A Feminist Review of Daughters in My Kingdom: Part Two

This is a continuation of my review of the church's recent publication Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society. See Part One in which I discuss how the book constructs a historical narrative to justify the church's contemporary auxiliary structure. I discussed chapters 1, 2, and 6 in detail in that review. In this part, I will discuss chapters 3-5, 7, and 10. If you would like to read my in-depth, 20 page notes on the book, you're welcome to check out this Google Doc.

Service, Service, Service, SERVICE!
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 were definitely the strongest chapters in the book and I actually enjoyed them (for the most part). They told the history of the Mormon women from 1846-1945, with a particular emphasis on the acts of service performed by Mormon women.

Chapter 3 focuses on the pioneer exodus from Nauvoo to the West. It highlights the tremendous strength of the pioneer women and how they often had to make the trek with a very low ratio of men since most of the men had joined the Mormon Battalion. It talked about how women supported each other on the plains and how they endured tremendous suffering as the result of sickness and death. It highlighted early acts of service performed by women who had just newly settled down in Utah such as making clothing for local Indians and helping Saints who were still traveling Westward.

Chapter 4 covered the period of the reintroduction of the Relief Society from 1866 to about 1910. It again highlighted the contributions of women during this period such as:

• The establishment of the Deseret Silk Association, chaired by Zina D. H. Young
• The Relief Society practice of saving and storing wheat in silos
• How women during this period of time frequently traveled to the East to be trained in medicine and then worked as medical doctors when they returned to the West

This chapter also mentioned some great things like women's publications (such as the Women's Exponent and the Relief Society Magazine), women's suffrage, and demonstrations put on by Mormon women to in which they argued that they were not inferior to other women in the world.

Chapter 5 covered the years spanning World War I to World War II. It also emphasized acts of service performed by women such as:

• Relief Societies that volunteered with the Red Cross and National Council of Defense during World War I
• Raising money and sewing quilts for soldiers or for European families that had been devastated by war
• The Relief Society's creation of the Social Service Department, which helped with adoption and assisting low-income families
• The creation of hospitals by local Relief Societies, which often offered free courses in nurses training
• The organization of the Church Welfare Program, which was run in coordination with the Relief Society

I actually really enjoyed these chapters quite a bit. It was remarkable to see the accomplishments of Mormon women throughout the last two centuries. In some ways it made me mourn how assertive and proactive the Mormon women of the past appear to have been compared with the Mormon women of today. Had the book ended after chapter 5, I would have given Daughters in My Kingdom a generally positive review for the way in which it highlighted and celebrated the often forgotten contributions of women in the past. But, alas, it didn't end there.

Service and Charity as an Innate Female Attribute
Chapter 7 marked a transition in the purpose of the book. All the previous chapters had been devoted to telling the history of the Relief Society and the remarkable contributions of Mormon women collectively and individually. But in Chapter 7, it switched from telling a historical narrative to a more didactic argument about women's divine nature and their prescribed roles within the church.

While reading this chapter, I began to suspect that this book was appropriating the history of the Relief Society for its own rhetorical purposes. Rather than just telling the story of the remarkable accomplishments of Mormon women and letting that stand on its own merit, in Chapter 7 the book began to impose a narrow interpretation of what that history meant. The previous 6 chapters of the book had been emphasizing the service that had been given by the Relief Society in the past. In Chapter 7, it began to emphasize that giving service is a divine attribute of being female.

Here's a few quotes from the chapter that caused me to get that vibe:

• "Visiting teaching has become a vehicle for Latter-day Saint women worldwide to love, nurture, and serve---to 'act accoding to those sympathies which God has planted in your bosoms,' as Joseph Smith taught" (112).
• President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a counselor in the First Presidency, said: 'You wonderful sisters render compassionate service to others for reasons that supersede desires for personal benefits' " (112).

Then in chapter 10, my suspicions were confirmed when the rhetoric about womanhood and service became much more overt. Notice the repeated assertions in from Chapter 10 that service and charity are innate female attributes:

• "[S]isters in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been taught to live up to their divine potential by fulfilling God's purposes for them. As they come to understand who they really are---God's daughters, with an innate capacity to love and nurture---they reach their potential as holy women. With charity in their hearts, they fulfill the purposes of Relief Society" (171).
• "The Lord has endowed women with an innate desire to serve and bless others" (171).
• Quoting Elder Russell M. Ballard, it states that women have "an innate tendency to put the well-being of others ahead of [their] own" (172).
• "The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, 'It is natural for females to have feelings of charity' " (172).
• "For true charity to blossom in their hearts, women must combine their innate compassion with faith in Jesus Christ" (173).

I think that on the surface level, the authors of this book (who, incidentally, are unknown to us) probably imagine that these kinds of statements are a way of praising women. After all, it's a rather high compliment to say that women, by their very nature, have an innate capacity for charity, the "pure love of Christ" (Moroni 7:47). Service to others is always considered a noble act---so to suggest that service is an innate female quality is somewhat ennobling, right?

