Should Christian Women be Allowed to Have Butts?

Finally, somebody is asking Real Questions for Real People!

The brilliant Evangelical Matthew Pierce writes:

Probably the most dangerous thing for Christian men is to see things, because this makes us sin.

My youth pastor says men are visual. This means that whenever a man sees a woman, he thinks “that lady has bosoms, I wish I could do a sex right now.” Also, when a man sees something that is not a woman, like a toaster or a blade of grass, he thinks “hey, remember when I saw that lady with bosoms? I wish I could do a sex right now.”

Back in the old days, when Jesus was going around with his 12 epistles, the Bible hadn’t been translated to English yet, so everyone had to read other books, like Wild at Heart, which is a book for men that a bunch of wives read. In the book, it says that if you send your husband on a moderately dangerous rafting trip, he won’t accidentally bang his female coworkers, because fresh air. So Jesus kept his guys outside. But even this didn’t help, because men are visual and when they see mountains, they are like “mmm, those look like big boobs.” This is why Jesus told them to eat some mustard and throw the mountains into the sea. But then Peter started thinking about wet mountains and he jumped off the boat to dive underwater to look at them, so Jesus made him stand on top of the water until he settled down.

Fast forward one hundred years: It is 2022, and the church has learned nothing. Folks, we have Christian women walking around with butts.

How did we get here? In my day, Christian women did not have butts…..

More hilarity here. Enjoy!

It all reminds me of the magnificent work of Simcha Fisher, who lampooned the same weirdness in Catholic circles with her brilliant piece, “Pants: A Manifesto“:

Consider the following food for thought, and not a hard-and-fast directive.  So in case you were under the bizarre impression that some random essay written by a laypersonhas some moral force, then rest at ease.  I repeat, this is not a directive!  But you better listen to me, or you’re going to hell.

Top ten reasons I wear pants

1.  I live in NH, where winter happens.  Pants.

2.  My husband finds most women’s pants to be more or less neutral, as far as their power to affect him in a masculine way.  But he finds that most women’s skirts  . . . affect him.   So unless it’s the most wonderful time of the cycle for me:  pants.

3.  Three of my children are ages 4, 3, and 17 months.  They basically live on the floor.  To care for them, my choices are either (a) sit on the floor to be with them, or (b) bend over a lot to deal with them.  Yesterday at library story hour, my little girls felt shy, so I sat on the floor to be with them.   I was comfortable, relaxed, and modest.  Pants.

4. Motherhood is a blue collar job.  I don’t care what style of dress or skirt you’re wearing, there is no way to be modest while dealing efficiently with the routine emergencies that normal children engender –  children who, as a normal mode of expression, flail their limbs around like some kind of oversized, malevolent eggbeater, right at your hemline.  Today, I had to lunge halfway across the room to rescue my toddler, who had launched herself from an armchair at a glass gerbil tank.  I was able to lunge without pausing to consider whether my movements were graceful and feminine; and I didn’t worry, while lunging, about flashing the men in the room.  Pants.

5.  Traditional nuns manage to work in skirts, and so do men and women in the middle east.  So what?  Their lives are hard; mine doesn’t have to be.  Pants.

6.  My husband, being heterosexual, does not actually want to spend his free time browsing around Dress Barn with me.  Unfortunately, being a drooling idiot (that’s traddie talk for “woman I honor and respect”), I am utterly, faintingly, femininely unable to pick out modest and appropriate clothing for myself.  What ever shall I do!  There’s clearly only one option left for poor silly old me, and that’s to keep on safe ground.  Pants.

7.  When I show my husband a piece of clothing that I just bought, he admires it — but only because he loves me and knows I have no female friends to show it to.  In reality, I might as well be holding up a coupon for fig newtons, or a vacuum cleaner filter:  he just can’t see it.  When I put it on, then he can see it.  At this point in our marriage, I know what he’s going to like, so that’s what I buy.  I dress to please him, not other men who might pass me on the sidewalk.  Pants.

8.  Why do I get the distinct impression that some guys, demonstrable experts in marriage though they may be, are being a teeny bit disingenuous when they couch their views on modesty in terms of respect for women?  Why do I get the impression that if most women wore skirts, this type of fellow would suddenly be campaigning for more pants?  Why, in short, do my spidey senses tell me that this is not about modesty at all, but about control?  “Wear what I say, and I promise I’ll start respecting you.”  Pants!

9.  If you are so concerned about how I think about myself, then why don’t you ask me what I actually think, instead of telling me what you know I will think if I only listen to you?  Not that you asked, but I’ll tell you how I think about myself:  I think that my life got a lot better when I started making reasonable decisions for myself, instead of always wondering if I’m going to disappoint some hypothetical man.  I care profoundly what my husband thinks about me, and naturally that affects how I feel about myself.  Pants.

10.  You give the game away when you start talking about femininity and end up complaining about fat butts.  That makes you less of a moral leader and more of an asshole.  Pants.

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Women, if you want to wear skirts, and it means something to your husband, then go ahead and wear skirts.  Skirts are not a sign of oppression and misery!  I wish I could pull off the look, and to those of you who do wear skirts:  I think you look nice.

But it’s not a moral issue.  At all.

Read all of her piece too. I love her stuff.