Far too often in secular culture, morals are left up to the responsibility of the viewer. However, moral and ethical considerations are important to take into account when building a healthy community.

It's simple. What we wear has an impact on others around us whether we intend it to or not. Therefore, we have a moral responsibility to consider what we wear; and choose to wear the clothes that take in to account the wellbeing of others and ourselves. Dressing modestly contributes to altruism, a beneficial quality of society.

Saint Thomas Aquinas writes about this in his 1948 Summa Theologica when he states "But those women who have no husband nor wish to have one, or who are in a state of life inconsistent with marriage, cannot adorn themselves with this intention of provoking others to lust, they sin mortally… and the same applies to men in this respect”". Here, St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us of how wearing clothing with the intention of leading others to promiscuous behaviors or attitudes toward us fails to consider the goodwill of others.

Philosophers and theologians like Aquinas aren't the only people who have contributed to this research. In fact, scientific researcher Aswathi has found that modest clothing is correlated with a decrease in objectification and dehumanization which sometimes is a prelude to sexual violence. In 2017, Aswathi writes “Provocative clothing that leads to deviation from routine modesty norms approaches objectification”, According to other research,“ It was found that when wearing underwear or a swimsuit, a person could be viewed as a mere body that exists for pleasure and use of others (Bartky 1990)... Other studies found that swimsuit-wearing women expressed more body shame and performed worse on a math test than did sweater-wearing women (Fredrickson et al, 1998). As we can see from this research, it is important to take into consideration the context of the norms in society when considering attire because it can decrease the prevalence of sexual violence and impact the wellbeing of others.

University of South Florida

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