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Wait Wear?

By fitsnews • on June 16, 2008

ABSTINENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER?

By Mande Wilkes

FITSNews - June 16, 2008 - It seems like everybody’s got something to say these days, and blogs and YouTube just ain’t cutting it anymore. Far from the “hottie” and “princess” tees of the ’90’s, today’s wear-your-words gear is the preferred mode of subversive self-expression, and the choices are varied and vast. Hell, even FITSNews has its own budding T-shirt empire.

Now, even the abstinence crowd is getting in on the billboard tee action. Wait Wear’s “Chaste Couture” line offers clothing with punchy proclamations about the wearer’s “waiting” status. One tee cheekily declares “No Overnight Parking.” Another exlaims “Virginity Rules!” Our favorite is “Stimulate My Brain.”

Now, we love it when people commit to waiting. Even Sic Willie, who, when interviewed for this article, stated that he supports abstinence pledges, adding that he “likes the challenge” and that “standing on the mountain is much more momentous when you’ve had to climb it.”

Anyway, as much as we heart abstainers, we just can’t get behind these shirts. Seriously, aren’t designs like these kind of self-defeating? As we see it, modesty is the point of this clothing line, and there is something decidely immodest about flaunting one’s modesty.

Like so many other things, modesty is being telegraphed, its message by now worn-out and faded. Modesty should be done, not worn, as should abstinence. Saving oneself is supposed to be about reverence for one’s soul and the sanctification of sex. What these clothes instead demonstrate is a predilection for hip fashion along with a gratuitous salute to abstinence. In fact, the abstinence salute comes off as an afterthought, a subordination of message to medium.

Also, we all know that boys love the chase, and we worry that, like Sic, some guys will perceive “No Overnight Parking” as a worthy challenge. Seriously, these clothes are kind of sexy in that luscious, hard-to-get way.

The people who buy Wait Wear’s stuff might indeed save themselves for marriage, but they’re stomping all over the spirit of the gesture.