Aunty Mohja's Modesty Primer

At first I thought it was satire due to it's lighthearted and entertaining style, but apparently this four-part series for American Muslim women is serious, written by Mohna Kahf, a poet, novelist and a faculty member in the University of Arkansas' King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies. A snippet:

Who says Muslims are wrong about veiling? Honey, of course we’re right, Aunty Mohja says. The privacy of the crotch, the sanctity of the small of the back, and just plain physical dignity, those are some of the fruits of body modesty, and part of what sets us apart from species whose knuckles scrape the ground.

The hairy knees of the man beside me on the airplane and the tissue folded into the butt-cleavage of Aunty Mohja’s hometown coffee barista say that this civilized human trait can be drummed out of people. Bit by bit, through neglect, or deliberately, by embrace of the nutty notion that naked means free. Or by fashion and garment industries bizarrely out of touch with our elemental need for clothing that clothes us.

Speckled old thighs, for example, male or female be they, have presumably done some service in the world and are due respect, and sorry, they just don’t get it in Bermuda shorts, a garment invented for young British soldiers suffering the heat of empire at the turn of the twentieth century.

American society is at a loss for modesty, and Muslims are here to help. Aunty Mohja will show you how to take a leaf from our book of bodily modesty. For less tangible forms of modesty, you’re on your own. Aunty Mohja is not the best at working out modesty-of-the-self issues.

Part two is here. I'm at a loss for words, it's total culture shock to me.