Unfortunately any kind of essentialization of gender is bound to be problematic. While I feel that giving service is very noble in and of itself---and I really do want to applaud the sacrifices Mormon women have made in service to others---I worry that the suggestion that charity is an innate female trait is very problematic. The word "service" comes from the Latin word servitium which means "servitude" and "slavery." It's closely related to the word "servant." And so, to suggest that a desire to serve is an innate female trait feels dangerously close to suggest that it's a woman's innate role to serve everyone, to put selflessly put everyone else's needs before her own.

I don't think that suggests a very healthy role for women. In those kinds of statements, I don't hear any acknowledgment that a woman should set reasonable boundaries for what she will or will not do for others (in order to avoid being taken advantage of or to be abused by others). I don't hear any acknowledgement that a woman should freely choose to serve others (as opposed to doing it out of a sense of duty or obligation). I don't hear any acknowledgement that some women may not find personal satisfaction in service to others and that she should be free to choose that lifestyle or find some other path to fulfillment if she will. In short, let's allow each woman to individually define her purpose in life for herself.

When I finished Daughters in My Kingdom, I created this image to express the way I felt about it:

I just felt that the whole book was a way of allowing male General Authorities to ventriloquize women and femininity rather than let women define their own femininity for themselves. And the leaders of the church ventriloquize womanhood because it ultimately serves them---by reinforcing the system of patriarchy.

For a more eloquent exploration of this problem, check out the Mormon Matters Podcast about motherhood.

***

I have more I could say about Daughters in My Kingdom, but I'm ready to move onto thinking and writing about other church-related things. So we'll just leave it at that. Feel free to check out my Google Doc if you want more of my thoughts on the whole thing.

A Feminist Review of Daughters in My Kingdom: Part One

A few weeks ago my Relief Society president handed out free copies of the church's new publication Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society. I finally finished reading the book last week and since the book was plugged multiple times during last weekend's Relief Society General Broadcast (prompting my TBM mother to state that the broadcast was "one big infomercial"), I'd figure I'd post a review.

I should mention that when I first tried sitting down and writing my review, it ended up being nearly 20 pages long, so I decided it wouldn't work for a blog post. However, if you want to read my full, in-depth analysis with notes on each chapter, I've posted it on a Google Doc.

Instead, I'm going to condense and break up my document into smaller parts, each part discussing some of the major themes of Daughters in My Kingdom.

Introduction
Daughters in My Kingdom is a 208 page, full-color, glossy booklet discussing the history of the Relief Society and the role of women within the church. Since the booklet was handed out for free in my ward and since you can buy it for only $3 at the Church Distribution Center, I'm guessing the church is printing this book at a net loss. Whenever the church does something like that, it means that they really, really want people to read it. I can't help but wonder if the church is feeling the pressure of increasing criticism from feminist groups inside and outside of the church. (I discuss my evidence why I feel Daughters in My Kingdom is a response to feminist groups such as LDS Wave in more detail in my Google Doc, if you're interested.)

With that in mind, I was feeling fairly optimistic when I began reading Daughters in My Kingdom that it would be a step in the right direction towards gender equality within the church. And while it there are indeed aspects of this publication that are progressive, I nevertheless feel that Daughters in My Kingdom is not a very satisfactory response to the very valid concerns being raised by Mormon feminists.

The Relief Society as an "Ancient" Organization
The idea that the Relief Society is a divine organization was a central theme throughout this book. In Chapter 1, the book spends a great deal of time discussing the women in the New Testament and how Christ valued and involved women in his ministry. It also suggests that Christ organized the Relief Society as part of "the same organization that existed in the primitive church" (see the 6th Article of Faith). This chapter quotes Eliza R. Snow twice (once in the chapter heading and once in the actual chapter) as saying: "Although the name may be of modern date, the institution is of ancient origin. We were told by our martyred prophet that the same organization existed in the church anciently" (1, 7). Side note: if you want to read my discussion of why I think this idea is patently false, you can read my detailed notes for this chapter. But I won't dwell on it here because I want to focus more on how this idea is important to the book's overall argument.

Chapter 1 equivocates on Snow's statement a little bit by stating: "While little is known about a formal organization of women in the New Testament, evidence suggests that women were vital participants in the Savior's ministry" (3). Although this qualifying statement is an indication that the church is unwilling to fully commit to Eliza R. Snow's assertion that the Relief Society existed in Christ's time, the chapter ultimately allows Snow to have the last word on the matter by including her quote in the chapter's final section. In this way, the book subtly gives an official church endorsement of the idea that the Relief Society existed in the primitive church.

The book's suggestion that the Relief Society was established by Christ as part of the primitive church is very important to one of the book's main arguments: that the church's current ecclesiastical structure is divinely justified---and therefore cannot be changed. Women cannot have the priesthood or hold priesthood-only leadership positions because Christ intended for them to have a separate, complementary women's organization. The "separate, but equal" pattern of organization for the contemporary church is divinely authorized and therefore unnegotiable.

