This past weekend, our family spent the day flying home from visiting my parents and brother out in Oregon. Walking through the airports proved harrowing and grieving as we passed newsstand after newsstand dripping with filth. The worst was GQ magazine. Its cover featured a beautiful woman wearing a tie…

…and nothing else.

Her legs were crossed and hands strategically placed so her nipples weren’t exposed. But there she was, smiling at my children as we hurried past, she and her friends like the woman in Maxim, legs spread for the camera, oversized blouse just barely falling between them as well as falling off her top half.

I know that some people don’t see anything wrong with images like this, but I find them tragic. They divorce sexual excitement and fulfillment from the relationships that God designed those feelings to feed and cement. In short, they are robbing marriages. Bit by bit, they are slowly eating away at men’s enjoyment of and whole-hearted union with their wives. Rather than being a special, sacred glue that holds a man and wife together, sexual gratification becomes a free for all. Provide it for whomever. Get it from whomever. And it’s not just currently married men who are being damaged. Young men who become addicted to lust in their youth will carry their skewed version of sex into their future marriages, losing the depth of delight that God intended for them, and often leaving them sneaking around behind their wives’ backs collecting titillation from the same shallow, glossy sources they did in their single years.

Thankfully, my children were distracted by the airport tram and looking the other way. My three year old son probably isn’t struggling with lust too much yet anyway, but he is beginning to notice the world we live in. Just a few days before this miserable episode, as we sat at the lunch table, he pulled his sleeve down his arm, tucked his little baby cheek down on his bare shoulder, and looking up at me through his eyelashes asked, “Mommy, why do ladies in magazines look like this?”

The usual method for raising godly children in Smutland is sheltering. And sheltering is a good, good thing, both for our children and for ourselves, but you can only shelter so much. We don’t have a TV, we don’t get the newspaper (lingerie adds and all), we avoid most movies, we even stopped going to 7-eleven because of the “men’s” magazines under the counter right at children’s eye level. But we can’t protect our children from every sexual image. We can’t drive down the highway without seeing billboards. We can’t get through the check lane at the grocery store without seeing magazines. We can’t surf the Internet without seeing ads. And we can’t take our children on an airplane trip to see their grandparents without passing newsstands.

And while many parents seem to hope that their children are just oblivious, that there will always be that convenient tram, I’m way too jaded for that. Maybe as preschoolers they aren’t suffering too much, but the day is coming, and coming fast when every fiber of their being will be screaming at them to notice. The teen years will be here before I know it, years when their bodies will be fully functioning, ready to have babies, and not the least bit concerned with whether they’re through with their studies or well prepared for a stable financial future. They’ll be like dieting housewives with empty stomachs shopping for groceries on Saturday afternoon, free samples around every corner. “Would you like to try a mini cream puff?”

I’ve seen a lot of parents who find the idea of their children’s budding sexuality a little embarrassing and hope that as long as they don’t tell their kids too much or talk about the images and experiences the world is all too willing to offer, that their children won’t get involved. They blush and act squeamish when questions come up and are quick to emphasize that “that won’t matter for you until you’re much older.” This is a bit like acting squeamish and embarrassed about food. There’s nothing wrong or unnatural about liking food. As long as we’re eating the food the Lord has given us, food is a blessing. The problem comes when we’re stealing from other people’s lunch boxes. Pretending that food doesn’t exist, or that it isn’t an issue for our children is like pretending a starving man won’t notice your sandwich. A child who discovers that he likes the way food smells and looks may feel a bit ashamed of his fancy if it clearly embarrasses his parents, but he isn’t going to stop liking it. And if he doesn’t have his own lunch box yet, he’ll be all too happy to grab a chip here and a cookie there from the free sample stations that the world has set up at the end of every aisle. “Would you like to see what a woman looks like with her clothes off?”

If we expect our children to be able to win this battle, or even to fight in the first place, we need to prepare them for it. They need to know their enemy, and they need to know how to fight.

