wet hot immodest summer
Guest post by Lisa St. Frank
A few days ago I heard someone blasting Will Smith’s Summertime and I realized that it’s summer time indeed. I’m not looking forward to the humidity that summers on the coast bring but I am looking forward to weekends at the nearest beach or laying out by the community pool. I think we can agree that, like most other summers, a lot of girls will be wearing one pieces. As for me, I usually like to wear bikinis. Some people may think I usually don’t wear one pieces or tankinis for the wrong reasons. They may think it’s because I like the way my body looks in a bikini. Perhaps they may think it’s because I believe it’s ridiculous to expect women and girls to cover themselves up while men and boys roam shirtless around the beach with little commentary on their “modesty”. These reasons, for me, are absolutely correct.
To be clear, I’m not completely against wearing one pieces or tankinis. A lot of them are really cute and sometimes I’ll wear one just to mix things up.
That being said, I want you all to know that dressing “immodestly” is a SACRIFICE. I do so at the risk of some people getting the wrong idea about my faith and values and men thinking all sorts of lustful things about me. I’d rather be recognized for my intelligence and faith in God and wearing anything other than a one piece or tankini compromises that. Wearing bikinis completely removes a man’s ability to see past the physical as opposed to appreciating my body, my mind and my spirituality at the same time. A man who I’d never consider dating or having a relationship with in the first place if his interest (or disinterest) in me is influenced primarily on how I look.
Let’s pretend that we live in a world where men and women have control over their thoughts. There are exceptions for those who have a mental condition that renders them incapable of making rational decisions and for this post, we will focus on persons who consider themselves to be relatively stable. We go through life making decisions that can either help or harm us. Decisions like whether or not to eat the chocolate cake your roommate made last night for example. You know, the one your roommate left on the counter but didn’t give you permission to eat. The important thing here is you have a choice. You can choose to partake of this delicious treat and face the wrath of your roommate or leave it alone, because, well, it wasn’t made for you.
This is how I imagine it is for guys. These women and girls like myself walking around the beach or by the pool with hardly any clothes on and these men and boys having the option to look away or to control their thoughts. To perhaps not look at women and girls as “objects made for them” but something more profound: like actual human beings.
Whether a woman or girl chooses to wear a one piece, tankini or bikini, it really doesn’t matter. It’s no one else’s business. Selfrespect is not earned. Earning something indicates it can be taken away and a person’s self respect always exists in some form. Selfrespect is a process (albeit a sometimes difficult one) in which you find out what you like and you embrace those things. It is your commitment to yourself and to no one else. So if anything, commit to yourself this summer, wear what you feel comfortable in and help one another.
Peace, love and lots of chocolate cake, LSF
P.S. You really are enough.
Young Mormon Feminists 
12 Responses to “wet hot immodest summer”
“A man who I’d never consider dating or having a relationship with in the first place if his interest (or disinterest) in me is influenced primarily on how I look.”
Amen.
Ahh, feels so nice to see someone write that they wear things for their own sake (for fun, for comfort, for style, etc) regardless of the judgments of others. That’s how I felt about my decision to wear “such a short skirt” when I was confronted on BYU campus by a fellow student in my religion class. WIsh I had had the words and the confidence to answer him back then!
I tell him to piss off if he doesn’t I turnaround and smack him
Brilliant
Thank you so much for this article, it saved me time!
Love! But disturbed to read wet and hot then see Paula Dean- Mental image…very buttery!
This is really great. I find these things incredibly frustrating as well.
So much argument for a few scraps of clothing. In a while, no one will care about this.
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“This is how I imagine it is for guys.” Maybe that’s part of the problem, that as a woman you don’t understand what it is like for guys. I’m going to rewind for a second and say you’re absolutely right with everything you said. Women are treated differently than men, which is unfortunate and wrong. You should not be interested in someone that can’t see you’re more than your body. It is no one else’s business what you wear. Guys should learn to control their own thoughts and actions – it’s not your responsibility or anyone else’s to do that for them. But the cake analogy is a bad one. It’s not that a guy sees a cake and decides whether or not to eat it. For guys, sexuality is largely visual, and looking at something sexy is equivalent to eating the cake. They can’t look at it and decide not to eat it. By looking at it, they have eaten it, not that the cake is gone and anyone knows what happened, hence the problem with the analogy. There is no cake for anyone else to know what is going on inside his head. Now, he may choose to act in a certain way around you that is offensive, or choose not to interact with you because of how you’re dressed, but the dopamine has surged and heart rate increased whether or not he chooses to do whatever you think the equivalent of eating the cake is. The thing about your swimsuit selection is that if you’re sexy in a bikini, you’re sexy in a one piece, and there’s probably only a marginal difference in how his body responds when he sees you. The surging hormones will likely be the same. You’re right that certain guys will outwardly treat you differently because you have a bikini instead of a rash guard, and those are probably guys you want to stay away from. The rest of us are just happy to see you in any swimsuit. Modesty and self respect are never and have never been about what others think of you. They’re what you think of yourself. Guys will treat you the same, no matter what you’re wearing, even the self-righteous prick in Roseanna’s class, who is also someone you’re not going to want to have a relationship with, as he would have found something else to be self-righteous about if not someone else’s clothes. So what you’re wearing reflects really only you and how you choose to present yourself.
No, what I’m wearing does not reflect me. It is how you decide to view what I’m wearing that reflects the kind of person you are. Are you someone who makes assumptions on people because of what they put on? Or are you somebody to gives everyone a chance, no matter how they look? I can respect myself and wear a bikini, but if you can’t respect me when I’m wearing one, then that’s your fault.
You’ve got to be kidding me-it’s so transparently clear now!