Modest Is Hottest (Unless You Are Actually Modest)

Would you wear this outfit or approve of your teenage daughter to wear it on a date?

Or what about this?  Would you wear this in your wedding or maybe to prom?

My guess is that most of the people reading this would say no.  There is a big swing, even among people who aren't "churched" toward the Modest is Hottest movement and right now being a hoochie isn't very chic...UNLESS you are at a public pool or at the beach.

For some reason, once sand or chlorine enters the picture, flaunting the goods is A-OK.  God must not be at the beach.  He probably can't see through the sun umbrellas though, so no worries.  Or maybe He changes his standards according to where we go.  Or maybe the men (and women) who are turned on by looking at exposed boobs and butts don't go to beaches anymore.  Or if they do, they probably don't look.  There has to be some explanation.

I've been kind of mesmerized to watch the standards for modesty evolve among Christians.  Now, our standard for modesty when it comes to bathing suits is that one pieces are okay but two pieces are scandalous.  Well call me prude, weird, extreme, or whatever you want but if you think the pictures above aren't ok, then how is it that you can take more fabric and coverage away and think it's fine?  When did a one piece become modest?  Even some of the ultra super-duper grandma-esque wraps are less modest than anything that we would even entertain walking out to check the mail in.  

These are considered to be modest bathing suits by most people, yet they cover less than the questionable outfits above.

Maybe I am missing something.  And at the risk of sounding like an old, judgmental woman who just isn't in touch anymore, if it is too immodest in one arena, it doesn't change according to where you go.  And for a long time I've been told that this is just one of those issues that is controversial.  What I guess I don't understand is HOW it became so.  Because to me, it seems pretty clear.