In 2006, the members of the Avenue du Parc YMCA on Hutchinson Street in Montreal, were in conflict with one of its neighbours: the Hasidic Yetev Lev synagogue.
Young men–boys, if you prefer–between their studies were going to the alley that separated the two properties, and were able to see women exercising. These women and men were wearing, what standard Montreal society would view as typical exercise gear: short cut clothes, form-fitting spandex, exposed legs and arms. This is what you wear, for comfort and decency, when you exercise.
For the Hasidic Jewish community this was a problem. Public nudity, or near nudity is not acceptable to them, or any Jew, they claimed. The synagogue offered to pay for tinted windows on the YMCA exercise rooms facing the alley. Management accepted the compromise/gift.
Membership, however, was upset. It’s not possible to see inside the gym from the synagogue itself: the members in question had to leave the synagogue (for a smoke, etc.) to be able to do this. Women were being forcibly covered up by tinted glass for the sake of ‘decency’ and ‘modesty’ to protect the more prudish sensibilities of members of a minority who were choosing to be in public, and look through windows.
The implication seemed to be that it was the women’s bodies that were inherently dangerous and needed to be tamped down on… not the men, or boys, doing the leering at them.
About a year later, the tinted windows were taken down, and blinds were put up instead. Whether or not the blinds were drawn would be controlled by the people using the rooms at any given time. The synagogue leadership asked if the decision was final, and the Y assured them it was.
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A lot of our right-leaning commenters on the board (Hello Obey, Gillette and Ronson!) invest a lot of effort into arguing that children merely seeing people naked, or indecently dressed, enables and encourages pedophilia: the sexual exploitation of kids.
When told this comfort with nudity is a cultural difference and they are over-reacting: I’ve been told that enjoying cannibalism is also a cultural difference, and is that okay. So–apparently, for them–kids being nude with their other family members in a Finnish Sauna is morally the same thing as Iroquois warriors making a habit of eating the hearts of their enemies to increase their spiritual prowess centuries ago.
The argument seems clear: immodesty leads to moral depravity. And it’s not a new argument.
Christians successfully ended the Roman bath culture in Western Europe because of the indecency of men and women being nude together. The result was Western Europeans were a notoriously smelly and dirty bunch for centuries.
Elizabethan norms forbade women from acting on the stage, because it would provide too much temptation. All of Shakespeare’s parts for women characters were written for men to perform, and the English term ‘Drag Queen’ comes from the era, because some men were really good at walking, dancing and doing stage combat in the dragging gowns and playing the women roles.
Victorian fashion norms are now seen as ridiculously prudish: so much as a flash of ankle or elbow causing a scandal. I cannot imagine existing in the Texas summer heat in a full woolen suit without air conditioning… but they certainly did.
And of course, the Taliban of Afghanistan, and the Saudi and Iranian regimes are very harsh on women, insisting they cover up at all times outside the house, so as to preserve moral decency, and family values. (Think of the children!)
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Questions:
(1) What do you think of how the Montreal Y and the neighbouring synagogue resolved their differences over people being able to see ‘almost nude’ people exercising in the gym. Who was in the right?
(2) Do you think there’s less incidence of predation of children and rape of women in cultures like Republican Florida and Texas than cultures that are more comfortable with public nudity and suggestiveness, like France and Finland?
(3) Do you think there’s less incidence of predation of children, and rape of women, in cultures like Iran and Saudi Arabia compared to Republican Florida and Texas, because of the insistence that women and men dress decently?
(4) Do you think immodesty, particularly with regards to public nudity, or suggestive dress, leads to sexual depravity?
Approved ~ FS
Article URL : https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/synagogue-s-complaints-prompt-gym-to-tint-windows-angering-athletes-1.578075