Fashion trends

God doesn't give a shit about what we mortals might think is cool. God tells us what is right and we adjust our thoughts and behavior to match his righteousness. End of story.

General Women's Conference

'Tis the season for the parade of boring, self-important general LDS meetings. Here's a silly little something from a fellow named Joseph Rawlins.

Here's Feminist Mormon Housewives' live blog about how the meeting went.

Heavenly fatherliness #17 - Respect towards women

According to popular wisdom, a good father respects the women in his life.

The argument in favor of God respecting women I think goes something like, "He most definitely loves all of his daughters as much as he loves his sons! He's given women the amazing role of motherhood, which makes them not just beautiful but indispensable to the human race!" Sexist but respectful is the way to go.

The fact is that when it comes to examples and laws on how to treat women God has come up with some pretty shitty ideas (like giving some men many wives and concubines). Men always come first. It's clear that God thinks he has to talk to boys first and that women should be obedient to his sons.

The Creation and the Fall are two more classic examples of where a man (Adam) comes first and where a woman (Eve) gets shat on for disobedience.

A whole slew of disgusting rules and regulations have been created and persist to the present day restricting the kinds of things women can and cannot do from how to speak, how much to speak, with whom to speak, when to speak, where she can go, with whom she can go there, which doors she can use, what she can wear, what she can own, greater punishments for misdeeds, etc. The list is really quite extensive, if you care to look into it.

God's will has been one of the many excuses throughout human history for treating women first and foremost as the property of men and more recently/currently as second class citizens. You'd think that an All-powerful Father would work just a little bit harder to clarify the dignity and equality of women, wouldn't you?

And yes, even the Mormon version of God IS VERY SEXIST. In the LDS Church it begins young and follows you into adulthood. But there are some changes even conservative Mormons can get behind that would make things a little better.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Wives #37-#49 and beyond

In addition to the 36 known wives of Joseph Smith, there are thirteen more known possible wives:

#37 - Mary Houston
#38 - Sarah Scott
#39 - Olive Andrews
#40 - Jane Tippets
#41 - Sophia Sanburn
#42 - Phoebe Watrous Woodworth
#43 - Vienna Jacques
#44 - Clarissa Reed Hancock
#45 - Mrs. Blossom
#46 - Mary Huston
#47 - Cordelia Clarista Morley
#48 - Nancy Maria Smith
#49 - Sophia Woodman

Yes, these marriages are not widely accepted, but neither were the other 36. ALL OF JOSEPH'S MARRIAGES WERE OFFICIATED IN SECRET, BEHIND SOMEONE'S BACK. Typically it was behind Emma's back.

Why should we not believe that Joseph married more women than we now know of?

We do know that Joseph propositioned men for their wives. Sometimes he told them it was an Abrahamic test (which was really quite shitty of him, if you ask me, partially because the proposed sacrifice of Isaac was such a horrible thing in the first place). Obviously he propositioned a number of women without their husband's knowledge or consent. Even his marriage to Emma took place against Isaac Hale's wishes.

How many women did Joseph really marry? Why did he have to marry so many? Why did none of his plural marriages conform to the rules he received? Are we honestly to believe that the angel commanding him to start polygamy showed up with a flaming sword but not a simple set of rules?

In addition to Fanny Alger, how many women did Joseph seduce without using the whole plural marriage scheme? It's no secret that he deeply enjoyed the company of women. Who else succumbed to his charm and power?

What are we to believe is godly and right about any of this? Is this how God works? Is it not clear why so many people find out about these things and begin to seriously doubt?

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs (Smith) Young - wife #5

The early 1840s in Nauvoo is where and when Joseph Smith's polygamy took off. We can only guess as to why. Maybe it was because Joseph was under threat of death by an angel of God if he refused. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that now Joseph had an entire city full of citizens eager to show their faith and devotion in his prophetic calling and willing to do just about anything to gain God's favor. Whatever the case, Joseph's marriage to Louisa really set things in motion. Zina Jacobs followed in relatively short order.

Like Louisa, Zina had recently lost her mother to the early Nauvoo malaria epidemic. In addition to coping with her mother's death, Zina had to juggle the attention of two suitors: Henry Bailey Jacobs, who wanted a wife, and the nearly all-powerful brother Joseph, who explained (to his credit) he needed another wife. Henry had started his pursuit before Joseph, but that didn't necessarily rule out Nauvoo's number one citizen. Amazingly she turned Joseph down to accept Henry's proposal.

