We’re taking a brief trip outside the manosphere today to take a look at a little posting I found on Jesus-is-savior.com – which, as far as I can tell, is not a joke site — on the evils of women wearing pants.
No need to dilly dally around with jokes; let’s just get right into it:
One of the most controversial subjects in America’s churches today is pants on women; but there is NO controversy if you believe the Bible. 1st Timothy 2:9 clearly instructs women to dress MODESTLY, i.e., of good behavior. A woman’s clothing says MUCH about her character. I guarantee you that women who approve of abortion (i.e., murder) also see no problem with women wearing pants.
Except, one presumes, while they are getting these abortions.
At this point the author, one David J. Stewart, quotes disapprovingly from a song by rapper Chingy, also on the subject of pants, specifically jeans. I won’t bother to quote all of the lyrics; you can get the gist of Chingy’s thesis from this brief excerpt:
Damn Girl
How’d you get all that in
Dem Jeans
Dem Jeans
Here’s the video, if you wish to double-check this transcription.
Stewart continues:
Only a rebellious woman, who deliberately disobeys the Word of God, would wear pants. … Pants on women are adulterous in nature, and cause men to lust and sin. Jesus made this clear in Matthew 5:28, “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Women who wear pants deliberately cause men to lust, and commit the sin of adultery. …
The average person today scoffs at the idea that Rock-n-Roll, Satanism, and immoral sex go hand-in-hand, but they certainly do. When Rock-n-Roll came to America, so did pants on women become mainstream. Naturally, feminism, witchcraft, abortion, and homosexuality came as well. Rock-n-Roll is straight from the pits of Hell. ALL rock-n-roll women wear pants.
Ah, but it turns out we haven’t really wandered too far from the manosphere after all – and not just because of the mention of feminism. No, what strikes me about Stewart’s argument – aside from the fact that it is completely batshit – is that it is not really very different than the arguments advanced by the critics of the Slutwalks: that the “immodest” dress of women causes men to “lust and sin.”
One of the most common complaints I’ve seen in the writings of the antifeminist slutwalk critics is that women want to “do what they want to, and dress how they want to, without facing any consequences,” as if women who dress in ways these men find arousing have in fact committed some sort of sin that requires punishment from, if not God himself, then from the rapists of the world.
The slutwalk critics invariably insist they’re simply passing along useful advice to women – don’t dress slutty or you’ll get raped – but the talk of “consequences” (and the choice of that word) shows pretty clearly that the real impetus behind the strangely vehement attacks on the slutwalks is the desire to punish women for dressing, and more importantly, doing “what they want.”
Say what you will about the folks behind Jesus-is-Savior.com, but at least their position on the evils of pants is consistent with their overall fundamentalist ideology. The slutwalk critics don’t really have an excuse.
EDITED TO ADD: And, conveniently enough, here’s some douchebag on Reddit making this exact slut-shaming “argument.” Pro-tip: I don’t think “responsibility” means quite what you think it means, dude.
Thanls, ShitRedditSAys, for pointing me to this. And to MFingPterodactyl for the sensible response.
“Persepolis” (autobiographical animated movie about a girl growing up in Iran) deals with the double standard a few times, and the way it’s applied even in a society where very loose, all-covering clothes are the norm. In one scene she’s late for something and gets pestered by the morality police, who try and stop her from running (because of the way her butt looks while she’s doing it), in another one she’s at a lecture on the school rules and points out how crazy it is that they’re expected to completely cover themselves, but the guys regularly wear pants so tight you can clearly see their batch-lumps.
It’s a really good movie. It even has “Eye of the Tiger” with a French accent in it, too.
If anything, pants would be more sinful on men, since they have that extra appendage that sometimes makes itself known through a pair of denim trousers.
Also the reason I still don’t understand exactly why male, not female, horse riders don’t ride side saddle…
To get back to the point, I definitely find watching hot young men playing soccer –shirts vs. skins? If you insist! — to be a stumbling block. Mee-yow!
…and after I stumble on them I clutch my ankle, roll around and whine for the ref just like a Christian fundie. 🙂
Re: Tight pants on women.
The more sinful, the better >:D.
Re: safewords
I once caused my dentist some minor alarm when she was drilling on an offending tooth and instructed me to raise my hand when said drilling got too close to the sensitive bits. As it turned out, the practice of observing some uncomfortable maneuver being done to oneself and indicating the point at which it became unacceptably uncomfortable or structurally compromising was a very familiar concept to me. So when I thought there was a fair chance that I might end up flinching, I completely forgot the hand-raising bit and calmly but audibly tapped out on the armrest of the chair.
She thought I was beating on the chair in panic. Once she got all the things out of my mouth, I explained about the ingrained habit involved and made a mental note to inform all future inflictors of pain about this premium firebee feature before they discovered it for themselves.
Bagelsan: re saddles.
More to the point, it’s saddles vs. bareback.
