Lack Of Modesty Was The Real Gaffe by Doug Wrenn

Lack Of Modesty Was The Real Gaffe

By Doug Wrenn

August 31, 2007

Many people might not recognize the name, Lauren Caitlin Upton, but after this week, many now know the third runner up from South Carolina in this year's Miss Teen USA Beauty Pageant, and she is Lauren Caitlin Upton. Sadly, Miss Upton is now national news because of several conspicuous and embarrassing gaffes she made while trying to answer a question of why 1/5 of Americans cannot locate the US on a map.

I'm not a real big fan of these hypocritical farces we call beauty pageants. For all their ranting about being exploited and wanting to be taken seriously, women do themselves no favors by sauntering around on a stage in a bikini for the very intentional purpose of having men ogle at them, and perhaps a few other women envy them. P.T. Barnum long ago cashed in on the insightful knowledge that today's feminists fail to grasp: exploitation does nothing for respect, but it's great for making a buck, and now we use teenagers for the bait.

All the Amber Alerts, sexual predator registries and computer sting operations in the world won't make much of a dent in protecting girls until we stop sexualizing young (and in some cases, even younger) girls with immodest behavior and dress, or lack thereof. Such "training" can also lead to later dysfunctional relationships, sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancies. Despite its fleeting allure, immorality is the fertile breeding ground for tragedy and misery.

Upton was undoubtedly nervous, and if public speaking were so easy, everyone would do it well. If seasoned public speakers President Bush can be "misunderestimated" and Senator Kennedy can confuse "Osama" with "Obama" then perhaps we can understand why this scantily clad teenager, on stage before cameras and being more closely scrutinized than the fish in the Mystic Aquarium can be a little tongue-tied. The public ridicule foisted upon this girl was wantonly cruel, despite her ill-advised willingness in this shallow endeavor of more glitz than grandeur. And perhaps 1/5 of Americans cannot find the US on a map because they are incessantly preoccupied by wasting and corroding their brains on such mindless programming as beauty pageants and reality shows in the vast wasteland known as TV, rather than occasionally delving into a book, or for that matter, an atlas.

For the sadly increasing masses of America's secular, mesmerized, desensitized, and dumbed-down couch potatoes, ever armed with remote clickers, and easily recognizable by the trademark drool on their chins and that "deer in the headlights" gaze in their eyes, they missed the real irony. Miss Upton's real gaffe was in trying to be a public siren, not a public speaker. She should cover up a little more skin, and we should cut her a lot more slack, for her verbal indiscretion anyway.