I just got back from a couple weeks down the shore, where I saw a lot of people in swimsuits. Specifically women. It got me thinking. The mentality in choosing a swimsuit seems to be something akin to that of the cargo cults in the Pacific islands, who, upon receiving a bounty in material goods when airplanes landed on their islands during World War Two, sought to keep the swag coming once the planes were gone, by building fake planes out of local materials. Total misunderstanding of cause and effect. And it’s going on with women & swimsuits. They look at a drop-dead gorgeous model wearing a revealing swimsuit and think “how can I look like that, or at least gain that degree of admiring attention from my significant other?” and they conclude that by wearing the same garment, they can achieve the same look. The model’s appearance is a combination of genetics, spending the equivalent hours of a full-time job maintaining her figure through diet & exercise, professional hairstyling and application of cosmetics, trick photography, and probably tampering with the resulting picture. (Un)covering your body with the same tiny quantity of fabric doesn’t come close to duplicating the cumulative effects of all that.

Now, I am the first person to pick comfort over style, and what makes the wearer feel good instead of what stimulates viewers…but I am fairly certain that the women I observed pulling swimsuits out of their butt cracks or constantly readjusting the chest portion were not as comfortable as they could be.

The fact is, most people do not have the kind of body that is inherently aesthetically pleasing to the eye, when generally exposed to the air. Intimate circumstances of exposure, of course, are a whole other thing, where as the Bible notes, love covers a multitude of sins, but people who are not about to get it on with you, generally don’t want to see most of that. And this is not just fat or scrawny or otherwise out of shape people, or those with skin conditions. Near-nudity highlights all sorts of things that visually detract from an otherwise pleasant appearance and an attractive face just about disappears when perched atop a yard or two of bare skin.

On a related note, there is an oddity in the current parlance concerning the use of the term “modesty”. It seems like just about every week there is a story in internet news pages about Ariel Winter telling off people who are less than thrilled with a full-figured young girl posting pictures of herself half-naked or crammed into too-small garments all over social media. Ariel Winter is a lovely young woman, which I thought when she became famous on a TV show where she played a girl who was too young to be sexualized, and actually was not, for the early seasons of said show, back when I watched it. And now she seems to be a legal adult, and “celebrates” this fact by squeezing too much of herself into too little fabric, and when she fails to be universally praised and admired, turns around and lashes out at people who suggest more literal coverage and less figurative media coverage of her body would be a good thing.

That seems to be the prevailing social attitude in the media and entertainment. Calls for modesty are now denounced as sexist and called “body shaming” and equated with that horrible prostitute who posted a photo of a fat older woman taken in a locker room. But in no other sphere of human activity do we so predominantly give modesty a negative connotation. If Ariel Winter went around flaunting her wealth or her professional success, suggestions that she behave more modestly would not be condemned, and even be seconded by a lot of the people who denounce modesty in dress. But physical beauty is simply another form of good fortune. Why is it less appropriate to show off and flaunt what you have mostly earned through your hard work, like wealth or success, than it is to flaunt what you largely achieved through genetic inheritance?

If you are modest about success or wealth or personal virtues, no one thinks it is because you hate those things about yourself, and no one claims you are ashamed of them, but when you suggest that it’s better not to show the world the exact angle at which your mammary glands hang from your chest, or which direction your nipples point, you are condemned as a hater and diagnosed as having sexual hang-ups and being ashamed of your body.

