Chastity, Modesty Have Great Rewards

Thanks for the interview with Wendy Shalit (“Should Women Today Embrace Modesty and Virginity?,” Jan. 10). I hope young women everywhere read her book, “A Return to Modesty,” take it to heart and spare themselves the heartache, misery and shame experienced by many who have embraced “liberation.”

Being a widow, I am not a virgin. But I have lived chastely since my husband died six years ago and have been romantically involved for the last two of those six years. My boyfriend and I have endured much teasing, but many of the men who make jokes and put pressure on us publicly have told me privately how much they respect me and hope to find a woman with similar values.

My boyfriend has told me he has a faith in my loyalty to him that he never would have had if I had betrayed my beliefs. I have a respect for myself and a joy in life that constantly eluded me when I bought into the Big Lie of sexual “freedom.”

To all the young ladies out there: Claim your dignity! Those of us who have done so are praying for you.

LISA KIJEK

Downey

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Shalit’s “call to modesty” ironically implies the sorts of vices she attributes to promiscuity--coldness, calculation, detachment--while adding greed to the list. The young woman who decides to join Shalit’s “cartel of virtue” is contributing to an artificial scarcity of female sexuality with the goal of coercing a much better deal from a man, at an artificially inflated price, than she could have gotten under “free market” conditions of love.

Of course, such a Victorian view of women’s prospects makes little sense in an age when women have access to contraception, education and economic opportunity. What might have been a sensible strategy for one of Jane Austen’s heroines seems like a needless sacrifice for today’s woman. The true alternative to promiscuity is not necessarily modesty but rational self-reliance, which takes into account the long-term consequences of one’s love decisions.

MARK PLUS

Wrightwood