Rage Against Modesty Salesmen...Rape Culture for the Laymen Evangelical

"By saying "avert your eyes lest ye stumble", they taught me to fear the female body and in fear objectify it. I reduced women to nothing but a sexual trap. This is a reality, but it is a LEARNED REALITY and something that should be unlearned NOT ACCOMMODATED."  Micah J. Murray

And now it gets interesting...  Awesome chain of blogs here I want to walk through and talk about some of the comments.  As a person once said "proof that 'rape culture' exists is made evident not in what feminists write but what the comments reply."  So skim through these and we'll use them for references.

• So to keep up this guy posted this really nutty post about women being modest:  http://ryanvisconti.com/whose-body-is-it-anyway/
• Perhaps you've read stuff like this before so it doesn't seem like that big a deal?  Here's what one woman adds that kinda breaks down a few really harmful thoughts implied in the blog. http://www.emilyjoyallison.com/2013/08/on-bodies-as-belongings.html?showComment=1377711590711#c2499235770820413837
• And finally keep this comment in your back pocket.  This is the first writer replying to the second. http://www.emilyjoyallison.com/2013/08/on-bodies-as-belongings.html?showComment=1377733918607#c8340324235058210217

Rape Culture 101:

So the major theme through the comment thread is, "how is this rape culture?"  Much to my dismay, most of the people who know what they're talking about don't explain the phrase.  The term is a short hand for several pervasive thoughts that can be identified in the original blog post and in our culture.  The short hand term "rape culture" does not encapsulate the argument it refers to the writings and understandings a lot of people have put tons of time into.  Let me sum it up.  Rape culture is the idea women a responsibility to not get raped.  i.e. the court cases were people have argued that, "she was asking for it," based on how she was dressed or because she was in a sketchy part of town.  Here's a MAJOR problem. This SHOULD disturb you.  

Some people say well, she's increasing her statistical likeliness.  

Statistically  most rape occurs between people who know each other.  Not the "stranger in the bushes" scenario movies sensationalize.  Further more it's not a 'class thing.' Rich or poor rape and sexual harassment actually transcend social classes. So being on the street at night or born in red-neck-land is not increasing your statistical likeliness of getting raped by much.  At any rate people don't get to pick what class they're born into so how was she "asking for it" by having no control over her statistical placement?

Some people say, "she was dressed provocatively," 

This is also a little slippery.  What's provocative at church isn't at a club.  Further more if she didn't want to have sex, indicated by not saying that she wanted sex, there was no communication of her wanting sex.  The dress code is a terrible indicator because there are so many variables.  What if her shirt looks fine, but then it rained and looks sexy?  What if her skirt rips?  What if she's borrowing a friends clothes and they're too tight?  All of these things have nothing to do with sex or the desire of the woman to have sex.

BOTH of these arguments are often made to blame a woman for why she was raped instead of the rapist who violated another person's free will.  It is the belief that men can't control themselves and women are endangering themselves by being looked at by another person.  In other words, "boys will be boys."  As another blogger put it, "the underlying message of modesty culture is, Women’s bodies are sexual and must be hidden from men, or it will make the men have sex thoughts and that is bad. The message is, If a woman is showing skin/bedroom/evidence of her own embodiment or (gasp!) sexuality, she is being sexy AT men." This is were the male-egocentric comes into why I have a problem with "modesty" as the church calls it.  It really isn't about women.  Women are always sexy 100% of the time and must hide it with their clothes.  They're like the minor characters in a book that only shows a  glimpse of the person to the reader because they're not as important as the main characters.  Like the bad guys in cartoons, we don't usually hear about the villain's family, emotional state, love life, hobbies, or personal feelings of any kind.  The only time they are on screen is when they are talking about, thinking about, or acting with, the main character.  In the same way women's bodies are just sexy and made for men.  They're always sexy and have to be covered and made less visible *for a future husband and the other men who might stumble*.  Men act as main characters in this line of thought which means that they exist with a sex drive, an ability to have sex, sexual preferences, be sexy to women, and have a personal sexual identity but also have bodies that can used their strength for sports, building things, and playing.  But a woman's body is only one thing, sexy for men. I.e. "sexy tennis player--fierce" "sexy pose on a ladder building something--tough girl." Men can be shirtless for fun, the weather, or sports, but it is assumed that women wear bikinis to be sexy for men (not the nasty sand that gets in a one-piece--yuck!).

