Since Christian homemaker websites are in vogue among all the coolest people recently, I thought I’d take the opportunity to revist one of my top-ten favorite modesty articles from Ladies Against Feminism.
In what has to be the sexiest, most erotic extended metaphore in the Christan Lady Submissive Homemaker Angel in Calico web community, Mrs. Jennie Chancey lectures a group of ladies about their Secret Garden. You might want to get your hitachi out for this.
I know some of you are curious about the title of my talk. One mother called to ask if she should bring along her copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book by the same name. Well, that book does have some beautiful ideas in it that could apply to my talk today, but there’s an even more wonderful “secret garden” that I want to tell you about–and it’s a garden I hope you’ll all come to love and cherish.
A secret garden more wonderful than Mary and Colin’s delightful bit of earth? What could be more wonderful than that?
Picture in your mind the most beautiful, abundant garden you can. Roses bloom and fill the air with their scent. Hollyhocks and sweet peas line meandering walkways. Bright colors surround you on every side, while birds sing happily to each other in trees loaded with fruit. Shady areas beckon you to sit upon soft, green grass. A clear brook bubbles over smooth rocks and winds its way through patches of daisies, lilies, forget-me-nots, and buttercups. The garden is a delight to the senses–a place of rest, refreshment, and splendor. Some faithful gardener has kept it free of weeds, staked up the slender stalks of tall plants, watered the flowers, swept the walks, and pruned the trees to perfection.
Hey, that does sound pretty good. Especially the part where I don’t have to do any weeding. But still, it’s no match for the mystery surrounding Mary’s secret garden. Why is mine better?
Now, around this imaginary paradise, imagine a strong wall built of aged stones. The stones are joined together perfectly, leaving no chinks… Passersby on the road can hear the tinkling of the brook and the singing of birds within the walls. They can smell the wonderful perfume of the flowers. They can even see some climbing roses draped over the tops of the walls, announcing that within is a wonderful treasure. But no one passing by possesses the key to the door.
I’m confused, why would I have such a wonderful garden and then not share it with anyone? Why taunt them with the brook and the bits of lush, pink roses if they can’t come in and sit on the grass? Am I some kind of garden tease?
Can you picture this “Secret Garden” with me? Do you know the name of the garden? Ladies, the garden is you! Little girls, the garden is you! Your name is inscribed on that strong door in bright, golden letters. You are “The Secret Garden!”
OMGWTF! I was the secret garden the whole time! I get it now! By GARDEN, Jennie meant VAGINA! Oooooohhhhhhh! That was pretty clever, I think. Now, I can “prune the trees to perfection” and “sweep the walks” if you know what I mean (and I know you do!) but I’m not sure I can fit a bubbling brook and climbing roses into my vagina, and it doesn’t really have a wall around it. So how can I tease men passing by if they can’t hear the brook or see a wall?
And that brings me back to our Secret Garden. Ladies, do you know what the wall is that surrounds your garden? It isn’t a prison wall. It isn’t a fortress. It isn’t an ugly wall. The wall is modesty.
Modesty.
I can build a metaphorical wall out of gigham? I dunno, that sounds kind of ugly.
Obviously, God does not have a problem with beauty! Modesty is not about drab colors or dullness. It is not about lists of detailed rules that suffocate womanly charm or cause us to become Pharisees who consider ourselves superior to others. Instead, modesty is all about the loving protection the Master Gardener has created for all of His “secret gardens.” It is about a wall that keeps us safely guarded for the one earthly gardener who will be given the key and commanded to nourish and protect the garden within the wall.
In His Word, God has graciously given us guidelines for modesty. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, we learn that we cannot cover ourselves properly.
Ohhh, baby, nourish my garden! Use the rototiller! Use it!
Oh, wait, sorry, I got carried away there. You were saying something about modesty?
But, ladies, what God calls “secret” and “precious,” we must not flaunt before the world. When we behave immodestly, we declare to the world that the Secret Garden is unlocked. When we dress immodestly, we punch holes in the garden wall and invite the world to gaze upon beauties and riches that are intended for one man alone…The one option you do not have is to ignore the issue of modesty or to brush it aside as unimportant or not a priority. When I see the college girls walking around in underwear, I hurt for them.
I’m sure I speak for all straight men and gay women on the planet when I ask at what univeristy are women walking around in underwear?
You are all gardens. From the smallest girl here to the oldest grandmother, you are gardens! God has made you beautiful in His time. He has called you to be “all glorious within the palace,” as the Psalmist writes. Your womanliness and femininity are to be a blessing to others, but your treasures are not to be laid bare to the world.
We all got a “garden,” and it’s top secret! Gotchya. I assume, however, that since I have a garden, and she has a garden, and we both know what the roses and the honeysuckle look like, it is OK for us to visit each others garden while waiting for the gardener to give away the key. Right? Because if not, I have a summer’s worth of slumber party invitations to decline.
That has got to be the stupidest metaphor I’ve ever heard. What the hell else is a garden for if not for making look as beautiful as possible in order to show off? Unless you’re talking about a vegetable garden of course, which is for eating.
Unless you’re talking about a vegetable garden of course, which is for eating.
Hot damn.
This thread is going to be so, so sexy. It may rival the original column.
Well, this is like the “your body is a temple” type of shit people tell you when your outside having a cigarette. Sorry, nope, my body is a bunch of cells suspended in fluid. And I’m going to die anyway. So shut up and let me breathe my cancer stick as far away from you as I can get.
