Dress to kill • The problem of indecent dressing

By SUNDAY ANI (nichsunny@yahoo.com)

Until now, when people are said to have dressed to kill, it was a complement, as it means that such a person has a sense of fashion. Today, dressing to kill may mean a different thing. This is so because ‘dressing to kill’ could be a way of talking about indecent dressing.

Daily Sun observes that many young Nigerians dress indecently and therefore, insult the sensibilities of others. Though indecent dressing is not restricted to a particular sex, women are the major offenders, as many of them now adorn clothes that leave little or nothing to imagination. Super-short, skin-tight and curve hugging dresses are the in-thing.

Indeed, boobs, lap and ass barring are now the vogue. As it is in the make-believe world of movies, so it is in true life.  Everywhere you go, it is the same story. Even worship centres, which ought to be revered, are now being desecrated in the name of fashion. The situation is such that in some churches, certain classes of ladies are not allowed to sit in the first three rows because of the distraction they create with their outrageous fashion statements. And weddings have become “breast day,” as bribes display their breasts for all to see. 

Changed world

Indeed, breasts used to be the pride of women, especially in these climes. Not any more. Now, women breasts are cheap commodities. Women figuratively slap men with breasts every now and then even without solicitation. Sometimes, the nipples are clearly exposed through the see-through dress.

Speaking on this, Pastor Tony Ukaegbu stated: “Our women have gone gaga with their mode of dressing. Indecent dressing has become the order of the day. It is now normal for women to go nude, all in the name of being fashionable, but unwholesome exposure of the body in making a fashion statement is a subtle way of announcing the level of irresponsibility that has bedevilled our women. Indecency has lowered the level of prestige and respect usually accorded women. It is, indeed, disheartening to see even those that claimed to be married joining the bandwagon. They act as if a pageant will be held to determine the best nude dresser.”

Ukaegbu further said that the Bible “has admonition for such in Proverbs 7: 10 concerning the attire of an harlot. But unfortunately we cannot differentiate any longer those living in brothels and those who claim to come from decent homes. That is the dilemma we have found ourselves in.”  

The dresses making the fashion headlines among women include, Tank tops, bum shorts, tube tops, micro mini, low waist jeans and pants, jeggings, body hugs, crazy jeans, see-through blouses and spaghetti tops among others.

Explaining some of the dress styles, the President and Founder of SelfWorth Organisation for Women Development, Mrs. Chinyere Anokwuru, said Jeggings is new in the fashion series. She said: “It is an improvement over leggings because it is tighter than leggings. Sometimes, it comes in natural colour, which looks like the skin, thereby making it appear as if the person is naked.”

She described bum short as shorts that barely cover the bum. According to her, girls wear it to the beach as well as night parties.

“Some ladies even wear it during afternoon events on the streets. It is usually worn with very high heel shoes to appear classy but to me, it is trash,” she submitted.

She added: “Tube tops are actually meant to be worn inside while a jacket covers it but girls want to flaunt their bare back and expose a bit of their top breasts, so they go out with just the tube tops or tube gowns with nothing covering their neck and back, thereby exposing their breasts. Tank tops are tops that girls wear, with their stomach exposed. They barely cover their stomachs; it stops just after the breasts.” 

Describing the low waist, she said: “It is the latest jeans now; it doesn’t cover the entire bum. It stops almost halfway and appears like they are sagging. When the person sits on a motorbike or at a function, you can actually see clearly the top most part of her bum.”

She also described halter neck as, “a kind of top that girls wear when the entire back is open and the top is held to their bodies by two ropes extending from the arm holes. The ropes are tied around the neck to keep the dress in place.”

Mrs. Anokwuru described the trend as very alarming and posits that women who dress amorously are simply seeking for the attention of men. “They want to attract the opposite sex, but I think that is the worst way to go about it. It is not proper; it is not ideal. When you want to attract a man, I think you should attract him with what you have got upstairs. Attract him with your intellect, with what you know and possibly, your achievements. Dressing half naked to attract a man is sending wrong signal because you will end up attracting a wrong kind of man, who will just come to take the goods on sale and run away. So, I think it’s very wrong and it hurts my feeling when I see them dress that way,” she lamented.

For Ify Frances Ibekwe, a travel agent, “indecent dressing is an eye sore and a sin. You don’t have to show your body to prove that you are a diva or a dude. Modesty should be the watchword as noted in 1 Timothy 2: 9. The causes include lack of fear for God, indiscipline, inferiority complex, dirtiness and ignorance. The people who indulge in it do not seem to realise that your dressing depicts who you are. In other words, you are addressed the way you dress.”  

Also speaking, the Executive Director, Tehila Women and Empowerment Foundation (TWYEF), Mrs. Stephany Nwanma attributed the trend to immaturity, lack of contentment and low self esteem. She also said the principal reason women dress in such provocative attire is to attract men but warned women against such methods because it does not always work in the long run. She advised women to remember their roots and copy those aspects of western culture that only improve their wellbeing.

“We are Africans and we have a very rich culture, which is modest and I think our women should always preserve it and copy those western cultures that will improve their wellbeing. The principal reason most women go half-naked in the name of dressing is to attract men for money. Even married women are not left out. The women deliberately go to snatch their friends’ husband. They go to the house provocatively dressed when the wife is not around to seduce the husband. Women dress to get attention from the men. But, men are very smart; they know what they want. When they look at the goods you put on display, they like it and they sample it but when it comes to marriage, they know whom to marry. They know the decent girls they want to marry,” she stated.