Don't believe me.  Here's a prominent church leader in Portland telling wives, "not to let themselves go," and stay pretty for their husbands.  But encouraging women to "see yourself through his eyes."  Why?  because he's the multidimensional character that we have built our theology around.  Women play the supporting role in providing someone beautiful.  Because of this Ryan, the first blogger, assumes that women are the property of their multifaceted future husband, completely ignoring the people who stay single.  In this we see how little assumptions that don't seem like a big deal are like angles in geometry that are only hairs away when they start out but are revealed as time goes on.  45 degrees in a one inch square, sounds like "what will your future spouse think of you if you do X," but further down the line that thought is a mile away from anything Christian with Ryan's very twisted sense of spousal ownership.  There is no submission to a person who owns you.  There's no glory in being enslaved, that's why we have Jesus and choices, and all the free will Christianity has been singing about for centuries.

Here's the thing no one is going to like, I don't think we should continue teaching "modesty" or "purity," at all.  I think we should tell youth group kids what marriage could look like.  How monogamy is awesome.  How God is glorified in life long partnership in marriage.  I think kids should be taught about how anti-gospel it is for Christians to engage in the American rape culture we live in.  That women are not always trying to look sexy because they're not just Sexy covered up with clothes or Sexy who needs to put more clothes on.  I think sex should be treated as sacred not scary.  

We've got to bury the 1980's d-day mentality.  The hysteria that started with shunning Disney movies and democrats and ended with purity balls and bad christian pop music.  This is not an example of "not being of this world," this is theological suicide.  Why don't we worry about why our kids don't know that the book of Amos exists, or that most church members can't answer to why we don't follow the rules of Leviticus.

A Faith of Marred Beauty and the Irony of Faith and Justice

I want to talk about how we talk when we talk about Christians.

 No body wants to be a "main-liner" and as such if you're reading this blog and favor yourself a culturally relevant Christian, emergent, millennial, or simply as a thoughtful person, I have a feeling you know what I mean.  If you're reading this as a person part of the blogsphere of Christian thinkers, proudly daring, excitingly new, expressive of your opinions on gender neutral language and inclusive church building, I know you've done this too.  Within the circle that the medium of blogging self selects we are often the violent reactions to a faith of marred beauty.  We are striving to change the traditions and abuses our predecessors of two thousand years have left for us.  We are translating the beauty and mysticism handed down to new nations and generations.  We are challenging our brethren to leave the city of Jerusalem "to go out to all the nations."

But we are reactionary

and this is no way to build a community.

I've been thinking a lot about community.  The craigslist ad. is posted, interviews in progress.  We are about to fill our home.  To stretch out of our introverted tenancies to practice Jesus just a little more.  In that the shocking discovery is the 'me' about to be necessary in 'community.'  The rhythm and words that set the atmosphere, and with that, what do I say?

In a world of binaries and relativism what do I say?  Like the words of Solomon I find myself talking out of both sides of my mouth.  There is a time for weeping, and a time for dancing.  There is a time to question God and a time to be faithful.  There is a time--

Far too often I've observed well meant Christians living like blog posts, in argument and opposition to a facet of injustice in an all or nothing demand.  Like the woman I read about today who had decided to not breastfeed because it furthers the gender labor inequality.  Life with all of its facets is ignored in the pursuit of righting one wrong.

We do this again and again with words trying to find new words for ones that have been wasted in hypocrisy, we hate "Christianese" words like faith, hope, the flesh, and selflessness.  How many times have we heard, "father is a bad word for God because of those with bad fathers."  But I'd argue that 'father' is an imperfect word for anyone from male semen, for any father who's made mistakes, any father who was abusive, any father who was absent, and any father who was awesome but was also human and therefore not God.  Father is a word and words seem to be inherently flawed, full of our perceptions and definitions.

****In all of this we tailspin in to a blogshpere of asterisks, endless explanations, and politically correct forewarning that do nothing but require a higher standard of social manors and petty communication patterns.***

Often I've observed that one's heart is in the right place to receive a new thought when the first words in response to a blog post are not "balancing words."  The "yes, but remember," or "just think about," all keeping the message of the article muted in a sea of social context which competes for our attention.  We live within context and so the addition of "contextual information" is a guise of "me too!"  It is the rejection of healthy confrontation of things that are unjust for the feel good feeling of everyone being the victim.

Within the exchange of reader and writer, the confrontation of new ideas is within the context of the relationship.  The knowledge one has of the writer and the subject matter in its whole is a context for criticism.  Within this is a vibrant conversation of other minds taking the context and argument presented.  Ignoring this truth is a remarkably slippery-slope into the troll-fest of today.  The disbelief in something because of personal experience is circular, and I see it all the time.

"I shouldn't be objectified in my pj's, I'm covered from head to toe in flannel, I am a person."

"You just don't know how men are wired...we have a really hard time..."

