Modestly Yours

"The Shame"

Oh hey guys, don’t even worry about how long it’s been since I’ve posted here. I’ve been a little busy adjusting to a new city--  making friends, nesting in the new apartment, complaining about traffic, the usual. But, since moving here, I’ve become more acquainted with a new phenomenon some of my friends have embraced whole-heartedly, and to generally positive results: Internet dating*.

Recently I was chatting with some friends about this apparent epidemic (something like 20% of relationships begin online these days), and whether or not we should just succumb to it. One of my guy friends said something that first made me laugh, but then made me think: “Yea, I should probably just give in and try it out, but it’s just… the shame! I mean, what if someone I know sees me on there?!?”

My roommate and I quickly agreed—what if someone we know saw it? Not only would they see all the embarrassing stuff we put on our profile, but they would know we were desperate enough to turn to a dating site. Add to that the potential hundreds of men who would read our personal details while searching the sites, and it's an exposure level too high for my tastes. The risk of embarrassment inherent in the concept is enough to keep me far away from joining up, even though the ranks of my friends who’ve found love online continue to swell.

So ladies, and gents, the point is this: is this shame a legitimate part of being a modest lady, or is it just fear of the unknown? Are dating sites a useful way to meet and sort through potential mates more quickly, or do they totally kill the element of mystery that surrounds dating?

As of now, I want to believe that a desire for a little privacy, and a traditional courtship is still acceptable. I want that, even in a world where minute romantic details are instantly documented on our social networking sites, and where we're expected to fully and candidly reveal ourselves (complete with aspirations, personality, and taste in music) for anyone with a computer to see. I want a guy who's willing to put in a little more work than a few mouse clicks to get to know me, and I want to take the time to really understand him. Maybe that’s just me being old-fashioned, but I suppose it wouldn’t be the first time.

*I know a lot of you are already married and thus exempt from such absurdities, so feel free to skip this one, unless you want to relive the torturous days of your singledom. I am certain my misadventures will remind you that even if their breath is kind of gross in the morning, being married to your husband/wife is way better than having to date.

Negotiated Infidelity

Have you ever struggled to keep that rascally boyfriend or husband of yours from running off and sleeping with other women?

Well good news, ladies-- CNN knows how you can keep him, and keep him happy to boot! 

In an exaggerated case of "if you love something, let it go," author Holly Hill advocates that in order to keep a man in a long-term relationship, women should open up to the idea of "Negotiated Infidelity," allowing their man to sleep around, but with established boundaries. (In her own relationship, Holly lets her boyfriend of two years have intercourse with other women, but he is forbidden from spending the night or "spooning" with them afterward.)

This is necessary, Hill argues, because men are "hard-wired to betray women," and are thus incapable of long-term monogamy. It's useless to fight this biological imperative, and women should simply adapt to keeping their men "on a leash, [rather] than let it escape through an unseen hole in the back fence." If we would just lighten up and let our men wander off from time to time, she says, we could live in a world free of cheating, where a new, more realistic version of monogamy could thrive.

Now aside from the obvious contradictions embedded in this kind of thinking (talking about freeing the world from infidelity by introducing more of it) this argument is riddled with misandry. Her demeaning comparison of men to dogs who are unable to control themselves is a startlingly bleak portrayal of the sex, only allowing for a few "heroes" who are able to maintain monogamous relationships. Additionally, if she truly believed men were unfairly programmed by nature to stray from monogamous relationships, why does she still refer to it as "betrayal"?

But, how does one form a lasting relationship with these men, if Holly considers them all to be dirty rotten scoundrels?

If you can't beat them, join them! Hill suggests: "Ideally, the woman will want to stray as well." Women should indulge in a little something on the side just like the boys, "because that will generate her man's competitive nature." So, by cheating on him too, I can make him want to cheat on me less?

Ok, ladies, did you get all that? Here's a recap:

To maintain a lasting relationship you must first: 1) find a worthless man you'd like to be involved with; 2) let him know you're totally okay with him cheating on you (as long as he doesn't cuddle with her, of course); and 3) get busy sleeping around yourself to make him jealous. If all goes to plan, this too could be your happily ever after!

I don't know about you guys, but that sounds like an awful lot of work to me, so here's an alternative:

Instead of assuming the worst of our men and trying to follow suit, why don't we form relationships based in mutual trust and admiration? Instead of establishing complex boundaries of what does and doesn't constitute cheating, why can't we hold our men and ourselves to a single standard of respect among the sexes? Instead of demeaning men and calling them dogs, why don't we give them a reason to want to stick around?

I guess it's clear what I think of this argument (malarkey comes to mind), but I'd be interested in what you guys think. Does negotiated infidelity have a place in the world? If both parties agree on the boundaries is it possible to cheat on someone without actually cheating on them? Sound off!

Save the Males!

It's fairly common nowadays to see young girls walking around wearing t-shirts that say things like "Girls Rule the world; Boys just live here" or "Boys are stupid--throw rocks at them!" But, can you imagine the uproar that would ensue if someone made t-shirts with similar sentiments for little boys? What censure would fall on a poor boy brave enough to wear a "Boys rule" shirt? Would rocks actually be thrown at him?

Woman regularly bemoan the double standards that plague our society, but conveniently fail to see the one we've created. In this post-feminist world, where misogyny is considered a crime on par with rape, misandry, or man-hating, is simply the order of the day, reinforced from academia all the way down to the bargain basement of our culture into TV commercials and attitude tees.

