More on modesty

[lady_kishiria]

miafeliz commented in my last Christian Taliban entry that the modesty movement drives her up a wall. So this link is "A Week In Feminine Dress" from http://lily-maiden.blogspot.com

http://lily-maiden.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

Did you know that quasi-Edwardian clothes are required for salvation, and for keeping boys chaste? Inner burqa, ahoy.

But wait, it gets horribler. Look at the clothes these girls are wearing. At first I didn't think it was odd; they are practicing for a dance recital and those Little House on the Prairie get-ups are their costumes, right?

Wrong! Those are their EVERYDAY CLOTHES.

http://lily-maiden.blogspot.com/2007/05/where-have-i-been-lately.html

This blog is creepy because it's a self-imposed world where males and females are kept separate, females are shoved firmly into gender roles of being pretty and staying at home and doing feminine things like dancing and interacting with nature only as far as taking quiet walks in the rain with a male relative while saying the Rosary. It's worse that they are held responsible for the cleanliness of boys' thoughts, a scenario a friend of mine once called "being your penis's babysitter".

But at least Lily isn't at all cruel. That's my job, but Colleen Hammond has me beat in the mean-spiritedness department:

http://colleenhammond.blogspot.com

Colleen loves to be pious and holy, but she's a right bitch. I try feebly towards being a bitch, but I'm an admitted agnostic, so it's rather pathetic really.

Comments

[dropsofgleam.livejournal.com]

It seems Colleen Hammon deleted her blogspot. =/

And I still think that the Lily Maiden crap not only gives a bad rep to women who *do* choose to either stay at home and/or use long skirts, but MY GOD THE UGLY COSTUMES.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

I think it's just colleenhammond with no hyphen.

[dropsofgleam.livejournal.com]

Okies. *makes a mental note to check it and then go get candy to wash away the bitterness she knows she'll feel upon tthat*

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

This girl sounds like a really good prospect for becoming a nun, if there was an order devoted to pretty pretty habits. Well, she won't tempt good boys into being naughty, but she's going to get the surprise of her life if ever she is molested by rapist because she won't understand that it's about Power rather than Sex. God protect her.

There does not seem to be a blogspot by the name of colleen-hammond, should it have something other than a hyphen maybe?

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

Yup, bad link fixed.

Unlikely that Lily would be assaulted by anyone outside her own family; she seems to never be alone, lives with her folks, and her only friends are other "maidens".

Her parents aren't sending her to college (she says it's "not in God's plan for her"--I got news for you honey, YOU make that kind of plan, not God), but she claims to want to get married and have babies. Since I'd be telling my 20-year-old quasi-employed daughter "Convent or GTFO" I suspect she has mega-controlling helicopter parents. Certainly they take pains to make sure Lily meets no one with a lifestyle or opinions different from theirs, and consequently hers.

[azelmaroark.livejournal.com]

...The top on Day 4 is kinda cute, and I like the scarves...

[shadowcell.livejournal.com]

"being your penis's babysitter"

I wonder how many pornos have started from that phrase.

Really, though, for my own personal discernment, I hope the Modesty movement catches on. That way the wackjob women can clearly label themselves as wackjobs, and I can avoid them, and they can be chaste and pure and alone and spiteful. It works out well for everybody.

[isolani.livejournal.com]

"being your penis's babysitter"

I wonder how many pornos have started from that phrase.

*isolani spurts coffee over monitor*

[la-azteca.livejournal.com]

If only they could stay in their own little world and not intrude in on others.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Modesty survey? MODESTY SURVEY??

Fuck. That. Noise. And dammit, women, quit congratulating yourself for your personal dress sense! What you choose to wear or not to wear does not make you better than someone else! God DAMN, do I want to slap some people.

[cinchntouch.livejournal.com]

I loved this comment so much:

"Bare arms aren't usually a stumbling block. Slit sleeves are - because a guy can mentally continue the slit and take it places it shouldn't go."

Does that mean a thong and pasties are a no-no? LOL

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

I figure by the time they get through with all the nitpicking the only truly modest clothing would be a full-length, long-sleeved burlap sack.

[cinchntouch.livejournal.com]

Excuse me, a burlap sack without slits, and be careful of the shoes.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

You know, if I spent that much time worrying about the modesty of each inch of my clothing I would never make it out of the house to work. I suppose that's part of the point, actually.
But damn, all this talk of females presenting "stumbling blocks" to men-- to borrow phrasing from the Muslims, "Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and be modest". Sheesh.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure that's the point.

The blog "Taliban Rising" in an earlier post ends every entry with the words "Fight the inner burqa!" This is the inner burqa she means.

[cinchntouch.livejournal.com]

You know though, these are all Catholic girls, right? And they don't want to presnet stumbling blocks to men by dressing inmodestly, right? Here is my thought, look how modestly dressed altar boys are and they've been nothing but trouble.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of Xander's words, "I'm a teenage guy. Linoleum makes me think of sex." Or the Ferengi in the first season of Next Gen-- "They clothe their females! Inviting others to unclothe them! Disgusting!"

At some point, they have to figure that it's not outside stimuli forcing them to think this way, right? Right?

