Odds and Ends, Standards

Bathroom Sign Theology

204 Comments

I’m glad that Michelle over at Grace and Honor has given us her top 5 reasons she wears skirts mostly because it gives me a chance to pull this cartoon back out of mothballs:

But seriously. Her reasons boil down to this:

1. An obscure Old Testament Passage told us not to wear things that men wear. Then it told us not to mix fibers or eat shrimp.

2. It’s how they did it in the 50’s.

3. Bathroom Signs.

4. If you don’t then you’re a whoring whorey whore and the men-folks can’t be blamed for eyeballing you.

5. WHY ARE YOU MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF THIS JUST DO WHAT I TELL YOU.

I’m convinced. I’m off to buy a skirt.

204 thoughts on “Bathroom Sign Theology”

  2. 1st! Amazing!

    I don’t know what the big deal is about legs! Both men and women have legs! (I think Seinfeld covered that idea on his show).

    Don’t forget to put plants around the piano, too. I would like to think that all female pianists and organists are legless. They do need feet, however, for the pedals.

    2. In my former Fundy church, they had “modesty curtains” for the choir, orchestra and pianist. I never got the point since everyone was required to wear the approved Fundy wardrobe anyway. It’s not like you’re going to see anything naughty. Then again, I don’t get the point of most of what goes on in Fundyland anyway.

    3. One of the best lines ever was by Elaine, in a conversation about shrinkage:

      “I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things.”

      1. “I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things.” It’s not nearly as bad in the winter time.

    4. > I don’t know what the big deal is about legs!

      Legs are sexy! And legs draw your eyes upwards to Butts! And butts are hot!

      So cover the whole thing in unattractive denim lest ANYONE should look at them.

  3. Sorry I didn’t intentionally lie about being first. As Maxwell Smart would say, missed it by that much!”

  4. She is a doctor! A chiropractic, so her doctorate is real.

    This is an argument I just skip at this stage of my life. I had to stop wearing dresses due to a disability and needing to be able to get around without a skirt catching on my walker/wheelchair.

    I could argue, or just follow and obey Jesus. I choose the latter. I don’t think Jesus will be worried about my pants when I meet Him in heaven…

    1. Any interpretation I have ever seen of Jesus in heaven has him wearing a long dress, sorry robe, so I doubt the trousers are going to be a problem.

      1. Old pictures. Jesus now wears Dockers, penny loafers, and a polo shirt.

        2. Did he get a hair cut? Even in fundy circles I have never seen a Jesus without hair below the ear lobes

        3. My mom would always trim the hair of the flannel graph Jesus so he would have short 50s style hair. There wasn’t much they could do with Bible picture books except to express their dislike of the hair and to never put up any pictures of Jesus in the house.

        4. Yeah, my parents used to explain seriously that Jesus didn’t really look like THAT. They never said anything else though which left me with a vague unease whenever I saw young men with beards.

        5. PW, we trimmed the flannelgraph figures too!
          We also had tracts available with the title, “Did Jesus have long hair?” Seriously. It was a big enough issue that we needed to hand out tracts about it.

    2. Well, according to “Dorcas” (who was just saved the other day!) in the comments under the article, “Trousers are an abomination! We will go to hell if we were them. No doubt.”

      I was not aware that if we “were” trousers we would go to hell.

      As my mother says, “You larn sumt’n new ever day!”

      1. If you were trousers, you’d be on someone else’s legs.
        Hmmm.

        1. Now, BG, I’m a bit surprised to see you jumping on the “you’re an idiot for allowing a typo on your post” bandwagon. I seem to recall you tearing a new one on someone who called you out on a “It’s George’s fault” moment a year or two ago!

          As my dearly departed grandmother used to say (before she departed), “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

          🙂 (courtesy smile)

          B.R.1

        2. I don’t think I remember the incident you refer to, Big Red.
          Usually when I refer to typos (other than my own), it’s only because I think they’re funny, as is the case here.

      2. I saw Dorcas’s comment also, and realized it can’t be real. It’s a poe, obviously. The blog author failed to recognize that.

      3. “Dorcas” seemed…..fake, actually. I know there are people who say the same things, but she did not seem legit.

