Tuesday, May 08, 2007

and then again, from neither Mars nor Venus but apparently some other galaxy altogether, far, far away...

Demetria of Lost in the Underground brings up the Modesty Survey that was bouncing around the 'sphere...(flaps hand with irritated forgetfulness), anyway, yeah, it's quite entertaining, in a fucked up sort of way. apparently womens' clothing, or rather the women who choose to wear such clothing (and move/speak/breathe in such ways) are "stumbling blocks."



There's rather a lot.


Dresses that are fitted at the waist (e.g. with a belt or waistband) are a stumbling block.

A skirt that is tight around the hips, but loose below the hips, is a stumbling block, regardless of length.

Form-fitting skirts are a stumbling block, regardless of length.

Sparkly, shiny skirts are a stumbling block, regardless of length.

Skirts made out of many layers of semi-transparent material to form an opaque skirt are a stumbling block, regardless of length.

[oddly fashion-conscious in their specificity, ain't they?...]

Seeing a girl's slip through the slit in her skirt is a stumbling block.

The lines of undergarments, visible under clothing, cause guys to stumble.

It is a stumbling block when swimsuit ties stick out from under clothing (e.g. tied around the neck).

V-neck shirts or dresses are a stumbling block, even if they are not revealing.

It is a stumbling block when a girl reaches into her shirt to adjust a bra strap.

Bending over so that cleavage is visible down the front of the shirt or dress is a stumbling block.

Putting lip-gloss on in front of a guy is a stumbling block.

Wearing heavy eye makeup is a stumbling block.

[BUT!]

Wearing mascara is not a stumbling block.

Wearing glitter lotion is not a stumbling block.

Playing with hair is not a stumbling block.

[BUT!]

Playing with jewelry, such as a necklace, is a stumbling block.

[BUT!]

Earrings are never a stumbling block.

...High-heeled shoes (2" or higher) are a stumbling block. [well, yah, especially if you don't know how to walk in them...]

A modestly dressed girl can still be a stumbling block because of her attitude and behavior.

It is a stumbling block for a girl to bend over with her backside towards you.

It is a stumbling block to see a girl lying down, even if she's just hanging out on the floor or on a couch with her friends.

Seeing a girl stretching (e.g. arching the back, reaching the arms back, and sticking out the chest) is a stumbling block.

Lifting a long skirt any higher than the knee in order to step over something is a stumbling block. [in other words, it's okay if YOU trip and fall on your ass...]

Extending the middle finger toward a boy is a stumbling block, regardless of whether the nail is painted. [no, i made that one up]


It goes on. Oh, it does go on.

And, as I said over at Demetria's:

you know, i wonder if anyone ever suggested to the poor lads that the best way to avoid "stumbling blocks" might in that case be to, say, -never leave the house.-

or turn on the TV. hey, idle hands are the Devil's Playground--you know, there must be a -lot- of chores around the house those nice young men could channel all those lusty energies into...

31 comments:

Renegade Evolution said...

i always loved that Queen video :)

ben said...

but...if they don't leave the house, they risk the stumbling blocks present right in their own home. many survey participants noted that revealing clothing could be a stumbling block when on a family member, including sisters and mothers.

Oh, yeah.

WordK said...

The mothers and sisters aspect just brings up so, so many more issues.

I suspect that if I get bored enough and run through the results comparing filters for public school kids versus private and homse school that I would find that the public school kids are less hot and bothered by females in whatever clothing, and I would be willing to extrapolate that they are better at relating to girls and women as people because of it.

(I've been linked! The baby blogger must now go celebrate -- thanks!)

Anonymous said...

That is truly hilarious. Did they read this list when they were done?

The other day, one of my students was insinuating that, as one travels further back in history, women were increasingly oppressed, which is patently dumb. I responded, "Oh yes, for the first 10,000 years, they buried us under piles of rocks with just one finger poking out until we died. We're so lucky to live at the best time in the history of humankind."

