Modesty Cops

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Y'all might think we Salt Lakers are weird, but we ain't got NOTHING on our slightly-to-the-south neighbor Provo and its BYU Bubble.* Sure, here in SLC we do get Disapproving Mormons who will frown at your immodest tank top, and a lot of them do insist that the onus is on the woman to keep men from thinking Impure Thoughts,** but the concern troll notes aren't quite such a big deal.

I shouldn't have read the comments, though. Highlights include:

-The original author of the post going "Dude, I wrote this like FIVE MONTHS AGO, what is even happening"
-A lot of helpful comments along the lines of "But my dear that is a VERY IMMODEST SHIRT do you want the boys to THINK ILL OF YOU?" when it's like an ordinary T-shirt.***
-Creeps, creeping on her
-My absolute favorite in terms of wrongness, in which a lady sanctimoniously declares that "my innocent 10-year-old son told me that the layers shirt I was lounging around the house in was making him uncomfortable; did I bite his head off about being a pervert or shame him into leaving the room? No; I changed my shirt because I love him and I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable" like that makes her really nice and considerate when all I can think is, How the HELL did this 10-year-old boy become an obsessive prude? and suddenly the whole anecdote gets really creepy.

God, I live in a weird neighborhood. At least I'm just on the outskirts.


*A lot of great artists and authors go/went to Brigham Young University, and while a lot of them are cool, somehow I can always tell just by the art and writing whether it's a BYU person. There's some intangible flavor there that's tough to explain to outsiders.

**Were I a dude, I would frankly be insulted by the constant implication that I was completely incapable of restraining myself around women I found attractive. The argument that they are helpless victims of women's wiles has always baffled me for that reason.

***Not that even smaller shirts would be worthy of notes like that, but it does go to show how hypersensitive people can get about things like this.

Comments

[redbird]

Of course she didn't bit his head off: she and his father have probably spent years teaching him to tell women that they are dressed and behaving inappropriately, and she's gotten exactly what she was looking for.

That she can't see a space between "let my son tell me to change my clothes" and "bite his head off for being a pervert" is indicative, here. Where's "honey, it's just a shirt. Go back to your homework"?

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

Or even, "Honey, they're just breasts, they provided food for you when you were a baby, and you can only see the outline of my nipples because it's chilly in here. That's just how bodies work. There's nothing inherently sexual about a body, we all have them. Now go back to your homework."

I mean, I'm not a parent, but from when I was a kid and growing up in a culture of shame, just for my own $0.02, I would waaaaaaay rather kids be a little too comfortable with nakedness than "OH MY GOD BOOBIES YOU SLUT."

(Aside, I had a friend's five year old son walk in on me while I was bathing, and I sorta casually shifted so he couldn't see much, or at least, as much as I could hide while completely naked in the bath, and I just asked him if he needed anything, and told him that I would be out in about five minutes and that we'd play then, and he just wandered out and found a game he wanted to play. Thank god they did not freak out on me. Apparently he was just figuring out that ladies had different bits. Kids, man, kids.)