Friday, 06 February 2009

• Ladies: Help Your Brothers in Their Fight Against Lust

  If you're like how I was, you had a hard time accepting the fact that some churches wanted the women to dress conservatively or modestly. You probably thought, "Why can't the men just pray to God to help them not be so lusty?!" I wondered those same things. I didn't like that they wanted women to have the modesty scarves over their knees when their skirts were too short. I didn't like that they wanted women to cover up their arms with sleeves or shawls. I just didn't understand why people who were saved had to change their style of clothes for others.

  I always figured that since I was not able to have premartial sex and party hardy, it would only be fair that I would get to have this choice over my life. It was like, "I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!" I became a Christian and lost all my old life, and I was not even allowed to dress how I wanted. I'm petite (size 0), so I also figured, "I can wear what I want because I don't have hips or chest. How tempting can I be?"
  

  But after reading this book called For Young Women Only, I now realize why. Men are so unlike us. To all the women readers, how much throughout the day would you think about or envision the nice physique of a dude you crush on? Most women will say, "Not much at all or never." Once we see a nice body, we immediately forget about it when the stimulus is gone. Men are different. The book said that men will envision women's bodies long after the fact. The book said that they have a storage file in their brains of the nice bodies they have seen throughout their life! They can remember bodies from years ago. Men are very visual unlike us. We're visual too, but not like them.

  In the book, one of the boys said his pastor told a lady in the church to remove a girl who was sitting in the front row who had a skirt on that was too short. This pastor was not ashamed to allude to the fact that an underaged female was very distracting to him. My old church was not very big and had stadium-type seats, so if you had a short skirt on and did not have your legs closed or covered with something, the pastor admitted that he could sometimes see their underwear. How embarrassing and shameful is that?! Here is the pastor trying to preach the gospel of God, and he can't concentrate because your underwear are visible to him! One of the most righteous men in the Bible, Job, even had to make a vow with his eyes for them not to look with lust at a female!

  Job 31:1
  "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl."

  When we wear tight or revealing clothes, men sometimes automatically envision us naked (and sometimes naked with them). It's instinctual (meaning they are designed to be able to appreciate, admire, and remember a nice body when they see it). Ask most men, and they will probably remember the first naked body they saw in their big brother's porno mag. They remember every woman's body they had sex with. I hear it's usually with nice bodies, but it could go either way. These images come up automatically even when the men DO NOT want them to come up. It's like unwanted pop-up ads. Some men, of course, don't mind these images, but some really do mind because they want to keep their thoughts and hearts pure.

  I think about all the times I wore tight or revealing clothes. I used to wear some of the skimpiest things back in the day. Barely there clothes, see-through clothes, short, short clothes. I started to feel bad thinking of all the men I tempted unknowingly (but mostly knowingly). I didn't want to cause them to sin, but I did like the attention. The Bible says that any man that looks at a woman with lust in his heart is guilty of adultery. Not to be hurtful to anyone, but the book said that these men are usually looking with lust at women with attractive bodies, so if you have a nice body, your tight clothes are without a doubt tempting men. For many black men, they lust for women with shapely bottoms. Some men are breast men. But either way, if you have some type of a decent coke bottle shape that you show off, men with character will struggle not to look and envision you naked.

  Matthew 5:28
  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

  

  This post is only for Christians because I know that Christian women should not want to tempt our brethren. I have some Xanga friendships with women who cover up their bodies in clothes kind of like how the Duggar family dresses. At first, I thought it was unnecessary and legalistic how they dressed. But now I see why they do it. But I also feel that one can be fashionable and trendy while being modest. If you don't have a lot of money to totally upgrade your wardrobe, there are different ways you can "modestify" your current wardrobe. If you have a cute shirt that you really like and don't want to give away but it lifts up and shows your midriff, you can wear a sleeveless undershirt to extend the length to go past the top of your pants. If you have some really cute tight pants you don't want to let go of, you can just wear long shirts over it. If you have a cute tank top or sleeveless shirt you like, you can put a light jacket over it. Compared to some of the pictures I used in this blog, I don't dress nearly as modestly, but I just used them to exaggerate my point so you would definitely get it!

