Proposing Modesty

Yesterday I wrote about Brio, where you can find all the bad advice offered to Christian teenage girls. Well Christian teenage boys can get just as bad advice from Breakaway.

Unfortunately it doesn't have many beauty or fashion tips, but it does tell you how to go deeper into your relationship with Christ by hiking, how to skate for God, or how to be all manly and christian by giving up soft drinks for a month (no I don't get that).

To the surprise of no-one where Brio tell girls how to look pretty and wait, Breakaway tries to make Christianity the most exciting action packed adventure this side of invading a country (although mutually exclusive those two are not).

But while I found Brio just amusing, and a little sad, I found Breakaway creepy. An Immodest Proposal*:

And what’s with [girls'] clothes? Skimpy tank tops and jeans so low they reveal way too much. And sometimes these are girls in church.

That’s the kind of thing that confuses guys like 18-year-old Mike Newcomb of Butler, Pa. When he sees a girl dressed “sleazy,” the first thing he thinks is that she’s willing to jump into bed with any guy. “I know that might not be true for all girls who dress like this,” he admits, “but girls need to be careful of what they wear. It really does have an effect on what people think about them — even if it’s not true.”

I mean it makes sense, if the magazine for girls says "you are responsible for boy's sexual response" then the magazine for boys would say "girls are responsible for your sexual response".

I guess I find that creepy rather than funny because I think you're much more likely to realise that your body actually belongs to you, than that someone else's body doesn't belong to you. It's easier to fight back than give up power.

* I'm trying to figure out what the relationship was between this article and the original Modest Proposal. I'm thinking the possibiliteis are there's a snarky non-christian sub-editor at Breakaway or someone read the article and thought 'he thinks eating babies is wrong, that must be a comment on abortion', or possibly they just don't know what they're referring to.