Supposedly all this man-hating is just payback for the years we women have been historically oppressed-- Karma balancing things out. Still, I can't shake the feeling that this type of feminism has become little more than the latest societal schoolyard bully, putting everyone else down so she can feel better about herself. Do men really have to be treated like dirtbags for us to be liberated? Do they have to take a turn being oppressed for us to be their true equals?

I don't think so, and neither does Kathleen Parker, a mother of three boys, and author of the book Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care. I read Save the Males earlier this summer and haven't been able to shake it since. She points out the ways men are being marginalized in society, from their dwindling numbers at institutions of higher learning, to their absence from the home, as more and more women are choosing to become single mothers and fathers' reproductive rights are largely ignored.

Whether you agree with it or not, men are clearly becoming a declining presence in modern society, or at least a less-respected one. As Parker articulated, we've gone from the days of Father Knows Best to the bumbling dads of today's sitcoms and commercials who must have even the most basic things explained to them by their wives and kids.

I think this is an issue inherently tied into the Modesty movement: if we want men to respect us again, it falls to reason that we should follow suit and be respectful ourselves.

So here I am ladies, and gentleman: one reformed formerly self-proclaimed man-hater calling a truce. Men, I promise to be nicer and never, ever, ever let my daughters wear "Girls rule" shirts. In return, I request a moratorium on catcalls on the street and a return to opening doors. I promise I'll let you, and even say thanks. What do you say, guys?

Blush Away

I have a little sister. She's sweet, funny, bright, ambitious, clever, and has these incredibly long, lush eyelashes that make me wonder how I missed out on that end of the gene pool. She got into the top choir at school in her freshman year, reads more than anyone I know, and is constantly at work on 2 or 3 novels at a time.

She is also 15, which means she gets embarrassed easily and, as a keen blusher, regularly. She's perfectly confident singing in front of crowds, or having people edit her writing, but if she has to talk to a boy or receives a compliment, her cheeks pink up and suddenly, she's tongue-tied, which of course makes her even more embarrassed.

Naturally, she hates it, and naturally, I think it's adorable. That's not to say I haven't had my fair share of I"m-so-mortified-I-want-to-crawl-into-a-cave-and-disappear-forever moments, but the big sister perspective has given me a more friendly view to embarrassment in general.

This much-maligned attribute of modesty is actually a wonderful part of being a human, especially, I think, a young woman. It's a part of us that may be discouraging at times, but signals, as Wendy mentioned in A Return to Modesty, that something important is happening to us. When we're ashamed, when we blush, it means we're feeling something! We're feeling the need to protect something; our dignity, self-image, virtue, or even our elbows. To me, that's what modesty is about-- having something you believe is worth protecting, and embarrassment may be your best friend on the protection front.

So the next time you're feeling embarrassed, cheer up! It's part of being a person, modest or otherwise. And remember, your big sister, your mom, or I, still think you're great.

Diagnosing Virginity

    If you're one of the guys or girls who haunts the Girls Gone Mild book club on Facebook, you may have already seen the advice Dr. Gail Saltz recently gave to a 25-year-old woman via her column on the Today show site (and you might recognize me. Hi!). This young woman wonders:

"Are some people just not meant to be in relationships? At 25, I am still a virgin, with little experience dating men. It has gotten to the point where I’m self-conscious about my status. Sometimes I worry that men won’t want to date me because I don’t have a lengthy history.

...At times I feel there must be something wrong with me and that I’m incapable of carrying on a relationship. I do have a good group of friends. I’m a little shy and reserved at first, but I then open up to people, and am basically confused as to why I haven’t had the opportunities most have already had at this point in their lives."

    To me it sounds like the only thing 'wrong' with this woman is her sense of modesty, but since I don't have a PhD, let's hear Dr. Saltz' psychological diagnosis:

"...there are people who have extreme difficulty having relationships. These people usually have a developmental disorder like autism or Asperger's, or even a psychiatric issue related to ability to relate to others, like schizoid personality disorder."

    Fortunately for our girl, Dr. Saltz isn't actually suggesting that she has Asperger's syndrome or schizophrenia because she does actually have friends, so the problem must be something else. She suggests shyness or "social phobia" could be the root of her troubles, but then hits on another possibility:

"You make a point of saying you are a virgin... perhaps you had a negative childhood experience with some kind of sexual trauma, so you are inadvertently pushing men away in order not to get sexually involved."

    Maybe my own experience is unusual, but the few girls I've known who were sexually abused as kids turned out, for the most part, to be more promiscuous later in life. So it surprises me that this is the common psychological response to virginity, and I think it's cruel to suggest that someone who chooses abstinence must be "damaged goods."

    The good Dr. finishes her column by saying that "It is not terrible to be a virgin at 25," (oh really? 'Not terrible?' Thanks!)  and suggesting that the young lady should practice talking in front of a mirror, and probably find a good therapist.

[On a side note, I like to imagine Dr. Saltz' internal dialogue going something like this:
    "Oh you're a virgin? And you're how old? Really? Wow. Well, you might have a mental disorder: Schizophrenia? Autism? No? Ok, so you were sexually assaulted then right? Are you sure? I guess you should just go to therapy then. Sorry."]

    Of course the young woman herself may have led Dr. Saltz to this demeaning diagnosis of her "problem" by suggesting that there might be something wrong with her, but I think this is further proof of our society's stigma against virginity (which the comments section of the original article suggests). Why is it no longer socially or psychologically acceptable to be a virgin at 25? Why is it assumed that virgins are mentally or emotionally defective? And at what age does one pass the point of social acceptance as a virgin?