Or maybe Zina's refusal shouldn't shock us at all. How many women are dying to become a sister wife?

A couple of months later Joseph came back at Zina with this story:

Obviously the death-threatening angel bullshit worked. Despite the deep shame she felt by consenting, Zina eventually (and conveniently) gained a testimony of plural marriage.

Zina continued living with Henry, but Joseph kept sending Henry on missions. After Joseph was killed, Zina married Brigham Young, who sent Henry to England. Zina then moved in with Brigham and his other wives leaving Henry feeling like total shit. Poor Zina. Poor Henry.

Why was Zina ever a candidate for plural marriage? She was not a virgin and she did not bear children with Joseph. And do you honestly think Emma gave her consent?

Here is the Feminist Mormon Housewives Podcast episode about her. 

Children at the bar

"Let's take a second here to talk about your vagina..."

In the Mormon world you start meeting one-on-one with the bishop at age eight when you have your baptismal interview. The bishop asks you questions to determine whether or not your ready to be baptized or not (SURPRISE! YOU ARE!). This is only the beginning of worthiness interviews, which turn into a twice-a-year event once a child turns twelve.

As a member of full faith I faithfully attended and believed in the importance of these interviews. It was awesome (and logical) that the bishop should be personally involved in every member's life and that he should act as keeper of the gate. I seemed wise to give children the opportunity to meet with the bishop without threat of suspicion. Someone who's embarrassed to make an appointment on his or her own wouldn't have to wait long before being called in for the routine check up. Let's not forget those kids who might be suffering abuses at home and who wouldn't be able to meet the bishop without arousing the aggressor's suspicion. Bishop interviews, in my mind, were a total safety net!

The reality of bishop interviews is a little different, though. Every kid hates them and fears them. They're awkward as fuck. You get a healthy dose of hardy-har-har humor from some old guy who lives in your neighborhood and who just might be your friend's dad only to segue into really obvious questions (e.g. "Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost? Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer? Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?" Duh! Who doesn't?), some kind of fuzzy, corrosively guilt-inducing questions (e.g. "Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel? Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen? Are you a full-tithe payer? Do your keep the Word of Wisdom? Is there anything in your conduct relating to members of your family that is not in harmony with the teachings of the Church?" Um... How much striving is enough striving? Does stuffing stuff under my bed and saying I cleaned my room make me dishonest? Does picking up a dime and immediately buying an Airhead mean I'm not a full tithe payer? I've neglected drinking mild drinks made from barley, is that bad? Holy shit, do we really have time for me to sit and examine every aspect of everything I've done since my last interview?), and there's that almost entirely irrelevant question ("Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" Uh? What?)

Answering these questions is never pleasant even for the most believing of youths. They put you on the spot. They seem to doubt you. They subversively get you to doubt yourself.

Bishop interviews are notoriously unpleasant among Mormon kids, who easily see behind all the fluff questions and know the real purpose of these interviews: the bishop needs to know what you're doing with your genitals.

"Do you live the law of chastity?"

This question is almost always expanded into many, many more.

"Do you have or entertain unclean thoughts? Do you tell dirty jokes? Do you look at pornography? Do you masturbate? Do you know what that is? How often? Are you dating anyone? What's your physical relationship like? Are you ever alone in each other's bedroom? What kind of kissing do you do? Do you ever lay on top of each other? Do you touch each other's private areas? Do you engage in necking or petting? Do you know what "Levi loving" is? Do you do it? Have you had sex?"

Mormon kids hate this. Whether you're Molly, Peter, or Jack, you hate these questions. You hate the fact that anyone has the audacity to ask you these questions and yet you believe they must be asked. You hate that you feel obligated to answer the questions.

"I sometimes think about girls in bikinis... I sometimes wonder what sex is like... Sometimes when I get, um, 'excited' I, uh, don't know how to get rid of it..."

Mormon kids hate the fact that they are in a private office with a grown man with the door shut talking about their sexuality. They all hate it. AND SO SHOULD PARENTS.

