Modesty Is Not A Dirty Word

As a Jewish convert who was raised fundamentalist Christian, I am deeply allergic to purity culture and slut-shaming. My mother forbade me to wear tank tops and shorts in 90 F weather with no central air conditioning. I strongly condemn the idea that wearing certain kinds of clothing is "asking for it" re: rape, and I also condemn putting the blame for men's "impure" thoughts on women. I also believe practices like covering one's head are more meaningful when done intentionally, by choice, rather than being imposed on you.

Having said that, I'm not a fan of going to the doctor or on a random errand and seeing women in revealing and/or skimpy clothing. (I'm gay, so this has nothing to do with lust.) I don't miss the racism, sexism, homophobia, etc of "the good old days" but I do miss when people carried themselves with respect and dignity, and going to the store wasn't like an unasked-for free trip to a strip club.

I've heard all the rhetoric about how this is supposedly "empowering", but everyone I've known personally who dresses like this has a trainwreck personal life (like multiple baby daddies and/or multiple divorces) and usually also some major mental illness and a deeply unhealthy relationship with their body. Which leads me to believe that dressing in a slutty way isn't about empowerment, isn't about sex-positivity, but is a form of self-harm.

I grew up as an AFAB teenager in the 90s and a young adult in the early 2000s, which people sometimes talk about like it was a simpler, less toxic time. It wasn’t. The messaging was relentless, just delivered through different channels. Magazines. TV. Movies. Music videos. The unspoken rules of what bodies were acceptable and what bodies were not.

And mine was not. I am a chonk. My weight has gone up and down pretty dramatically over the last three decades. For over a decade in my teens and 20s, I struggled with anorexia and bulimia. Before Instagram. Before TikTok. Before influencers were a thing.

Social media did not invent this pressure. It industrialized it. It monetized it. It put it on a loop and handed it to you in your pocket twenty four hours a day. The message stayed the same. Your body is a problem to solve. Your value is visual. Your worth is conditional.

The dominant concept of "empowerment" is still about being looked at, being desired, and being consumed.

When I converted to Judaism, which I prefer to think of as being adopted into a people rather than switching teams, I encountered a very different way of thinking about clothing and the body. There is a concept called tznius often translated as modesty, but it is less about hiding and more about intention. About asking, what am I choosing to show, and why?

That question changed things for me.

Because for the first time, I felt like I was allowed to opt out.

I did not have to present my body for evaluation. I did not have to compete. I did not have to chase an impossible standard or perform a version of desirability that never fit me in the first place.

I could just… exist.

As a flamboyant trans guy, no less. Which might sound like a contradiction to some people, but it really is not. I can wear colors and patterns and textures. I can have a sense of style that feels expressive and joyful. And I can do that without putting my body on display in a way that feels like it is for other people rather than for me.

There is a kind of peace in that which is hard to explain if you have never felt the opposite.

It is the peace of knowing that I can be chonky and still look nice. Not “nice for a fat person.” Not “nice if I dress strategically.” Just nice. Put together. Comfortable in my own skin in a way that has nothing to do with shrinking it or showcasing it.

That, to me, is what modesty can be at its best. Not shame. Not fear. Not control. Self-respect.

And I do think we have lost that as a culture.

We have normalized a level of exposure that would have been considered extreme not that long ago, and we have tied it so tightly to the language of empowerment that questioning it feels almost taboo. But there should be room to say, gently and without judgment, that maybe we do not need to be this visible all the time.

That maybe there is value in privacy.

That in a world where women put their bodies on display for strangers at the dentist and the supermarket and have their tiddies hanging out in front of children, and call all of that "empowerment", we twice-elected a reality TV star who has made a career out of objectifying and abusing women, and there is damning evidence of him being a pedophile.

That maybe there is something grounding about clothing that is not constantly negotiating with the gaze of strangers. That it would be healthier to live in a world where someone can dress modestly without being called repressed. Where someone can cover their body without it being assumed they are ashamed of it. Where choosing not to participate in hyper-sexualized self-presentation is seen as just that, a choice, not a failure of confidence or a lack of empowerment.

I am not asking for legal mandates of skirt length and clothing style. I don't want to live under the Taliban. I don't approve of the Hasidic modesty police in Israeli neighborhoods. But I do think modesty should be normalized culturally. Because for some of us, especially those of us who have spent years at war with our bodies, modesty is not about hiding.

It is about finally being allowed to belong to ourselves.