  5. She identifies herself with the bathroom sign??? meh, I get my fashion advice from 2 dimensional stick figure drawings.

    And dress like you are on God’s team? have you ever noticed that the fundy god is preoccupied with stupid petty crap like dress codes but seems to let natural disasters and poverty and hunger slip right on by…

      1. And………isn’t “looking feminine” a problem? Does she WANT to tempt her brothers?

        1. Ummmm. . . if miniskirts were the “immodest dress” she gave up to get right with Jesus, I doubt that most of the brothers would be tempted to lust if she walked into their field of vision—unless they’re really into older women.

      4. My four year old accidentally went into the men’s restroom today at a restaurant. But it’s ok. She was wearing a dress. 🙂

    2. I, however, identify myself with this bathroom sign:

      2. Sorry for my ignorance, but what does the third figure mean?

        An octopus? An Easter bonnet?

    1. Dang!
      You mean I’ve got to chop each of my child’s legs into three parts, and slice off the top of his head?

      1. I cannot read anymore of her trash. God and prick in the same sentence? I am deeply offended.

        1. There’s the reason for her post.

          She’s conflicted as to which is her first love.

        1. The plunger is used too clear out all the crap from his head, put there by the Rulers of Fundystan

      2. I never send kids in my care outside to play without a condom on their heads for safety!

        1. I was going to go with “cow pie,” but a condom or a base of a toilet plunger makes more sense.

  7. Seriously someone needs to draw that woman a picture of what the articles “pertaining unto men” looked like back when Deut. was written. Hint, it wasn’t chinos and a button down shirt, honey. It is so annoying when these people make assumptions on matters biblical, based on 1950s fashion and logic. I got in trouble so often for asking what the difference between a man’s long robe and a woman’s long robe was in bible times.

  8. I read the comments at her site, and this one is so sad; she thinks she’ll go to hell if she wears pants.

    Dorcas says:
    March 13, 2015 at 6:50 am
    Amazing! I got saved the other day and one of my biggest challenge was moving from pants to modest dresses and skirts. I believe the prophet of this day…has echoed the voice of God. Trousers are an abomination! We will go to hell if we were them. No doubt. Thanks for sharing this.

    1. Actually, from the paintings I’ve seen of hell, the dress code seems to be very relaxed there.

    4. Dorcas got saved the other day?

      She “got saved” on the Cross some 2,ooo years ago.

    5. Dear Dorcas,
      I agree. It’s sometimes hard to get a woman out of her pants.
      Regards,
      BJg

  10. I don’t get it. Even when I was IN Fundyland, I didn’t get it. What is it with dresses? I mean, I like dresses. But honestly, the bathroom sign is getting tired. And the modesty posts are getting tired. It’s like every woman blogger out there feels compelled to write a long defense of why they don’t wear pants, or yoga pants, or leggings, or bikinis, or whatever, and it’s old. The horse is dead. Stop beating him.

  11. Because the proper Christian response to sexual thought is “Yikes!”

    1. If you’re truly gidly and sepiratid you won’t recognize a sexual thought.

  12. I’m firmly convinced the stick figure bathroom lady is wearing a cape not a dress. I’d much rather be a superhero than a dress wearing fundy woman.

    I have never understood the ridiculously overboard modesty agenda pushed in my circles. Never.

    1. And this from one of her reply comments “We feel it is a small thing, but if it can’t be done as a lady…we abstain. -Michelle”

      I hate that view. I loath that view. I despise that view.

      My sister and I missed out on so mutch growing up, because we either a) couldn’t do it in a dress or b) tried to do it in a dress and found out how horrifically embarrassing it was and quit. And we were smart, active girls who loved to be physically active and do stuff. That’s one of the things we mourn most about our first 20 years. And we were always told that “if you couldn’t do it in a dress, then God didn’t intend for you to do it at all.” Which was horrifying to us. That’s one of the things I hated most about my childhood. I was fed such a false view on so many things, even though they meant well I’m sure.