Your flu is no worse than anyone else's, and neither is your stubbed toe. The experience of someone else is not nullified by your experienced, that's just your inner narcissist speaking...

So instead of telling women its just the way the world (which men control) works and to get over it.  I kindly suggest we start thinking about how both experiences might be a problem.  Because being objectified and being susceptible to objectifying are both problems, perhaps the same problem (rape culture anyone?)

On an even large note within Christianity, the emergent church must end the battle to be more holy *politically correct* than thou. The war is getting old.

We are, 

kicking and screaming, 

joyfully and tearfully, 

Christian.  

We are a religion with thousands of years of history.  We are a people who speak the language of the people, but are not understood infacto to our language.  We own both the creation of the hospital and all of the crusades. And we're a damn large part of the worlds religion pie chart.  We exist in context, conflict and consecration.  We take up space, leave our mark on the world.  We do a lot of good and a lot of evil.

More than anything I'm again reminded of Kierkegaard's infamous quote, "Faith expects victory in one thing."

 Rather than the balance of many things, the disclaimers of everything, we should be of "one thing."  

May He be the balance, the justice we bring, the mercy we receive, the objectivity we muster.  

May we live in relationship with our God and with others, not above or below but beyond any law or regulation.  

May we see that past the good-bad east-west, right-left, moral-immoral--May we go from glory to glory.

Hiking out of the Dark Valley.

I realized gender in the church was a bum deal.

When people started asking my if I liked being a girl.  I was in a ministry school, which advocated women in leadership, but everything I did seemed to indicate that I wanted to be a boy.  The questions always came out of the blue.  I wasn't trying to 'be a boy.'  I liked being me.  I also liked talking to men because it happened that the people around me interested in theology and capable of debating with out getting their feelings hurt  were (mostly) men.  I didn't mind watching people play video games in exchange for the lighthearted company I wasn't finding with the women I was around.  I liked that I wasn't competing to be pretty and affirming. I didn't feel like I needed to be anyone in the circle of men I became friends with.

Then there were was the gay question.  Realize this was like asking if I were The Satan in my church, but every once in a while it would happen.

"Weren't you and so-and-so-female like 'a thing'"

Um, no, we were like, friends, 

and she wore dresses and I liked pants.

And then there were men.  Men who made it clear it was my fault that they liked me. My fault that they wanted to be with me when "God said they couldn't."  Perhaps the most nerve-wracking thing I've ever heard/read was a facebook chat a stalker had with my friend about me.  Line by line dissecting my person, explaining thoughts that left me numb and scared.  Simpler, was the man who explained that I should take the passengers seat rather than stuff in the back of the compact car myself and 5 other guys were cramming into "so that it wouldn't be awkward."  How was rubbing elbows awkward? Did the 6' 7" guy need the leg room more than me?

Last the woman who spoke with tears in her eyes at our ministry schools "dating week," who asked why anyone would want to marry or be in a relationship in which men and women traded sex for love and intimacy for respect.  I wasn't the only one who thought the "great mystery of marriage" and becoming one flesh ought not resemble pilgrims trading with native Americans.

That was gender, that was the church.

Then there was the internet.

Yep...you didn't expect that turn.  Spend any amount of time with people who use the meem "the internets" and you realize a lot of things.  There are far more bad words than you imagined.  There are way more techy people in the world than the US government would like.  And, lust.  It was weird meeting people (men) who existed in the gap of the sexual-predatory-monster of what Christians expect of men and the friends and companions these people became in my life.  In a weird way I've witnessed every wretched thing an evangelical ever told me about the mind of a man, and "these people" became my best friends.

When faced with a similar dichotomy many Evangelical women simply shrugged and agreed as if to say, "they're horny, scary, monsters, but we love them, that's our lot in life."  The more I asked questions the weirder the responses. "It isn't too bad." "You'll love him any way."  "It's the way they're wired."

 It was all a little spooky.

Ok, no, it scared the pants off of me.

I mean, I obviously wasn't like everyone else, but I wasn't going to marry a rapist....

This is rape culture.  Or at least the significantly deep cultural beliefs about sexuality that feminists call "rape culture."  This is the culture of allowing men to believe in remarkably violent urges in a way that makes women responsible for being on a constant defensive.  Because, I might get raped in the dark on a side walk, turns to, I can't sit in the back of a full car, to "its your fault that I like you," to "this is what I want to do with you."

This, as Christians, is unacceptable.  It denies the existence of God's kingdom--but more so, it partners with sin to further the bondage it has on women. We can all readily agree on this.  

The question we need to be asking is how then should we live? 

In a world when female sexuality is feed into our cultural water like shark chum---- 

how do we paint a picture of a fuller female person and a balanced male person?

