With bathing suit season around the corner, I have been thinking once again about conventional suits. There are, of course, the obvious problems of women in bathing suits being a temptation to men, provoking lust, gaining the wrong kinds of attention, etc. For many modesty-minded women, the choice has been clear for some time. Dare to be different. Wear clothes instead of Lycra lingerie in the pool. But maintaining purity isn’t the only reason to cover up.

Today we bring you Reason # 207: Immodest bathing suits make women feel ugly.

A few years ago, I was standing in the check-out lane at Meijer when I saw a good friend from church. She had seen some bathing suits she wanted to try on but felt she couldn’t because she had her three small children in tow. I said I’d be glad to watch them for her, and she hurried off to try on the bathing suits. After a while she came back. Empty-handed.

“Couldn’t find anything you liked?” I asked.

“No,” she answered, “I don’t like me in a bathing suit.”

Now let me tell you — At the time this happened, my friend was: about a size six, well-endowed, and despite having given birth to three children, appeared not to have an ounce of fat anywhere on her body. If she doesn’t like herself in a bathing suit, what hope is there for us mortals?

It’s almost universal. Women tend to feel ugly and inadequate in bathing suits. No matter how beautiful you are, if you line up with a half dozen other nearly naked women (or worse yet, imagine yourself lined up with swim suit models), every one of them is going to have at least some body part that looks better than the corresponding part on your body. Or maybe you’ve got one thing that really embarrasses you. There it is for all the world to see, and you have a feeling of impending judgment, “How can I show that to anyone, let alone everyone down at the pool? They’ll all think I’m so (fill in the blank: bony, fat, uncurvaceous, covered with varicose veins, cottage cheesy with cellulite, lumpy from pregnancy, etc.).

That level of undress really only belongs within the safety of marriage, where there’s no comparing, only appreciating. I enjoy wearing the equivalent of a bathing suit (or less!) for my husband, and I feel infinitely more beautiful because it’s just the two of us. I would so much rather be my husband’s delicious secret than participate in pool side beauty pageants in which no woman ever feels like the winner.

Someone is going to say, “Well, shouldn’t you just stop comparing yourself to others and learn to accept your body?” Yes, absolutely. The Bible even calls those who are “comparing themselves among themselves…not wise” (2 Cor 10:12). But it’s a whole heap of a lot easier when we aren’t all in our underwear. If my flesh is out in the open right next to your flesh, then the comparisons are virtually unavoidable, but if we keep our flesh covered like wonderful presents wrapped up for later, then what our bodies actually look like is muted and comparison becomes a lot more difficult. I might also add that there’s a big difference between accepting your body and wanting to show it to everyone. A woman may accept the fact that giving life to several children has brought her a multitude of stretch marks. But there’s a slim chance she wants to put on a bikini and show off her tummy to the whole world. And further, even if I were able to conquer the beast of vanity entirely so that I never worried about my body or compared myself to others, knowing how the vast majority of women feel, it would be really uncharitable of me to continue to make it hard for them not to compare themselves to me.

So, I’ve opted out. I’m done feeling ugly. I’m done making others feel ugly by putting myself on display. Now I wear this in the pool, un-trendy perhaps, maybe even to most people a little strange, but modest, and also really freeing. I’ve abandoned the beauty pageant. I’ve got better things to do, like talking with my husband about how to make his behind doors secret more delicious every day. And maybe, just maybe, my willingness to abandon fashion in the name of freedom and charity will inspire someone else out there to get off this crazy train, too. There’s just no point in making ourselves and other women miserable.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 1:24 am and is filed under Modesty (to be discreet, chaste). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.