The Relief Society was Organized "Under the Priesthood"
Chapter 2 continues in this same vein by discussing the history of the organization of the first Female Relief Society of Nauvoo. It discusses how Sarah Kimball, Margaret Cook, and Eliza R. Snow first approached Joseph Smith with their idea to form the Relief Society in the spring of 1842. Although the evidence couldn't be clearer that the Relief Society was Kimball, Cook and Snow's brainchild, the chapter quotes Sarah Kimball's 1883 memoir in which she remembers that Joseph Smith responded to their proposal by saying: "This is not what you want. Tell the sisters their offering is accepted of the Lord, and he has something better for them than a written constitution. I invite them to meet with me and a few of the brethren next Thursday afternoon, and I will organize the women under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood" (12). The chapter then goes on to argue: "Rather than pattern a Latter-day Saint women's organization after the women's societies that were prevalent and popular at that time, the Prophet Joseph Smith organized them after a divinely inspired and authorized manner" (12).

This chapter repeatedly emphasizes that the Relief Society was set up under priesthood authority. The book states: "As the Lord's prophet, Joseph Smith held all the keys of priesthood authority on the earth. Therefore, when he organized the Relief Society to function under his overall direction, he unlocked opportunities for the women of the Church to play vital roles in the work of the Lord's kingdom. They now served under the authority of the priesthood" (15). Later in the chapter, the book states: "The Relief Society was not just another group of women trying to do good in the world. It was different. It was 'something better' because it was organized under priesthood authority" (16). Side note: you can read my detailed notes on this chapter for why I feel that this portrayal of the history of the early Relief Society is flawed. I discuss evidence supporting the theory that Joseph Smith wanted to use the Relief Society to introduce the female temple endowment, but later abandoned it when the society became too popular (and was therefore no longer elite).

What I want to point out is how chapter 2 further supports the book's larger rhetorical purpose of justifying the church's contemporary auxiliary structure. The book doesn't allow the Relief Society to be Kimball, Cook, and Snow's idea---it has to be Joseph Smith's idea (and therefore the Lord's idea). It has to be organized "under the priesthood after a pattern of the priesthood" (12) in order to be authorized and authentic.

What about the Structural Reorganization of the Relief Society in 1971?
Frankly, the assertion that the Relief Society was organized "under the priesthood" is an anachronistic view of the Relief Society's relationship to the priesthood---meaning that it is being filtered through the lens of the contemporary church institution in order to justify its current structure. The fact that the Relief Society's history is being filtered through the the lens of the contemporary church is made obvious by the notable omissions of key historical events from Chapter 6 of the book. This chapter (which covers the history of the Relief Society from 1946 to the present day) makes no mention of the sweeping organizational changes that occurred within the Relief Society under Harold B. Lee's Correlation program in 1971. Under Lee's administration, all of the church's auxiliary programs (which included the Relief Society, the Primary, the Young Women's and Young Men's programs, and the Sunday School) ceased to be fully autonomous organizations.

Prior to 1971, the Relief Society was an independent organization. Its relationship to the church was similar to the relationship an after-school program has with a school: they were definitely connected, but they ultimately existed independently of one another. The Relief Society had its own leadership structure, its own publications, its own curriculum, and---perhaps most importantly---its own finances. In the 1970s, the Relief Society lost its autonomy and came under full priesthood control on a general, stake, and ward level. Their finances were seized and surrendered to the church. Their publications were discontinued. The General Relief Society Presidencies, who had previously served in their callings for life (the way a prophet and his First Presidency serve for life), were eventually released by their new priesthood leaders. Side note: for a detailed history of the controversy over the Correlation changes, see chapter 7 of David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism and Part 2 of Daymon Smith's discussion of Correlation on the Mormon Stories podcast.

In short, the Relief Society only began to exist "under the priesthood" in 1971. It wasn't this way in Christ's time and it wasn't that way in Joseph Smith's time. The book's suggestion that it ever was that way to begin with is terribly anachronistic. And it reveals the book's true purpose: to give divine legitimacy to the current institutional structure of the church, the "separate, but equal" organization for men and women.

I counted nearly 18 other instances in Daughters in My Kingdom in which the authors took great pains to constantly assert that all of the actions of the Relief Society are and were authorized by priesthood leaders. In many cases, these assertions were very awkward and redundant, which suggests that they were deliberate and consciously inserted into the text (probably by the Correlation Committee). Here's a couple of examples:

• "The Saints were blessed by priesthood power through the laying on of hands by brethren who held the priesthood" (32).
• "[T]he Relief Society established the Relief Society Social Service Department in 1919, with the full support of President Heber J. Grant" (67).
• "In 1924, with support and encouragement from general and local priesthood leaders and Sister Williams [the General Relief Society president], the Cottonwood Stake Relief Society established a maternity hospital" (69).

In each of those cases, it appears that the book took great pains to make it very clear that all Relief Society actions fell under priesthood governance. I've listed more of these citations in the General Observations section of my Google Doc. 

Conclusion
Earlier I used the term "separate, but equal" to describe the church's current auxiliary structure. This was intentional, my purpose being to allude to the name of the constitutional doctrine under which racial segregation was legalized. My argument is that the church's "separate, but equal" doctrine functions in a similar way to Jim Crow laws: it creates a system in which there are two classes of citizens (in this case, men and women) with the purpose of denying the second class of citizens any real kind of power or voice within the governing body.

