Wendy Shalit’s “A Return to Modesty” brings forth standards from Orthodox Judaism to solve this problem, but I dunno. It really is the case that most women I know who spend time being excessively modest are really cold and haven’t grown up much. I’m not exactly impious, and I was forced to admit that many living a way I thought ideal really were worse off for it.

The trick is that modesty has to be natural. As you point out above, the values and role models are critical. If a girl wants to be better and not flaunt her sexuality, that has to be a desire from within.

This is where the Western tradition – esp. the Christian/Judaic tradition – goes haywire. Fallenness strongly implies that the desire to be modest cannot exist naturally. Whether one holds that one simply “returns” or there is “redemption” necessary, the problem is that what is needed is nothing less than a supernatural power to tell us the Law and ask for obedience. If the Law is written on our hearts, that is the day Jeremiah longs for – it is not our time.

Because of this problem, a lot of what you see in popular culture that encourages flaunting one’s sexuality also is accompanied by a rabid atheism and in some cases a very smart libertarianism, where one can do as one likes if one has the means financial and emotionally. That latter libertarianism, increasing in popularity, is an offshoot of our valuing success and tying our success, in some small way, to our being blessed.

I think the only way to confront the problem is to look elsewhere. Miyazaki, who wrote and made the anime film “Spirited Away,” said that he was disgusted with the cheap romance being fed to younger Japanese girls. That’s not what’s on their minds at all as they’re growing; they want to know how to be there for their families, they want a sense of stability and continuity in addition to being playful. Now it happens that good anime tends to be far more sexual than we would like, but in a way we just haven’t seen much in this culture – sexuality there really is about figuring out what love is, whereas with us it is a sign of rebellion or fallenness, take your pick. A previous age in the West that believed didn’t have this problem; in our age, the two “signs” reinforce the other.