But for Taiwo Olapeju Elizabeth, a musician popularly called Eazy Lizy, dress sense and style depend on the individual. She believes that the mentality behind every person’s type of dressing largely emanates from his or her upbringing and environment. “For example, a little girl whose mother is a prostitute and who grew up in a hotel where a lot of girls dress indecently, obviously would dress indecently because that is what has been registered in her mind as a way of life. But by the time she grows up and continues to mingle with other people, she might decide within herself whether to continue in that manner of dressing or to stop it, ” she explained.

She also admitted that most women dress provocatively to lure men into their bed and possibly extort money from them, even as she insisted that others appear that way just to suit the occasion at hand. “Women see exposing their bodies as a selling point or product to attract buyers. But, for some, they just want to look sexy and just create mere attention. Using me as a case study, my dressing depends on the occasion I am attending. As a musician, if I am going for a club show or a night gig, I dress a bit down just to look sexy in order to create attention. This is because one needs to dress to fit into the occasion and more so, to look good. But if I am going for a corporate event of a more matured gathering, I dress all covered up.”

However, just as women have gone haywire with all sorts of provocative dressing mainly to attract the opposite sex, their male counterparts stormed the fashion world with their own brand of crazy dressing called sagging. This is a dress pattern where boys wear trousers, mainly jeans, which rest in the middle of their buttocks.

Sagging originated from American prisoners who wear their shorts and trousers without belts. But with time, it became fashionable for guys to pull down their trousers and shorts to the buttocks, revealing their under pants popularly known as ‘boxers.’ But sagging is not strictly men affair as some ladies are also involved. In higher institutions, in particular, the sagging craze is raging. In fact, it is like a competition among young people.

Hear Anokwuru: “I don’t know if the boys know where that thing called sagging originated from. It is from the prisons in America.  You know, when they are in prisons abroad, they don’t get a lot of fruit to eat and you are not allowed to wear belt in the prisons. So, when they have gone beyond their normal stature to a reduced size; when their trousers start dropping and there is no belt to hook it up, it starts sagging. So, when they leave the prisons and they come outside on the road, they go about like that without belt for a long period. People started seeing it as a new fashion. It is from the prison that sagging came and our boys just embraced it, thinking it is a norm.”

She went further to say that those boys who dress like that are actually, “telling us that they are prisoners. They are saying that they lack intellect; they don’t know anything and they don’t have understanding of what they are doing.”

Blaming mothers for abandoning their duties in pursuit of other things of life, she said: “I think it has to do with the mothers in the house. When mothers teach their children values, they will know. The kind of dress you buy for your children matters a lot. You need to watch them and pray for them because when they go to school, they see a lot of things.”

Mrs. Nwanma attributed the action of the boys who sag to idleness and youthful exuberance and advised parents to always be vigilant. “It is youthful and juvenile exuberance that is responsible for boys who wear sagging trousers. They are simply imitating the western world because they have nothing doing; idleness is a major contributing factor. Poor parenting is also a factor; mothers have to wake up. They need to take care of their children. If a child comes from a good home, there is a limitation to what he can do. They should go back to those good old days.”

A Clinical Psychologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, Dr. Leonard Okonkwo attributes what is happening to fashion change. He said fashion is something that is constantly changing and people want to imbibe the culture that they identify with. He argued that right from time, foreign culture had been so idolised that everybody wants to do what they see or practice what is coming from abroad.

“I know that most of these fashions don’t originate from here. They watch it on television. They see their idols or heroes dress that way and they want to dress like them,” he stated.

He further said: “I have always said that sometimes what the culture seems to abhor today will later on become something in vogue. I remember many years back when it was not common to see ladies wearing trousers, not to talk of the leggings or jeggings that they wear now. You are not seeing the actual nakedness but you are seeing the figures, the shape and everything; that was how it was seen then but now, of course, it seems to be generally accepted by people and it looks like there is no big deal about it. So, I will be slow to comment on that because I know that what you condemn today might be accepted tomorrow. Again, it depends on how you see it; if you go to the beach abroad, you will see more terrible things.”

He insisted that what is happening today with the way and manner women dress simply lends credence to the fact that culture is constantly changing. “I won’t be surprised if what people are condemning today becomes acceptable tomorrow because the people who are practising it now will continue to practise it when they grow up and then the old generation that did not believe in it will phase out and they will bring up their own children to continue. When I was growing up, it was a practice for every lady to wear ‘half shimmy’ but now, it doesn’t seem to be in vogue anymore as they wear tight,” he said.

Though, he argues that it has to do with culture, which is constantly changing, he also agrees that the whole essence is to attract the opposite sex. “At the end of the day, you don’t even know whether they are wearing anything or not but the whole idea is specifically to catch the attention of the opposite sex. This is because no matter how ugly a lady is, there is something in her that will make people to look at her. If a lady, who dressed like a typical Deeper Life Church person and another one that is very liberally dressed pass you by, you are more likely to be attracted to the one that is liberally dressed for whatever reason; either because you are of the opinion that she is way up or because of the catchy or attractive nature of her dressing or because of the distractive nature of the person. And people dress not only to cover their nakedness but to attract the attention of others,” he submitted.

The psychologist added that it could result in rape: “For people who are already predisposed to such things, when you seduce them and you now play hard to get, they would want to have it by force. So, I believe there is a relationship but I wouldn’t want to say it is a causal relationship.”

He went further to say that not just the way you are dressed but the place you are, would determine whether a rapist would act or not.

“Hardly do you see rape taking place on the street. It is always in an enclosed environment. So, if you are in an enclosed environment, dressed in a particular way with a sick man, because I believe that anybody who is capable of raping anybody is sick, then what are you asking for? Again, I am not saying that because you are decently dressed, you cannot be raped but the incidence of rape is higher among the indecently dressed than among the decently dressed ladies. Also, it is the society that determines what is indecent. What you think is indecent might be acceptable by 80 to 90 of the public,” he said.