The saddle ‘cushions’ the horse’s backbone (it also distributes the rider’s weight more equally across the horses back) from the crotch of the rider.
Sidesaddles for womenare anachronistic now-and really only applied to women of more elite classes–and probably had as much to do with mandated attire and implications of a woman with her legs spread mounted on anything than relative genital sensitivity!
Yeah, that’d be way more effective! Katz, we should market this idea to Christian bookstores.
Pecunium: I understand that “stumbling block” means “something that induces lust”, but is “to stumble” to feel lust, or to do something about it, like masturbating? I’m not in on fundie culture – never have been, being an ex-Catholic – but my sense is more the latter. Especially since sexual thoughts and feelings are often involuntary, especially in hormonal times like adolescence, it seems unnecessarily cruel to tell kids that a passing lustful thought is a sin. Even for Pentacostalists.
Honestly, if we told teens “Just masturbate! Go to town! When you feel like you’re ready to have sex with another kid your own age, here are some condoms! Use them!” instead of “You SLUTTY SLUT SLUT with your tank tops/You poor mindless animalistic horndog, you can’t be expected not to rape a girl who wears tops with writing on them! – don’t have sex ever and don’t even think about jerking off” I think we’d live in a better world.
I have to admit to some morbid curiosity about what Antz thinks a safeword is and how he thinks it works.
Okay, so basically, anything that inspires a man’s lust makes a woman a slut. If he is enraptured by her singing, then singing is immodest. If he is turned on by her intelligence, intelligence is immodest. If he finds her modesty arousing, then modesty is immodest.
I have an idea: If a woman wants to be truly modest, she should take steps to inspire visceral disgust that would make sexual thoughts impossible. Loud belching? Vomit-scented perfume? Curling mole hair? I think any of those would work.
Amused: I have been told by several men (back in the days when I still contemplated relationships w/men) that it was a severe turnoff that I seemed to know more about sf than they did (yep, this was in the 70s sf con culture). It was lovely–I could hold forth at will about all my favorite sf authors and hangout with the guys and dress like a schlub and never have to worry about sexual harassment.
hey religious extremists,
lady gaga called. She wants you to know that she doesn’t ever wear pants.
dammit, now I want anchovies and feta
Kristin: To feel lust is the stumble in this case. The “sanctified” and the holy are supposed to be free of all desire that is not expressed in the proper way, and at the proper time.
Safewords aren’t about fear, they’re about freedom from fear. I know I can say something to get my partner to stop any time, so I don’t have to be worried that he won’t.
Katz: I’ve never seen that Izzard bit! Thanks for posting it, he’s always good for a giggle. “I want an original sin!”
I think ilthiliana’s got the key right there.
I’m pretty sure I’ve incited lust in a dress before. What is so special about pants?
@Pecunium: wow, talk about setting yourself up for failure. No wonder fundamentalists are so anti-sex – they all feel super guilty about their random sexual thoughts and are projecting like hell onto the rest of us.
I know, I’ve scratched my head over that one, too, and from what I can gather from the opinion pieces I’ve read, the reason is that pants show the separation of legs and draw immediate attention to the crotch area.
Of course the same could be said about men wearing pants, * but given that we women have no sexual urges (or at least not to the same magnitude that men have sexual urges) and are not visually stimulated as men are, the issue of women being driven to lust over men wearing pants is a non-issue.
* Note that this is not necessarily the opinion of the author
I know, and I was a little pressed for time when I wrote my response, but what I was trying to emphasize (in as few words as possible) was that the “modesty” that Paul spoke of in his letters at that time wasn’t centred around women’s sexuality and wearing of lust-inspiring apparel but, rather, ostentatiousness. I think that one of the points that Paul was trying to drive home was that the quality of one’s “Sunday Best” doesn’t speak to the quality (or godliness) of one’s character, so better that one spends one’s time doing good works than preparing one’s outward display of self.
I think sometimes that our Western culture’s obsession with and shame about sexuality makes its way into our interpretation of “modesty”.
And then, of course, there is this interpretation:
Only Sluts Get Raped! (1st Timothy 2:9)
Kathleen: Yay, another Izzard fan! It’s from Dressed to Kill, right before the “Cake or Death?” bit.
Katz: Are there different video recordings? Because I’ve heard lots of variations on the lead up to ‘cake or death,’ but never that particular one. Izzard fans are gonna be like Grateful Dead fans soon: ‘No way, man, the lead up with the original sins way TOTALLY better than the little red cookbook bit!’
I’m honestly surprised how much mileage one can get from Eddie Izzard jokes. In the past two weeks, I’ve used ‘covered in BEEEEES!!’ among fans of Lauri R King’s Russell-Holmes books (totally awesome books in which a retired Sherlock Holmes lives in Sussex and keeps bees) and a member of our gaming group asked ‘Do we have a flag?’ about their post apocalyptic group of pagans, SCAdians and vagabounds.