How in the hell is it acceptable to send your 14-year-old daughter into a closed office with a grown man? How is it acceptable for a man, who likely has ZERO PROFESSIONAL TRAINING in these kinds of sensitive discussions, to interrogate youth and teens about the most intimate details of their lives? Do we honestly think this is God's way or that Jesus gets off on this sort of thing?

I doubt it. I think parents might want to consider limiting what the bishop can talk to their children about. I think parents might even want to be present for some interviews. I think the Church should  make it mandatory for girls to be interviewed by women and not by men. I think the Church should  definitely think about hiring professionals to discuss sex with teens and pre-teens.

Then again, I think kids shouldn't be shamed for masturbating or being curious about sex.

Take aways

Mormons have a reputation of being reliable, kind people. They have high standards that they seem to honestly believe in. They're a lot like Boy Scouts in that they strive to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. All of those qualities are, in my mind, excellent qualities to have in many situations, and I'm not embarrassed to say that when it comes to take away lessons on life the Scout Law might sum up a great deal of what Mormonism taught me.

A couple of other beneficial life lessons learned through Mormonism would be learning that it's a good idea to ask questions and that we should seek out the original source when trying to learn about something. The Joseph Smith story is all about "lacking wisdom" in a world of confusion and challenging that confusion with personal investigation. You can't simply rely on others to get you through; you have to do the work for yourself. Joseph questioned authority and eventually found his own.

I admire people who constantly question authority and scrutinize sources. People who request to see the data for themselves and who want to investigate the texts on their own show a great deal of Boy Scout bravery, in my opinion, not to mention self-respect. I want to be someone who is unafraid of research and investigation and I think Mormonism can teach people to be that way.

On the other hand, Mormonism has had some negative effects on me. Mormonism taught me an unhealthy reverence for authority, it taught me that circular logic is okay, it taught me that I am offensive by nature, it taught me to equate virginity with beauty, cleanliness, and morality! Mormonism taught me bad history. It taught me that we already had the "answers" that mattered and that I should wait until the afterlife to understand the non-salvation-related questions I had (boy, oh boy, did I want to know why God ever bothered with dinosaurs!).

Mormonism taught me to make excuses. I was making excuses constantly for Mormonism. All the crazy shit that didn't make sense even to a child was excused away. Oh, God hasn't revealed that yet! We're not ready for that yet! It's not important to our salvation! They're just men, they're not infallible! I need to work on my faith! It's just a bunch of "anti" bullshit! The world doesn't understand! If only everyone else would listen to the Gospel as taught by the One True Church! Our prophet is so inspired, they'll let us know as soon as God wants us to know more!

Losing my faith in Mormonism taught me to stop making ridiculous excuses.

Tetris

Dear Dieter,

Thanks for reading my blog and considering my doubts. I hope I've made it clear that I made a lot of effort to doubt each and every one of my doubts as best I could for as long as I could. My years of living the Mormon life were perhaps not unlike a game of Tetris. It was so easy to keep the board clear of obstacles at first. I got really efficient at playing the game the way the Church had taught me to. I knew all the answers. I knew how the Gospel worked. I knew I was in the right place. Then things started speeding up. I was learning more and more interesting things about the world. Education and experience opened floodgates of sorts and before I knew what was going on I found myself with an avalanche of pieces to fit together. I worked really hard at it but I inevitably ended up at that point in the game where your only hope of staying in the game is to get a long piece so you can eliminate four full rows and gain a little breathing room. In that moment, when the game board is piled up to the top with pieces, all you have is prayer.

So I prayed. It was the last time in my life that I prayed sincerely (I prayed once more after that). I saw the end coming and wanted to avoid it if at all possible - "let this cup pass from me" and all that. I mentally prepared to ask Heavenly Father for a real witness, to ask God to reveal Himself even if He weren't Mormon at all. I was open to any god even though in my mind the Mormon one was clearly the most plausible. And when I prayed I stayed on my knees and listened. I prayed again and again. I told Heaven Father where I was at and what was going on, even though He already knew it all, and I asked for something real, something that would keep me in the game. At the very least I needed that long piece, but I would have loved to have seen the game board miraculously clear so I could start totally afresh. A loving, all-powerful father would, I assumed, do something like that.