Actually, I really and truely believe that my body is a temple… but I actually believe that my WHOLE body and soul are part of that temple. not just my vaginal canal. I’ll never understand the wingnut frame of reducing women to their vaginas. I also don’t see the point of having such a kick ass temple, then shutting people out of it, and walking around saying “I’m *sooo* much better then everyone else because I keep myself closed off but oh-so-pretty”. Fuck that shit. My temple is open to anyone who wants to worship within in a respectful and consentual way. And there are many many ways to do that, physically, sexually, spiritually, emotionally. I don’t think that walling yourself off is a admirable life strategy.
Well, that’s what I was getting at. You don’t believe your body magically changes everything to sunshine and rainbows and that everything is healthy in your body if you never smoke or have sex. And knowing the specific people who say stuff this to me, I assure you, they think their shit should be bottled for perfume.
My body is mine! Fuck off and worry about your own body!
If everyone could understand that things would be much easier.
I also don’t see the point of having such a kick ass temple, then shutting people out of it, and walking around saying “I’m *sooo* much better then everyone else because I keep myself closed off but oh-so-pretty”.
But, consider.
What happens if you have a waste-land, a dump, full of old cars and crisp packets? You can simply stick a wall around it so no-one can see it, spray perfurme in the air, and walk around loudly telling everybody about your “secret garden” that no-one else can visit.
The application of this extension to the metaphor to fundamentalists is left as an exercise to the reader.
[...] Festival of Christian Ladies still going strong, now with 13th century gardening metaphors Kyso Kisaen over at punkassblog has joined in with a look back at one her favorite articles from the Modest and Submissive Christian Lady® genre: What did you talk about at the tea party, dear? Nothing, just gardening. [...]
I started laughing here: You might want to get your hitachi out for this.
And I haven’t stopped. Fantastic, Kyso.
My husband isn’t entirely convinced the original article isn’t parody, mainly because, as he wondered out loud, what women have to be reminded to cover up their vaginas in public?
I’m absolutely flummoxed. Pollen aggravates my sinuses and I can’t spend more than ten minutes in anything vaguely resembling a garden without a decent dose of Claritin. How am I supposed to respond to a metaphor that’s so insensitive to my experiental reality?!
When we dress immodestly, we punch holes in the garden wall and invite the world to gaze upon beauties and riches that are intended for one man alone. When we begin to pull the wall down, what can we expect but that the garden will be trampled, muddied, and ruined by wayward travelers and greedy despoilers?
And we totally missed this part about how victims of rape and assault are totally to blame. After all, what can we expect but that they’ll be “trampled, muddied, and ruined” for pulling down that wall o’ modesty? For running around in men’s boxer shorts and sports bras, those dirty whores, they have it coming to them, they deserve it, because they aren’t being modest!
I’m not an easily frightened person. I visit 4chan frequently so I’m pretty desensitised to most things. But to hear that immodest women can expect to be raped and assaulted? That’s absolutely horrifying.
So, um, I’m supposed to have a gardener? To prune my trees? How the hell did I not know this?
Ah, so it’s not douche; it’s FERTILIZER.
of course the whole point of “Secret Garden” was that real health for everyone came when it, like, wasn’t a damn secret anymore; but then this is I believe the site that thought the world of “Stepford Wives” was rather lovely and pleasant, really.
>what women have to be reminded to cover up their vaginas in public?
Well, gofugyourself always seems to find a few. personally i sort of admire L’il Kim’s chutzpah, and I’m sure it’s very wrong of me to laugh at lines like “labia flapping in the breeze;” but, well, I’m already in the bad feminist box, so.
“Ohhh, baby, nourish my garden! Use the rototiller! Use it!”
That line made me giggle like a sleep-deprived 8-year-old.
Actually, I thought of the supremely annoying Bruce Springsteen song “Secret Garden”, which is arguing that—guess what, guys?—no matter what, women are always teases and will never let you close to them. Who know that Bruce was an ally of this stuff?
echo all your thoughts and awe for this blog: congrats SarahS for taking a tired old metaphor and being serious among the (natural and appropriate) mockery of the original.
sara – i think your list of things for which women are to blame stops short of the minimum demanded by the christian right – just start with that bloody apple and keep them coming…(no men there at the time – oh no!)
belledame – maybe christina aguillera (god never could spell her name but hopefully she’ll be a short-term phenomenon) could do with a ‘vagina reminder’ as ’twere. we could get signs painted: ‘Ladies! Your vagina is showing’ like the guys with ‘John wotsit wotsit’ at all the sports games.
Odd, I thought, that the Christian ladies failed to mention the rivers of blood that sometoimes gush from the err higher ground.
but try as we may, nothing could rival the humour (and horror) of the gloriously-titled ‘ladies against feminism’. that phrase means the world of ‘beyond parody’ has a new inhabitant.
must go an change my pants – talking of which, why was I at a university where the women all seemed to insist on wearing underwear.
just visited Ladies Against Feminism. Never was an acronym so appropriate – LAF, I nearly did.
I wonder what would happen if they found out Sarah and Angelina Gremke were Bible believing Christians like they were.
[...] But like beauty, sweet cunt is only skin deep. It’s all for naught if you’re vagina isn’t up to snuff. If there’s any problem today’s modern woman can relate to, it’s trying to keep her status as the favored wife. Women in polygamous marriages in isolated rainforest villages know that when it comes to making sure you have the status necessary to ensure that your children get their share of the food and survive to adulthood, you simply can’t neglect a single feminine detail. Can your secret garden compete with your husband’s latest child bride’s? If not, the problem is you, not the culture. Femmytights tightening technology is based on an centuries old tradition of local people in the tropical rainforests. In those communities it is not uncommon for a man to have several wives, The local women use these very same herbs to keep their vagina tight and elastic in order to stay the favorite wife, as they often had to compete with younger women. [...]