In a church without female sexual ethics---- 

can we surrender the false power of purity and sexual moral superiority to admit that lust is a road both sexes walk down?

In a culture written about men, by men, for men,----

 can we react without becoming apart of the reactionary gender war?

Modesty becomes a none issue when we realize the valley of darkness in which we exists.  We need not repair the fences of modesty and legalism when what we desperately need is to hike out of this place.  To leave the binaries and stigma behind.  To become co-hires we must leave behind the battle lines of old.  To move beyond the purity movement is lay our pride and control down to pick up a cross that we left everything for.  We must hike out of this place and begin a sexual ethic that doesn't look like it did in the valley.

Why I am a "feminist"...because Grace is too

God.

I have wrestled with God.  God is irremovable. He's not deconstructable   You can run away, but He's not leaving.

There’s something interesting in the God of Genesis.  God, breaths things into being.  When God speaks things exist.  His speech =fact.  Our reality of language is fundamentally flawed to this principle.  We think we speak things into existence.  We think that a parent who says “clean your room” (good) child then cleans his room, speaks something into existence.  But a parent’s voice does not make the room clean.  You called asking for the obedience but not the being. 

You may call a thing something that it isn't, but that changes nothing of what it is. 

You can say the sky is purple, but it does not change because you speak, it cannot change colors.  Even if you were to reinvent the labels of the colors to our own language where in yourspeak purple =blue, it would not change the color of the sky.  You can speak your mind into agreement, but not your existence to change.  There is no time in between for God.  His will can be perfect truly.  His reaction to our failure can be so perfect that it is indistinguishable to His first option.  He can have perfection.

We demand out constraints of 'carrying out' principle to God.  Foolish enough to think that we must believe something into existence because it is not without our agreement.  God spoke into void and there was light. He did not open his eyes. He did not name what was into words that we can explain as light. 

There was nothing, and then there was. 

(The Opening of the Bible- Scene One.)

For some this is something we can ‘get’, but it does not end.  God keeps speaking.  This book is about a redefined existence, not a redefined dictionary, or a redefined perspective.  A reality spoken.  It is the unity of causality and cause.

And so He makes male and female.

Human and equal. 

Beautiful. Good.

We were made 'very good.'

And then, we effed it up...

And then, we get this curse...

Unto the woman he said,"I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you."

What a strange curse.  So so so taken for granted as immovable fate.  That we, must obey as the good-children. That (gladly) we must punish the woman as man finds himself punished in his work, we find ourselves so endowed to bring God's word into being.  Because while He spoke us into being surely He cannot bring this curse about. 

And this is the causality of sin.  That we are both the curse and the cursed locked in a spiral downward, into entropy we inflict just as we are afflicted.

Isn't this the definition of sin, to rejoice in another's sorrow, to laugh while another mourns, to weep while others rejoice, to take pleasure in the punishment of another? Is that not the definition!

The opposite of sin is not obedience but love. 

To walk with God in the garden, or hide from him in the bushes. 

To rejoice in the unity and love of man and woman and God, or demand distance.

Patriarchy is the distance of God and sin made manifest.  The disbelief in God at His word, leads to disbelief of His words.  His curses are made manifest by His speech and then broken in the grace speech of Christ's life.

The sin is the picture of a woman longing for her husband and cursed to be ruled over.  To live a servant in distance, longing for a lover. It is the festering of sin in the world not just to women.

"It’s about justice for the college student facing expulsion from her school for ever so bravely speaking up about being raped by a fellow student.

It’s about justice for the young woman in Delhi who was brutally raped and murdered last December on her way home from a movie.

It’s about justice for the women who are paid only 77 cents on average for every dollar her male colleagues do for the same exact work.

It’s about justice for those who identify outside of traditional gender norms and orientations to be who they are without fear of bullying, harassment, abuse, or even murder.

It’s about justice for the one-third of servicewomen who have courageously and heroically defended our country, only to be sexually assaulted and harassed by their fellow comrades.

It’s about justice for the men, women, and children who are bought and sold in brick kilns and brothels and farms every day.

It’s about justice for the young men and women stepping out from abusive church communities and seeking true freedom in Christ."

--Danielle (blog: fromtwotoone.com)

It is the reconciliation of Christ and His bride as we are brides to man. That thousands of years lived and died longing and sorrow, thousands of years in brokenhearted distance, from billions of voiceless, the property and enslaved, would come to an end—and could only come to an end as God speaks and we respond to speak,

Christ in me, the hope of glory

To carry out a curse upon another, is to drink the cup ourselves, it is to join with the sin and brokenness of a human short fall and deny the cup of grace, of blood spilled out for us.

