A modest feminist case for modesty

I don't care about your yoga pants. I just don't want to dress for men's eyes.

In a recent conversation with author Sheila Wray Gregoire, I noted that it was only a matter of time before the yoga pants debate rose from the ashes. The skirmish crops up every few years as a proxy for larger debates about gender roles and sexuality in the evangelical world.

Then, as sure as the sun, last week a podcaster named Eric Conn aroused our reactions; you’ll see in the numbers below that yoga pants are an effective strategy for getting engagement, even if it’s overwhelmingly negative.

Conn, host of something called “The Hard Men Podcast,” added a pornified twist to his edict. By mentioning a scenario in which a wife is working out in a private gym (??) while her husband watches, he hinted at the spirit of his rule: I don’t like other men objectifying you; only I can do it. One gets the distinct feeling that Conn is not aiming to protect women’s dignity; rather, he’s trying to control his own sexual response to yoga pants by controlling the women who wear them.

As cyclical as…