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I'm writing this in a state of general immodesty — my underwear. But if you wait just a minute I can fix that. Don't go away.

OK. There. Now I'm completely naked. You can't get more immodest than this. As long as I don't look at myself, I should be able to keep my wits about me long enough to finish this column.

I'm doing this to illustrate a point — the need for enforceable dress codes. I think it's fair and appropriate that groups have and maintain standards of dress for the benefit of all involved.

There is no way that my Mormon ward would tolerate me showing up for church like this. In an environment where a little too much female shoulder is verboten, Bishop Short would call the cops. The Primary would go into lockdown.

Worse, the elders quorum would quickly pass around a sign-up list for an immediate service project to roll me in a rug and take me to the county landfill.

It isn't just church. The Salt Lake Tribune's newsroom (any newsroom actually) is filled with the most liberal, dissolute and amoral people in the country (journalists), and even they wouldn't want me showing up for work like this.

Note: There are decent and wholesome people in the newsroom as well. At one point there were as many as three, but we had to lay off one of them.

Anyway, most reasonable people would agree that dress codes are necessary. The real question is how nitpicky should we become about them?

Case in point, the Bingham High School students recently turned away from the prom because their clothing didn't pass the dress code. A little too much visible skin and they were barred from entering.

This, of course, annoyed a number of people who thought the school went too far in its enforcement of the dress code. What's the big deal about a little extra shoulder and back and thigh?

Answer: Not much unless you're the one tasked with enforcing it.

Acceptable is relative to most people. Give them an inch and they'll eventually take another inch, then a foot, then a yard, and pretty soon a mile. You cannot rely on all people to toe the line on their own.

"Well, if Muffy can wear a sleeveless dress, why can't I wear one with spaghetti straps?"

"Yo, if Brad got in wearing a Speedo, what's wrong with my jock strap. What's the big diff?"

"These? Dude, these are butt-less chaps. But I'm wearing a necktie. See?"

I used to think this way. Really, what's another teensy millimeter of unacceptable in the grand scheme of things? It's a question I put to Drill Sgt. Valentine during basic training. Answer: 8,000 pushups.

It's easy to look at the guardians of dress standards as tyrants or prudes, but the truth is they're the ones who stand between people attending events in the appropriate form of dress and people eventually showing up in G-strings and/or just a light coat of oil.

All I know for sure is that I wouldn't want to be the one doing the dress-code judging at school, church or anywhere. Neither would you. How could you possibly trust someone who just admitted to working nude?

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.