Exponent II's Blog, page 258

Guest Post: Is Forsaking Masturbation Really God’s Law?

[image error]by Mahlah.

As a student majoring in Child Development, I remember wondering and discussing, if masturbation is a part of normal sexual development, at what point does it become a sin? In light of recent dialogue surrounding the petition to protect LDS children, and how many of the stories relate the shame of masturbation, I have reflected again what it means if the church (whose only official stance I can find is in the For Strength of Youth pamphlet) is truly saying that masturbation – across the board – is a sin.

What does it mean for the children of parents and leaders unversed in human development and sexuality that find this behavior inappropriate and want to stop it before it becomes habitual? What does it mean for my friend with extreme menstrual cramps, who won’t masturbate, even though she’s found orgasm is the best way to relieve the pain? What does it mean for the relative who has been divorced for twenty years and included complete sexual repression on her list when making that decision? What does it mean for my friends who struggle with orgasm, but are tentative to masturbate because they feel guilty every time they do? What does it mean for my gay brother who has little hope for sexual expression if he decides to remain in the church?

Is God really asking for no form of sexuality outside of marriage, or has masturbation been interpreted by man to be wrong and is an unjust law?

There are many professionals writing on this topic, such as Natasha Helfer Parker, but the voices that are heard in the church are those of the authorities. Those of men. Voices such as Elder Tad R. Callister, whose BYU-I devotional was reprinted in the Ensign: “The Lord condemns self-abuse. Self-abuse is the act of stimulating the procreative power of one’s own body.” If someone decides for themselves that masturbation is not what God wants them to do, that is fine. But to condemn and judge others who have decided it is beneficial in their lives is very harmful. To shame children for a normal behavior borders on child abuse. I believe people need to know how the church’s opinion has evolved and changed on this issue and be given accurate resources so they can determine for themselves what is appropriate behavior.

I think “Be ye therefore perfect” is one of our favorite passages in the church. We love to apply it to ourselves and we love to apply it to others. We, and many other denominations, often use the verse on lust and adultery from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, as an argument against masturbation. In my search to understand masturbation, I read an article by two Catholic psychologists, who point to the Sermon on the Mount as “part of the overall plot of the Gospel to draw attention to the futility of a Christian’s moral efforts and, thus, the need for continual dependence on God’s grace… Through his unequivocal moral directives, Jesus is effectively raising the bar so high as to make God’s ethical standard humanly impossible to attain. His purpose was to remove the unforgiving yoke of religious law from the people by offering himself as the ultimate source of grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation with God.” I have been pondering that interpretation a lot lately, grateful for additional scripture and insights from leaders. I was deeply touched by Elder Holland’s beautiful talk at Conference on perfectionism and grace and loved how he also tied in the parable of the unforgiving debtor.

Is an absolutist approach to masturbation what God wants? Is it possible to separate masturbation and pornography? And make a distinction between lust and arousal? I think it is.

In the process of searching for answers – Why masturbation? Why did God design things this way? – I have found many answers from the medical community, sex-ed experts and even theologians. But I’ve come to recognize that ultimately any external information I found would be filtered with a lens of limited knowledge. What I have focused on is the purpose of religion to lead us to Christ and become one with Him, so anything that falsely separates us from His love must be discarded. We should not say masturbation is a sin if it is not. We must correct our mistakes if they are leaving people feeling hopeless or drowning them in shame. What Christ warned of in Matthew 5 was the sin of lust, which sex-educator Al Vernacchio describes as “just a physical and sexual attraction. We don’t often think about them as whole people – that can even ruin the lust.” A reduction to parts is in my mind one of the biggest dangers of pornography. But not seeing a whole person can easily happen to any of us and I believe Christ is not saying in Matthew 5 that we have to be perfect to access Him. He is saying we are only whole through Him.

It is scary to challenge our assumptions. It can leave us wondering if one thing isn’t true can I trust any of it? We don’t have all the answers – and perhaps that’s not the point. In their book, The Crucible of Doubt, Terryl and Fiona Givens point out, “’There is no pain so awful as the pain of suspense,’ said Joseph Smith. That is why we will do almost anything to escape this suspense. We feel unmoored if our religion fails to answer all our questions, if it does not resolve our anxious fears, if it does not tie up all loose ends. We want a script, and we find we stand before a blank canvas. We expect a road map, and we find we have only a compass.” There is value in the process of laying on the table what we thought with a surety to be true and asking to see with God’s eyes.

