Question:
Answer:
It depends on the circumstances. In much of the West, it is considered culturally acceptable in some situations (such as at a beach or public pool) for a man to appear in public without a shirt. When people dress appropriately for the activities in which they are engaging, John Paul II said that it would be inappropriate to consider their state of dress to be immodest:
When a person uses such a form of dress in accordance with its objective function we cannot claim to see anything immodest in it, even if it involves partial nudity. Whereas the use of such a costume outside its proper context is immodest, and is inevitably felt to be so. For example, there is nothing immodest about the use of a bathing costume at a bathing place, but to wear it in the street or while out for a walk is contrary to the dictates of modesty (Love and Responsibility, 191-192).