I personally like girls that dress more conservatively. It’s for the girls safety and to avoid debates like this.

To Mary Ann’s post : no offense, but do women lust? Have you ever “checked out” a guy?

It’s like what if our bibles came to church to testify for us…The way we dress testifies also how we live our lives and who we are living our lives for.

Gobble gobble, I thank God for the way he gives us a choice to believe in Him or not and also choices to be responsible or not, but I also thank Him for giving us multiple chances, a person who doesn’t dress responsibly can change…

vinson’s right in saying i didn’t think this post would elicit such a discussion. thank you for all your comments and thoughts.

my phrase for the sisters to “dress responsibly” was merely a play on the alcohol beverage ads urging people to “drink responsibly.” it was not meant to place blame on women nor was it meant to absolve men from their own actions/decisions.

my final thoughts (much like how jerry springer ends his shows): every individual is responsible for his or her actions/thoughts, but at the same time, as followers of Jesus, let’s live above reproach–don’t even give the opposite sex a chance any chance to point blame.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Let’s talk about what this means practically. As a Christian woman, I hear the message that my body causes sexual feelings in a man and that is sin. Therefore, sin and guilt are related to my body and sex. As a Christian woman, I am told that I am not a sexual being (and should not be one) – at least not as much as men are (men are the sexual ones and that is sometimes implicitly excused because “they are visual; they can’t help it; it’s biological”) — and besides that, being a sexual being is BAD and EVIL, so if I am that, then I am bad and evil. As a Christian (single) woman, I am told to keep pure, stop thinking about sex. All this seems fine when I am single — but what happens when I am to get married and God sanctions the freedom to have sex?

I’ll tell you what happened to me and to many other Christian women when we got married to these wonderful husbands that God gave us — it’s difficult to turn the switch from off to on in a split second and say YES to this great gift that God had in store. It’s difficult to really embrace it as a beautiful, good, right and PURE thing — even if I know it in my head, it’s very different than getting through to the rest of my body. Just because I say “I do” doesn’t mean that all those years of thinking of “sex as bad” can change as soon as I say those words. It took a lot of processing and prayer to get to the right understanding about my body and sexuality — and frankly, all that angst could’ve been avoided if the right message had been taught in the church. (Sadly, I have married friends who have not yet resolved and think of what they are being robbed!)

This is why I believe it is important that we communicate the correct message when it comes to sexuality. Women, your bodies were created by God; you are a sexual being, and this is GOOD. You need not ever be ashamed of who you are. Men, if you are having trouble lusting after women, you need to submit your passions to Christ. Learn to control your passions; do not put the blame on women.

Christian women should not be responsible for men’s lust.

The reality is that if a guy has issues with lusting, even if a girl was wearing sweats and jeans, he’d still lust after her.

Lastly, I wanted to add a comment I read elsewhere, “However, the modesty issue generally resolves itself quite well when a Christian woman is both genuine in her faith AND free to dress according to her own conscience. The lust issue generally resolves itself when a man is both genuine in his faith AND loves his Christian sisters as himself. Each takes responsibility for his/her own Christian growth and witness and doesn’t play the oldest game in the book: blaming someone else for their own sin.”

I’m not sure if I’m getting my point through, but hey! I’m just a kid. Why listen to me, right?

Whoa ho ho there. I think that we’re not the only ones with the minds, FYI. Careful.

We have different sins. Men aren’t the dirty ones and women all pure. To make a gross overgeneralization, men tend to look, women tend to imagine. Men tend to picture images, women tend to dream of situations–that’s why by and large men are attracted to porn and women romance novels. You can commit idolatry either way and neither honor people for who they really are.

Women are not responsible for being treated poorly. They are never responsible for rape.

Men are responsible for their lust. I don’t think that anyone here has said they don’t.

However, there is a bit of give and take here as well. Let’s imagine a different situation: people are supposed to be prayerful in church. It is my responsibility to be worshipful there. I have control over what I think about and what I’m looking at. But if someone answers their phone in the middle of service I get distracted. I am wrong for wanting to slap that person. They aren’t supposed to answer their phone.

We all have responsibility here.

–guys and ladies need to be careful to dress appropriately. Guys can’t be whipping their shirts off and ladies need to avoid too tight or low cut stuff.
–guys need to be aware of things that may cause women to stumble. At a discussion on this i was a part of the women admitted that they needed the guys to be more careful about innocent things like hugs which were a stumbling block for them. It’s not fair to say that it’s not that big of a deal to me when it’s a problem for her.
–gals need to honor their bodies and show modesty too in their dress. It’s not fair to say it’s not that big a deal for me when it’s a problem for him.