A Mormon woman's relationship with her God is constantly mediated by males. Although she has the right to personal prayer, personal revelation, and spiritual gifts, beyond that she is wholly dependent on males for salvation and exaltation. A male priesthood holder must perform the saving ordinances for her (with the notable exception of the Initiatory rites in preparation for the endowment). A male bishop must interview her for worthiness to enter the temple. A male prophet is responsible for communicating  a male God's will to her. And male leaders on a general, stake, and ward level have the final say in all decisions that affect a woman's day-to-day experiences within the church. Males, in turn, have no such dependency on females, with the exception of their need to be sealed to a woman in order to receive the patriarchal priesthood. And, according to Daughters in My Kingdom, a female auxiliary leader must have authority (a fancy word for "permission") from her male priesthood leaders to enact changes to her organization that she feels are needed. I fail to see the purported equality in this system.

I find it offensive when church members try to suggest that this inherently inequitable system is what God wants and intends for his children. I'm an agnostic (bordering on atheism), which means that I am skeptical of God's existence but could possibly be convinced otherwise. If God exists and does indeed speak to humans through personal or prophetic revelation today, I feel confident that we receive that communication imperfectly, filtering this revelation through our own biases and prejudices. James Madison expressed my current view succinctly in The Federalist Papers: "When the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated."

With that in mind, I've come to feel that God is a blank screen onto which we project ourselves---complete with our biases, prejudices, and our assumptions about the world. We project our perceptions of goodness onto God and then turn around and use that projection as justification for a theology we constructed ourselves. The current leaders of the church were born and raised in an era of patriarchy. Therefore, when they "talk" to God, they filter it through that lens. I'm highly skeptical that God is such a blatant misogynist---and if he is, then he is not a creature who is worthy of my worship.

Gospel Principles #39 - The Law of Chastity (NOM version)

I actually didn't teach this lesson in Relief Society. I was on vacation in Las Vegas last week and I got a substitute to teach my class. But my husband taught this lesson a few Sundays ago and when I read the lesson manual with him, I just knew I had to write a blog post about it.

The final paragraph of the lesson manual reads:

When we obey the law of chastity, we can live without guilt or shame. Our lives and our children’s lives are blessed when we keep ourselves pure and spotless before the Lord. Children can look to our example and follow in our footsteps. (232)

Unfortunately, the lesson manual's claim that obedience to the law of chastity helps individuals to avoid guilt and shame is not corroborated by scientific research. In fact, it appears that the opposite may be true.

In January 2011, Daniel Ray and Amanda Brown of Kansas University released a study called "Sex and Secularism: What Happens When You Leave Religion" about the impact of religion on attitudes towards sex. They surveyed approximately 14,500 individuals from a wide variety of religious backgrounds. Ray and Brown found that religious people had sex just as frequently as secularists (such as atheists, agnostics and Unitarians), that they engaged in the same kinds of sexual acts (masturbation, oral sex, pornography use) and often became sexually active at the same ages. But the study found that those who self-identified as religious experienced much more guilt associated with sex acts than their non-religious counterparts. Furthermore, religious people reported feeling significantly less satisfied with their sex lives than secularists.

But what was perhaps most interesting was the finding that 8.19 out of 10 Mormons experienced high levels of guilt and shame associated with sex---higher than any other religious group included in the survey. How can we make sense of the manual's promise that those who obey the law of chastity "can live without guilt and shame" when so many Mormons apparently experience the opposite? If chastity truly were a God-given principle, wouldn't it stand to reason that it would bring the greatest peace of mind and good mental health to those who tried to follow it? What accounts for this dissonance?

Mormons sacralize sex beyond a healthy, normal level
One one level, I think the problems come from the sacralization of sex. Mormons sacralize sex more than most religions do, meaning they identify it as a sacred, holy act more than many other religious denominations. Take Jeffery R. Holland's famous BYU talk "Of Souls, Symbols and Sacraments." Holland argues that the soul is both the body and the spirit and, because Christ paid for our souls through his Atonement and death, we do not own our own bodies. Because we do not own our bodies, we do not have the right to engage in sexual acts without the Lord's express approval (signified by the covenant of marriage). Holland also argues that sexual intercourse is a symbol of the total union between a husband and a wife---and that to pretend you are unified when you really are not (e.g. you didn't get married to solidify your commitment to one another) is sinful. And finally he argues that sexual intercourse is a holy sacrament, "symbolic of a union union between mortals and deity, between otherwise ordinary and fallible humans uniting for a rare and special moment with God himself and all the powers by which he gives life in this wide universe of ours." He argues that since sex is engaging in the act of creation, which is a God-like attribute, it is a sacred act that should only be engaged in under the boundaries that God has given it (e.g. marriage).