I believe that as members we are capable of embracing goodness and using sexuality wisely. I hope we can rely on wisdom greater than ours and ask God if this shame is necessary.

Guest Post: On a Platter #MormonMeToo, Part II

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Photo credit: Nathan T. Gross

by Rena Lesue

Part I of this essay can be found here.

Two-and-a-half years after I’d been taken advantage of, my family moved to Mississippi. My sister, Mary, and I made many Mormon friends and became infamous for our girls-only sleepovers. The summer after we moved there, we hosted one with a dozen teenage girls. We spread out our blankets on the living room floor to watch Better Off Dead. We painted our nails blues and greens, and had whole conversations in movie quotes.

Inevitably, boys came up. Who are you crushing on? Oh, he has Kurt Cobain hair! Does he grab your butt when you kiss? One of the girls, Mika, found my yearbook from Missouri and held it up with both hands. “Rena, ‘do you realize the street value of this mountain?’”

We gathered together, our legs pretzeled, and rated the guys on looks, smell, personality—all the details I happily filled in. When Mom skedaddled to the store for more Doritos, a girl with big Bambi eyes said, “Can I axe y’all a question?” Bambi traced phantom lines between moles on her thigh. Her other hand shook and she fisted it. Her demeanor dropped a thickening agent into the air that rippled over each girl. Smiles vanished, good humor stowed. My hands froze over the dread I braided in Mika’s hair.

“Y’all ever been moe-lested? Or raped?”

I felt myself tuck small, my heart cowered into a tomb of denial. Throats around the room, Amanda’s tallow neck, Hannah’s caramel one, ribbed like a tin can, undulated, swallowing something deep inside.

“Mm-hm,” said an older girl. “My stepdad.”

I tugged at my shorts to cover Australia.

“Me too. An uncle,” said another. She gave PG-13 details.

My neck turtled. Should we be talking about this? Bambi shared her tale. She’d always been a sweet girl and naïve about topics that should remain private. And now she was a brave voice in the pool of girls who bonded over common traumas. The girls shared several moments of sympathy, empathy, and discomfited hugs, and I sat a little ways off trembling, stamping down the zombie memory of that monster hand, the rot, my sin. I kept it buried, writhing beneath the weight of my repentance, my absolution. I was free. He said I was free.

Bambi’s gaze circled to me. She’d made the rounds, marauded the girls’ minds and spilled rotten memories as if paraphernalia from bad relationships, ready to ignite on a pyre. I crossed my legs at my ankles and shook my head. Nothing to see here. She moved on to Mary, whose pitiful expression, even framed in ridiculous-looking tin foil-tipped dreadlocks, said everything. I could never tell her.

Under my lashes, I stole glances at the other girls, other victims. To them, I prayed to God to comfort them. How awful, I thought. How awful that must have been.

***

Ten years after I was victimized, I carried the weight of my firstborn, a daughter. I lived in Utah, finishing my degree in English Education at UVU. I wrote my first novel about a Mormon woman who was raped and impregnated, but who chose to keep the baby. She navigated rebuke from church members who encouraged her to get an abortion—as this was one of two circumstances in which a forced miscarriage was condoned. It was my research for this novel and a literature class at UVU that put me in contact with other rape accounts. I read The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr and recall the pages where she, at a very young age, had been lured by a neighbor boy to a garage and raped. The parities in conditions, his audacity, her confusion and fury, I knew it all. I had felt it on the floor of that farmhouse in Missouri. I threw it across the room. An inexplicable sense of loneliness followed. So I retrieved the book and clutched it to my chest like a dear friend. Or the twelve-year-old me. It’s not your fault, I wanted to tell her. You’re going to be fine. But whispers to a past-self snag, like everything else, on Time’s forward momentum.

***

Over the years, Rick, my husband, urged me to tell my parents, but it wasn’t really polite conversation. Molestations don’t usually come up at family functions. Nevertheless, it eventually did.

We’d gone to Mom’s house during the day. She and my dad had retired to Springville, Utah, a quiet artsy community with an old-fashioned soda fountain on Main Street. Mom and Dad lived in a two-storied Nantucket blue home wrapped at the base in brick. I sat at the table with them, chit-chatting about the old times in the Ozarks when a mass slumped in my gut. It was time. I told them.

They were silent, processing, and my mother’s face flashed an uncomfortable recognition: Now it makes sense. I couldn’t bring myself to ask what, pray tell, suddenly made sense about me? What switch had been flipped? What gross error could be forgiven now that I’d revealed myself as a victim?

“Do you need…want to see a therapist?” she asked.

