"Does my sexiness upset you?" Women, Clothing Choices, and Body Image

Hi friends,

There has been some discussion about a particular black dress over the past few days. And it has been bothering me… vexing me, really. It truly shows how primitive we are, especially when it comes to how women of the cloth (clergy) dress. I remember being in a workshop with women clergy who talked about how we often spend more time thinking about how we will dress for a preaching moment and how we will be perceived by our clothing choices, rather than on the sermon prep itself.

Can you imagine? You have been to seminary. You have spent hours preparing a sermon—reading, researching, toiling with the tension in the text. And you get to the church, and no one receives you because you are wearing 5-6 inch heels, your body is curvy, and your dress is too “form-fitting”. This is the unfortunate reality that women clergy have to face. But the infamous black dress was not worn in the pulpit. It was not even worn at a church function. No, friends, this black dress was worn at a gala. For centuries, Black women’s bodies have been under constant scrutiny and ridicule. Our voluptuous shapes offend, but they are the blueprint for surgeons globally. Our aesthetic is mocked and mimicked simultaneously. My question is a simple one—does clothing diminish one’s ability to preach, pray, and prophesy? Does what I wear as a woman who preaches in, out, and around the pulpit take away from my years of education, hours of prayer and preparation, and supplication?

Lately, I’ve found myself in a season where I spend far more time in gym clothes than in clergy clothes. And that, too, has become a point of quiet judgment. This phase of my life has been one of discipline, healing, and showing up consistently for my body as an act of stewardship. The gym has been a sanctuary of sorts, a place where prayer happens between sets, especially heavy ones. I fast daily, not only for weight loss but for centering self. And I wear shorts, sports bras, and leggings to the gym. I am still degreed. Still called. Still qualified and capable. But I am also real. Transparent. Honest about my walk with the God of my understanding. I refuse the notion that holiness requires me to disappear, shrink, or mute myself. If anything, this season has made me more grounded in who I am and whose I am.

Which brings me to the question many are afraid to ask out loud: is sexiness a sin? The timeless question asked by ancestor Maya Angelou, “Does my sassiness upset you? Does my sexiness upset you?” comes to mind here. Somewhere along the way, we took scripture about modesty and stripped it of its historical, cultural, and theological context, turning it into a tool of control rather than liberation. The so-called “modest clothes” discourse is just the latest iteration of this obsession. And yet, even in countries where women are fully covered, where only eyes or toes are visible, women are still raped, ridiculed, blamed, and deemed distractions.Are the clothes to blame? Are the covered or uncovered bodies the cause? That truth alone should shatter the lie that clothing causes harm. What causes harm is patriarchy. What causes harm is entitlement. What causes harm is a church that polices women’s bodies instead of interrogating its own biases. There exists a long-standing, racist myth that Black women are inherently hypersexual. If you choose to dress “modestly” (whatever that means to you), do that. Truly. But let’s be clear: it does not make you more holy, more gifted, or more fit for ministry or for anything. It simply makes you compliant with a system that has too often confused conformity with being more “Christ-like”. The church must do better. Please stop belittling women, stop governing our bodies, and stop reducing our call to occupy clerical, corporate or collegiate spaces to the fabric we wear.