Of course not, it’s easy. He would talk to them, and see which one he likes better. He couldn’t very well decide which one to date without finding out a little bit about what they’re like as people.

Certainly, but what people wear displays a bit about who they are (the situation I proposed suggested judgement on only externals, because physical attractiveness is the current topic of debate in this thread).

You’re right in that lots of men would prefer a woman who dresses in a nice pencil skirt and heels (corporate semiformal workwear) to one who wears sweatpants, t-shirts, and comfortable shoes (hookerwear – you do know that’s how hookers dress, right? You weren’t just fantasizing?)

You got the idea when I compared semiformal to what a hooker wears, so there was no reason for the ad hominem attack (in bold, above). Let’s keep this discussion clean and not allow emotion to cloud our judgements.

But of course those fashion preferences have nothing to do with virtue.

Actually they do. Fashion preferences in general need temperence – which is a virtue (as Aristotle explains is the balance — not necessarily the median — between two extremes). Not too little…not too much.

Two women of equal physical attractiveness are trying to date a man. One always dresses like a hooker and the other respectively (in semi-formal clothes). Which one would a virtuous man (one who is not lazy, does his work, cares for those in need, and takes care of himself) prefer?

I’ll tell you, the answer is not hard.

Of course not, it’s easy. He would talk to them, and see which one he likes better. He couldn’t very well decide which one to date without finding out a little bit about what they’re like as people.

Oh, sorry, that’s not what you had in mind, is it? I got confused when you said “women are people, not things.”

You’re right in that lots of men would prefer a woman who dresses in a nice pencil skirt and heels (corporate semiformal workwear) to one who wears sweatpants, t-shirts, and comfortable shoes (hookerwear – you do know that’s how hookers dress, right? You weren’t just fantasizing?)

But of course those fashion preferences have nothing to do with virtue.

And they know this because of their extensive experience living in both male and female bodies?

Actually, there is evidence to support this notion:

http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep01116126.html

This is a link to a psychological study conducted to investigate this question. What they found (which is not suprising) is that both men and women are attracted by physical attractiveness. However, males place more weight on physical attractiveness.

The reason for this is currently undetermined. It might be sociological, it might be biological. Nevertheless, the fact is that males pay attention to physical attractiveness more then women do.

At any rate, neither sex ought to do anything that encouages lust. Again, check the intentions behind the way you dress to figure out what incites lust (and the probable intention of the fashion designer).

Regardless,

To answer a previous question:

Jake– I’d *love* to hear what distinction you’re going to draw between “attraction” to a female form which is “normal” and “disordeered” lust.

Normal = Attraction
Disordered = Lust

Attraction is simply the natural desire for the other sex, which is normal.

Lust, however, involves a selfish notion. When lust kicks in one starts wondering what they can get from the other person, and not the other way around. This is what spawns pornography. Pornography hijacks the human sexual attraction making its end only pleasure with no regard for the individuals involved. The individual viewing the pornography almost never has any care for the “model” he or she is viewing. Pornography is an obvious product of lust.

For those theologically inclined:

Lust, as other disordered human desires (like greed, gluttony, etc.) is a product of a fallen human nature.

Those who deny the validity of scriputre will have to use the long route to find this one out (but it can be discovered using the light of the human reason alone – we just haven’t gotten there yet). Scriptures are shortcuts to understanding (I mean really, who else knows what’s wrong with us better than God?)

To respond further:

As for the male bias–Your request for tolerance doesn’t impress me. I somehow doubt you’d let Jill or another feminist off the hook if she admitted to a “female bias.” Why don’t we jsut try to be unbiased?

I was stating a philosophical (not to mention biological and psychological) fact. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

Finally, as for respect– you’re not seriously going to argue that you can’t respect a woman you fidn attractive? Doesn’t that put you in a bit of a bind? Marriage, for instance ,won’t work out too well. assuming you need to be attracted to your wife, you’re left marrying someone you can’t respect, which doesn’t sound too good to me.

You’ve definitly misunderstood me.

Examine this case:

Two women of equal physical attractiveness are trying to date a man. One always dresses like a hooker and the other respectively (in semi-formal clothes). Which one would a virtuous man (one who is not lazy, does his work, cares for those in need, and takes care of himself) prefer?

I’ll tell you, the answer is not hard. Even if she was slightly less physically attractive, he would probably favor her (and I can tell you this from a male’s perspective).

The same would go for a woman in a similar situation with two men (one wearing an a-shirt, boxers showing out of his baggy pants, to one who dresses in slacks and a decient shirt).

Finally I have to comment on this from StacyM, because it shows some things.

“Oh wow. That’s cool.” My second response was, “It’s nice that there is some degree of honesty. It certainly beats the stupid, disrespectful things that I hear my male peers saying.”

First: we think sex is a dirty thing. It’s not. It’s a natural, beautiful thing, when it is used correctly.

Second: I’ll second the notion that guys say stupid, disrespectful things about women. Such immature actions are evil. It’s also sometimes a way to cover up a bit of a self-conciousness void. Often, however, a guy who tries to speak up and contradict the view that women are an attractive peace of meat (as opposed to a beautiful person – notice the difference) is often made fun of and called gay, a wuss, not a man, or something stupid like that.

However, a woman without the same sin can cast the first stone, to coin a passage.

On a different note, the conclusion that Jill came to in the opening post:

Which is interesting, as these two statements seem to indicate that men shouldn’t leer at women. Which apparently gets translated into telling those temptresses to cover it up, because if the dudes are looking at you, it’s because you’re dressed like a harlot and you’re inciting them.

Is suffering from an incorrectly interperted biblical passage (the passage is taken out of context and out of meaning) as well as the logical fallacy ignoratio elenchi (the intent of the scripture passages are different from what Jill guessed they meant).

