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Subject: modesty training Author: spelvin [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 10:14:56 11/03/25 Mon Author Host/IP: 72.78.201.247 In reply to: tim99 's message, "Re: The Double Standard" on 06:26:01 11/03/25 Mon tim99’s post reminded me of a Websearch on modesty training which I made a few years ago. I made two major discoveries. Discovery number one: ----Modesty training is mainly a religious doctrine. Psychology research has nothig to do with it. I expected to find controlled studies, published in technical journals, on the benefits of modesty training and instructions on how it should be done. Rather, nearly every site I could find was a religious site. Discovery number two: ----It goes without saying that modesty training is important for girls. However, we must add that modesty training is also important for boys. I found 8 sites which discussed modesty training for both boys and girls. 12 sites discussed modesty training for girls only. The double standard was sometimes defended with a quote from I Timothy 2: 9: “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel…” One might think that the mother of three boys and one girl would have three times as much to say about the former than the latter. But one mother (dead link now) didn’t. Except for one sentence, her entire page dealt with latter, except for one sentence, which read: “(I should note here that we are also teaching our boys to be modest in how they dress and act as well.)” Notice the parentheses. 2 sites discussed modesty training for boys only. Although one site was already a dead link, I was able to glean the title, which I found to be quite revealing: “3 Things I'm Teaching My Boys About Modesty....because it's not all about the women only when it comes to modesty!” The other page was entitled “Modesty is for boys too.” Here’s the link: https://www.walkinginhighcotton.net/2014/08/modesty-is-for-boys-too/?epik=dj0yJnU9WmJBY3FQTDB1eGlYUHpKY1BrdS1UekxCMUFCY3hGbWkmcD0wJm49a1ctY3hlaFBBTUw1WjQ1ZFZ3S1QwdyZ0PUFBQUFBR0FRcEFv Until this point, all of the sites mentioned have been mainline Christian sites. I also found a Catholic site: I was interested in the writer’s informal thought experiment: “With teens, I use the ads that we are flooded with that show women with practically nothing on, and I ask them if the effect would be the same if the face of the woman of the advertisement was that of their mother. Obviously, the effect is not the same, because their mother is a person they know and love. In this situation, or in others that they themselves have experienced of an intrusion into their privacy, I invite them to tell me what their immediate reaction was. They all answer me without exception that they felt a sense of shame.” There was no mention of immodesty in men or boys. Here’s the link: https://aleteia.org/2018/10/06/how-to-teach-human-dignity-and-modesty-to-kids-from-an-early-age/ There were also found a few Mormon sites. It seems that the question is not clearly answered in the Mormon scriptures. In one Website, in which opinions from many Mormon parents are collected, there was a variety of opinions. Some of those parents decried the double standard: https://www.timesandseasons.org/harchive/2005/04/teaching-modesty-to-children/ The author of another Mormon site (Allred n. d.), however, did not seem to set the exact same standard for both genders: “Girls might not recognize that the physical display they create when they dress immodestly affects boys more than it does them. Help children, especially daughters, understand that attracting someone of the opposite sex solely by physical means does not create a lasting relationship.” Here’s the link on that one: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2009/07/modesty-a-timeless-principle-for-all/teaching-modesty-to-our-children?lang=eng Other Mormon adults regard girl modesty as a foregone assumption. In a Webpage entitled Teaching Modesty to Children (Madison 2020), one would not expect to find any semblance of, or even reaction to, a double standard. Yet a person quoted on the page (Evans 2020) wrote: “For me, modesty is an attitude that reflects healthy body image. Cultivating this attitude can improve self-esteem in both girls and boys. Yes, boys!” https://www.cleomadison.com/teaching-modesty-to-children/ The Webpage ended with the words, “If you’re a mom, how did you teach modesty to your daughters? Comment below with your answer.” I was able to find one secular Website. It was a question-and-answer site, now with a dead link, which a parent of a toddler asked about the subject. In one of the answers, we again see modesty for girls treated as a unspoken assumption: “I believe it is very important to teach about modesty. Not only for a girl but also boys.” [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> [> [> Subject: Re: modesty training Author: tim99 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 05:08:21 11/04/25 Tue Author Host/IP: 172.83.159.140 Of course, Spelvin , I agree with your point that modesty is important for boys, but like many things, although it's said to be important online, reality is different. The reality is that most people don't care about boys' modesty , or rather, they think it's less important than girls' modesty . Sacrificing boys' modesty to protect girls is acceptable. When I was in fourth grade, our classroom moved to a new floor. The girls on that floor said there weren't many stalls in the girls' restroom. Some girls told the teacher that there were sometimes long lines during breaks, and they often couldn't use the restroom during breaks because of the lines. The teacher didn't hesitate to tell the girls that if they really needed to pee but couldn't go into the girls' restroom, they could use the boys' restroom. She also warned us boys that if a girl had to use a boys' stall, we boys must not try to peek in any way. If any girl reported a boy peeping while she was using the restroom, she would immediately call the boy's parents because this wasn't an academic issue, but a serious moral one. However, the teacher never told the girls not to look at boys' private parts when they entered the boys' restroom. As far as I know, girls who have the opportunity to use the men's restroom will glance at the exposed genitals of the boys urinating in the urinals before going to a stall. Some boys don't think it's a big deal, while others have spoken to teachers about this, but the teachers think they're being ungentlemanly by not wanting girls to use the boy's restroom only for a moment and have scolded them. I think this shows the significant difference in privacy between boys and girls at that time. This happened more than a decade ago, and perhaps now boys' modesty is indeed valued more. I'm just sharing my experience and perspective from back then. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]