Amber Rhea said...

Just what the hell is glitter lotion? Am I showing my age?

Amber Rhea said...

you know, i wonder if anyone ever suggested to the poor lads that the best way to avoid "stumbling blocks" might in that case be to, say, -never leave the house.-

Nah, 'cause there was that one guy in the comments who said that depending on how they're dressed, even his mom or his sister can do it for him.

*shudder*

belledame222 said...

i must have missed the mother and sister business.

hoo boy.

well. shall we have Purity Balls for boys, then? Mother-son dances? no? but the Father-daughter ones sound so -healthy.-

gark.

you know, there's having your Freudian slip showing; and then there's having it puddled all the way down around your ankles.

which is TOTALLY a stumbling block, except you probably won't notice when your head's already that far up your ass...

belledame222 said...

AWB: *snort* very Beckettian.

"Nothing to be done, pause pause. Nothing to be done, pause smile seductively extend pinkie finger (man stumbles over pinky and breaks his neck). it's just another BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, a beautiful day in the PATRIARCHAAAHHHHH..."

belledame222 said...

amber: next time you go to the drugstore, poke around the cosmetics aisle; you'll see it. you know. body lotion with glitter in it. 'sall.

Joseph Kugelmass said...

Wow. Delightful. My favorite is that if you actually go to the godly website in question, the woman in the banner is apparently wearing a veil. It's not necessary to get into the meanings of the veil within Islamic culture -- whether or not in specific cases, within another culture, it would constitute oppression -- to find it awfully strange that this Christian site should go there. It is, decidedly, a stumbling block.

Trinity said...

OMG NOT THE DREADED SEXUAL AROUSAL!!!

NOOOO!!!!

hahahahahahahahahhahhahahahahahahah*choke*

hii----larious.

belledame222 said...

o, there are some Christians who believe in headcovering; they generally won't associate it with the dreaded Islamists (shudder), but are more likely to acknowledge a connection with Orthodox Judaism. also see: Mennonites, Orthodox Quakers, etc.

but yeah, the woman in that photo has a kind of I-Dream-of-Jeannie thing going on, not really sure what that's supposed to be all about really...

belledame222 said...

you know what really gets me is, these are teenage boys, okay, trying to -keep from getting sexually aroused.-

and, okay, i was never a teenage boy, but um. i'm not aware that It is really all that sensitive to nuance -really,- you know. I mean, I -read- Portnoy's Complaint; is the raw liver in the fridge a stumbling block, too? cored apples?...

belledame222 said...

I'm particularly entertained by the "sparkly shiny" being a Problem, too, I must say. am now picturing all these terribly earnest young lads seeing, like, a gum wrapper and going all birdlike-alert with the head, you know, COIINNGGG....

Anonymous said...

Now I'm imagining some totally raged-out teen quivering at the dinner table after Mom adjusts the old Maidenform strap. "You... you WHORE! You just adjusted your strap because you want me to touch my peepee in the darkness and make a mess on my bed, don't you, Mommy? DON'T YOU? Well, Jesus will be my friend. I'm going to my room to tie my hand to the bed and turn Bible pages with the other until this CONFOUNDED peepee of mine goes back to his hideyhole!" It's so.... McBeef? There's something about the solipsism of teen boys that baffles me out of my senses.

UneFemmePlusCourageuse said...

It annoys me immensely when people try to demonize and 'prevent' something as natural as sexual arousal. It's just not healthy...

Mór Rígan said...

And it's not possible to prevent sexual arousal in teens. I think Xander phrased it perfectly with I'm 17, linoleum makes me wanna have sex.

It doesn't matter if a girl's bra strap is a stumbling block because whether the boy can see it or not he's stumbling.

Maybe all girls should be locked up and then the boys could be free to think pure thoughts and not be polluted by nasty sinful girls?

Anonymous said...