When I was a young adult (and a TBM), I thought this talk was simply beautiful. It appealed to my intellectual side by making sex an abstract, metaphysical act that had profound symbolic meaning. Having now experienced sex for myself, I don't really see sex as a spiritual act (although I know that it can have that feeling for some). I don't really feel like God is in my bedroom with me (and I kind of prefer to keep him out of it, thank you very much). Rather, I experience sex primarily as a physical act---something that's mostly fun (recreational) and can be used to solidify the bonds between me and my partner. I personally don't regret having "saved" myself for my husband so that we could grow closer by exploring our bodies sexually together, but I also don't fetishize sex and think of it as being greater than it is. It doesn't need to be a deeply symbolic, spiritual act to be meaningful and enjoyable for me. Thinking of it as a physically-stimulating, recreational activity doesn't lessen its importance. But the fact that Holland and other church leaders have put sex on such a holy pedestal becomes very problematic for those church members who treat Holland's words as scripture.

Speaking of scripture, here's another excerpt from the Gospel Principles manual:

The prophet Alma grieved because one of his sons had broken the law of chastity. Alma said to his son Corianton, “Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?” (Alma 39:5). Unchastity is next to murder in seriousness. (230)

The Book of Mormon's declaration that unchastity is nearly as serious as murder has the same function as Holland's talk: it's trying to make the act of sex seem sacred and special---it's just using negative terms rather than the positive terms that Holland prefers. Frankly, the analogy that sex is nearly as serious as murder just doesn't hold water for me. I can think of so many more sins that are much more heinous and that have much more serious, far-reaching consequences than sexual promiscuity. How about spousal or child abuse? How about kidnapping? Torture? Extortion? Armed robbery? Drunk driving? Embezzlement? Drug dealing? Sexual promiscuity just doesn't even seem to be in the same moral ballpark as any of these crimes---let alone murder.

The over-exaggeration of the seriousness of sex has caused many Mormons to develop skewed perspectives about human sexuality. For example, witness this statement from Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine:

Loss of virtue is too great a price to pay even for the preservation of one's life---better dead clean, than alive unclean. Many is the faithful Latter-day Saint parent who has sent a son or a daughter on a mission or otherwise out into the world with the direction: "I would rather have you come back in a pine box with your virtue than return alive without it." (124)

While I'll cut McConkie a little slack for being from a different generation than my own, I can't help but feel that this line of thought is very disturbing. It's really not that far off from suggesting that people who break the law of chastity should be put to death. That's kind of messed up. And although I wish this were just an isolated statement made by McConkie alone, there have been nearly identical statements by Spencer W. Kimball, David O. McKay, and Heber J. Grant. When men who call themselves prophets make these kinds of statements, they have consequences. These sentiments ripple through Mormon culture for a long time and create problematic guidelines for the way we perceive and treat people who are sexually active before marriage (which, by the way, is almost everyone---including many Mormons). That's why sacralizing the act of sex---making sex into something more serious than it actually is---has profoundly negative societal consequences.

Virginity or bust
Another quote from the manual:

Satan not only encourages us to dress immodestly, but he also encourages us to think immoral or improper thoughts. He does this with pictures, movies, stories, jokes, music, and dances that suggest immoral acts. The law of chastity requires that our thoughts as well as our actions be pure. The prophet Alma taught that when we are judged by God, “our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God” (Alma 12:14). (228)

The sister who taught this lesson in Relief Society on Sunday took a very hard-line approach to chastity, arguing that even having impure thoughts is a breach of the law of chastity. She further postulated that seeing anything of an erotic nature in the media was also a breach of the law of chastity because it leads to impure thoughts. I disagree. Thinking about sex and moderate sexual exploration is a fairly normal part of maturation. Sex is prevalent in the media because it is a part of the human experience. The only way to avoid sexual thoughts is to either repress them or be asexual. The only way to avoid seeing sexual imagery in the media is to consciously live in a cultural bubble with little interaction with the outside world. For that reason, this Puritanical, all-or-nothing, black-or-white, virgin-or-whore mentality is neither healthy nor realistic. [1]

One of the problems with the church's all-or-nothing approach to discussing chastity is that it begins with the assumption that those who are listening to their message have never experimented with sex before. Because the church fosters this all-or-nothing approach to human sexuality, it can be quite harmful to those who have experimented with sex prior to marriage. As I said before, it's fairly normal to think about sex and to experiment a little bit with sex. (I personally REALLY wish that teenagers would not experiment with full intercourse, but it does seem to happen regularly.) When those who have experimented with sex hear these all-or-nothing messages, it can cause them to experience the intense feelings of guilt and shame that the Kansas University researchers discovered. It can lead to feelings of worthlessness, of being dirty, of being broken, of being "used goods," of being a second-class citizen, etc. In other words, it can lead to a profound lack of self-esteem and depression. Although the church puts a band-aid on the problem by saying that repentance is possible, we all know that the religious concept of virginity is that it is something that you can never get back. This causes individuals to feel guilt and shame over things that are in the past and which are therefore beyond their personal control. Sounds like a good recipe for poor mental health to me.

The implications for LDS female sexuality

I recently listened to the audio book of How We Decide by Jonathan Lehrer. Lehrer discussed neurological evidence that shows human beings have what is called a "negativity bias." This means that humans perceive and remember negative experiences much more strongly than they remember positive experiences. A negative experience has to be counterbalanced with several more positive experiences in order for the negative associations to be undone. (This is why it takes 5 positive comments to undo a cutting remark made by a spouse, for example.)

