Funnily enough, I had been thinking about this topic again prior to the whole “virgin, no debt, no tattoos” incident. Imagine if that also including being “modest” in there. A bigger storm would’ve been had.

Have had a couple posts on modesty before:

Conceptually, I’ve now leaned toward descriptors as a good way to explain things to women (and men for that matter):

Don’t:

  • Don’t dress for attention
  • Don’t dress to be ‘sexy’

Do:

  • Do dress to be classy
  • Do dress to be elegant
  • Do dress to be feminine

Most people can look at an outfit and tell whether a person is dressing for attention or to be sexy. Also, most people can see if someone is wearing something elegant, classy, and feminine. The “don’ts” tend to be more selfish in nature, while the “dos” show you can handle yourself with poise and grace.

There is a time and place for attention and sexy: for your spouse and the marital bed.

Same goes for men, as men can be immodest in the way they dress (or don’t dress) too.

The irony is that usually when women or men dress for attention/sexy they will attract the lowest common denominator men and women who are only looking for sex while if you dress to be classy, elegant, and feminine you will attract men and women who admire you for standing out in a good way.

Why is dressing feminine included in the “Do” section?

For most cultures, that tends to be things that men don’t wear such as dresses and skirts. For these it’s pretty obvious when someone is trying to dress for attention or sexier as usually the bottoms of the skirt/dresses are rising and the tops of blouses/dresses are lowering.

That’s why it tends to be thrown in the “do” section as you can tell when someone is trying to be classy with feminine clothing as opposed to attention. Things like jeans which are more neutral clothing (or at least were invented as male style) tend to have more issues because women have many more curves than men that are more accentuated in male or neutral style clothing.

For the women that read this, Hearth(ie) has a bunch of stuff on picking good styles and colors:

https://hearthroses.wordpress.com/style-and-color-prescriptions/