I got nothing all night. Not a whisper, not a burning, not an epiphany, not a sign. Nothing. I realized what I had feared was true: I had been talking to the ceiling my whole life, to bare and earless walls, to the wind, to a Monster in the clouds, a complete fantasy. There was no personal god on the receiving end of my prayers.

I climbed in bed and contemplated what this meant for me. Was I now going to start smoking? No, of course not, smoking's idiotic, and besides the Word of Wisdom still made plenty of sense. Was I going to start stealing and taking as much advantage of others as possible? No, everyone hates those people. Was I going to start having sex with prostitutes? No, but the thought of having sex with someone I admired and cared for sounded pretty reasonable. Was I going to start taking the Lord's name in vain? No, I wouldn't want to offend those who believe, besides who's "the Lord" anyway? Why should I ever pay him lip service again in any form?

That was the end for me, Dieter. No more believing after that. I've never relapsed. Not believing has never been difficult probably because everything started fitting together without me turning it into a game of Tetris. No pile ups ever. Even before learning about Joseph Smith's scryer years, the evolution of his conversion story, the various sources he used in creating The Book of Mormon, the inconsistencies in his "restoration" of the Priesthood, his affairs, his schemes, his opportunism, his plagiarism of the Freemasons, his ambitions to military glory and world rule. My theory after that last prayer was that Joseph was both very intelligent and very delusional. I assumed he had had all of those visions but they were all born of fantasy. I still believed then that Joseph had wanted to do right by God and do good in the world. I didn't realize at the time that there were so many other doubts to doubt.

Dieter, don't think for a moment that I and others like me didn't doubt our doubts. The very first thing we do with doubts is doubt them.

Thanks again for reading.

Mormon culture

Not all Mormon communities are created equal. Perhaps the most common division of Mormons cuts between Utah Mormons and Mormons everywhere else in the world (also referred to as "the field"). Members from the field can't stand Utah Mormons. They say Utah Mormons are unbearable sanctimonious jerks who only see the world in black and white terms. The implication is that the Church is better outside of Utah. Better because the members are more authentic and accepting, more Christ-like. 

(Members outside the U.S. tend to be thought of a bit like merit badges.)

Utah Mormons naturally hate hearing how they suck and how they make the Church insufferable, so they often find a scapegoat for all the shitty Mormon behavior that makes hanging out with other Mormons such a chore. Inside Utah all annoying aspects of Mormon culture are said to have been bred in Utah County (also known as ”Happy Valley” or "the Bubble"), where all the asshole Mormons live in blissful ignorance of the real world and the real Gospel. 

But Utah County Mormons aren't about the accept responsibility for making Mormon culture awful. Hell no! They're not the ones with sticks up their asses! It's those self-righteous know-it-alls over at BYU who are dragging the good name of Mormons into the sewers of arrogance and bad taste.

It's BYU culture, not Mormon culture, that we all hate, right? Kind of, unless you're at BYU, then you have to find someone else to blame, like for example the RMs (returned missionaries) who haven't quite landed yet. They're still trying to proselytize even though everyone's already Mormon and rope you into early morning scripture study or late night hymn singing! They get all touchy about how the Spirit retreats when someone swears or if the person they're dating tries to slip them the tongue! They're ridiculous! No one understands why the Church hasn't ex-communicated them yet.

This all makes total sense unless you're an RM attending BYU and you still hate the culture you're immersed in.

My doubts about belonging to Mormon culture hit hard during my final years at BYU. Maybe it was something about squabbling over caffeinated beverages for the billionth time or listening to another rant about how not watching R-rated movies is a commandment. No, it wasn't just that. Maybe I just couldn't handle the singles wards anymore, the desperate males struggling to establish themselves as an Alpha and the desperate but contemptuous females all calculating how to line up yet another silly Mormon-style date with that special "one", their "eternal companion", who fortunately happens to live in same ward boundary. Maybe it was just Church culture in general. I'm thinking of the suits and ties, the meaty handshakes, the laughably irrelevant insights to certain verses of scripture, the camaraderie found in the persecution complex, the vocal disgust of everything pertaining to "the world", the delight in leader veneration, and the drive at ladder climbing. Maybe it was because I was finding myself turning anti-war and hated the rhetoric of being a soldier in Christ's army. Maybe it was because I was realizing more and more that I identified as a feminist and therefore qualified as an enemy of the Church. Maybe it was my disgust for the cult of virginity perpetuated within Mormonism under the guise of “chastity”, "cleanliness", "virtue", and "honor". Maybe it was the parameters Mormonism had set on science by suggesting it's not true science if it contradicts Mormon doctrine.  Maybe it was the patriotic zeal infused in the Book of Mormon's depiction of the Americas as the most promised of promised lands. Maybe it was the overall defensiveness members feel toward outsiders and outside opinions. Maybe it was the overall defensiveness members feel toward each other.

