Gospel Singer & Christian Criticized For Wearing Body-Hugging Dress

Not sure what to make of this.

Erica Campbell, a singer with a group called Mary Mary, posted a picture of herself in a sexy dress and posted it on Instagram.

When Mary Mary's Erica Campbell posted a new photo of herself on her Instagram page to announce her recent Grammy nomination for "A Little More Jesus," few could have predicted the firestorm it would spark in the Christian community...

A week later, the photo is still a hot topic. "I'm taking it in stride and I'm keeping it moving," Campbell tells ESSENCE.com. "When we took the picture I felt beautiful, I felt confident, I felt sexy and I felt strong."

"I thought I looked cute," she says jokingly, "but it obviously offended some people, which was never my intention."

...

The criticism has Campbell thinking there needs to be a bigger conversation about Christianity and sexuality. "This is about confidence and realizing that God made you and that you are beautiful just the way you are," she says. "I think that young girls shouldn't only get sexy images from people who are not proclaiming Jesus. But I am. And I'm cute too."

Okay that dress is kind of tight. And she doesn't just have the badankadonk, she's got the badonkadonkadonk. Adonk.

To motorboat her would require an actual motorboat.

But, you know: Busty women are allowed to be pretty too. That's my America, Pal.

Female beauty is sometimes controversial because there is an appreciation for what the culture deems to be a sort of beauty of high and refined aesthetic, but a wide cultural disapproval for beauty of what is deemed a low and base aesthetic.

Women with prominent, um, secondary sexual features get thrown into the latter category. They can dress exactly the same as the lithe girls, but while the lithe girls will be called beautiful, they'll be called trashy.

There seems to be a preference, on aesthetic grounds, for female beauty like Audrey Hepburn's. She was beautiful, obviously. But only her particular kind of beauty is deemed classy. Audrey Hepburn wore plenty of body-hugging dresses too, and no one thought she was doing anything rude, pandering to male sexual desire.

Same sort of dress on this Erica Campbell woman and it cannot be but that she is attempting to appeal to the prurient aspects of male attention.

I can't help but think that to this woman, her body is No Big Deal. She's lived with them her whole life. To her, they're as normal as her thumbs.

But I don't know. She's right that she looks "cute," but... it's kind of a dirty-cute. But is that her problem, or mine?

Do women with prominent curves have a special responsibility to cover up?

posted by Ace at 02:45 PM

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