Lori Alexander, the Christian blogger whose fundamentalist content is so outrageous, you don’t know if it’s serious or satire, is at it again with a new piece: women must dress to please their husbands, or else they will look like harlots.

What does a harlot look like, in her mind? The answer isn’t exactly helpful. After a brief tangent into ancient Athenian and Roman harlots, we move to modern ones:

Expensive, short, and tightly fitted defines the attire of the harlot, according to Gill’s Exposition which is a commentary that was written in the 1700s. I don’t believe the definition has changed any in the past 300 years! Is your clothing expensive, short, and/or tightly fitted? If so, you most likely are dressing like a harlot. … Our clothing shouldn’t be tightly fitting like most clothing is today and it shouldn’t be considered short. It should be pure and modest since we are called to be shamefaced which means not drawing attention to ourselves. Ask your husband what is and is not modest since he is head over you and dress to please him only.

So it has to be husband-approved, not too short, not too expensive, not too revealing, not too tight, and it’s a burka. She wants all women to wear burkas. That’s where this is going, right?

And what does “expensive” even mean? Some clothing at Target is priced more than it’s worth, while higher-end stories may have sales. Doesn’t it depend on your budget and personal style? And what if you’re the type of woman whose chest is so large that any shirt becomes “tightly fitted”? There’s no nuance in her view. And if you don’t follow her rules, then she’s looking down on you:

In other words, [the harlot] tries to seduce men with not only what she wears but by what she says and how she acts. She only seeks to satisfy her evil passions. She is deceitful. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. She uses her body to manipulate men and get what she wants, not caring who she hurts in the process.

There’s no room in this worldview for women whose personal style violates her norms. The distance between godly and slutty is razor-thin.

It’s also disturbing that she implies a woman dressed inappropriately could cause other men to want to have affairs with her, as if it’s only a one-person decision. It’s apparently the men who succumb so easily to temptation that Lori firmly believes must be the “head” of the household.

Makes perfect sense.

(Image via Shutterstock)