Who or what started all this crap? Who could I blame for all of these deplorable aspects of my culture? The vocal nut job members of the Church? Misguided local leaders? Prophets speaking as men? Ancient unenlightened traditions? Human nature? God?

Could I see myself living happily within this culture? How long could I hold out?

Chastity - better off dead

When I ran across Heber Grant's comment about "losing" your chastity in the Church manual Gospel Principles I nearly threw up. I read it again hoping I had misunderstood. I read it again because I couldn't believe the words. And again because it still wasn't sinking in. I couldn't imagine any loving parent of any faith tradition believing this kind of bullshit:

"There is no true Latter-day Saint who would not rather bury a son or a daughter than to have him or her lose his or her chastity – realizing that chastity is of more value than anything else in all the world.”

Words of a prophet, people. A modern-day one. This is the kind of enlightenment God has graced his latter-day saints with. Not only should your child be slut shamed, but you as a parent should wish they had died.

Today if you pick up a copy of Gospel Doctrines you won't find this quote (it was removed for the 2006 English edition, if I'm not mistaken), but the this comment and others like it have been spoken, printed, and spread around the Church for decades. I cannot imagine the kind of damage this has caused both parents and children.

I hated this concept. Guilty of sexual indiscretion? You'd be better off dead. Raped? You'd be better off dead. Who says so? The prophets of God. Who cares? Your parents, your siblings, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, your friends, your friends' parents, your bishop, your youth leaders, and anyone else who is truly Mormon.

   
The only way I managed to put this one on my shelf was by reminding me that most everyone I cared about probably didn't believe this and they seemed like decent Mormons to me. This was just an old idea, outdated now that we better understand Christ's loving atonement, right?

Young Women's Conference

Women speakers in General Conference were always the worst. They always seemed to adopt an incredibly high, sappy tone similar to the register one uses when speaking motherese. Even from a very early age I found them impossible to pay attention to, so when I found out that there was a Young Women's Conference I was more than happy I was not required to attend. Who the hell needed nearly two full hours of straight Magic Flute voice? Not I.

But once I got out on my mission I had a change of heart. Young Women's Conference was important. The talks addressing the the future women of the Church were important. They had to be - everything the Church has to say is critically important! I was sure I had overlooked the impressive content simply out of bias toward the method of delivery (i.e. middle-aged women in pastels - the typical color choice for LDS women about to go Magic Flute voice all over the microphone). 

I decided to give their talks a fair shake. I needed to know what they were saying. I needed to tune in to the spirit they brought, if not their voices. So I started reading the Young Women's Conference talks from the Conference editions of the Ensign that had piled up over the years in my mission apartment. I don't know how many conferences-worth I read but I do know the more I read the angrier I became.

Why were all of these talks so doctrine-less? All I could really find in these talks to young women was manipulative bullshit about how they all needed to be virtuous because Heavenly Father loves virtue and wants them to be worthy to marry in the temple. Typically in Mormon speak "virtue" means sexual chastity. All the girls were being told, more or less, was "be happy, don't drink coke, don't dress like a slut, and protect your hymen because otherwise you'll make Heavenly Father sad/disappointed/angry". Obey, girls, you don't want to have any regrets on your wedding night!

It was disgusting. I wrote home about it. I asked my family what the was going on. Had Young Women's Conference always been so doctrinally shallow and so socially manipulative? (It just so happens that all LDS conference addresses are shallow and manipulative, not just the YWM talks.)

I doubted the fair treatment of women in the Church. I could see at least one way in which people with a vagina were treated with at least some level of condescension, and I didn't like it. Why would God instruct his servants to dish out a load of fluff to His daughters, the future mothers of Zion? It didn't seem right. When I never received any response from my family and friends on the topic I of course found a way to cope. I doubted my doubts and moved forward with faith.