Modesty -- a lost virtue or a hang-up?

SOUL FOOD

“Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in

others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty.” Louis

Kronenberger, Vogue, March 1964

I came across a scrap of U.S. history this week, a piece of dance

trivia -- the kind of factual small change that can come in handy in

a game of Cranium or Trivial Pursuit. According to a press release on

Web site of the Moscow Ballet, ballet made its debut in the United

States on Feb. 7, 1827 -- 176 years ago Friday.

That’s when French dancer Francisquy Hutin and her troupe danced

“The Deserter” at the Bowery Theater in New York City.

The performance became a bit of a scandal. Many in the audience,

offended by the dancers’ sheer and scanty costumes, walked out. A few

took their disgust out on each other, instead.

Because of a review of another ballet I read not long ago, this

story caught my eye.

Last October, at the Irvine Barclay Theater, the Ballet Preljocaj

performed a newly choreographed “The Rite of Spring” to Stravinsky’s

score. One lead role, a part danced by Nadine Comminges, called for

full female nudity. Michael Rydzynski, in The Irvine World News,

described the troupe’s visit as having “the seismic force of a

moderate earthquake.” He meant it in a good way. And as far as I

know, though I wasn’t there, not a soul walked out of theater.

Since Hutin and her troupe shocked New York City, times have

changed. Some say modesty as a virtue, long valued in Judaism,

Christianity, Islam and many other world religions, as well as in our

culture, has been lost or forsaken.

Near-nudity and nudity have become commonplace in films, on

television and on stage, in magazines, on billboards, in fashion, at

the gym and at the beach.

Some say modesty, turned inside out, is regarded as shameful,

embarrassing or abnormal or, in the words of author Leah Kohn, as “a

hang-up.”

In an essay titled, “Modesty: The Last Taboo,” Kohn writes,

“[There is a] Jewish perspective on modesty, which as a way of life

empowers [a woman to] enjoy the physical realm without defining

herself by it.” It is a way, she says, “of protecting your inner life

-- that which is part of your soul.”

She asks, “How did it come to pass [in our culture] that modesty,

[once] valued as a virtue for both men and women, has been

transformed into a hang-up?”

Lost, forsaken or turned inside out, at least a covey of voices

lament its demise and make a case for its restoration. In her book,

“A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue,” Wendy Shalit

explores the loss and seeks to explain it. She identifies three myths

she believes have distorted the meaning of modesty and devalued it as

virtue: modesty is Victorian; modesty is prudery; modesty is a social

construct.

Shalit contends against them all. Modesty is not a Victorian

invention, she says, but as old as human history. Modesty is not

prudery, but the opposite of it. Modesty is not a social construct,

but an innate and natural protection.

She writes, “as long as we have been human we’ve needed modesty.”

It protects, she says, “each person’s sexual and emotional

vulnerability,” guarding both “the innocence of the young and the

intimacy of the old.” She defines prudery as an aversion to intimacy,

with anyone, and argues, “Neither the promiscuous person nor the

prude can be moved or touched. One has experienced an over-exposure

to what can only be special and genuine with one person, and the

other refuses to experience anything at all.”

In “Modesty: A Lost Virtue?” an article published at Parent

University, a segment of the Pasadena Independent School District Web

site, Jeffrey D. Murrah, a licensed marriage and family counselor,

urges parents to counter at home, by example, what he sees to be a

social trend toward immodesty in dress, conduct, behavior, language

and thought.

Jeff Pollard, author of Christian Modesty and the Public

Undressing of America, sees a similar trend in churches. He describes

Christian modesty as an “inner self-government, rooted in a proper

understanding of one’s self before God.” He advocates a return to its

practice.

While Shalit desires much the same change for our culture, she is

far from optimistic. “Our culture encourages jadedness,” she writes.

“[It is] a virtue not to care.”

And indifference can make the smallest change a slow dance.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].