      2. “if it can’t be done as a lady…we abstain” …. So fully clothed missionary position only 🙂

        So glad you’re at least out of it now – so many women are restricted for their whole lives

        1. Sadly I’m not out as much as I wish, yet. But it’s coming soon.

          My mind is free, however. 😉

      3. That line always made me cringe! You can’t take a shower fully clothed in a skirt so are you just supposed to go around smelling like a warthog’s behind? Of all the things that piss me off the most about fundamentalism, the whole “modesty” argument, is the biggest one! I can’t tell you how many sermons I sat through listening to the MOG drone on about modesty and what the Bible allegedly says about what we should be wearing. I can’t recall one sermon however, about how we should be feeding and clothing the needy.

        1. But the much larger issue to me is the idea of “lady” – a social construct that has nothing to do with Christianity – being conflated with Christian ethics. The “logic” flow is something like the following:
          Preferred social construct -> telos based on previous -> ethics based on telos -> biblical interpretation based on ethics

          Fwiw, this is not limited to fundies, nor to this issue.

        2. And with the curdled pap that passes for history in fundamentalist schools and homeschools, they have no chance of learning about the pyramid of human drudgery that made true ladyhood possible. The super-modest impractical clothes? A maid helped her into them. Constant attendance on the whims of the husband? Somebody else was scrubbing the floors, lighting the fires,* preparing the meals, washing the dishes, mending the clothes, dusting the furniture, etc., etc., etc. Sweet little scenes in which the children gather round adoringly, hanging on Mamma’s every word? The children of ladies didn’t even see Mamma for 23 hours of the day; nurses, nannies, governesses, and tutors looked after them. All they had was the children’s hour in the evening.

          *Using coal dug, as often as not, by a woman–or a child.

        3. Jenny Islander, great points. I find it amusing how Jo March in Little Women refers to their family as poor, yet they still had a maid/cook in the kitchen. (Was her name Hannah?)

        4. That is right! Hannah, who was devoted and not too bright and spoke in a stereotyped Irish accent.

      4. That’s one of the saddest things I’ve read here for awhile, and I’m sorry to read it. I wonder if fundies really think this through, what this attitude does to girls. In my more cynical moments, I half suspect that fundy men like to keep women in dresses and skirts to keep them from showing them up at their supposed manly activities. You could call it the Annie Oakley theory of fundies. Either way, I’ve never understood their utter fixation with prescribed gender roles.

        1. Believe me, fundies DO think through what their rules do to girls and women. And they plan for it deliberately.

          Keep girls helpless and inexperienced! Make them feel guilt about every misstep, and blame them when they are victimized. Let them know they are not to be trusted making their own choices or decisions. They must always ask permission.

          The idea of being a slave to God is automatically turned into being a slave to the pastor. In fact, women will obey the pastor better than they will consider the desires of their own husbands–something I consider to be an emotional infidelity. Biblioidolatry wrecks relationships.

          In today’s world, women and girls can view themselves as competent and equal to men — a good thing. Men have done a great job of ruining things. We’d be better off listening to those who wish to build and work for a future for everyone.

        2. Years ago, I got my sister to go to church with me. She wore her best pants.

          It was the Sunday the preacher preached against pants. It was many years before she attended church with me again, and we both wore pants.

          The “anti pants” sermon was the one that led me out of Fundystan.

      5. I hear you. ((Hugs)) In my case, I still did some things in a skirt that would’ve been more appropriate in pants, I just looked like an uncomfortable idiot while I did them. (sled riding! Because even ski pants show the shape of your legs)

        I get very angry when I think about how many normal life experiences I missed out on as a kid.

        2. Not George, necessarily. Just a looooooong comment thread between your comment and I-fear-a-cage’s!

        3. I think about climbing trees in a skirt 😛

          My mom let us wear shorts around the house though, when we were younger.

        4. Easterlily, my mom let us wear pants or long shorts if we were in the backyard. But we couldn’t play in the front yard where people might see us. Or if a visitor stopped by (which sometimes did happy – we lived in a small town), we had to change into a skirt.

        5. I changed frantically into skirts even as an adult, as a mother, when a Fundy dropped in. Wow. That was unbearable. I hated it so much, the inability to be myself.

  13. Have you heard about Red Lobster’s new meal called “Infidel’s Delight”? It is a rock lobster tail served on a cotton/poly blend napkin by a waitress in pants. I hear it smells faintly of brimstone.

