Bikini Bomb
SUMMER & SELF OBJECTIFICATION
Ahh… summa time. Lakes, barbeques, poolside novels…. those are the things summer dreams are made of. With summer comes water. With water comes swimwear. And in light of more sunlight, today I pose an important question: to bikini or not to bikini?
I ask not because I wonder if our bodies are toned or tanned enough for the summer, but instead, because I wonder if it’s okay. Is it okay for women to wear bikinis? Christian women? Young women? Little girls? Is it okay to wear them to the beach in a foreign country? Is it okay to wear them to a youth group pool party?
Almost a decade ago now, I felt the Lord speak to me in the middle of my work day. Strangely, he was talking to me about bikinis. It started with a gentle nudge. He told me it was time for me to take my honeymoon beach pictures off social media—the ones that showed me shamelessly lying in the Mexican sand, clad in not much more than strings. Why did I post those pictures in the first place? It’s not as if I didn’t have plenty of other, more tasteful pictures to fully portray our cross-the-border, newly-married romp.
As a clinician, I’m eleven years into treating individuals with eating disorders and working with broken girls and women from every imaginable walk of life. I’m fifteen years past my own struggle with an eating disorder. The work I do on a daily basis is brutal and heavy, and it’s my whole heart. Eating disorders are a serious mental illness that have THE highest morbidity rate of any mental health issue. They are vicious and ruthless and love to lock in on young girls (and boys— they don’t discriminate). Eating disorders tell individuals they will never be enough. Ever. And that in order to even think about being enough, one must whittle one’s body down. Become less. Starve. Binge. Hate self. Repeat. Eating disorders are the ultimate form of self- objectification in that they turn one’s body into an object of hate. An object to be measured… and nothing more. If there’s one thing I loathe, it’s the objectification of women in our culture.
All this, and I have owned an embarrassingly large collection of bikinis in my adulthood. Not just two-pieces, we are talking the string-tied-sides kind. See the problem?
BACK TO THAT HONEYMOON…
Let’s go back to the honeymoon all those years ago. After all, this is where the questions began to arise. By the time my new husband and I landed in the Riviera Maya, I had been a Christian for 14 years… and my suitcase was packed full of previously discussed swimwear. Imagine my surprise when after it was all said and done, my new husband confessed that he didn’t understand why Christian women would wear bikinis as we are called to be modest. He voiced his disapproval of my honeymoon attire. My husband is an east coast guy and just a little more than forward. He stated quite boldly, “they are underwear… honestly, it’s just pretty trashy.”
Gasp. How dare he! How judgmental! I thought in a rage of defensiveness. But then I thought some more. He pointed out my own incongruences and made a good point while doing so. He wasn’t wrong. I fight for women’s worth, but degrade my own by parading a nearly naked body in public.
I want a moldable heart, really. If there’s an area of my life that’s incongruent, that’s not honoring God, I want to know. I began to research the issue as well as ask the Lord to search my heart. As it turns out, the Christian culture is torn in two pieces over the issue of two-pieces. (HA! Sorry, couldn’t help it.)
WHAT WILL I WEAR?
So, here we are, right at the beginning of a beautiful summer. That age-old question arises: what will I wear? As for me, God and I settled on something a few years back. He convicted my heart and nudged me to throw my bikinis away. I argued-- “swimsuits are expensive, and everyone else wears bikinis!” He argued back, “if everyone else jumped off a cliff…” and Matthew 5:29, “if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out!” I realized in that moment that my bikinis were a sliver-wide representation of who I used to be… BUT, not at all a representation of who I want to be.
Why are bikinis a bad idea? While a swimwear decision might feel like a first-world problem to consider, it actually spreads it’s roots into some of the most painful problems of humanity, such as human trafficking. Objectification is no joke. For the sake of today’s post let’s focus on this thought— we teach people how to treat us. When it comes to viewing myself and other women with holistic and eternal worth, I desperately want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I can’t very well do that in four inches of fabric.
No, we don’t have to swim in a t-shirt or grandma ruffles. No, I’m not getting legalistic and saying we need to measure the amount of fabric we are wearing. Modesty is about learning how to adorn our unique, God-given body shape with tact. Please take note: every BODY is different and a smart swimsuit choice for one girl might be risky business for another. Not all two-pieces are trashy and not all one-pieces are classy. We might get it wrong a time or two; afterall, we’re human. But let’s at least be thinking about this. Let’s ask God how He feels about our beach attire. Let’s let Him rule both our hearts and our swimwear choices. Let’s return to who we were created to be instead of some counterfeit version that the culture asks us to represent. Are you ready to bid those bikinis adios?
Note*
There are some adorable, flattering and classy suits out there. The options are endless- just try searching “vintage swimwear”, “modest swimsuits”, OR visit www.JessicaRey.com to see her unique swimwear collection.
For more on bikini’s and objectification, watch The Evolution of the Bikini by designer and actress Jessica Rey, and also see the Killing Us Softly series by Dr. Jean Kilborne. Both linked below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ3ESVKighs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJVHRJbgLz8
#modestymatters