Proverbs chapters 5, 7, and 9 all contain detailed warnings to young men about harlots. I don’t think the modern day woman on the cover of GQ is all that different. After all, she’s giving away something that should only belong to a husband (the right to see and enjoy her body) for the sake of profit. So I think the Proverbs approach is probably a good one for helping our children learn to confront these kinds of temptations. These three chapters contain wonderful descriptions of the “enemy,” the women who are trying to trap them, as well as the consequences of going after these women. You may want to consider reading them frequently to your sons or having them memorize parts, but at the very least, go over them thoroughly. Here are a few highlights (and notice how this advice is addressed to “children;” this is not just advice for “adults,” it’s something that we need to teach our children before the temptations are assaulting them):

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed –Proverbs 5:3-11

For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,  And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)…He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.  Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.  Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.  –Provers 7:6-12, 22-27

A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers who go right on their ways:  Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.  But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell. –Proverbs 9:13-18

There’s a LOT we can learn from these passages, but some important things are these: the harlot is enticing, she is everywhere, and she is deadly. No man should think himself immune (“many strong men have been slain by her”), but it is the fool, the simpleton, the “young man void of understanding” that she calls in particular. Lets look at these one by one.

The harlot is enticing. Naked women and sexual release make men feel wonderful and go hand in hand. We must admit this or we will lose all credibility with our sons. They need to be warned that when they see a woman with “the attire of an harlot” that it’s going to be titillating, exciting, even empowering. Otherwise, we run the risk of having them reason, “Naked women make Mom feel squeamish, but she just doesn’t understand how much fun it is for me. I’ll keep this to myself. I know it’s probably wrong to keep looking at women this way, but it makes me feel so good I can’t stop.”

The harlot is everywhere. “Now she is without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.” We do all we can to avoid her, but there will be times we have to confront her. She’s just an innocent click away on the Internet, waiting around the corner on the billboard, or hanging from the department store ceiling under a sign reading “Intimate Apparel.”  Our sons need to know they have to be ready always and never let down their guard.

The harlot is deadly. This is where the sternest warning is needed.  For all her enticements, she has the power to destroy our sons’ souls, poison their marriages, cripple their futures. Solomon does not mince words, and neither should we. Our sons must know in no uncertain terms that “her guests are in the depths of hell.”

The harlot especially targets the simple and the foolish. Seeking genuine, biblical wisdom that starts with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10) is a strong defense. After all, those who are walking in the spirit will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

Once our sons know their enemy, they have to know how they’re going to fight. And it is up to parents to teach them these skills. Just knowing that lust is wrong is not enough. Our sons have absolutely no clue how to deal with it on their own, and they will fail unless they are shown a way out.

Their most powerful weapon is retreat. They need to run away, to “flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22). And to be able to do that, they need to train their eyes not to get stuck on images they should be running from. Our sons need to understand that they have no right to let their eyes stay on a woman who is not their wife.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. –Matthew 5:28

I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?–Job 31:1

Like Job, our sons need to make a covenant with their eyes. They need to train their eyes to “bounce,” to borrow a term from the excellent book, Every Man’s Battle (which my husband strongly recommends). That simply means that if they see anything that even begins to titillate, they need to look instantly away. They can’t “think upon a maid,” either. That means no dwelling on what they’ve accidentally seen. Our sons need to simply acknowledge the unintentional charge they felt and let it go. It doesn’t belong to them. No long looks. No second looks. No lingering thoughts. It isn’t theirs. Tell the free sample lady you’re saving your appetite for the dinner your Father is preparing.

Our sons also need to be taught how to be careful not to go “nigh the door of her house,” in other words, they have to learn to shelter themselves when Mom and Dad can’t, to “make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14). That means if they even see a newsstand up ahead, they should already be looking the other way before they catch a glimpse of GQ or Maxim. If they have to shop at the mall, they should plan a route that doesn’t take them past the larger than life posters of lingerie models at Victoria’s Secret. If they’re in a check lane, their eyes should be looking straight ahead before they see the woman on the cover of Cosmopolitan spilling her not so mini cream puffs out of her dress.

Last of all, our children need the accountability that can only come from a close relationship with the people the Lord has provided for their protection, their parents.

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. –Proverbs 23:27, 28

When we have our children’s hearts, we have a much greater chance of having an open enough relationship with them that they will tell us about their struggles. However, we may need to ask! Don’t expect your children to come to you and talk about this sort of thing on their own, especially if you’ve had the attitude in the past that they couldn’t possibly be having trouble with lust at their “young” age. They may be all too happy not to shatter your good opinion of them and mistakenly believe that they can handle things on their own.

We need to take seriously the difficult position our children find themselves in today with sexual free samples available at every turn and a huge gap, often on the order of a decade or more between discovering how hungry they are and actually getting a legitimate meal. They are starving in a world of free samples, and if we want them to have a chance of saying no the smiling sample ladies, we had better get busy and prepare them for it before they get their first taste of mini cream puff.