In the context of sex, I think that this means that negative associations with sex are going to be much more powerful than positive ones. While it's true that most church leaders who give talks about chastity offer some lip service to the positive aspects of sex within the bonds or marriage, it's usually promptly followed up by lengthy, strongly-worded messages about the negative aspects of sex outside of marriage. Because of the human brain's negativity bias, it's very difficult for church members not to internalize the message that sex is wrong, bad, evil, dirty and immoral.

LDS females are the ones who are most negatively affected by this negative rhetoric. Generally speaking, the act of sex for most females has a much stronger psychological component than it does for males. The process of getting in the mood for sex and feeling aroused is a much more complex process for a female, as humorously parodied in this picture:

When females internalize the negative stigmas about sex that are promoted by the church, it makes it much more difficult for them to achieve the psychological state that is needed in order to have an enjoyable sexual experience. This phenomena has been documented by Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife who did an in-depth qualitative study of several LDS women for her dissertation in psychotherapy. Finlayson-Fife found that many LDS women had a difficult time enjoying the experience of sex after having actively repressed their sexual feelings until marriage. They began to see sex as a marital duty rather than something that was personally fulfilling. As sex became a "chore" for them, it created a vicious cycle in which it was more difficult for them to desire and enjoy intercourse. This puts significant strain on their husbands in turn because it caused them to feel inadequate or undesireable. When there are problems in the bedroom, it causes a great deal of stress within a marriage. [2]


Pornography and masturbation could actually be good for you?
Again from the manual:

President Gordon B. Hinckley warned: “You live in a world of terrible temptations. Pornography, with its sleazy filth, sweeps over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. It is poison. Do not watch it or read it. It will destroy you if you do. It will take from you your self-respect. It will rob you of a sense of the beauties of life. It will tear you down and pull you into a slough of evil thoughts and possibly of evil actions. Stay away from it. Shun it as you would a foul disease, for it is just as deadly. Be virtuous in thought and in deed. God has planted in you, for a purpose, a divine urge which may be easily subverted to evil and destructive ends. When you are young, do not get involved in steady dating. When you reach an age where you think of marriage, then is the time to become so involved. But you boys who are in high school don’t need this, and neither do the girls” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1997, 71–72; or Ensign, Nov. 1997, 51).

I think it was probably under the Hinckley administration that the church ramped up its rhetoric against pornography and masturbation. This may have actually had the opposite effect that the church wanted it to have. A recent study released from Harvard found that Utah ranked the highest in online porn subscriptions compared to other states. This trend can probably be explained by some of the research that has been coming out of Utah State University recently. These researchers are finding that unhealthy use of pornography (which is defined as pornography use that interferes with healthy relationships, one's finances, or one's work responsibilities) is linked to the spectrum of obsessive-compulsive disorders. What this means is that when someone works really hard to suppress the desire to look at pornography, it actually leads to an increase in neurotic pornography abuse. Although it's very counter-intuitive, the way to stop the cycle of compulsion is to give into the desire and not obsess over it so much---to avoid imbuing it with intense negative emotions such as guilt and shame. Then it becomes much easier to stop engaging in the unhealthy behavior. That's exactly why the church's all-or-nothing, highly negative approach to pornography doesn't work: it actually causes the very behavior that it's meant to prevent.

The reality is that masturbation (which is usually closely linked to pornography use) is good for your mental and physical health. For men, masturbation promotes good prostrate health, oxygenates the body, and helps relieve stress. The myth that masturbation causes homosexuality (which used to be one of the widely-accepted theories about its causes) has been thoroughly debunked by peer-reviewed psychological research over the last two decades. For women, masturbation can help balance their hormones and assist with self-discovery about their bodies' erogenous zones (which leads to more effective partnered sex). Masturbation can actually be a healthy alternative to promiscuous sex because there is a 0% risk of contracting a sexually-transmitted disease or having an unwanted pregnancy.

Although I am strongly opposed to the porn industry's exploitation of women and their portayal as sex objects, there is some evidence that moderate pornography use can be beneficial as well. It's counter-intuitive, but some researchers have also found that pornography use actually decreases the risk of engaging in violent sexual acts against women. I think moderate use of erotica is probably acceptable.

In short, the church's stance on human sexuality is unrealistic and is not founded on factual evidence. I don't really know how the church could realistically update its stance on sexuality to be more progressive. Since what is appropriate and useful for one person is highly individualistic, human sexuality defies the black-and-white, rule-based system of morality that is favored by the church. I honestly can't see a way for the church to resolve these issues without becoming a completely different organization. But I do feel that the church's current stance on human sexuality is not sustainable for the future; many youth of the upcoming generations will likely become disillusioned with the institutional church as they begin to see for themselves that the emperor has no clothes.

Footnotes
[1] I think some of these societal attitudes may actually be the vestige of a pre-birth control society---when the act of sex had much more serious social consequences such as STDs and unintended pregnancy.

[2] Mormon Expression also had a great 2-part podcast episode about LDS Female Sexuality if you want to study this topic in more depth.