Yeah, no.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

http://colleenhammond.blogspot.com/2008/11/having-second-life-second-wife-proves.html

And she takes aim at MMO's. got news for her. "Second Life" isn't an MMO. Not even close.

[cinchntouch.livejournal.com]

The top picture looks like a chorus line of dweebs. In a strange sort of way I feel sorry for her. I can't imagine what it was like for her growing up.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure it's a great life growing up. She was homeschooled, so there was no fear of being bullied at recess, or faced with kids who didn't like her, none of that. She was always surrounded with home and family and people from church who were exactly like her.

Now that she's an adult, what has she got to worry about? Nothing, not a care in the world. As long as she doesn't start questioning, she'll be able to live in her pretty princess happyland forever.

The conservative homeschool world is starting to acknowledge, though, an very un-happyland phenomena of these kids, usually females of course, growing up and *never leaving home* because they never meet members of the opposite sex, so they don't get married, and in the case of the girls they don't work outside the home, so they hit middle age having spent their lives being "maidens" waiting for some husband who of course will never come.

If I had my way, I'd have her enlist in the Army as a chaplain's assistant so she'd be forced to see that there is a world outside this experiment in re-creating the movie "The Village".

[cinchntouch.livejournal.com]

As Captain Kirk would say, a gilded cage is still a cage. I think it is damned irresponsible for parents to raise children who are incapable of being self sufficient. I agree with your comment about having her join the army.

What is so terrible about this is that Jesus was very engaged with the world. I should think Mary and Joe would have sent him to public school.

[miafeliz.livejournal.com]

With Hebrew School at the right age.

[cinchntouch.livejournal.com]

But would they have sent him to a Jesuit college?

[miafeliz.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, you know those Jesuits, they might be too liberal for the divine boy.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

Oh come now, haven't you kids heard the joke?

A Franciscan and a Dominican are fighting insanely over which order God loves the most. Finally they write a letter to the Lord Himself. Quickly they receive a response on expensive bond paper that reads: My children: Know that I love you both equally. Signed Jesus Christ, SJ.

[miafeliz.livejournal.com]

Yes... I was going to try to retell it, becuase I just heard it recently though it was a bit different, but in the end it was signed God, OP.

[prushrush.livejournal.com]

This all strikes me as being very sad.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

All in your neck of the woods, too.

[prushrush.livejournal.com]

Somehow that doesn't surprise me :(

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

Diocese of Joliet.

[miafeliz.livejournal.com]

Oh man... I've actually seen both those blogs. I discovered them after someone mentioned them on a Catholic writer's list I sporadically read, so being the curious gal that I am, I had to check them out. It was amusing in a way-- I agree that Colleen Hammond's blog comes across as holier than thou, I'm a better kind of Catholic than the rest of you, tripe.

I feel sorry for Clare at Lilymaiden. Her life is so narrowly focused and the real world isn't puppy dogs, angels and roses all the time. It can be ugly, nasty and cruel, but it can also be wonderful, rewarding and fulfilling if you get a taste of it. She needs to know that there might not always be someone to take care of her, and what's she gonna do if she has no education, 10 kids and a husband who leaves her for a not-so-modest woman?

[kwokj.livejournal.com]

haha... reminds me of back in my high school years, before the age of the blog, I asked my parents if it would be okay if I put up a personal webpage. My mother called that immodest.

[die-uberfrau.livejournal.com]

I looked at both of those sites just now.

I don't think wearing long skirts and homeschooling is bad in and of itself, I have to say.

I wear skirts most of the time, and yeah, I am a hausfrau. However, I don't think I'm morally superior to others for either of those reasons. The skirts are more comfortable (I'd wear skirts if I was a guy, too) and I will wear "immodest" tank tops with them, and I would never wear one of those fug bonnets on my head. I'm home because I'm on Disability, but I try to make the most of my time.

I was homeschooled for part of high school because I was seriously bullied and I was already socially inept, homeschooling didn't make that better or worse. I have met homeschooled kids like my ex "Fundie Dan" who basically had no lives outside their church and family and when they were introduced to the real world, suffered for it. That does not mean all homeschooling is always bad, I think there is a way to do it without permanently screwing up your kids but obviously fundie nutjobs beget more fundie nutjobs.

And that's ultimately what is wrong with these sites: fundie nutjobs. If people think a clothing choice or keeping their kids' minds "free from outside 'worldly' influence" makes them morally superior, I call fundie nutjob.

[marphilly.livejournal.com]

Oh, there was a bunch like this demonstrating in front of Independence Hall last 4th of July. It's the height of tourist season in Philly during the 4th so we get all sorts. It was kind of funny because they were in close proximity to some Mumia Abu-Jamal supporters. Little House costumes next to dreadlocks. It was quite a sight.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

What were they protesting?

[marphilly.livejournal.com]

Nothing in particular. They had some signs up about religion and current events but I didn't talk to them to get any in-depth info. I think they were just trying to get attention and maybe recruit members.

[isolani.livejournal.com]

Shame, pretty girl too. Why am I not surprised she's homeschooled?

[shadowcell.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, if they are ever allowed to leave the house, their sheltered and ignorant ways mean you can hit their unsuspecting brains with some awesome jokes and pickup lines.

"Hey, wanna feel the Holy Spirit in you?"