What Jesus was actually doing there was restoring marriage to its original state as He created it (note the theological bit above). He was denouncing adultery (you must look at this teaching of Christ in connection with the total collection of teachings He gave on the subject). The sum total of New Testament teaching is that marriage is permenant and that women are to recieve the love of the husband and that husbands must love their wives up to and including dying for them.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Women: dress with dignity (and don’t invite inappropriate acts).

Men: do the same — women are people, not things.

As such: “Dressing or putting on one’s clothes is a moral act and wearing them is a moral act.”

I also think it ties in with the “madonna/whore” duality that many men (and society in general) see women through. “Good girls” don’t talk about sex in any depth. Only racy women do that. So, when a guy finds out that a woman he respects does talk about sex—and in honest detail—he has to confront the false image of “good girls don’t talk about sex.”

When I first encountered the notion of women discussing sex in honest detail, my first response was, “Oh wow. That’s cool.” My second response was, “It’s nice that there is some degree of honesty. It certainly beats the stupid, disrespectful things that I hear my male peers saying.”

When was the last time you heard of an average man needing encouragement to be lustful?

Well heck, guys encourage each other all the time. You just don’t think of it as encouragement. That kind of encouragement happens from early boyhood onward. It starts out with the first dirty joke told about a girl or some part of her body. Dirty jokes about women and girls are the common social currency of young boyhood onward.

Sometime past the age of 10, it morphs into the expectation that you are somehow a nerd, dweeb or—even worse—gay, if you don’t pretend to have had at least one sexual encounter with a girl. Then of course, there’s the posturing about how vibrant and manly one’s sexual prowess is.

All of it is tied up in the constant push to prove one’s self and one’s masculinity. Essentially it’s a mix of insecurity, over-competitiveness, and fear of homosexuality bundled with misogyny. That’s the boy culture I grew up with. And no, I don’t think it’s some inevitable outgrowth of hormones gone wild. Sexual urges are one thing, and how society interprets and constructs social reality around those urges is another.

By the time that boys reach adulthood, talking about women’s body parts, misogynistic jokes, and humorous bragging about sexual prowess becomes a deeply ingrained way of sharing friendship and connection with other men. Rock the boat, challenge the social pattern, and you loose many of the ways in which you connect with other men. So, the ways in which men bond with each other encourage lustfulness and the tendency to do this is deeply intertwined in male to male interactions.

Eyes, hands, mouth, chest, of the right kind, for men. Since I suppose you can’t do much about the first three, I guess that translates into saying that if you don’t want to be a near occasion of sin to me in particular, be careful how you reveal your chest. Other women’s mileage may vary, a lot.

Until this very moment I was not aware of his sexual choices (is that right? “choice”).

Yes, I meant “choice”; I wasn’t referring to who he finds himself attracted to, but to, well, the fact that he engages in kinky sex in a non-monogamous way. Also, since he hasn’t talked much philosophy, I’m not sure what Thomas’ philosophical antecedants even are. I guess, though, that you and I must have attended to different comments.

It’s the difference between “God, you do good work” and “Wow, what a babe, I’d like to do X with her!”.

I’m capable of thinking “I’d like to do X with Y” even if Y is fully clothed. FWIW.

All the men I know, Catholic or otherwise, including myself, believe that men on average are more easily aroused and much more visually-oriented in their sexual arousal.

And they know this because of their extensive experience living in both male and female bodies?

Didn’t think so. How can your experience tell you about the physical reactions of the female body, especially if those physical reactions are well-hidden and only available to the woman herself?

We’ve had the porn discussion here before. Putting aside the fact that women also consume porn in large numbers, it’s fairly obvious that porn is largely about eroticizing objectification, not about eroticism itself.

We accept as a fact of life that women are basically beautiful and sexy and men are basically not.

But this isn’t a fact of life, it’s a construction of our culture. In ancient Greek society, the adolescent male body was the beauty ideal — the female body wasn’t considered particularly sexy or arousing. So this is not an absolute truth — it’s the result of cultural conditioning which presents women as objects to be looked at and consumed.

So if you find Christian men publicly asking women to dress more modestly, it’s because nearly every man is prone to lust and nearly every Christian man struggles sorely with it. And if you don’t hear Christian men telling other men to dress more modestly, it’s not only because they are not personally tempted to lust by the site of other men but because honest-to-God it’s hard to imagine that anyone would be.

Well, newsflash: Women are. I find the male body sexually attractive. If that body is of the type that I prefer, and if it’s displayed in a particular way, I will think lustful thoughts. I think this is probably true of most human beings — when we see another human being who we’re attracted to, we may lust after them.

However, my attraction to men has never translated into me believing that they must cover their bodies or dress in a particular way so as not to distract me. I put the onus on myself to behave properly.

But you’ll have to be specific, and you may have to repeat it a few times, because it’s really difficult for us guys to understand.

I really can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic here or not.

Look, I’m not under the impression that men are stupid, or that they’re animals lacking self-control. I think that men are perfectly capable of controlling their sexual urges and desires, and they’re entirely capable of interacting with women without objectifying or sexualizing them. They’re also perfectly capable of operating in day-to-day life, which entails occassionally coming across an attractive woman, and still be able to do what they need to do, attractive woman nonwithstanding.

It seems to me that the people who argue that men are incapable of controlling their urges, and so therefore we must put the onus on women to cover up, are the ones who are anti-male.

Further, this argument over women’s bodies has been happening for centuries. Hundreds of years ago, when women were routinely covered from neck to ankles, religious conservatives were complaining about their scandelous clothing choices. And in several religious nations, we see laws requiring women to cover themselves, ostensibly to protect men from temptation, and to protect women from attacks at the hands of these poor males who are unable to reign in their desire.

Long story short: I call bullshit.