        1. No, but they did a good job with the Rock Monster cover. I think that was when I introduced my kids to the B-52s.

  14. Here we go again with the ‘women are the root of all evil’, and obviously men do not have any personal responsibility at ALL. I’ve never understood that mindset, coming from people who preach discipline and self control and minding your thoughts. I think, to these people, that a woman walking around in a skirt, or even pants (OMG), is roughly equivalent to a woman in a string bikini and a thong.

    Men who tell you they do not enjoy looking at a beautiful women are lying. It doesn’t mean they are pervs, though. My opinion? Be comfortable in what you wear.

    Ultimately, it comes back to this: Men need to take personal responsibility for their own actions and thoughts.

    1. It’s one of those Fundy paradoxes. Women are inherently weak and foolish and men should lead women in all things, yet men are completely powerless over their own behavior toward women. You need really, really deep inspiration to understand this concept. Or else you need a few solid blows to the head with a blunt object to have the necessary insight.

  15. 1. I do not recommend women wear mens pants. It just isn’t cut right for their shape. They should wear women’s pants. I gaurantee if this lady some a man walk past in women’s pants she would immediately spot the mismatch.
    2. Women’s pants are more modest than a skirt. When that gust of wind blows, pants do not float up nearly as much. You can also bend over in them to look at the low items without revealing thighs. I guess God didn’t intend the ladies to need the store brand crackers on the bottom shelf.
    3.The male bathroom sign is wearing no pants. What should I do? It could be argued that it is wearing pants, but it certainly isn’t wearing shorts. Is that taboo? And isn’t that letting culture dictate morals anyway? Big no no.
    4. If your brothers in Christ stumble over modest pants, they will stumble over your modest skirt as well. Also, check the sex offender registry for their name.
    5. God doesn’t ask it. Your preacher who inexplicably feels that bad fashion =good testimony did.

    1. Because guys’ pants don’t have center seams, and we all know no woman is attracted to a guy visually.

  18. Okay, she wears “exercise skirts” (what the hell are exercise skirts?) so she won’t be embarrassed when she runs into someone from church. For the love of…

    I guess this touches an extra-sensitive nerve for me because I grew up thinking you had to do the right thing, not to please God, but so people you know wouldn’t see you in public and embarrass you. I can’t tell you how many normal things I didn’t do as a child/teenager solely because I was afraid how it would look to other people. And I’m not even talking “bad teenager” things like drugs and sex! I’m talking about things like going to the wrong grocery store because it has a liquor store attached. (My mother won’t buy red wine vinegar because she’s afraid she’ll ruin her testimony. There’s a great story her sister tells, though, about my mom getting drunk on rum cake at a wedding back in the 70s.)

    I’m so glad I can do whatever I want without fear now. A) If someone from my current church caught me at the liquor store, they’d give me their favorite cocktail recipe. B) If someone from a former church caught me at the liquor store and berated me, I’d laugh in their face and walk away. C) If Jesus caught me at the liquor store, he’d probably tell me about the time he played bartender at a wedding in Cana.

    1. You have a very interesting outlook. My wife and I were almost jealous of all of the things our son got to do with his youth groups. We got to do a lot of fun things, but there were also a lot of things, we’ve since learned, that we weren’t allowed to do simply because we were fundies. Things that would have been oh so much more fun.
      Case in point: After having been married for 10 or so years, and having a son, as well as being 30 ish years old, my wife and I got to go see the Newsboys and Big Tent Revival at Universal Studio’s Rock The Universe. It was an awesome experience, and my first experience like that. Sad, I know.
      A few days later, we were with my family for Sunday lunch and my sister blew up at me, saying, “YOU WERE RAISED BETTER THAN THAT!!!!” My wife and I just laughed.

        1. You are right about that. I didn’t tell her that I’ve listened to rock music my whole life.
          I’m going straight to hell, I know.

