Men should wear shirts at the beach

[blackribbon]

I can't say that I recall a reaction like that, no.

But if someone has lust problems... it's their problem to deal with. This idea that the problem somehow goes away if they can get everyone else to put enough clothes on is an illusion (as demonstrated with continuing lust problems in societies with an Islamic modesty code).

The premise of this concept ... that a man should wear a shirt on the beach, is based on the mistaken assumption that women have the same problems when we look at men in various states of dress as men have when they see women. It isn't that one is more righteous ... but rather we are wired differently. Women have different lust problems and they usually are not of a sexual nature.

 

[Mountainmanbob]

But if someone has lust problems... it's their problem to deal with. ).

Most all will deal with lust from time to time.

Remember we are Saints but, not too saintly yet -- sanctification process -- a heck of a ride !

Use the 2 second rule -- staring at that body for more than 2 seconds --

while thinking wrong thoughts = SIN


M-Bob

 

[blackribbon]

Women are much more likely to stare at other women and wish they had something that they have (looks, figure, youth, or money)....

I say staring for any amount of time while thinking wrong thought is sin. It isn't time dependent.

 

[Paidiske]

In talking this over with my husband, I think I've clarified a distinction in my mind. To my way of thinking, there's a difference between seeing someone attractive who is scantily clad, noticing and even appreciating their physical beauty, and still going on with my life with no desire whatsoever to actually act on any of that; and seeing that same person and wanting (whether I can or will, for whatever reason, act on that desire) to act on it in some way.

To my mind the second thing is a problem and the first is just being a healthy human being. But the answer to that want is not in insisting that other people hide their bodies in case you might desire them, but learning to let go of the want. And, from what I can tell, usually the want is not really driven by physicality but by - often deep and unacknowledged - emotional needs; and so it takes a good deal of personal work and maturity to get to that point (and I don't think the difference between the genders is so great here, actually). But in the meantime, demanding that everyone else cover up is unreasonable.

 

[blackribbon]

In talking this over with my husband, I think I've clarified a distinction in my mind. To my way of thinking, there's a difference between seeing someone attractive who is scantily clad, noticing and even appreciating their physical beauty, and still going on with my life with no desire whatsoever to actually act on any of that; and seeing that same person and wanting (whether I can or will, for whatever reason, act on that desire) to act on it in some way.

To my mind the second thing is a problem and the first is just being a healthy human being. But the answer to that want is not in insisting that other people hide their bodies in case you might desire them, but learning to let go of the want. And, from what I can tell, usually the want is not really driven by physicality but by - often deep and unacknowledged - emotional needs; and so it takes a good deal of personal work and maturity to get to that point (and I don't think the difference between the genders is so great here, actually). But in the meantime, demanding that everyone else cover up is unreasonable.

Actually, men are naturally turned on sexually by visual images. And it would be wrong of women to dress in various states of undress just because they aren't bothered by visual images. It is the responsibility of both sexes to interact in ways that don't cause difficulties to both their own sex and that of others.

 

[Paidiske]

People are not images, and we all need to learn to treat one another as people first.

I'm not advocating that we should deliberately cause difficulties. I'm advocating that we properly identify and deal with the difficulties. And in this case it seems much of the difficulty is in reducing a person to an object of lust.

 

[blackribbon]

People are not images, and we all need to learn to treat one another as people first.

I'm not advocating that we should deliberately cause difficulties. I'm advocating that we properly identify and deal with the difficulties. And in this case it seems much of the difficulty is in reducing a person to an object of lust.

I don't think that you get that the way that men respond is biological and God made. It is what they do with it that makes it sinful...and women can contribute to men's struggling with this sin by disregarding that this is normal and natural. This is no different than leaving candy out on the table in the house of someone who is desperately trying to lose weight for health reasons....it is cruel behavior.

 

[Paidiske]

I don't really know what you mean. It's biological and God made for men to notice an attractive woman's charms. It's neither of those things for noticing to tip over into wrongful desire.

It's not something that's a big deal to me either way - I'm not prone to putting a lot of skin on display - but I think allowing our culture to demonise young women's self-presentation is very dangerous.

 

[blackribbon]

I don't really know what you mean. It's biological and God made for men to notice an attractive woman's charms. It's neither of those things for noticing to tip over into wrongful desire.

It's not something that's a big deal to me either way - I'm not prone to putting a lot of skin on display - but I think allowing our culture to demonise young women's self-presentation is very dangerous.

Ask you husband if I am wrong....

 

[Paidiske]

My husband and I have been discussing this thread as it unfolded. He says that pretty much most men will notice attractiveness, but how they respond to it is not innate but a combination of personality and upbringing and social pressure and so on. (Or, what I might paraphrase as "character.")

 

[blackribbon]

My husband and I have been discussing this thread as it unfolded. He says that pretty much most men will notice attractiveness, but how they respond to it is not innate but a combination of personality and upbringing and social pressure and so on. (Or, what I might paraphrase as "character.")

He is saying that when a 18 year old boy/man sees an attractive girl, he sees her character or as a work of art and doesn't have a sexual response to it initially .... before he puts his mind in check?

 

[Paidiske]

He's gone to bed, so I can't clarify now. But if I've understood him correctly, it's not that the young man won't have a sexual response*, but that it's how you deal with that, that's the issue. A sexual response isn't, in and of itself, anything. It's whether you can put that aside in how you treat someone, or whether you want to reduce the other person in your own mind to being about your own satisfaction.

Because we're not arguing here, I hope, that what we're aiming for is repressed sexuality? But rather we should be aiming for appropriate boundaries.

*Here understood as basic autonomic processes not under our conscious control.

 

[blackribbon]

He's gone to bed, so I can't clarify now. But if I've understood him correctly, it's not that the young man won't have a sexual response*, but that it's how you deal with that, that's the issue. A sexual response isn't, in and of itself, anything. It's whether you can put that aside in how you treat someone, or whether you want to reduce the other person in your own mind to being about your own satisfaction.

Because we're not arguing here, I hope, that what we're aiming for is repressed sexuality? But rather we should be aiming for appropriate boundaries.

*Here understood as basic autonomic processes not under our conscious control.

I call this debating and discussing...because there is no anger here...

But what I am saying is that women don't have that same initial sexual response to a man without his shirt or other various states of dress...only if we are emotionally connect to them like our husbands....but not to some random nice looking man. The goal is to help other people from sinning as a result of our choices and actions...so a man going shirtless is not the same as a woman going shirtless or in a very revealing shirt...

 

[Paidiske]

I disagree. Men and women are both capable of strong sexual responses to random good-looking people.

And here's the thing: I don't believe that what I wear either causes someone else to sin, or prevents it. The sin is in his (or her) thoughts; and can be brought out as much by a glimpse of ankle beneath a burkah as by a wardrobe malfunction with a micro-bikini. But what they saw didn't cause the sin, it just revealed it.

And the reason I'm making such an issue of this is because I am angry about this issue, because it's always the women who get blamed, including for their own rapes; and this is a gross injustice.