“Today is the first day I’ve worn a tank top and not had my mother’s words in my head telling me I look like a “whore” or a “bitch in heat.” Actually, I feel kind of cute! Which is good, because I’m meeting up with my folks in Park City tonight and I’m wearing a tank top.”

This post was from a friend a couple weeks ago. Like many women I know she is moving on past the body shaming and modesty baloney her religion poured into her psyche as she grew up. Unfortunately that is easier said that done. The next post said this:

“Well shit. I’m about 45 miles from seeing my parents and now I’m feeling anxiety. Hot face, cold hands and short of breath. Ugh!”

In my past life I would have said that feeling of angst is the holy ghost telling her she was making some evil mistake revealing her shoulders for the world to see. Now days it is easy to see this is simply conditioning caused by hearing her mom call other women slutty and a whore for the way they were dressed. You see when we are children we naturally look up to our parents. We take in the example they set like a sponge. If our parents are prejudicial we end up filled with prejudice. This is not anything new, child abusers were often abused as children. Racists people raise racists kids. Just like good parenting begets good parents the opposite is also true.

So you see my friend angst over her dress is not uncommon at all after you leave a religion that controls even the way you dress. However it is also the first sign of finding true freedom. Just take a look at these women fleeing ISIS that have even a stricter drive for modesty in their faith than the Mormon one.

I find it no small coincidence that there are similar female only rules inherent to these two faiths. You see Joseph Smith knew well the religion of Muhammed when he said:

““I will be to this generation a second Mohammed, whose motto in treating for peace was ‘the Alcoran [Koran] or the Sword.’ So shall it eventually be with us — ‘Joseph Smith or the Sword!’ ”

One major similarity between these religions involving women that I found in my studies is the type of afterlife sex one gets. Now I am the first to admit that I have a bias in this case. You see from ages 12 to 16 I had a bishop that went into all sorts of sexual territory in interviews to gauge my worthiness. At the end of those sessions he consistently told me that the number one reason I needed to remain pure and chaste till marriage was so I could have sex eternally in heaven after you die. He made sure I knew that only the top tier of the celestial kingdom got that privilege. If you didn’t make that goal, then no more sex for you…. forever.

So you see as a hormone drenched teen that was pretty important to me. So I set my sights on a chaste temple marriage and eventually attained it. Sex forever is worth a little postponement in this life right?

Personally I think the reason for sexual control in religion is simple. Sex is a driving behavior, right up there next to things like breathing and eating and sleeping. When you commit a person to give up that need you immediately trip a cognitive trap in their brain. Once a person gives up something they want badly they have to deal with the dissonance it creates. They must justify the reason. It serves the effect of driving the belief deeper because it must be true, otherwise you wouldn’t have made such a sacrifice….

So when it comes to deeply held beliefs is it any wonder you find so much zealotry in Islam a place that also promises eternal sex for one man with multiple wives in paradise for the faithful? Is it any wonder that the ‘porn shoulders’ my friend was sporting that day she expressed her freedom from oppression is actually a term you will hear in Utah? Bare shoulders are that suggestive? Guess what! They are to the guy that swore them off! Just like these ankles are worth a second look.

Eternal sex with lots of wives is not a dead LDS doctrine either. I’m sorry ladies if you think it is. Mormons still believe in polygamy, they just wait till you are dead to practice it. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to a general authority answer the question:

There really are lots of problems with polygamy when it comes to the LDS faith. Most women I know are sure it isn’t gonna happen ever again. And quite a few men I know have confessed they hope for it after they die. But what does the doctrine actually say? Here is a tidbit for you. Let me know if you find this has been rescinded anywhere.

“In the spirit world there is an increase of males and females, there are millions of them, and if I am faithful all the time, and continue right along with brother Brigham, we will go to brother Joseph [Smith] and say, ‘Here we are brother Joseph’…. He will say to us,…. ‘Where are you wives?’ ‘They are back yonder; they would not follow us.’ ‘Never mind,’ says Joseph, ‘here are thousands, have all you want.’” – Apostle Heber C. Kimball

Ask yourself now if Romney’s binders full of women comment is like looking up his freudian slip!

Consider this. Maybe the real reason that her ‘porn shoulders’ made my friend both cute and nervous has everything to do with the way sex is portrayed in the religion, and not even a smidgen to do with reality or modesty or any other reason that is tossed out by the believer. It is possible isn’t it that this standard of modesty that so pivotally affected my friends life only applies to women? Because otherwise how would you have heard all about the modesty uproar over the mormon on the left verses the mormon on the right. Think about that for a bit.



To wrap up this topic, I have a question for the females to whom this standard seems to unilaterally apply. As a woman do you really like the idea that other ladies are constantly judging you on your dress and your look for not conforming to the norm? Is that really the way the world works? Should it be the way it is? I don’t think so. From what I have discovered after leaving the culture of my religion it isn’t that way out there in the scary world at all. In fact after my friend disclosed both her joy and angst in the her new found freedom of expression another close friend piped up and told her to not fear because she would love her no matter how she dressed and that true friends didn’t treat each other that way. My porn shouldered friends reply…

“I completely agree. I love you too! And all of the women I’ve met since leaving the church. The friendships are so much more authentic. [The Profet] should write about it!”

And I did, because authentic is exactly the way it should be.

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