Because one matter is not a simple yes or no does not mean that another matter is not a simple yes or no.

Of course. But you don't explain why it's a simple yes or no in one case but not the other. If a Hooters outfit is too provocative at the restaurant all the time, then I don't see why a bare chested man at a public populated beach is not too provactive all the time. In both cases they are enticing to the opposite sex. Yes, more so for men than women becuase men TEND to be more visual but that doesn't change anything. Three women temped at the beach vs. 100 men temped at Hooters does not change the modesty of the dress.

Do you really need me to explain the difference? Is it really not clear to you?

It must not be clear to you either because I keep getting wishy washy answers. Maybe it would be more to your benefit to answer than it would be to mine.

Both are cases where the opposite sex is being enticed (and even the same sex in this culture). More so in the case of males vs females but that is beside the point. Both are being enticed to immoral thoughts and actions. So why is it only clear cut when it comes to how the females dress?

Actually, it is so clear to me that it is literally shocking that it is not clear to you. Also, I've found that no matter how much I try to explain things to you, you don't seem to understand them.

Sometimes, when things are very obvious and/or the listener seems unable or unwilling to learn from the person speaking, the person speaking needs time to think about the best way to formulate an answer. The last time it was to present a giant excerpt from the Catechism, which was the only way to get through to you. It took me a day or so to come up with that one. It might take me a day or so to come up with something else to help you.



I will respond to this later. There are literally so many thoughts running through my head on the obvious differences between the two that I need time to sort them out and present them in such a way that it will be to your benefit.

It is a considerable effort, at times, to explain the obvious. It's clear that you don't appreciate the efforts people are making to explain what should be obvious to you.

This is why I ask you if you really need (or want) the explanation. Are you sincere, or just argumentative? I'd be surprised if I am the only person here who is wondering.

Don't bother. Since it would seem that there is something about my lack of understanding in the midst of such great minds that causes you to be uncharitable to me (and possibly vice versa) I will exit from this thread lest I be guilty of allowing it to continue. And yes, I don't doubt you are not the only one. Maybe one day when I finish my theology degree I will be qualified to accept such "obvious" answers.

What's normal matters here. Normally, it has been said, women are not particularly visual creatures who are generally led to lustful thoughts when presented with normal men in normal (contemporary American) swimwear. The same is not true of men who are presented with women dressed in Hooters outfits. Look, for all I know, it could be the case that there's a woman out there with a particularly odd personality quirk such that whenever she hears my voice, she is immediately driven to some kind of sexual sin. I don't know that such a person exists. I very much doubt she does. But it's possible. Just about anything is possible. The bare possibility that such a person exists does not mean I can't ever speak, for fear of setting such a possible person off. (Though if I became aware that such a woman actually existed, and I was to know that she was within the sound of my voice, then I would say that under normal circumstances I should refrain from speaking out loud until I get out of her earshot.) Women who lust after men in bathing suits are in a different category than this possible person. It may be that they do exist. Indeed, it seems probable that they do. And it even seems believable that there may be a few of them at any public beach. I don't know how much such unusual stuff needs to weigh in our deliberations. There is no doubt room for good people to disagree about how much it should weigh, and what our responses to it should be. But in the case of women flaunting themselves to men, we're again in a whole different place. We're out of the world of the unusual, and into the world of the normal.

Consider the flip side here. It's almost certain that there are some men out there who are not driven to lustful thoughts when presented with provocatively dressed women. But that doesn't really enter into how we should think about these situations. Look, I know for a fact that there are people out there who are completely immune to poison ivy. (This isn't the best example, because that can actually change over time, but give me a break here.) The fact that there are people out there who are immune to poison ivy doesn't excuse me from wrongdoing if I decide to go around rubbing poison ivy oil all over a bunch of people. I might say, "hey, you can't blame me...for all I knew, they were all immune!" The immunity is unusual. It doesn't set the standard. The normal situation sets the standard.

You better read my post before you leave. My fingers hurt from all that typing.

Well, at least we haven't resorted to melodrama here.

Because (a) men are different from women and (b) a restaurant is different from a beach. If you want to draw some sort of equivalence between men and women then at least consider the context (restaurant vs. beach). What is modest for the beach may well not be modest for a restaurant and vice versa (if I dress like a waiter at the beach without a good reason then I am drawing attention to myself, which is not modest). Frankly, it seems to me that you are engaging in sophistry in the hopes of getting your opponents to agree with your stance.

how about waitstaff at a restaurant which has a beach theme.... and i thank my lucky stars i was busy this morning doing important things and consequently could offer no comment having to do with the bathing suit controversy ... nor would i care to now that things have come to somewhat of a conclusion

Modesty is not merely about enciting lust. It is about what is right for the time, place, situation, your station. It is immodest for a woman to outdress the bride at a wedding, for instance, since it draws undue attention to her.

It is immodest to wear a full dress while swimming, because it draws undue atention, and can be quite dangerous. It is immodest to wear a swimming suit to Church, but not necessarily to the beach.

It is immodest to dress lavishly for a funeral, but might be quite immodest to wear a funeral dress to a wedding.