        3. Nice! I do that sometimes and also use lines from movies. (Yes, I go to movies, too.)

    2. Oh my gosh, yes!!! I still work to overcome the “what will others think about my testimony” mindset. I don’t think I’ll ever break free of that. 🙁

      1. I fear a cage, If I could get over that mindset, you will. Give it time. I walk freely into a liquor store wearing pants and don’t even wonder who I might run into skulking in the aisles any more 😉

      2. Seriously, I think this is a big sign pointing out the fallacies of this and other “standards” that have no real base. If your motivation is so that people (the very ones who are supposed to love their neighbor and cast out the mote in their own eyes first) won’t criticize you, you are doing it for the wrong reason.

        1. I used to wonder sometimes about the contradiction of being told, “Don’t worry about what other people think; just live to please God” and “Oh, you can’t do that because someone might think you were sinning, worldly, a bad testimony, etc.” We weren’t supposed to care, but we WERE supposed to care! It’s enough to make your head spin!

        2. I know how you feel, PW. I grew up the same way. Christians of my generation received a lot of mixed messaages. Sometimes we were told, not to care about what the world thinks of us, sometimes we were told to watch our behaviour carefully because something we do – like buy alcohol, go to the movies, not dress the right way, get tattoos, etc etc, ad nauseum – may turn a “Sinner” away from accepting Jesus and their eternal damnation would be your fault. What a horrible burden. Actually I would have heard that far *more often* than “don’t care what the world thinks” and of course there was the underlying message, usuallyunspoken, but deafeningly loud, that the most important thing is what *Other Christians* think of you. Especially the all-powerful “Weaker Brother”.

    3. If someone from your Fundy church caught you in the liquor store, or even in the wine-and-beer aisle of your local supermarket, the proper response would be “And what are YOU doing here?”

      By the way, you can buy beer and wine at a grocery store in Alabama but not in leebrul Maryland. Go figure.

      1. You can have a gay marriage in Ontario but cannot buy alcohol in a grocery store, lol

    4. Oh yes, exercise skirts are a thing.

      Now, it could be these:
      http://thismamamakesstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/skirts1.jpg

      But most likely, she is talking about these:
      https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ca/e1/f4/cae1f4e2472619c3799ed12c570af747.jpg

      Or this, like my SUPER FAST younger sister(s) wear. They could probably cut off a minute on their 5k times if they wore actually shorts, but you know.
      http://media.dressingforhisglory.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/j/_/j_tp_cu_xxvi_012.jpg

      I mean, I can understand not wanting your pre/teenaged daughters to run around your slightly sketchy neighborhood in skin-tight mini shorts. But above-knee basketball shorts are SO not alluring or immodest. Or one of those shorter running or tennis style skirts!

      1. Let’s see if this works….

        [IMG]http://i58.tinypic.com/wgrlus.jpg[/IMG]

      2. The first picture can’t be what she means; skirts are far too short. The second picture is ridiculous. The third picture doesn’t make me want to glorify anyone or anything.

      3. I’d rather have my daughter running in shorts than running in long, loose culottes that flip up and give flashes of leg. Also I think it draws less attention to see someone running by in shorts whereas people would stare at someone running in flapping culottes.

        1. It’s also safer to run in something that’s not going to trip you.

        2. Rinning in culottes is the worst ever experience.

          No, actually visiting a gym my first time, in culottes was THE worst. I think I’m still a little traumatized and embarrassed. Even tho I’ve been wearing workout pants there for the past 3 years now. Lol

    5. What is the difference between Baptist and Methodist? Methodist will say “Hi” to each other in a liquor store. 🙂

  19. Confession Time. I have always loved to see women and girls in skirts. But not for modesty reasons, let me assure you! No, it goes towards my own particulars of what I find attractive.

    And the right skirts are very attractive. I find pants on women to be utilitarian and drab. Women in shorts are okay–but if the fit isn’t correct I don’t see shorts as attractive on women.

    But a dress or skirt, nicely fitted and of good fabric, with the right amount of bounce and swing when the girl walks will get my heart pumping.

    I don’t know why preachers obsess about miniskirts. It takes an exceptional pair of legs to wear them properly. If a girl tries to flaunt what isn’t attractive, it makes it all the uglier and I can’t bear to look.

    No, it is the full skirts of feminine fabric that carry the Marilyn Monroe promise on a windy day. And the uplift and flair when a girl twirls in excitement is wonderful to see!