  Proverbs 6:25
  Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes,

  I was thinking that even this summer, I will probably have to buy some different swimming suits. I have small shape, but it's still kind of nice, so when I go to the beach or pool, I get looks. So I might want to buy some kind of shorts to wear or a tankini (sleeveless swimming top that covers the stomach). Summertime is no excuse not to be modest. Men are tempted at the beach just as easily as in the classroom or at the mall (even moreso). I believe some pervs might go to the beach just to get a cheap thrill (but they won't get it off of me!)

  Now some women don't want to tempt men, but they do love the attention they get from dressing in tight or revealing clothes. Sometimes when you don't feel beautiful or attractive on the inside, you will try to get the attention from men to prove it to yourself. Imagine being in a world where you are never called beautiful or where you have never had a secret admirer. I couldn't do it! I'd probably wear more make-up or get my hair done just to get a compliment to make sure. Well, some women feel similar to that, but they may wear revealing or tight clothes to get the attention and validation. I guarantee that if you have a nice body, you WILL get attention from men. But it won't be the right kind of attention.

  So although you won't find me in a frock down to my ankles and you won't see me with collared shirts and turtlenecks all my life, you will hopefully never see me in a mini-skirt or short shorts. If I lived in a country with all women, I wouldn't care what I wore. But because I live in a society full of easily-tempted, automatically-visual, sexual-feeling men, I have to do better.

  This one female teacher showed some high school girls the reason why dress codes were so important in schools. She knows how much women LOVE chocolate. So she had all the boys go to a different classroom. She had her student teacher be in the classroom with all the girls. To the side of the room, she had a huge bag of Hershey's Kisses. She told the girls not to look, not to eat, not to talk about, and not to even THINK about the Hershey's Kisses. She said that if they did, the student teacher would give them sentences to right over and over again. The teacher said that when she returned to the classroom, ALL of the girls had to write sentences. They all raised their hands when the teacher asked if they wanted candy and had a hard time not looking at it.

  Likewise with males. How much more desirable are our bodies than Hershey's Kisses? Most heterosexual men will look, and all will want to look even if they don't look. The book did surveys on men of all ages, backgrounds, and religious preferences. The only men they did not include were men outside of America and men who were homosexual. ALL men wanted to look because of their automatic male tendencies, but the men who had some kind of religion wished they didn't want to look. I'm sure most of those girls did not want to write those sentences, but women just love chocolate. Put us in a mall with money to spend, and it would be hard for us not to go buy some shoes! Sex and nice bodies are to men as chocolate and shopping are to women. Women are very tactile (very into touch) like men are very visual.

  Women, if a man touched you on your body or kissed you on your body, how hard would it be for you not to think of sexual things? The same with men. When they see a nice body (clothed or naked), it's just as hard for them to say no to sexual images and feelings as it is for the women who are being touched or kissed. As Christian women, we should feel for men because they are constantly bombarded with images that pop-up in their heads. Let's not add more images to their collection. I really admire that Mormon dude on the new Real World - Brooklyn. He said he had never seen a woman's naked body before and that he wouldn't until marriage. That is so beautiful because after his honeymoon, the only image that will keep replaying in his head -- and sometimes without warning-- will be the body of his wife regardless of how her body looks. That is so beautiful! He'll be less tempted to cheat because all he knows is her and her body. There will be no other women's bodies popping up into his mind at any moment to tempt him and bring back sexual and pleasurable memories. Even if she's not the most experienced in the bedroom, it'll be great because it'll be all he knows.

  So Christian ladies, let's cover up! If you have a nice body, everybody already knows it! You don't have to show it! Give your future husband something to look forward to the night of the wedding.

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