Comments on: Starbucks or Slutbucks?

By: Cheryl D.

Cheryl D. — Mon, 19 May 2008 06:02:56 +0000

These little ones,

I definitely agree a man (and a woman) needs to know his limits and not play with them. I also know that my family is all very modest, but most or all of us are OVERLY aware of issues of modesty. My sister, for instance, talked about a relative’s wedding dress as so embarrassingly immodest that undoubtedly she’ll hide her wedding pictures later. I thought maybe I’d missed something, so I went back and looked at pictures of the wedding day. That year a bride couldn’t get a dress with sleeves, so she got the widest straps available–not as attractive as a dress with sleeves, but not immodest, in my book. My sister also commented that the dress was low-cut. Well, I had a whole roll of pictures, and one showed a tiny dimple of cleavage; most showed nothing. Calling it low-cut was simply being inaccurate. Probably nobody outside our family would even notice something like that, but in being trained SO strongly for modesty (with training that included judging others’ modesty and not just our own), we were primed to be far more aware of stuff like that than is really necessary or healthy. I’d think that it would be very hard today to be a man who can’t handle seeing a woman’s calves, for instance.

At the same time, women need to be careful. One of our church’s young teen girls, for instance, this morning wore a top that tied around her neck, leaving her shoulders and shoulder blades bare. She had a sweater with the outfit, but didn’t put it on till afterward. I was wishing her mom had made her wear it, as she’s too old to be showing that much skin in church (or anywhere), and I was pretty sure she’d have distracted some of the guys if I noticed. (Female flesh isn’t a turn-on to me.) So both sides do need to take responsibility–guys in knowing their limits, girls in covering a bit more than they might find truly necessary.

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By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:37:59 +0000

Well, all I can say is that I’m glad I visited the Pike Place store last summer, ‘cos I scored a couple mugs and thermos’ with the orginal mermaid logo, before the bigwigs thought they ought to elongate her hair…so at least the new contoversial logo is an edited version…no naughty bits. Oh, and it’s not a mermaid, it’s a Spanish siren.

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By: theselittleones

theselittleones — Sun, 18 May 2008 07:53:06 +0000

Yes, if you let it. It could be that your brother knew his limits. Maybe not and he was just reacting to his sense of decency. That could be self-inflated or spirit-led. It could just be the different outfit for an activity that is usually associated with immodesty that made it uncomfortable for your brother. I’m not making a judgment about your take on your brother’s level of modesty. I’m remembering a time when my husband confided to me that the way my soon-to-be sister-in-law’s way of dress made him feel uncomfortable. She was wearing a spaghetti strap tank top. We were all in close proximity so I think that was a factor. My husband has surely seen women less dressed than that everywhere, but at that particular time and moment, it was something that may cause him to stumble. I am glad my husband reacted the way he did. He knew what was affecting him and was honest about it. I am all for men wanting to be more careful where they gaze. They are assaulted on all fronts these days. Billboards, magazines, TV, living flesh all around them try to distract and cause them to sin. It’s not easy to maintain purity in this day and age but when a man tries, I believe he honors his wife and God.

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By: Cheryl D.

Cheryl D. — Sun, 18 May 2008 03:33:48 +0000

In the name of everything can be seductive if you let it…my mom once was hosting one of my older brothers, whose family is known for having very high standards of modesty. So she found an old movie and carefully pre-screened it. It turned out that she didn’t pre-screen it carefully enough. In one scene, a woman is wearing a knee-length, elbow-length wool bathing suit, and my brother looked away. My thought is that when one gets to THAT level of modesty, it must be very hard to exist in the real world and interact with real people. Women today don’t cover up that much in church, in my experience, let alone on California streets (where he lives). (Disclaimer: I cover up that much in church, except for the to-the-elbows part; I dress modestly. But I see more in church than I want to see sometimes, and I would think it would be hard to be THAT sensitive.)

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By: Xion

Xion — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:59:07 +0000

Those aren’t legs.

The logo is based on an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed bare breasted mermaid, or siren, encircled by the store’s original name.

So she isn’t spreading her legs, she is simply holding both tails. It’s interesting that no one mentioned the bare breasts or the tails for that matter. Let’s face it – everything about women is seductive. When Adam saw Eve he said “Wooo man!”. Why not just remove all women from advertising …

Anyway, the purpose of the logo is to represent a siren, a goddess who lures men in seductively to buy coffee. What lures the women in I wonder.

To be perfectly honest, I bet 99.9% of Starbucks consumers never noticed the logo. I think the smell of coffee is seductive enough.

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By: TJ

TJ — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:11:11 +0000

My apologies, Kwerna. In my defense, I never mentioned the covering of said legs anywhere in the post. I do not see how the excising of certain “sensibilities” can be denied, however; I have seen pictures of medical texts from the period that follow such a “limbless” theme, and Bowdler’s edited version of Shakespeare sold very well I understand. As far as the causation fallacy, you are entirely correct; that was not my intent, and perhaps I misused the term “results” to poor effect. My point (or, rather, the point of the source I referenced) was that pretending that sinful temptations do not exist (or doing away with them, as with the Starbucks logo) does not actually stop the temptations. I was only seeking to draw an analogy between the two. Causation was not my intent, though I do not think correlation can be denied.

As one who has seen historical myths about Calvin, the Puritans, and Galileo repeated retold and misappropriated (also by gullible historians?), I have no intention of perpetuating such things. Point noted, as long as you realize I did not mention the covering of piano legs.

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By: Kwerna

Kwerna — Sat, 17 May 2008 17:01:11 +0000

Regarding Victorians and legs: how long must our great-grandparents’ rest be disturbed by this goofy slander?

And then to be thrown in with a “post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” Dreadful!

From Gertrude Himmelfarb’s essay From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values:

“Thus ‘Victorian values’ have been associated with piano legs modestly sheathed in pantaloons, human as well as table legs referred to as ‘limbs,’ and books by men and women authors dwelling chastely on separate shelves in country-house libraries.

“In fact, these were not the normal (or even abnormal) practices of real Victorians. They were often the inventions of contemporary satirists (writers in Punch, for example), which have been perpetuated by gullible historians.

“‘The woman who draped the legs of her piano,’ one historian solemnly informs us, ’so far from concealing her conscious and unconscious exhibitionism, ended by sexualising the piano; no mean feat.’ In fact, it is this historian who has sexualized the piano and has imposed his own sexual fantasies upon the Victorians.

(http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.18009,filter.all/pub_detail.asp)

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By: TJ

TJ — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:08:32 +0000

I guess that last post was a little off topic. So I will come back to the thread by plugging my favorite chain coffee house, Caribou Coffee (sadly, none in Louisville). The establishments are designed like a mountain cabin, they are much larger than Starbucks, the coffee is better, and the logo is a caribou (of course!), so you don’t have any problems with silly folks getting offended by logos!

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By: TJ

TJ — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:05:52 +0000

I have found that African coffees are quite good (full-bodied but not bitter like South American coffees). I was introduced to Ethiopian coffee a few years ago through a missionary who had come back from Ethiopia. His church was hooked on the stuff! It brews very dark but is actually pretty smooth (though robust). Kenyan coffee is also very good.

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By: SteveG

SteveG — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:10:34 +0000

Goodlumps at #39: Llama. Are you really that clueless?

Yes, he is. On a wide variety of subjects. But don’t worry, he doesn’t let it stop him from having verbose opinions.

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