Gospel Principles #37 - Family Responsibilities (NOM version)

See my previous blog entry to see how I taught this lesson in Relief Society.

To be honest, I didn't strictly buy into the gender role stuff taught by the church even when I was a TBM. I think part of that stems from the fact that I've never been a typical female. I'm not a tom-boy or anything---it's more like I'm gender-neutral.

So is my husband. About a year ago, I was driving my husband to work when we saw a billboard advertising a Men's Expo. My husband asked me if I thought there was anything at a Men's Expo that would interest him. We couldn't come up with anything. He's just not very interested in any typically male things like sports, guns, barbecues, etc. Later on that week we passed a billboard for a Women's Expo. I asked him the same question about me and again we couldn't think of anything. I'm not interested in fashion, makeup, scrapbooking, crafts, etc. Those things bore me to death. I guess the point I'm making is that we're not your stereotypical male/female. And for that reason, statements about essentialized gender characteristics don't really resonate with me personally.

Now, that's not to say that I don't think that male and female anatomy has no impact on who we are at all. Sexual dimorphism is obviously real and I think there is plenty of evidence to show that your hormones can have a dramatic influence on your personality and tastes. But although you can make broad generalizations about male and female chemistry and its influence on personality, there are just so many individual exceptions to that rule as to make those generalizations almost meaningless. For example, my dad was pushing my 2 year old son on the swings at a playground the other day. When my son started to say "Hiwaa!" I told my dad that meant he wanted to be pushed much higher. Dad replied, "He's definitely a boy." Sure---but that does nothing to explain why my other son (who is 4) won't go within 2 feet of a swing without crying uncontrollably.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World is NOT Revelation
One of the things that is important to recognize about the Proclamation is that it is not an official revelation. Church policy dictates that in order for something to be accepted as part of the official LDS canon, it must be presented for a sustaining vote to the world-wide church membership during a solemn assembly. To date, this has never happened. This is probably because the First Presidency and the 12 Apostles did not receive the Proclamation as revelation; it was crafted by them as a committee. (Frankly, the entire document is riddled with Dallin H. Oaksey legalese.)

As further proof of the Proclamation's lack of canonical status, note the revisions made to Boyd K. Packer's infamous October 2010 Conference address. In the original speech as it was delivered verbally, Packer stated:

Fifteen years ago, with the world in turmoil, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles issued “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” the fifth proclamation in the history of the Church. It qualifies according to the definition as a revelation and would do well that members of the church to read and follow it.

In the printed version of the address that was published online a week later, the last sentence of that paragraph was struck out and replaced with: "It is a guide that members of the Church would do well to read and to follow."

Downgraded from "revelation" to "guide" in just a week's time? Not surprising. Leaving the Proclamation's canonical status ambiguous is the church's way of having their cake and eating it too. They want the members to treat it as though it were revelation, to give it the deference of canonized scripture. But they know that it is not---or have they even attempted to give it official canonical status.

Nevertheless, the average TBM treats it with canonical status, which means the Brethren have succeeded in making it virtually canonized. The reverence that church members give to the Proclamation reminds me of an interesting comment made by Randall Paul on an episode of the Mormon Matters podcast. While discussing the deference that contemporary Mormons give to the General Authorities, Paul stated:

When I was growing up, the marker [of loyalty to the church] was the Word of Wisdom. It was not sexual morality and it had nothing to do with the authority of the prophet. But now the Word of Wisdom has become so ubiquitous in Western culture that we've lost that marker and we're searching for a [new] marker. And we want it to be that the prophet literally is out there healing people on the streets, having angelic visitations all the time, stories about Jesus appearing to him in the temple telling him when the Second Coming is coming. We want another section of the Doctrine and Covenants every couple of years. That's what we really want a prophet to be doing. If you're a prophet: deliver! To me, the further we get away from Joseph Smith, the more it's becoming obvious that the Ensign and the Conference talks are not the Doctrine and Covenants. So in our own hearts, we want to give more and more power to the prophet for whatever he does because we know that's part of Mormonism. That's our marker: that we have a prophet.

Could a dogmatic adherence to the Proclamation be part of a desire to overcompensate for our prophet? To see evidence of a living prophet to help us find comfort in proclaiming to believe in one?

Male Spiritual Inferiority?
One thing that I feel I should mention is that I added some heavy-handed discussions about maternal gatekeeping to my Relief Society lesson partly to counteract the strong male-bashing that had occurred in Relief Society the previous week (while discussing Chapter 36 - The Family Can Be Eternal). The sister who had taught the lesson was an older single woman and perhaps was a little bitter about that or something. Several comments were made about how men needed marriage in order to tame their selfish and anti-social impulses. Some of the comments from the sisters astounded me. A few highlights:

• "My mother always used to say that an unmarried man over the age of 30 is evil."
• "A man is like a grape. You have to squash him and squish him over and over. And, if you're lucky, you'll get a little bit of juice from him."
• One woman told a story about how she came to hate her husband but stuck through the marriage so that her kids wouldn't have to go through a divorce. Yikes!