    So the girl writing about wearing skirts is just the type to set my heart afire with lust — well not so much lust as the wish this older body of mine could more appropriately respond to the delights of the eyes! My wife wore this wonderful red dress with small white polka dots on one of our first “this is not a date” get togethers. Wow. Got my attention! The memory is sweet.

    Sometimes I think that fundy preachers are like me, having their beauty references firmly planted in the late 30s to the 1940s and 50s. There were some great styles back then! But of course, the preacher won’t talk about the thrill of seeing the skirts flounce. He will pretend it is all about modesty. Pretend.

    So it is really all about modesty, morality, doing what the Preecher, we, uh, God! says. Sure it is! Really. Yup. Pure eye candy, uh, doesn’t get a reaction here, folks! I’m just a fine, upstanding, moral man who has never cheated on his wife and wouldn’t think to look twice at how a girl dresses. When I am with my wife, that is. Or otherwise being observed. I’d never act on the heart flutterings, but it is nice to see the few examples of true beauty that occasionally cross my vision.

    (Blush. My face is beet red as I write this!)

    1. it is nice to see the few examples of true beauty that occasionally I try conveniently arrange my head and eye movement so that they cross my vision.

      What’s in bold is my contribution to confession time.

    2. Dear rtgmath:

      A REAL fundy would wiggle his eyes synchronously with the walk to nullify the appearance of sinful wiggle.

      Christian Socialist

      PS: Enjoying [in the best of humour] your apparent discomfort … 😉

    3. Wow, I thought I was all alone in this world with my hidden “modest” skirt lust.

      1. Not at all. It is an open secret that skirts are sexy. Which is why the fundy rhetoric can be so weird. My personal favorite is the maxi-skirt, or long dress. Don’t know why, but I think they are sexy as all get out.

        2. All this “modest skirts make me go weak at the knees” stuff is based on early conditioning. Things that we “instinctively” find good, attractive, honest, all sorts of things are based on what we have been exposed to and taught as very young children. I read a study on it which I cannot put my finger on at the moment but it was fascinating.

        3. Not in my case. My mother wore short shorts or sweatpants with birkenstocks her whole life. She may be fundy, but she loves her comfort. And she’s kind of a hippie. Actually, our fundy churches rarely had hangups on pants (except the Mennonite one..long story), but that may be a northern thing.

        4. “I read a study on it which I cannot put my finger on at the moment but it was fascinating.” -MiriamD

          “There’s something I find attractive about her, but I can’t put my finger on it.” -me

        5. Your mind just always goes there, doesn’t it, BJ, to the amusement of all.

    4. UUUUUGH. I’d hear of rants from my former MOG about the poor examples of guys at my FU and the connected academy, but he loooved being all friendly with the girls and spent time with them. You know, the gorgeous teenaged girls with their makeup and big curly hair and (relatively) stylish dressing. Of course, some of those same girls were nasty little brats, a few turned out lesbian (or at least bi-), and all the ones I knew were amazingly superficial.

    5. rtgmath, don’t feel the need to blush, good sir! Not to brag, but this old gal still looks killer-bee in a fit-and-flare dress. I wear them pretty often and like how they feel all “skirty” and flowy. I wear them to look good for ME, but if my husband appreciates, then bonus. If the guy on the street lusts in his heart, well that’s on him, and if he keeps it to himself and doesn’t devolve into street harassment, then rock on!

      (I pick out pretty women for my husband to check out, and he knows he can look all he wants, without fear. I also know that his particular preference is women runners. He loves a fit body with a bouncing ponytail.)

  20. In other words:
    “Here are 5 reasons I’ve come up with in order to justify doing the things that I’ve been taught to do because not doing them would make things very complicated in my circle. So come along and do them with me!”

  21. This attitude always irritated me. Skirts just make life so much more tricky.
    My school requires skirts at all times, not even PJ pants for staff. Today I was in a beautiful flowing skirt. On the way up 4 flights of stairs, a kid stepped on the hem and down I went. Hurt my leg, hurt my arm, hurt my computer, and nearly flashed the students behind me on the stairs.
    A few hours later, I was walking down the stairs and a different kid stepped on my hem. Down I went, posterior over pigtails! Fell down that flight of stairs, probably did flash somebody, and reinjured my leg.
    My skirt only came to mid-calf (I’m a rebellious whore, eye roll with sarcasm) but it was a “flowing, let-down garment”. And don’t get me started about how often skirts get stuck in my bike chain.
    Skirts are annoying. End rant.