What’s more amusing in my particular case about such criticisms is when people go to the religious source and start projecting all sorts of hang-ups and fanaticism on me & my religion. I am a Roman Catholic, which absolutely informs my moral beliefs and behavior frame of reference…but the attributed issues are not the Catholic position on modesty. Misogyny is another favorite thing to fling at my religion, but the last sermon I heard on modesty in dress in my church prescribed the exact same standards for men and women (covering shoulders to knees, without revealing the color or shape of what’s underneath was the exact formulation, for general purpose clothing). Catholicism, which is generally misunderstood in the Anglosphere, which was taken over and spread by Protestants and strongly influenced by the Calvinistic varieties, tends to more of an Aristotelian mean in its approach to virtue. Catholics don’t restrict or limit certain things because they are inherently evil or sinful. That stuff is altogether and entirely verboten. The things we limit to particular circumstances or refrain from under certain conditions are good things, that we like and applaud, but to which no one should wish to become excessively attached. Alcohol, food and sex being some that come to mind, in contradistinction to the Anglo-Saxon attitudes which appears from the outside to be one of both strident denunciation and helpless acquiescence. They pay lip service to the evils of such vices, and laud those who abstain from them, while almost embracing the abuse at the same time. It’s like there is some weird vision of the world as good and bad, and you’re either on the bad side or the good side, the former of which is to be condemned and the latter praised, but with nothing to be done about either.

Anyway, Catholics think the human body is awesome and admirable (my criticism of a number of particular specimens not withstanding – we’re also supposed to love all our neighbors, even if we can’t stand some of them), and we’ve set fire to enough Manicheans and Cathars over the centuries who thought otherwise that our commitment to this doctrine should not come under question. But like all things, we think there is a time and a place for it, and like other things we value, we try not to flaunt it. We are, as my college Racism and Sexism professor told me, without the slightest hint he noted the irony, “a religion of guilt and shame”. When you go into an old school Catholic church the central and most notable depiction of our God is the one that reflects the worst of us – His Crucified Body. We could have, over every altar, an image of Christ Resurrected or as a newborn infant, or His Ascension into Heaven or enthroned as the Lord of Creation, which are equally glorious and fitting representations of Him. But instead we show the one depiction that should remind us of our faults and flaws and what He had to do about it. The good and great stuff, we hide. The Blessed Sacrament is contained in a vessel made of gold, placed in a box, with a locking door and covered by a veil. When we hear the Holy Name, we bow our heads in reverence, and as a result, we don’t say “Jesus” nearly as often as do Protestants, except in formal prayer. The stereotypical Catholic family makes a mockery of any idea that we think sex is dirty or evil, and we get criticism on the secular front for sexism and on the theological front for idolizing a woman as the highest and greatest of all God’s creatures. Priests are forbidden to say Mass too many times a day (and on certain holy days, when that restriction is lifted, they’ll say “We get to say three Masses today” ). The reason for the limitation is specifically to prevent priests from coming to despise the Mass, and when I attended a retreat at a seminary, we were told that the primary quality you needed to be a priest was to love the Mass. The point of all this is, when it comes to religion, we don’t overdo the good stuff. We just like to save our appreciation of the best things in this world for appropriate and limited times and places.

And circling around to covering the human body, it is the same attitude. It’s great, it’s the handiwork of God and it should be appreciated, but as with everything else, overexposure doesn’t demonstrate appreciation, it kills it. And this is true with everything in the world. The laws of economics are not statutes passed by human will, they are descriptions of naturally existing phenomena, like the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics. The laws of economics state that commodities are valued inversely to the supply of them. Oxygen is vitally important, but does not cost much, nor is it savored or appreciated, because it is in such abundant supply. The most valuable materials, such as precious stones or metals, are very hard to obtain. The most expensive merchandise in a store is behind counters or locked in secure displays, while the stuff the store places on racks or tables outside the front door are clearance items the merchants wish to rid themselves of.

This is normal, fitting and natural behavior, to reserve the best things and keep safe and protected the things we value most. It is in recognition of this principle that we most appreciate and value those things which are kept safe and secure and out of our reach, which are treated with loving care and attention. However fashionable it has become to abuse the explicit language of words, as in the above example of the meaning of modesty, the visceral language of actions is not so easy to change. Baring your body to the world is a statement, but it is in that latter, less transient language. People can use whatever words they find easy or convenient to express fashionable sentiments in reaction, but they can’t change what is really being communicated and understood by the near-nudist and the viewer.