Comments on: Is a Woman’s Value Based On the Shape of Her Body?

By: candytoosweet

candytoosweet — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:33:11 +0000

As long as our culture equates less clothing with sexual availability, men without sexual morals will pester women with sexual advances. It’s not a question of maturity, it’s a question of having morals. Or perhaps having morals is a sign of having maturity.

By: jlp

jlp — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:51:08 +0000

Another thing Christina – our culture encourages men to be sexual predators. As a result females, especially young ones have to do everything they can to protect themselves. Protect yourself every way you can sexually, whether by dress or or by safety measures or by disassociating yourself from sexually aggressive men. It’s an unfortunate (and sinful) part of life.

By: jlp

jlp — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:12:06 +0000

What’s difficult Christina – is that in the western world (Europe and North America) some men feel that if a woman dresses with tight or revealing clothes that she is inviting them to look at her body or that she is willing to have sex with them. If you lived in a tribe around the Amazon river where no one where wears clothes you wouldn’t find any men with that attitude. It’s a cultural thing. And unfortunately in our western culture that’s the attitude. It doesn’t mean the woman who wears tight or revealing clothes wants to draw sexual attention to herself or that she is willing to go to bed with any man who wants her, but that is the perception of some men in our culture. That’s why dressing modestly protects you (partially), because it sends a signal to men that you don’t want sexual attention.

In our society young women are encouraged to wear tight and revealing clothes. Women who do are praised and glorified. But the negative side of this is the unwanted staring, touching and sexual advances that the young women receive as a result of this.

By: faith

faith — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:59:05 +0000

Christina, i hear your pain at the way things are and have experience similar things. this is a very wacked out world over-focused on sexuality or abstaining from it–either way it is wacky and one way women are depersonalized.

while you may dress carefully, the unwanted advances and gazes still come. I get that–that is not your fault. it’s really about the ones being inappropriate… you are not bad because you are pretty.

learn to use your voice… ask God for what to say to the ones who are problematic. develop your own sense of style that is modest and reflects you but you don’t have to be a bag lady. Again ask God for help you. tell yourself that you are not responsible for their behavior and that you are bright, intelligent and talented and God has a purpose for you.

Again, you are not bad or causing the problem because of who you are–the men who are obscene need to take responsibility for their actions.

By: jlp

jlp — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:34:28 +0000

I’m overweight now. But when I was younger I wasn’t and I had a very curvy figure. I was constantly being stared at and being approached sexually by men.

I learned to dress modestly to protect myself. Dressing modestly is a way to tell men that you are off limits sexually. They need to understand that just because you have a curvy figure doesn’t mean you you want to sleep with them, and the only way I’ve found to get that across is to dress modestly. Dressing modest is the way to get across the message “THIS BODY IS OFF LIMITS!”

Of course, dressing modestly won’t stop all staring and sexual advances. But it reduces it so that it makes life easier.

In this world women have to protect themselves every way they can.

By: CHRISTINA

CHRISTINA — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 04:17:11 +0000

HI..EVERYONE HERE HAS SOME REAL GOOD
VIEWS ON THIS SUBJECT..IM A VERY CURVY SHAPED WOMAN
AND I NEED SOME SERIOUS HELP…PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS
HARRASING ME ABOUT THE SHAPE OF MY BODY..FIRST OFF
MEN ARE VERY PHYSICALLY ATTRACTED TO ME AND ALWAYS
STARE AT MY BODY..AND PEOPLE HAVE TOLD ME THAT ITS
MY PROBLEM WHEN THEY DO..BECAUSE OF WHAT IM WEARING.
SO..HERE IN AMERICA..A WOMAN WITH A CURVY SHAPE
CANT WEAR CERTAIN CLOTHS BECAUSE MEN ARENT MATURE
ENOUGH TO HANDLE IT? IVE BEEN TOLD THEY ARE MEN..
ITS MY PROBLEM?AND WOMEN ARE EXTREMELY JEALOUS..
IVE BEEN HARRESSED SO BAD ON THE JOB THAT THESE
TWO WOMEN WERE STARVING THESE BABIES IN MY PRIMARY
CARE AT THIS CHILD CARE..MY FAMILY THINKS ITS
MY PROBLEM..IVE BEEN TO COUNSELING..MY SELF-ESTEEM IS
VERY LOW TO WHERE I DONT WANT MEET NEW PEOPLE OR
MAKE NEW FRIENDS..CAUSE SOMEONE ALWAYS HAS A PROBLEM
EXCEPT MAYBE TWO PEOPLE IN MY LIFE..THIS IS A SAD
WORLD WE LIVE IN IF PEOPLE ARE JUDGED ACCORDING TO
THE SHAPE OF THEIR BODY..IM ALWAYS ASKED DO I SLEEP
AROUND..WHY DO YOU WEAR YOUR CLOTHS SO TIGHT IF YOU
DONT SLEEP AROUND? I NEED TO TALK TO NICE PEOPLE
LIKE YOU…

By: Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:10:20 +0000

Yes, I too thank you for the link to that Quadrant article. While it’s pretty heavy reading it underscores the causes for concern for young women growing up in our overly sexualized culture. For most young women there are no outside points of reference to broaden their understanding of what could otherwise be. That’s extremely saddening and we need to find ways to correct that imbalance.

Society tends to park the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, dealing with the damage done. Not always very effectively. Surely, within the church we at least can offer redemptive strategies that will showcase superior behavioral expectations and alternatives before the event. Let me hasten to add that a great deal needs to be done to encourage young men away from seeing women only as sexual objects. Women are clearly the victims here.

Any movement in this direction would be most encouraging and the article seems to suggest that such movements are not only emerging but gaining momentum. That’s good news. Anything that helps young men and women to resist the extremely unhealthy aspects of sexual expression found to be so rife in our everyday community life are to be applauded.

By: faith

faith — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:20:26 +0000

just a thought. It seems that sexualization of women and oppression in other sphers, (home, work and church) seem to increase together.

i think the way we think about women as objects, or needing male control, or supervision or restriction go together.

i don’t know any data to support this, it is just an observation. it’s all part of the same pernicious package.

Another point… i think when women do not have social and intellectual power, they resort to physical beauty as a form of power. suspectability to the whole sexualization thing… is really about seek some kind of power. i wonder if men and women had equal power if the sexualization of women would subside as well.

By: David

David — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:27:39 +0000

Boonies quote seems odd in the context; it in no way suggests that only Adam would find it please; in the ET (English translation) it simply seems to say that the trees looked nice, as opposed to ugly…both men and women, in my experience, respond to visual beauty. On the other hand, Boonies might consider Gen 2:23, where the visual does not enter into it, but Adam’s joy is about compatibility and family-ness; which is reflected in the two becoming one flesh: that is, one family.

To suggest that Christian men are subjected against their will to some sort of ‘visual’ orientation is madness beyond madness: bringing the world’s de-humanising values into the church is horrible. Men, who think this way: just consider the hurt you might be doing to sisters who don’t happen to conform to the worldly male view of attractive! Trouble is, popular US culture is superficial and populist and hardly provides a basis for Christian behaviour; rather it should attract outspoken criticism on behalf of the marginalised.