    1. As a kid I was thrown off my bike so many times by my skirt catching in the chain. I hated life as a girl.

      1. I, on the other hand, liked helping girls who had fallen on their bikes. Being nice, making sure they hadn’t hurt themselves, running to the house to get a cold, wet washcloth …. A boy could make friends that way!

        Not that I ever wanted anyone to get hurt, mind you.

        Alas, I learned all too well how harshly such kindness is repaid. Girls like guys who are helpful and kind, but they won’t date them! They fancied the more dangerous louts who gave them a thrill more than the safer, evidently more boring (civilized) guys like me.

        1. Not true for all of us, rtgmath. 🙂 There was a little towhead, shy, sweet preacher’s son (not an Indy fundy, relaxed missionary baptist which I can take better) around the corner who picked me up many times and a few times got me in trouble in the first place because of ideas like “let’s ski down this concrete slope on linoleum” (my biggest busted lip ever) who became a firm friend when we were ages 8 & 9. We are still great friends to this day, actually, best friends, who are working, saving and planning for a future life married together. 🙂 he’s a great guy, though I have to be very careful to to let on to anyone in my Indy fundy checks that he isn’t Indy fundy and we *gasp* read the ESV together!!!! 😉

        3. Is it possible that the girl did not feel the need to repay your kindness by dedicating part of her life to becoming your girlfriend, but instead stored it up as a favor to be repaid in kind…?

  23. So, ummm, we’re supposed to find Biblical inspiration in the pictures we find written on bathrooms? O-kay then, I feel a whole new theology coming on…

  24. God forbid men should see some leg…it might cause them to be damned for all eternity. For that reason ladies, let’s go do what we are said to do best by these fundies, have some fun and see how many men we can bring down with the unspeakable sin of leg cleavage. I think it’s the bend at the knee that is the hook, line and sinker. Heaven forbid they should feel blood flowing in one particular direction. In any case, I never understood this rule. I’ll wear skirts but not the approved ones. I don’t wear the mini ones either but in my limited experience with fundie men who complain about everything under the sun and the ones who oppress women the most are the most hypocritical. It’s actually their weakest point in life. Kinda like Jack Schaap, or any other ‘man of God’ who has been caught with the female counterpart. “Women can’t do this, Women can’t do that, yada, yada”, “it’ll be a cold day in hell before I get my theology from a woman”, etc etc. In the end, it was a woman that destroyed him. Rather poetic justice in my book.

    1. “In the end, it was a woman that destroyed him” – he thinks so too, and it proved all his sermons to be true 🙂

      1. If it’s going to be done, let it be done by a woman lol gets the job done better.

        2. I second the motion!

          My wife had a benign tumor, growing at the top of her right tibia, removed recently. The sawbones said that it probably had started when she was a teenager!

          The tumor was the size of a tangerine, he said.

          Get that golf ball checked! Now!

        3. Get it checked.
          It could be any number of things, but you need to know which one it is.

        1. Just a quick footnote:
          That clip shows people trying to put something into the mouth of the guy having convulsions.
          Don’t do that when someone is (or may be) having a seizure. It’s an old folk superstition that it somehow helps the person with seizures. It doesn’t; it makes things worse in several ways.

      3. Do you have arthritis, Dr. F? Mom had something like that, leaked fluid from a damaged knee. Please do get it checked.

  27. I just can’t even with these reasons. Recently I wear skirts because I had wrist surgery and can’t deal with zippers or buttons or whatever keeps pants up . . . guess it took this kind of inconvenience to get my attention and get my heart right. (rolls eyes)

  29. To prevent any lusting, why not require women to have their legs amputated? If it offends cut it off.

    1. My legs don’t offend me. I think it is something else that needs to be cut off………..

  30. “Shouldn’t we have some shame if our secret parts are outlined?! “. Someone needs to tell her that camel toe is not attractive. I feel sorry for her daughters of she refers to her genitals as her secret parts.

