Relative Nakedness: the Objectivity of Modest Dress

It is perhaps a controversial observation to say that it is a well documented fact that peoples in less-developed communities, primarily in warmer climates live and exist with varying levels of undress.  Even more so, both the men and the women who make up these communities coexist with apparent lack of shame.  There are two contradictory conclusions we might draw from this fact: 

1) Because there is no sense of shame in these communities even in the face of nakedness, we easily see that any sort of shame is moral prudery.  Hence we are free to conclude there is no objective norm to clothing.  Or,
2) Because there is no apparent sense of shame in these communities even in the face of nakedness, we can see that objectively speaking it is not the body itself that is something to be shameful of, but the relative use and being used as an object to satisfy the darker urges of concupiscience that is shameful (in this case, shame being defined as the appropriate reaction to something that is of its nature intended to remain private but has been made public). 
There are admittedly a very large number of people who draw the first conclusion and use it to justify larger societal need to be open minded when it comes to dress, claiming that we should be completely judgement free of how anyone wants to dress.  This arrangement and conclusion is simply not true, and is a level of subjectivism which needs to be fought against with vehemence and vigilance.  On the other hand, there does seem to be at least some level of subjectivity in the morality and acceptance of modesty, and the correct conclusion is this: that we are simultaneously bound to regard the other person not as an object of use but as a subject, independent and free, to be encountered and loved while also adorning our physical body in a way that upholds and communicates our own dignity, not dressing in a way that is meant to arouse sexual feelings in others.  

Pope Saint John Paul II comments on the relative state of undress experienced in less developed cultures in his book Love and Responsibility, writing that “in tropical conditions primitive peoples live in partial or total nakedness.  Many details in their way of life indicate that nakedness cannot be simply and unambiguously identified with shamelessness.  On the contrary… the concealment of parts of the body previously exposed is a manifestation of shamelessness.  We doubtless see here the effect of habit, of a collective custom… Sexual modesty cannot then in any simple way be identified with the use of clothing, nor shamelessness with the absence of clothing and total or partial nakedness (Willetts translation, p. 175-176)”.  As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the circumstance recounted here lends itself quite readily to the argument that there is no objective morality, let alone reality.  At face value it would seem that morality really does depend on the constructs of the society in which one finds oneself, and that anything could be acceptable as long as everyone within the society finds themselves on the same page and consenting to the actions of others.  Taken one step further, it is no stretch to say that anything is acceptable in private between two or more people as long as all those involved consent to the actions.  This is an argument we all find ourselves having to refute on a near daily basis, and like most things it does not help that the argument of the relative subjectivity of morality itself is partly true, as far as it goes.  

The argument of the total subjectivity of morality and the social construct of virtue exists on a plane of intersect between objective morality, subjective actions, and the dictates of conscience.  To say there is an objective morality does not negate the obligation to follow the dictates of conscience, nor does it deny the subjective experience of reality.  Likewise, to say that I am blameless for my sin because my conscience, properly formed in good faith according to my subjective experience and to the best of my ability instructed me to act thusly even though morality determines that to be an objectively objectionable action does not therefore disprove the existence or binding of objective morality.  Duty to morality, culpability, and subjectivity coexist within the intellect and will human person.

What does this mean for the objectivity of modest dress?  Let us roll with the example in the quote from Love and Responsibility, the primitive peoples and not so much their lack of shame but the relative lack of need or appropriateness of shame in their attire.  The objective morality, binding upon all peoples of all times in all places is to regard the other person not as an object of use but as a subject, independent and free to be encountered and loved.  The subjective actions of societies as they attempt to live up to this responsibility differ according to custom and climate.  Thus, it is possible that the naked man within the Amazon finds no shame in beholding the nakedness of women because objectively it is not the individual body that is that private thing which must not be made public but is the relative  dangers of those bodies to elicit an attitude of use in the eyes of the beholder which is the private thing made public, which itself (private made public) is the root of shame. In this context, it can be conceived (and indeed JPII alludes to this in the same section of Love and Responsibility quoted before) that in these cultures it can actually be covering the parts that are typically naked that highlight, accent, and draw undue attention to the body as objects with function as opposed to manifestation of the person.  If this is true, then to some level there is an element of subjectivity in the specifics of what constitutes modesty in dress.  

Once we get to speaking of objectivity in what constitutes modest dress, we run into issue of specifics.  Objectivity means it must be true for every person, at all times in all places.  It would be hard to create such a standard of modesty in dress (exactly what is the limits of dress? How low exactly does a skirt have to be?  How long does a man's shirt sleeves have to be? How hot does it have to get to weigh the relative danger of modest dress vs. heatstroke?).  Because God is a subjective being, encountering Himself and ourselves as a unique and unrepeatable individual, we are called to experience Him and the objective moral order in the only way we are able to: according to the subjective experience of our senses and interpreted through our reason.  Because of this, if a culture sees for example female breasts as providing nourishment for children and not as sexually arousing, bare breasted women are objectively not being shameless; conversely the men who behold a woman woman so dressed would be right to shamelessly behold that woman.  Thus, the level of modesty in dress goes two ways: the dresser and the beholder.  

If you dress to arouse inappropriately, you should feel shame.  If you behold someone with the desire to use, you should feel shame.  This is the crux of my argument: Sexual modesty lies primarily within the will of the human person, not exclusively within the individual actions themselves of the person.  Let me be clear: the actions of the person are fruits and consequences of the will, and therefore actions (or particular choices in dress) are an integral part of modesty.  We are called at all times to simultaneously form our conscience properly in accord with objective morality, and conduct ourselves in a manner which attests to our dignity and the dignity of others.  Only then can we love and be loved in mutual self gift and dignity.