Most teenage boys know that even the vibrations of a low-revs engine can be enough to cause perturbations within the pants!

belledame222 said...

saorla: yes, they should be locked together in a confined space free of any females whatsoever, there's the ticket. share rooms, so they can keep any eye on each other and keep each other pure. oh, and play lots of sports. manly, invigorating sports like touch football and wrestling. I think that should work very nicely. and, if they stumble, literally that is, during a particularly invigorating (and manly) game of touch football, why, it's just part of the game! and at least they can be reassured that they will remain 100% free of lustful thoughts when the sweaty body they stumble on top of is not some brastrap-fixing siren but instead just his goodbuddy and teammate, Dirk.

Kim said...

Hmmmm.
Is picking the wedgie out of my ass on the streets a stumbing block?
What about licking my lips when they're chapped?
Sitting "Indian" style --legs spread and what not?

All of this is proof you can't even try to please everone, directly relating to the "good feminist/bad feminist" thing.

R. Mildred said...

shall we have Purity Balls for boys, then?

Oh, The Virgin Ben Shapiro already has purity balls, Whether he feels like sharing them with other boys is... none of our business.

Why you gotta be hating on Shapiro? You homophobe!

nexy said...

at first, i thought i was the living, breathing embodiment of all things stumbling, as i regularly engage in, and wear stumbling block material. until i came across this one:

"Bending over so that cleavage is visible down the front of the shirt or dress is a stumbling block."

whew, since i am flat chested, i have no cleavage. there is hope for me yet. i can bend over to my hearts content, as i cannot show any cleavage. so long as i don't bend over with my ass towards a guy, which was another stumbling block. jeez, it's so hard to keep them all straight. heh, double meaning there...

Anonymous said...

oh man, I'm pretty much a giant stumbling block then. :P

Anonymous said...

said it before (and probly will again anyways):
if youse poor stumbling guys would release your sexual tension often enough and without remorse, no more need always leering at mom nor sisters either, wanna bet?

as an aside, in my experience there actually are some women who dress up to make males (and interested females?) stare and thereafter taking advantage of or giving out hard feelings for it (and even harder if you don't ;-), however i don't think that's what this ridiculous survey's about.

Alon Levy said...

My take is a bit different from that the survey shows.

The fact that the majority of people I see on the street voted for Giuliani: stumbling block.

The fact that some of them dress in ways he tried to censor at the Brooklyn Museum of Art: I don't care.

Mór Rígan said...

Oooh Belle, I like that. Yes I'm all for locking the boys in a room and having them play manly sweaty games. Ignore the inappropriate feelings that give you a tingle when Dirk throws his sweaty body on you. It's all manly good fun. Slapping each other on the ass is, after all the epitome of heterosexuality. Perhaps Dirk will inspire some stumbling of his own. And then what? There'll be no brastrap-fixing siren to blame.

Cassandra Says said...

That bra strap adjustment thing...what, so if our bras start to fall down we should just let them? Let it just keep sliding away, until the cup is falling off too (OK, I'm supposing rather an ill-fitting bra here, but work with me), and our nipples are flying free? And this would present LESS of a stumbling block to your average adolescent boy?
I'm so confused. And that's before I even start thinking about all these poor boys getting hot and bothered over their mothers.

Mór Rígan said...

Well any fumbling in the region would be a stumbling block I imagine. But showing nipples might provoke crucifix flashing accompanied by "back foul beast of satan"

Anonymous said...

I suspect that if I get bored enough and run through the results comparing filters for public school kids versus private and homse school that I would find that the public school kids are less hot and bothered by females in whatever clothing
Well, if what my American Government teacher told me was true while I was enrolled in my friendly public high school, part of the reason for the newer stricter dress codes was that them boys couldn't stop staring at the girls' provocative coverings.

I think she picked up on the subtle undertones of my dumbstruck look and response.

belledame222 said...

GM: arrrggghh.

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