Modesty and the Immodest Culture

In looking at modesty I'm beginning to look more and more to our culture.  It seems rather obvious, there would be no concept of "modesty" without culture. Modesty is the tango of who we are on the inside, and who we're perceived as.  It's communication, but it's also assimilation.  It's not just how you want others to see you, it’s how you see them and what you believe they will think of your appearance.  This "how you see them," is an interesting hidden factor.  How do we see the people looking at us? 

 Are you a conservative, to whom I will rebel? A progressive who will respect me for my choices? Are you a man, for which I'm afraid--or ashamed--or causing to "stumble."  I'm not saying any or all of it is okay.  With "perception" we need values and beliefs that then shape what we see into the landscape we navigate.  I believe X about how men should be held accountable, I believe Y about what I should wear in regards to other women, and I believe Z about pushing boundaries.  In a lot of this I see a sliding scale of just how much we want to push certain extremes.  The battles we choose to fight matter just as much as why we fight them.

 Reality and vision.  With a lot of feminism we run into a major divide between what is and what should be.  In part I think this has to do with the feminist movement being the starting place for feminist theory.  When talking about feminism, more than any other movement, justice and advocacy is interchangeable to the metaphysical theory.  I've always found this to be impossibly frustrating.  We need Justice, but part of theory is the “open lab” volatility, the "anything is possible," and thinking openly in general, is meant to be about extremes.  This is where communication lines turn very quickly to battle lines because the movement and the philosophy are so interconnected.  For modesty I wish we could take a step back.  To define theory from movement, because extremes and visions are not the same as the nitty-gritty of pragmatism and policy and they shouldn't have to be.  This where we get a lot of confusion about having the “right” to do something and having the “safety” to use the right.  You may have the right to wear whatever you want.  As a free person with autonomy and "inalienable rights" you should, but in going on vacation to the middle-east it's probably a good idea to cover up.  I don’t think that interacting knowledgeably within your culture means recanting a right to act any other way.

Here I'm brought back to interaction with culture and the inevitable questions of where we draw the line.  There are more examples in life where this kind of line drawing is in practice while in constant change.  Children are raised by parents freely with their own unique values, but in abuse children are protected by the state (we at least attempt this).  The state exerts power, but is often reimagined by the people in revolution or political change when the government no longer does its job or exerts too much power.  This ebb and flow of control over one to the other.  The feminist/individualist and the cultural/communitarian, giving and taking, each bring back the other. 

Norms.  Norms have never ceased to fascinate me.  Norms are so "definite" but always changing.  Norms say a lot about us.  Norms are not what is normal, but what we want to be "normal," and what we want to be normal says volumes about how we see the world.   It sounds a little roundabout but here's the rub, knowing what our intentions and feelings are about “normal” speak to why and how we judge others.  A massive part of our culture is centered on Androcentrism or "male normativity."  That boys are the base line and everything else is an anomaly.  It's an unfortunate facet of our language that "man" is synonymous with "human" and "woman" is man+"wo." 

Man is normal, wo+man is the oddity.  

Note it’s not woman as the norm and man-"wo."  This gets even more evident with sexual temptation when men are taught that only they have sex drives and women are basically sexy warm bodies.  Doing so creates isolation for both sexes.  Both with men being told that they are evil monsters who think terrible things about women and women are never taught to understand about their sex-drive.  In a lot of cases I think more women struggle with the same “lust” that men do but are never taught to label their thoughts as such.  (As to what lust is let’s table that conversation for now.)

I recently had a pastor friend of mine explain how often she and other women pastors had been reprimanded for being too "provocative" while preaching.  One even being told by a congregant, "your hair was so pretty I couldn't hear a word you said."  As you can imagine this was not a very encouraging feedback about a sermon.  Again, I have to point the finger to androcentrisim.  Many men have never had to deal with sexual attraction to their pastors, something women have had to work through for as long as there have been good looking gents in the pulpit.  Finding a "spiritual" leader attractive feels wrong and strange because sex is so shamed within male Christian culture.  Furthermore spirituality is so separated from sexuality the interaction of the two feels like sacrilege.

This is where the modesty question gets interesting.  Deconstructing androcentrisim is the first step to understanding where mutual responsibility lies.  True mutuality is equal responsibility to the culture we participate in.  As people interacting in a world together, there is a give and take to be had.  What is normative (what we want to be normal) and what is self-centric is not mutual.  But beyond that is a healthy admittance that how we dress effects the opinions and the spirituality of others WHILE giving the liberty, rights, and safety back to those who wear the clothes.

This is modesty, and this is only the beginning of the conversation.