Love! Valour! Compassion!

by Catherine Muscat

Before reading A Return to Modesty, I wanted to do a little investigating. Honestly, I was skeptical about the utility of a book that seemed to state the obvious about propriety in America. The title appeared to say it all: our society is crude and morality is dead. Nonetheless, I conducted an Internet search for “female modesty” to get a taste of the cultural climate.

My search yielded links to TMS Erotic CDs (Provokation! Orgiastrich!) and Picture Perfect Porn Stars, among other sundry pornographic sites. It seems that the Internet, the next frontier of human relations, classifies modesty as a fantasy, a fetish fulfilled when propriety is farthest from one's thoughts. Perhaps Shalit's discourse wasn't so unwarranted after all. Things were worse than I had imagined.

What makes Wendy Shalit's analysis so refreshing is that she examines and justifies the nature of sexual modesty through rational discourse, rather than relying solely on the increasingly remote influence of religion.

According to Shalit, the root of sexual violence and misogyny in America is our culture's denial of the inherent differences between men and women.

While attending Williams, one of Shalit's professors classified her gender-centric view as “essentialist,” and thereby outdated. At Williams (obviously a pioneer in the post-gender age), feminist groups distribute stickers identifying the wearer as a “Shameless Hussy,” and students receive thermoses full of condoms for spring break. What does this tell us?

One thing should be obvious: don't go to Williams. More importantly, this demonstrates the extent to which female sexual modesty is incongruent with current trends.

Women trade monogamous and meaningful relationships for unlimited sexual “freedom,” regardless of the manifest emotional and psychological damage. Shalit draws much of her case from various fashion magazines — many articles of which I remember reading, and grew up with —each advising readers to shed feminine stereotypes and “be one of the guys.”

Women who are reluctant (or refuse) to have sex are either mentally disturbed or have sexual “hang-ups” that require therapy and Prozac. If sex is accepted, promoted, and expected, then how can women refuse?

Women find a way. Shalit draws a correlation between the increase in eating disorders and the decline of sexual modesty.

Rather than trying to emulate fashion models, teenage girls waste away to make themselves unattractive to men, thus granting them control over their bodies. Forsaken by non-interventionist parents and cultural norms, women must now seek refuge in the grotesque.

Eschewing modesty and honor puts tremendous pressure on women, forcing them to conform to a “brave new world” of meaningless sexuality and emotional bankruptcy. While Shalit's insistence that modesty is a panacea for the woes of modern woman may be an exaggeration, her analysis certainly raises important issues regarding the negative impact of women's “liberation.”

While Shalit's assault on sexual promiscuity is certainly not to be taken lightly, she manages to infuse some humor in her discourse. One section in particular, concerning the phenomenon of post-relationship “check-ups,” parodies the growing trend among women to maintain friendly relations with their exes.

The old line, “let's just be friends,” has mutated from an easy letdown to an obligation. If you can not stay friends with your ex after a breakup, it must mean that your heart has been broken (which isn't very manly behavior, to say the least). I've witnessed this several times while in college: “So, you hooked up with what's-his-name last night?” “Oh, HIM? But we're just friends.”

The entire “hook-up” culture on college campuses reflects this dispassionate mentality. If relationships are solely about physical pleasure, then one must wonder why anyone needs to hook-up with anyone else at all. I suppose that sexual gratification is a new perk that comes with friendship, right along with biology notes and study breaks. Such strange bedfellows...

The fact is, women's hearts DO break, and it takes more than a smile and a back-rub to mend a broken heart. Real oppression lies in denying the differences between the sexes, especially when our version of a neutered culture overwhelmingly favors masculine behavior.

There's something foul about coed bathrooms, and it's not just the aroma. Shalit sees the manifestation of a gender-less (yet certainly not sex-less) society, hostile to women and devoid of modesty.

According to Shalit, lack of modesty in women results in premarital sex, sexual harassment, rape, eating disorders, shameless promiscuity, and bad manners.

While it's no secret that chivalry is dead (or at least missing in action), Shalit appeals to our nostalgic desire to recapture the days when men opened doors for women, women were chaste to all but their true loves, and Presidents only had sex (ahem, sexual relations) outside of the Oval Office.

A Return to Modesty not only laments the loss of these ideals, but also calls upon us to bravely return to them, salvaging the remains of propriety from the ruins of the '60s sexual revolution.

Feminists have discredited traditional signs of male courtesy for decades, decrying chivalry as the symbolic subordination of women. Whether you agree with that analysis or not, the fact is we live in a much ruder world than did our grandparents. Every sentient person knows this, and most of us simply shrug our shoulders and go on our merry way.

Those who publicly condemn crimes against morality are called sanctimonious and hypocritical. If nothing else comes out of the Clinton scandal, at least we have learned something about the state of morality in America. Americans say, “What's all the fuss? Don't all politicians cheat on their wives?”

Shalit ultimately begs the question: can we return to traditional moral values in this cesspool of sexual cynicism? A Return to Modesty is surprisingly optimistic. While admitting that a sexual counter-revolution of Lysistratic proportions is unlikely, she recognizes the tremendous personal value of forswearing casual sex and reviving the myth of chivalry and romance.

Shalit's conception of modesty is natural, liberating, and, paradoxically, sexy. Unfortunately, the attainment of this ideal seems remote at best. Admittedly, men may be a harder sell than women in returning to the days before casual sex.

Women are also in a genuine prisoner's dilemma; defectors who perpetuate the cultural expectation of promiscuity undermine the positive impacts of modesty. While Shalit's blueprint for sexual revolution may be as viable in practice as Marx's Communist Manifesto, A Return to Modesty, it is a noble cultural breakthrough.