Not surprisingly given the tone of the most recent General Conference, single men received the brunt of most the blame for societal ills during the lesson. [1]

As a feminist, I basically don't believe that anyone should be limited or boxed in by their gender---male or female. Any kind of gender inequity or gender essentialization is flawed, in my opinion. But what is the source of all this male-bashing in a church context?

My money's on the priesthood, actually. The fact that the priesthood is only given to men brings gender inequality in the church to the forefront. (More on that in a minute.) Mormons acknowledge this inequity by talking regularly about why women don't need the priesthood to be equal. One of the ways Mormons have tried to cope with these stark inequities is to assert that males need the priesthood because they are spiritually inferior to women. So, in response to justifiable feminist critiques, Mormon culture has begun to posit that the priesthood is some sort of spiritual crutch for the weak, inferior male.

I frankly find that idea offensive. As a feminist, I believe in equality of the sexes; not that women should be given superior status over men. For that matter, I see no support for the idea of male spiritual inferiority in church doctrine. I think that men are just as innately capable of being a good parent, of expressing their feelings, of doing domestic chores, etc. If they are not, then I think social training is more likely to be the culprit than any kind of essentialized spiritual gender characteristics.

Presiding in Equality?
I mentioned earlier how the church tries to have its cake and eat it too by leaving the canonical status of the Proclamation in question. I think there are lots of other ways the Proclamation is an attempt by the church to have its cake and eat it too. The Proclamation wants to uphold traditional gender roles as having some sort of divine impetus while at the same time trying to deflect any criticism from feminists.

This tension is fairly obvious from this paragraph:

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.

To me, this paragraph is contradictory. How can a father preside over his family and still be an equal partner with his wife? M-w.com says the word preside means "to exercise guidance, control, or direction" and "to occupy the place of authority." In fact, the word president and preside both from from the Latin root word praesidere (prae = "before" and sidere = "to sit," literally meaning "to sit before"). Praesidere originally meant to "stand guard" and it morphed into the French word présider by the 1600s which meant to "preside over, to govern." In short, the word "preside" is loaded with hierarchical intonations, implying one who is in a position of authority to make decisions and to rule over those that he governs. There's just no getting around that.

Now, let's take the most pro-feminist statement from the Proclamation (and which I made the star of the show in the lesson I taught in church): "In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners." Lest you think for a moment that this is implying that women can help their husbands do any breadwinning, there is a clarifying statement just afterwards that undercuts it, implying that only in situations of disability and death should there be any "individual adaptation."

In fact, one time (when I was still a TBM), I was having an argument about women working outside the home with a family member and I brought up the line about helping each other in their responsibilities from the Proclamation. My family member used the sentence about death and disability to argue that it wasn't the intention of the General Authorities to suggest women should work outside the home in any other circumstances except those ones. So, I guess that means it's okay for a man to help with the role of nurturing but it's inappropriate for a woman to help with the role of breadwinning? Seems like a convenient double standard to me.

Authority within Church Government

What I find most problematic of all is how a male-only priesthood plays out within church government. Women are virtually powerless to assert any change within the church. While an assertive woman can certainly speak her mind and offer a suggestion to a priesthood leader, the male has full control in deciding whether to implement that suggestion or not. It's true that most men in the church will never be in a position of authority in which they can implement changes in their church community---but they at least have the remote possibility they will one day be in a position of authority. By contrast, a woman has a 0% chance of being a position of authority. And that has serious ramifications for the church. If you deny half of your population a voice in how your institution is governed, you run the risk of being dramatically short-sighted in meeting individual needs. (I contend that a female prophet would NEVER have instituted the 3-hour block, for instance.)

That being said, I read an interesting piece in Mother Jones about how Christian mega-churches are targeting the male in the household most of all. They find that if they can get the father to come to their church, they've got the whole family. Perhaps it works the same way in our church. Could a male-only priesthood be so attractive to men that it makes them want to come to church, pay tithing, and do the whole rigamaroll---and bring their families with them? If so, maybe it's a necessary form of institutional self-preservation to deny women the priesthood. But even if that were true, it's no excuse for the frankly egregious gender gap that exists in this church.

Fortunately, one of the fringe benefits of losing  my faith is that I no longer have to do the mental gymnastics to make excuses for the poor treatment of women in the church any more. I no longer have to wrest the Proclamation until it is compatible with feminism. I can easily disregard it as being the product of a group of male geritocracy that actively tries to suspend the church's culture in the 1950s. I don't think it's out of a malicious intent to suppress women. I honestly think it's just that the 15 elderly men grew up in a different era and in a different time. They make certain assumptions about the world that someone who with a different life background just wouldn't make. And that's exactly why women are so badly needed in leadership positions.

Footnotes
[1] There was also a discussion during this lesson about how getting married earlier is better than getting married later in life because you "don't have time to develop negative personality traits that could hinder a marriage." That's just simply not true. Statistically, the highest predictors for marital success are having an education and getting married when you're 25 or older. I'm willing to bet that this statistic can largely be explained by the fact that the human brain is literally not fully developed until you're 25. It makes sense that someone with a steady income and a mature brain would have higher marital success.