What About Men’s Attire?

I received a thoughtful reply to my last blog post, How to Watch TV (part 4). In that post I suggested that popular television programs are influencing our decisions about what is acceptable women’s attire. My reader suggested, based on her teen-aged daughter’s experience, that I might consider writing about men’s attire as well. Her implication was that girls will be just as easily tempted as boys by alluring attire on the opposite sex. Because my reader is of a younger generation than I, I suspect she may be experiencing a societal shift that is worth exploring.

A quick Google search retrieved thousands of mentions of shifting trends in female arousal and expectations regarding sexual relationships. Not all the “research” uses solid scientific methodology, but there is enough data to suggest that something is changing. I am less interested in the measurement of the change than the motivation for the change. I have to wonder if the dramatic sexualization of our society is socializing modern girls differently than previous generations. I know the teen sitcoms my daughter was fascinated with in the 1980’s made it seem as though boys were the main topic of interest to girls her age. My reading of history makes me think that was not always the case.

One reason to think that young girls in ages past didn’t spend much time fantasizing about boys is that they were usually married soon after puberty. As I have written previously, the freedom experienced by our teen-aged society is a recent phenomenon. It was not until the middle of the last century that young people had many years of freedom to explore their sexuality before getting married. While men in western culture were expected to get established in a career before marrying, when they did choose a bride at twenty- or thirty-something, she was likely to be between 14-16 years old. Upper class men, because of a more certain source of income often married younger to women closer to their own age.

We are barely three generations into a period when men and women are expected to finish high school and then learn a trade or go to college before thinking about marriage. This puts pressure on both men and women to find release for the sexual tension that is a normal, God-given condition. Society began telling teens consistently since the free-love Sixties that sex is just part of nature, so they should do what comes naturally. I have said before that I agree completely with Francis Fukuyama’s assertion that the decoupling of sex from procreation in the 1960’s was a watershed moment in human history. If sex doesn’t have to make babies, then women are freed from one of the strongest reasons to wait until a man makes a life-long commitment to her and the child. Sex can be experienced risk-free just for fun. Whoopee!

If sex is just about satisfying animal urges, and if the risk of pregnancy is removed either through birth control or abortion, and finally, if young women are going to spend years in post-pubescent longing, it does seem likely that their traditional, historical attitudes might change. This condition would also explain a shift from the traditional idea that only men were interested in casual sex without commitment. If you can believe Hollywood, women are just as likely to be promiscuous as men. Or put another way, just as likely to initiate the fall into sin.

It might be argued that for all of human history until the twentieth century, virtually all societies have been patriarchal. Men ran things, so men wrote the rules and the history from a decidedly male viewpoint. The Bible certainly reflects that situation, and although the New Testament does establish male headship in families as the Godly norm, Paul in particular makes it clear that in Christ, there are no gender inequalities. None of this precludes the real possibility that young women today might be exhibiting different attitudes toward sex than they had in the past. This situation also parallels the so-called feminization of males. As society is stridently insisting that there is no difference between the sexes, men are sliding into more traditionally feminine behaviors and attitudes while women are becoming more masculine.

I firmly believe that this situation is a clever plot by the enemy of our souls to disrupt the divine order God intended in the beginning. By blurring the lines between genders and even encouraging gender transitions, our enemy has tempted us to think in ways that do not reflect God’s perfect order for society. Family values based on Scriptural principles which were once almost universal in human society are now regarded as old fashioned and unnecessary.

While this may seem purely academic and unimportant to average Christians, it is anything but that. The family structure ordained by God in the Garden of Eden – man, woman, child – is elemental to human existence as creatures made in God’s image. God saw that Adam was not complete alone, so He completed him with Eve. This is emphasized by the declaration that a man and a woman become “one flesh” in marriage. The natural result of the “one flesh” union is children. Without this resulting completion, the human race would eventually cease to exist. “Be fruitful and multiply” was not an optional suggestion; it was mandatory.

The Apostle Paul adds emphasis to the uniqueness of male-female unions in 1 Corinthians 6. He warns the licentious believers that uniting with a prostitute (extra-marital sex) has spiritual implications affecting their relationship with Jesus Christ. This sin, he says, is like no other. I believe he makes this assertion because of the elemental nature of male-female bonding instituted in Genesis. It also distorts the purity of the male/female image bearing quality instituted at creation.

I realize that I have strayed far from the original question of men’s attire. I arrived here because the question of sexual temptation goes both ways. The way Christians present themselves in society, whether male or female, must maintain a standard that is supportive of God’s design. As I wrote at length in “Women’s Attire,” Paul’s instructions to Timothy encouraged “modesty” in women’s attire; the word might well be translated “orderliness.” Societal order is precisely what gets tossed aside when women or men behave in ways that causes temptation. Chaos is what happens when order is ignored. Chaos in God’s system of things is otherwise known as sin.

I will defer to the young mother who suggested men’s attire should be a subject of concern. She may be right that women are just as likely to be tempted by visual stimulation as men. The principle that is most important here (the WHAMM) is that parents must tell their children that society has completely fallen for the enemy’s scheme, and contrary to what they may see or hear, the proper place for sexual expression is always and only in marriage between a man and a woman. Parents might also try to limit their children’s exposure to societal pressure by censoring their media indulgence and providing wholesome, God-honoring means of entertainment.

There I go sounding like an old fuddy-duddy again. Measured by today’s standards, I may even sound like a fool to suggest such things. Then I remember what Paul said about being a fool in the eyes of the world for Christ's sake. I’ll take that.