According to Godwin’s Law:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1
In my version, (which extends beyond discussions on the internet) the probability of a comparison involving bikinis approaches 1 as debates on the burqa grow longer.
I have heard statements like, “If women have the right to wear the bikini in public, why can’t women go the other extreme and cover up?”. While other hyperbolic statements that attempt to challenge my pro-hijab opinions and delicate moral sensibilities say that, by the same token, people should be allowed to go nude in public!
Please, we could all benefit with more nuanced comparisons.
I generally find that it may be useful to generalize Godwin’s Law into one super-rule:
“In any discussion on the Internet, the probability of someone using a comparison that makes no sense but great rhetorical effect approaches 1”.
“If women have the right to wear the bikini in public, why can’t women go the other extreme and cover up?”.
Of course, there isn’t to my knowledge a single community in the world that would punish women for not wearing a bikini.
The way I see it, here in the United States where I live, when I see the occasional Muslim woman wearing a robe and full face veil, it makes her stick out more and seem less modest than if she just wore a pretty scarf and a shirt and pants that are not tight fitting. A woman garbed in a niqab at a water park is making just as much a spectacle of herself as a woman with a Kim Kardashian body walking around in a string bikini.
Well put, Tommykey, except if we’re talking about good old-fashioned beauty pageants.
“Modesty” is certainly contextual and often site-specific. But you seem to conflate “immodesty” with “attention-grabbing”, because I understand the more general understanding of immodest as something not only attention-grabbing but could potentially incite male passion. And yes, only male passion.