of her pubic area (I think she shaves) and a fairly regular flash of butt crack. This isn't dressing for summer. This is dressing for attention.
How am I able to tell the difference? Is there a difference? 90% of these women won't attract a second glance here in southern Louisiana in July by what they wear. But drop any one of them onto the BYU campus and it would probably be a scandal.
On an only mildly related topic: I got a new pair of sandals today. Bass, on sale. Cute as can be. Which means tomorrow, as my nod to the cultural norms of a Louisiana summer, I'm not going to wear socks.
I am a prude. Really.
But I live in southern Louisiana, and it's HOT. I mean, really hot. Like, glasses fog when you leave the grocery hot. Like plastic bins left out in the sun to dry never actually dry hot.
I also am attending a school with a minimal non-traditional student population. Almost all the students are 18-25 years old, and 2/3 are women. Young, beautiful women. Most of them wear shorts and tank tops, and maybe it's just what I'm used to seeing, but I don't think they're immodest at all. They're just dressed for summer. It's hot!
But then, there's this one young woman...she also wears a tank top, but she wears REALLY lo-rise track pants. You can see the top of the V of her pubic area (I think she shaves) and a fairly regular flash of butt crack. This isn't dressing for summer. This is dressing for attention.
How am I able to tell the difference? Is there a difference? 90% of these women won't attract a second glance here in southern Louisiana in July by what they wear. But drop any one of them onto the BYU campus and it would probably be a scandal.
On an only mildly related topic: I got a new pair of sandals today. Bass, on sale. Cute as can be. Which means tomorrow, as my nod to the cultural norms of a Louisiana summer, I'm not going to wear socks.
6 Comments:
Yup, it's really hot in Louisiana right now. I spend my weekends in cotton shorts, t-shirts, and Birkenstocks. I'm miserable in anything else. And I only shave Monday through Friday. More Margaritaville than BYU, I suppose.
I don't care if we don't have any humidity here in Colorado -- it's stinkin' hot (100 degrees yesterday), and I am running around in shorts and tank tops and sandals -- even a bandana head band to keep the bangs and sweat off my face. In the name of modesty, I am wearing a bra and no attention-calling slogans on my shirts. No buttcracks or pubic bones bared either.
If being modest is not calling attention to yourself, then I think wearing long pants and garment-conforming shirts in the summer looks mighty stand-outish.
-Brenda
I was thinking about this some more last night, and I tried to remember what it was like to be young. I remember when I was in my early 20's, and thin and stacked. Damn, I felt powerful! Sometimes I felt like the only power I had at all was my sexuality. I wasn't a "flaunting" type, but when I was at my most nubile, I wanted to be perceived as sexy and vibrant - to exercise my power.
Maybe the emphasis on modesty is actually about power, and not ceding it.
"Maybe the emphasis on modesty is actually about power, and not ceding it."
Damn, that was good. I think you have clarified something for me, you Goddess of the Intelligensia, you.
This reminds of something funny, sorta. An LDS friend of mine came over and wore shorts because its pretty hot and humid over here too! Well, of course, when she sits down, her garmet bottoms are exposed for the world to see. The funniest part about this was the HUGE patch of hair growing behind her knees. Garments, I gather, are supposed to help in drawing attention away from their clothing and this poor young woman just drew sharp attention to her attire.
I've been considering this issue a bit of late, myself. I'm not entirely sure where I draw the line, but at the moment I can be sure of one thing: it's somewhere to the conservative side of "too little clothing to cover all the parts that need to be covered" and "screeching and screaming if a hint of a shoulder or a flash of belly/lower back shows."
On the one hand, I'm repulsed by girls (guys just don't seem to do this so much) who wear tank tops and really low-riding jeans, and show off so much of themselves that the rest is no mystery.
On the other hand, while many of my LDS friends get all wide-eyed at the idea of wearing a shirt that's a little short (so that a bit of your tummy can be seen when you raise your hands over your head, which no one does all day anyway) or shorts that aren't knee-length (on grounds of "no white should show!" rather than any sort of argument based on the wearing of garments, mind) I don't have a problem with that -- especially in the middle of summer when it's really hot.
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