One of my dear friends and Housemates, Josh, wrote a excellent post yesterday about Fashion. He went out on a limb and compared it to pornography in it’s perversion. Basically, pornography is perversion of sex, but do we pervert other things?
It is a commonly accepted idea that the human body needs 3 things to survive: food, water & shelter. To eat, drink and be clothed are all very natural and healthy things, much like sex (in it’s proper use) is. We have a word for people who pervert the need for hunger: glutton. We have a word for people who pervert the need for drink: drunkard. We also have a word for people who pervert the need for shelter: fashionable.
And then he really get’s to the heart of things:
the average American household spends about $2000 a year in clothing. The reason? We’re not buying clothes so that we are protected from the elements, but rather to impress our peers.
Perversion doesn’t get much clearer than this. Clothes were originally designed to cover our nakedness and then later to protect us from the elements. We’ve taken this basic need and perverted it. To me, this is possibly even a worse kind of perversion than pornography, because shelter is a basic need for life. No one (although some young men may try to argue it to their would-be lovers) has ever died from not having sex. But countless people die everyday from lack of shelter.
What’s amazing about reading Josh’s thoughts on this, is that they are not said in a bubble, or into cyberspace were there is no real accountability. Josh shares his thought’s amongst a community that he eats and breathes with. A community that will be encouraged and challenged by what he said and will be eager to both encourage him and be encouraged to live out the convictions we’ve come to in following Christ.
Be strong, brother.
You really have to go read Josh’s entire post.
Wow! $2,000 a year on clothes??? That is so absurd…yet not really surprising. I think we’ve spent maybe a couple hundred in the last FIVE years!! LOL
Thanks for sharing this. I’ll definately go check out the original article. 🙂
i am guessing that $2000 is an underestimate for the majority of american’s. afterall, a pair of name brand jeans can cost $90 and many people own at least five.
this was a really good post. thanks for sharing it with us. i have had similar thoughts for years. i certainly prove to be a hypocrite at times, but i am working on it.
good stuff.
wow, i’m shocked by the number $2000 as well. I would seriously find it hard to believe if I spent more than $150 a year (even that just because I’ve had three $20 belts break on me in the past two years…stupid belts). Great article.