I’d like to introduce you to your imaginary Uncle Freddie. You love Uncle Freddie. He’s been single all his life, so you feel almost motherly towards him since he doesn’t have anyone else to look after him. He’s jolly, and open, and sincere, loves kids and animals, never misses birthday parties. You know, he’s family. Unfortunately, Uncle Freddie also has an unhealthy relationship with food. In fact, he weighs 600 pounds, and his doctor has told him that if he doesn’t lose weight, he’s going to die because if the diabetes doesn’t get him, a heart attack will. Uncle Freddie’s coming over for dinner tomorrow, and you’ve got a family pack of chicken. How are you going to cook it?

Recently, Joanna, of Jo-with-it’s Portfolio left me the following comment.

Do you wear skirts all the time? I think I would like to try it for a week or something, but I don’t know if there are any verses that say you should, and I don’t know where to look. I don’t want to do it for the wrong reason.

Yup, I pretty much do wear skirts all the time, but not exactly because I think the Bible says I should. Rather, I think the Bible has certain principles that should affect our clothing choices, and wearing skirts is the easiest way for me to keep them all in balance. I do not think mine is the only way to do this. It’s just the one that makes the most sense to me. The personal outworking of Biblical principle, is exactly that, personal. And above all, we need to follow the leadership of our husbands and fathers in that outworking.

Uncle Freddie will be our constant companion through this discussion because, just as he has an unhealthy relationship with food, there are an awful lot of men out there who have unhealthy relationships with women’s bodies through lust. And the way we prepare food for dinner for an unhealthy loved one has a lot of correspondences to the way we prepare our bodies for a day out in an unhealthy world.

The first Biblical principle that should affect clothing choice is modesty. Modesty is like keeping your cooking low in calories. It’s a slippery issue, hard to make universal rules about, but vitally important, especially when Uncle Freddie is coming to dinner, AND in the case of modesty (not low cal cooking), it’s actually commanded in Scripture.

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 1Timothy 2:9-10

The closest I can come to a good working definition of modesty is, “not drawing attention to yourself,” not putting up the big, sizzling, neon sign that screams, “Look at me!” “Look at me, I’m so rich!” or “Look at me, I just walked off the cover of InStyle,” or perhaps most crucially, “Look at me, I’m hotter than hellfire, I got more curves than the Pacific Coast Highway, and you’re gonna be dreaming about me all night, baby!” Maybe the simplest way of saying it is that modesty means not showing off.

And we really need not to show off because our brothers in Christ are living in a sex-saturated world, just like Uncle Freddie is surrounded by fast food restaurants and cheap candy bars. Sexual images are everywhere, easily available, addicting, and anonymous. A 1996 Promise Keepers Survey at one of their rallies found that over 50% of the men admitted being involved with pornography within one week of attendance. And according to a 2001 Christianity Today Leadership Survey 37% of pastors say that porn is a current struggle. It’s been a few years, and I’d be really surprised if the situation hasn’t gotten worse.

Men who are struggling with porn are guaranteed also to be struggling with objectifying the women around them, with viewing women as nothing but bodies, with living each day in a state of unbridled lust. And that lust is killing them spiritually just as surely as being morbidly obese is killing Uncle Freddie physically. Some of these men are completely given over, but others are fighting, struggling to keep their heads above water. And while we may sometimes be able to tell who these hurting men are, the numbers are so high that the majority of them are going unnoticed. You see them at church, at the store; they’re watching you from their cars as they pass you on the street. Do you love these men? Do you want to help them? Do you care if they lust after you? Or are you just annoyed with them? Are you angry at Uncle Freddie for eating way too many Twinkies and then overeating at your table?

The second principle is being feminine, the desire to look like a woman. This is akin to having what you cook taste good. The main verse people usually quote on dressing in a distinctly feminine way is:

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. Deuteronomy 22:5

The important thing to keep in mind here is that this is part of the Law, and Christians have argued for centuries about what that means for us. Many people would be quick to point out that this same chapter forbids plowing with an ox and an ass together (v. 10) and wearing fabric made from combined fibers, such as wool and linen (v. 11). Most Christians, even the ones who say that verse 5 means that it’s an abomination for women to ever wear pants, would not rise up in righteous indignation at a poly-cotton blend, so a lot of people would like to throw out the idea that a women wearing masculine clothes is wrong, too. But there is a difference in verse 5. It’s unique in that a reason for the command is given. And that reason is that “all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” “Abomination” means God hates it. When God says He hates something we’d better take note, no matter which part of the Bible we find His declaration in. Indeed, we take very seriously other “abominations to the LORD” mentioned in the Law (idolatry: Deuteronomy 7:25, human sacrifice: Deuteronomy 12:31, involvement in the occult: Deuteronomy 18:10-12, deceitfulness in business: Deuteronomy 25:13-16, and many, many more). God, who does not change, has declared that He hates it when men look like women and women look like men. Now exactly what that means in terms of the actual clothes is going to be cultural, but I think we can at least take away from this the principle that God does want us to look like what He made us to be.

