I’m a serious prude.
The Bible says God demands modesty. The basic principle is we are fallen, and when our eyes see certain things, our hormones kick in and can lead us astray. In general, men are weaker in this than women, but women are hardly immune to visual stimuli. We dare not trust the messages our hormones feed through the wiring of lust, as the results would find us doing things God condemns quite bluntly.
Indeed, it’s really not even that much a matter of sexual turn-on, but our fundamental flaws are apparent without a libido. In these modern days when the environment is flooded with all manner of chemical pollutants, it is not the least surprising when men lose their libido in their mid-40s. The testosterone still works, and the sexual functions still work, but they become disassociated. For such men, over-exposed female flesh still creates a very strong reaction, still in some ways pleasant, still a problem and distraction for those who would rather not. A prude with broken libido still doesn’t want to see it. The living spirit of a Christian Mystic cries out in sorrow at all sin.
It makes no difference what we theorize about nudity being natural. We are fallen, so a lot of natural things are now all messed up. Perhaps we can say nudity itself is not the issue, but the context. That’s why Scripture says show it in the marital chamber, but never out in public. You can’t simply condition sin away, because the broken nature from the Fall is irreparable on this side of Eternity. To have a flesh body and exist on this plane is to be broken, so all this talk of what’s natural means nothing. Nudity in most contexts is a sin. (TSA’s forced exposure by electronic imagery or by hands is utterly evil.)
The remaining question is: How much is too much? Or, if you will, how little is too little coverage? I can’t speak for you. You’ll have to be self-honest enough to know for yourself. I’m willing to bet I can guess what works for most Americans, and extrapolate it flexibly to all Western Civilization. I’ll toss this out for your consideration.
Imagine a generic human form. Draw a rectangle with vertices at the top of each shoulder, and down even with the knees. Naturally you have to account for variations in human shape, but generally everything inside the rectangle should be covered. Allow a cut out for neck to drop down an inch or two under the little hollow below a man’s Adam’s Apple, and about the same place on a female. Cleavage is way too far. Grant some exceptions for the way fabric moves when you sit down, so that a little thigh is exposed, but not much. I use the knees as a generous safety measure, but the fabric should fall across the center of the knee when standing. I should think it’s obvious we avoid something too form fitting, because some fabric does little more than change the color of the skin. And yes, in a single household you would naturally be more flexible around family. There are reasonable allowances all over the place; it’s not about hard rules but a general desire to be mature and responsible, not throwing down a stumbling block for your fellow believers.
As with all things, this is entirely voluntary, and depends on what you can obtain under the circumstances. If you are adept at making clothes and have time and materials, you have far fewer excuses. The point is, people of clean desire will tend to follow guidelines which have been properly explained.
Still, that imaginary rectangle is most likely to hit the majority of Americans where they live, so to speak. Cover that much and sinful desires, or simple annoyances, are minimized. On either side of me in my neighborhood are young females who probably can’t imagine such limits to self-exposure. Never mind whether they have anything worth flaunting, as it were; I don’t need to see it. I don’t pry into their business, don’t presume to lecture them, I just tend to avoid them when they flaunt it. More than once I’ve physically covered my eyes when I was not able to turn around or look away. I have no idea if they ever saw me do that. Everyone near our house knows I’m a religious fanatic of some sort, even if they don’t know the peculiarities. And I don’t doubt they would laugh at my proposed limits of exposure.
The divine principle of action here recognizes mere human words cannot do miracles. To create a sense of conviction about sin is in the hands of God alone. He chooses to use our words to awaken what He has already placed in the soul of another, but those words create nothing in themselves. People cannot simply decide within themselves to follow Christ, and most certainly can I not decide it for them. Lacking the leverage to honorably enforce such things as an elder on a human level in these times, I’m left with doing what I can to provoke only what already lives in others, whenever God makes it possible for them to be provoked. In the context in which I live, that means keeping a rather low profile, because much more than that simply drives them away. What I offer instead is the loving actions of a good neighbor, one who minds his own business until asked.
It’s not for me to impose my standards on others who haven’t agreed in advance to hear them. The whole business of the gospel is portraying an orientation on the Spirit Realm, and being pushy about my own weaknesses in this realm is not a part of that. But I have no doubt folks who know anything at all about me know I’m a prude.
