Does anyone remember the ridiculous "modesty" lessons taught in Church?

I still own the knee length shorts from when I was LDS (they still fit, so I wear them regularly). Well one of them recently got a hole in it that is not repairable so I had to buy another pair of shorts. My new shorts hit me about mid-thigh. The funny thing is, it feels weird to wear them. My mind is so warped from remembering the lessons we had in Young Women against wearing these shorts...I have to keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter.

One year at girls camp, the very very very tbm girl shared her "testimony" around the fire during testimony night that she was so so glad that we all were so modest (meaning our clothing covered forbidden-to-be-seen areas) since not all of the girls in other wards cared enough to be modest. She didn't like it when I mentioned that modesty is not just about clothes but about attitude. Some of the leaders did a double take too.

My daughter is at camp as we speak. In the itemized list of camping gear, "modest" clothing- covered shoulders, no shorts, T-shirts over swim suits, "modest" sleepwear- is required. In 2013.

Do they think that without these strong rules that every girl would otherwise plan to wear the sheerest of babydolls, to show off her shapely thighs and full breasts and pointy nipples? On a camping trip? With only other girls around?????

What is wrong with these people??? I posted a similar thread on postmormon.org. Why can't they simply let the girls be girls? Why do they feel the need to control every aspect of their lives? (Actually I know why).

To paraphrase a psychologist (perhaps carl jung- I don't really remember): the problem that they are trying to combat is the urges of the girls (as they suppose) to turn everything into a sexual matter. But if the leaders do the same, what have we achieved?

And why do they need big, strong, sensible men around to chaperone? Are the female leaders too flighty to take charge (after all, they are only weak females, of course).

My parents have a home movie that my mother took at girls' camp back around 1961. Part of the movie was of the girls swimming in the lake. They were wearing their underwear, and nothing else. (Note that at the time that kind of thing did not interest me in the least- they were just yucky girls). Two things stand out: first, nobody cared in the least what the girls wore. Bare shoulders and midriffs were simply not an issue. They even took movies of it. Maybe at the time nobody would see such things as sexual.

Second: it implies that there were no Priesthood holders for miles around. Apparently in 1961 women were quite capable of being in charge all by themselves. It wan't until much later that they lost the mental capacity to run things without a big strong man to run to when they broke a nail or saw a spider.

Thanks for starting this thread. It points out one more glaring flaw in modern Mormonism, namely the fixation on sexuality which becomes a convenient diversion from the real job of religion, namely spirituality. Mormonsim just cannot deliver, and so it has to invent problems which it can handle.