OK, now comes the hard part, a balancing act tougher than menu planning for a 600 pound uncle, because the easiest way to look feminine is to wear clothes that are small and tight, that show lots of your delicate skin, gracefully follow every curve, and leave no doubts about how small and soft you are compared to the average man. But, oops! That is not terribly modest. Now what? More fabric? Baggier? More androgynous?

It’s really easy to be modest without being feminine, and it’s really easy to be feminine without being modest, just like it’s really easy to cook low calorie chicken that tastes like rubber, and it’s really easy to cook succulent chicken that’s fatty enough to clog seven more of Uncle Freddie’s hardened arteries.

Take jeans for example. Jeans can be kind of modest if they’re really loose and straight cut. Some men, to be perfectly blunt, are going to have trouble with having their eye follow the line of your legs up to where they meet (a place it would be better if the men around you weren’t thinking about), but you could always mitigate that with a really big shirt that hangs half-way to your knees. And if you’re super careful about not letting your hips sway too much, depending on your hair, you might even pass for a wimpy little man, and then for sure, you’d be modest. But, ew, not to mention “abomination.” So maybe we don’t want to go there, but the minute your jeans are tight enough to show the world that you’re actually female, you’re cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible. And, um, we all know how men are about…cars.

So, what do we do? I tend to think that modesty has to come first, but not to the absolute exclusion of femininity (because God does want us to look feminine). We constantly have to strike a balance, and that is governed by the most important principle yet, the Principle of Love.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s return to Uncle Freddie for a moment. How are you going to cook that chicken? Look at these menu options and the thoughts behind them, and try to think which one is the most loving.

Well, option one is, you could say to yourself, “It’s Uncle Freddie’s fault he’s so fat. If he overeats at my house and gains six more pounds, he’ll have no one to blame but himself and his own out of control lust for food. I’m getting out the Crisco and frying that chicken because that’s the way my husband likes it. Anyway, if Uncle Freddie doesn’t eat fried chicken at my house, he could always stop at KFC on the way home, so it doesn’t really matter how I cook.”

Or, you could say to yourself, “Poor Uncle Freddie, food is just too hard to resist! Maybe if I boil the chicken in several changes of water, I can remove all the fat. My family’s not going to like it, but I don’t want to feel like I killed Uncle Freddie!”

Then there’s option three: “I love Uncle Freddie, and I know he really struggles with food. I want to make a nice dinner for my family, but I don’t want to sabotage Uncle Freddie’s efforts, either. Maybe I could fire up the grill to give that chicken a nice mesquite flavor without adding extra fat and calories.”

In my mind, option three is the most loving. You’re balancing your love for your family with your love for Uncle Freddie and sensitivity to his struggles. You’re trying to make food that will be yummy for your husband and children, but that won’t contribute to Uncle Freddie’s problems. Of course, he could still overeat, but you’re giving him a fighting chance at staying on his diet.

It is this balance that I’m striving to achieve in my clothes. I want to be feminine and pretty, to look like a woman, but I don’t want to show so many curves that the men around me start hearing engines revving and feel the salt air on their cheeks. And for me, that means wearing skirts. Skirts are obviously feminine (just think of the little outlines of the people on the doors of public bathrooms–the canonical woman is wearing a dress). You can tell at a glance that I’m a woman, but (if my skirt is long and full enough), I’m not showing all that many curves, far fewer than in the average pair of pants. It’s great mesquite flavor without too many calories. My family has a nice dinner. Uncle Freddie lives through the night.

***

Note: There are some women who have been sexually abused who cannot handle wearing skirts. My mom had a dear friend who was in this situation. I asked her to be in charge of the gift table at my wedding, and after much anguish, she finally told my mom she didn’t know if she could do it. She figured if she had an official wedding “job,” she’d have to wear a dress, and she just couldn’t bring herself to put one on. I told my mom to tell her that I cared about her, not her clothes. She could wear whatever she wanted to my wedding. I still wanted to honor her with a special role.

I do think that skirts are a great option for most people, but I would never want anything I say here to be used to make someone who’s hurting feel guilty.