    ” When a woman wears pants, it is to the center seam that the eye looks first (front and back) and, like it or not, that creates sexual thought in a man’s mind. Yikes!” For being a doctor, she is pretty ignorant. Following her ignorant logic- does this mean she is checking out a guys ass because her eyes go to the seam? Our does she check out the bulge in the front?

    1. Now, now, SW. Don’t you know that women aren’t visual? /eye roll

    2. > does this mean she is checking out a guys ass because her eyes go to the seam? Our does she check out the bulge in the front?

      Depends on whose looking… 😉

  32. You’re all forgetting that it’s just as much about the butts!

    Butt’s are wonderfully erotic in ways that most people don’t want to admit.

    But fundies are too prude to talk about butts. Guess what??

    God made your butt!! And if you have nice cheeks, then He made them that way. He carefully shaped each curve.

    DAYUM!

    1. Eh, it could have been a LOT worse. She could have said, like my former MOG, that you should just “get over it.” Or, “just go out and kid with people! I start poking fun at people and start to feel a lot better!” In other words, I get happier when I can put other people down.

      She is over simplifying it, I think, but points out to be gentle with yourself, try to get enough sleep, etc. Maybe she hasn’t experienced much of the mind-numbing cloud that just WON’T GO. Like Sadness from Inside Out….

  35. A few weeks went by and God started pricking my heart. “What is the big deal about what you wear, Michelle?”

    Maybe one day God will say that to her again and she will have a huge duh moment.

  36. I wear skirts, sometimes, because of m neuropathy…and summer….in Texas.

    Down side is that I often get mistaken for a fundie and am often tempted to drop a ‘bad’ word when they try to engage me in ‘godly’ conversation.

    1. Robin, last year I was sitting on the beach with a long, loose dress over my bathing suit, getting approving looks from a bunch of Fundies whose women and girls were all in skirts or dresses (not over bathing suits I assume.) I ignored them until my girls appeared in bikinis, then seeing the frowns and disapproving looks they got, I stood up, smiled at the Fundies and whipped off my dress. That’s why there’s “Fun” in Fundy.

      1. I took a couple of kids to Deep Creek to tube last summer. The family walking by gave me the fundie death glare. You know the one, where they make sure you know that they have judged you and condemned you in a split second.

        Funny thing, we love practically at the beach, so my kiddo has been exposed to bikinis and swimsuits and naked European babies all his life. I’ve always told him “it’s just skin”. And to him, it’s just skin. Everyone has it, some lighter, some darker, some more, some less, some tauter, some looser. Never exposed him to the “cross your legs at the ankle, not the knee, you whore!” mentality. I think he will do better at not objectifying and oppressing women than any MOG.

    2. I would have liked to have seen their faces. 🙂
      ( and you in a bathing suit) 🙂

  37. Anyone read the comments? One poster said she lets her girls wear pants (or leggings under skirts) because ‘kids will be kids’
    and it would be immodest otherwise.

    Apparently, letting little girls play and not be ‘ladylike’ will send everyone to HELL!!

  38. I have a question…I came from a fundy background and can’t remember ever hearing the mixed fiber or shrimp passages addressed…although now as an adult I am aware they exist. Do fundies ever address those passages and why they’re not as important as not wearing that which pertaineth to a main? If so, any links you can share with me? I’m just very curious how it’s justified in the fundy mind.

    1. I’ve never heard them mentioned, let alone preached about. I’m guessing if you asked about this they would say it’s different parts of the law and we still have to obey the modesty one because reasons.

      Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me, either.

    2. Because everyone wears polyester and nylon. Also, women can’t wear nylons if they can’t wear nylon.

      Let’s not forget about the surf-n-turf special at the restaurant after the screeching, er, preaching. It’s just not the same if you’re eating haddock with your steak.

  41. “I have never seen a bride in wedding slacks.”

    Translation: I’ve never seen it, so it doesn’t exist, and I couldn’t expend the ten seconds it would take to google “wedding slacks” or “wedding pants”.

    The problem with applying strictures to your thinking is that it also restricts blood flow, dear.

  42. Darrell, you need to have one more last post to show us the skirt you said you were off to buy.

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