One should be able to readily see that what is fine at the beach, is not the same at all at a restaurant. Even looking at just the narrow lust criterion, there are two major and obvious differences. 1) It is necessary to wear certain types of clothes for certain activities, e.g. swimming, surfing, etc, for functionality and safety. Concerns about covering up and form fitting wear must also be weighed against utility. Now perhaps, as was ordered in the diocese of Rome in the 1920's and 30's, men and women should not swim together, but in separate places. Then again, when in the water, a form fitting scuba suit or something like that, is not going to be the same as outside. When I am swimming in the waves, you cannot really make that much out. Perhaps I should, once out of the water, wrap a towel around or put a shirt on. But in anycase, one has more than just lust to be concerned about, and reasonable wear addresses that

2. Context makes a big difference. Clothes that, strictly speaking, cover more skin, can be even more immodest because they are designed to attract the eye to where the eye should not be. Further, one takes great note of a girl (or guy) scantily clad in a restaurant or similar place, than at the beach or park. I think what is seen as normal makes a difference here.

I personally don't have lustful thoughts when looking at a guy who is 'ripped' running around shirtless....but I do admire his muscles and dedication to get them that way, however that's as far as it goes. I imagine with men it is a different thing altogether.

Still for the sake of modesty he should cover up. Further I wouldn't want other women looking at my husband if he were that guy.


SV

Late to the party, but one more woman to tell you that the ONLY reason I wore a bikini was to get men to look at me. When I became Catholic and learned about modesty, I moved to a modest two piece suit. Going to the bathroom? puhleeeeze.

AMEN!!!!

I understand what Chris G is saying. Since we do have the possibility of both sexes being enticed, why isn't it clear to us that it's immodest for men to be bare chested just as it is for women to be dressed immodestly? Just because something is the norm doesn't make it right. Not only do we need to think of the opposite sex, but we also now need to think about our actions with same sex.

Because women are nowhere near as visual as men....indeed, most men don't really find the naked male body all that attractive in the first place...in the words of Elaine Benes, 'the female body is beautiful, a work of art, the male body is ugly, repugnant, looks like an ape'

That is why there is no industry of porn for women the way there is a massive industry of porn for men....I mean there is Playgirl magazine to go along with Playboy, but I'm pretty sure the main audience for that is not women, but homosexual men......and I've been told by women who have looked at issues of Playgirl that it is nowhere near as explicit as the magazine for men....and in fact rarely even includes full nudity....women just aren't turned on by the sight of a naked man....

Hell...the only way us men can even make ourselves look halfway attractive to a woman (when naked) is to adopt a shaving regimen that most of us find rather effeminate....without all that shaving all you can see when a man is naked is hair anyway....and body hair isn't attractive....

Whenever I have talked to women and asked them what they thought about seeing a naked man, you know what response I've gotten? They say 'oh yuck!' and make wretching motions....I don't think that's an act, I think that's the way most women feel about the issue....a naked man just is not attractive

There is the 'Chippendales male stripper revue'.....but I feel the need to point out this is nowhere near as popular as female strippers are among men...and Chippendales dancers don't get completely nude, if they did, women wouldn't be interested in it....and most women will say that they don't find those dancers sexy anyway, because a stripper, by the very nature of the job, is in a position of subserviance and inferiority....and most women don't find a man who is weak and in a position of subserviance sexy.....

I'm not say that women are not just as prone to sexual temptation as men, obviously they are or else or all those men sleeping around wouldn't be able to find any women to sleep around with....

But men and women are not tempted by the same things....men are tempted, in fact STRONGLY tempted by visual stimulation....women, by and large, are not.....

One complaint people have about the Bible is that it is 'sexist', and one of the things they point to to prove the alleged 'sexism' is the frequent warnings about the evils of women....'beware of the adulterous woman etc etc etc' .....but all you have to do is be a man for 5 minutes and you'll understand that these warnings are not sexist or anti-woman, they are just common sense.....it is actually very easy for an attractive woman to lead a man into sin, and history is filled with otherwise good and decent men who were destroyed by the fact that they couldn't resist a seductive woman...and often all a woman needs to do to seduce a man is just take her clothes off....how many women do you know who could say the same thing? That all a man has to do to get her into bed is take his clothes off? I'm guessing very few women could relate to that.....

Yet again I am speaking with a certain degree of frankness and directness so that some people might regard this post as 'vulgar' but honestly I think a certain of frankness is required....I'm not being vulgar for the sake of being vulgar...I'm trying to you insight so that you can understand what the male mind is like, and know what our struggles and temptations are like...

So the consensus is that since it's not as stimulating to all women it's okay for men to be bare chested no matter if it is stimulating to some women.
Got it.

No. If the mere possibility of enticing someone were to be avoided at all costs, then some of us could never leave the house. I for one would have to be cloistered in an impenetrable fortress.

Also, context makes a difference. In Iran, a woman can present herself as more or less provocative by arranging the position and amount of hair on her headscarf. Most western men wouldn't even notice these subtleties because modesty is practiced differently in different cultures. Even within a culture, modesty means something different in different venues. As someone said above, male swimmers at a swim meet aren't dressed immodestly, but they would be dressed immodestly if they were to wear competitive swimwear to a restaurant.

Let's just cut to the chase. Hooters sells sexual attraction for money. Stated that way, it is a form of prostitution. A girl on the beach in a bikini may be attempting to entice, but the waitstaff at Hooters make a profit on it. The customers come in looking for it. The spend their money at there rather than eating elsewhere because of the visual sexual stimulation they are buying. One can claim it is the wings, but that is like the guys who claim they buy Playboy for the articles.