For years, I’d been hoarding courage to tell my parents, and the act drained my reserves. I couldn’t imagine sharing with a complete stranger. Besides, writing salved my wounds. I declined.

“We’ll pay whatever it costs.”

Dad’s lips tightened, his rage compressed between them. “I’ve still got friends on the force in that area,” he said. “Do you want me to take care of him for you?”

Dad had recently retired. His career began in Vietnam where he intercepted and decoded messages in the service of the US Army. Over the years, he was employed by several branches of the government, including Customs, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the FBI. Earlier in his career he’d worked in the Pentagon and had even debriefed the Joint Chiefs. So the weight of that question, its implications… Take care of him how? From the darkness in his eyes, I knew the lengths he would go to protect me were much broader than I’d imagined.

“No, Dad. I’ll be fine,” I said, but not because it wasn’t that bad. Rather, because I didn’t want him to make a choice that would irrevocably alter the course of his life and, by extension, the whole family’s. My dad’s reaction did beg the question: if it was bad enough to traumatize me and drive my father to vengeance, why didn’t we do anything about it? What could we have done? If the statute of limitation hadn’t expired, I could’ve taken the asshole who fondled me to court, but what were the laws regarding a seventeen-year-old abusing a twelve-year-old? Legally, we were both in that gray area between childhood and adulthood. Besides, I had no evidence except for the testimony of my bishop, who hadn’t recognized sexual abuse when he heard it from the victim’s mouth. Even if I wanted to enlist his help, a lawsuit meant a lot of invasive prodding and uninvited pity. If I hadn’t grown up in a religious culture that led me to believe I’d been liable for my own sexual abuse, maybe then I’d have divulged it to Mom immediately afterward and we’d have had more of a leg to stand on in court. But isn’t that what molesters count on? Cultures that place responsibility on the wounded. It is that bad.

***

Twenty years post-molestation, while in Barcelona and after my encounter with the St. Agatha statue, I went on a walking tour with my grad school associates. On one street, there waved a banner of a woman, bare-chested with purple rails in the place where her bosom should have been. Our guide translated it, said it was an ad for a photography exhibit featuring survivors of breast-cancer. This I understood. Women removing their breasts to cut out a disease that dissolved her to a pale, veiny shell. This was a good reason to remove one’s appendages. To fight cancer. (I daresay we ought to be able to quell the other, cultural cancer without disfiguring ourselves.)

“What does it mean?” I asked, reading the caption. “Costures a flor de pell?”

She rubbed her fingers over the seam on her shorts. “S-seams on tha surface of tha skin.”

“You mean, like scars?”

She shook her head, pointed to where my shirt-sleeve met my shoulder, and insisted on the distinction. “Seams.”

I let the difference float and settle like a feather over my heart. Seams were not scars. I had had a scar on my psyche. It ripped through logic and fed on shame. But literature, time, and experience unraveled bits of the ropey disgrace I’d carried, and then it was me who undid the rest. Me, who ironed out the roughness until only a watermark remained, because it never comes out entirely.

Rena is an English professor at Utah Valley University and former correspondent for The Daily Herald. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and her prose has appeared in Ruminate, Segullah, Superstition Review, Gris-Gris, Pinball, Bloody Key Society, Salt Lake Tribune, and Washington Post. She was a semi-finalist for the 2016 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and finalist in the 2018 Writers@Work CNF Contest. She can be found at renasprose.com. This essay was originally published in Gris-Gris in Jan. 2016.

 

Guest Post: On a Platter #MormonMeToo, Part I

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At the beginning of our two-week residency in Barcelona, my writing cohort met for cocktails in the home of Bob Antoni, a West Indian writer whose fame, if it were a cyclone, would hover over central Europe. His renovated third-floor walk-up featured hardwood floors, exposed beams, and one wall of the building’s original brick. A minimalist, Bob had accessorized the home with carefully chosen and sparse antiques. In the parlor, I became entranced by a statue—dead center between two balconies (a castle sprawled in the view beyond them). The figure, bronze, two-feet tall, and modestly robed, stood on top of an armoire. She balanced in one hand a tray of two small domes. Though they had been nipple-less, my first thought was, Boobs? They were a distinct shape, rounded, supple, even a wee gelatinous—impressive for a solid medium. The rosary draped from her robes and the fierce demureness to her expression confirmed: Catholic. As a Mormon, I didn’t know much about the religion, but it seemed to me that a Catholic statue with breasts on a platter was an oddity.

I tracked down our host and tossed a thumb at the statue. “Are those breasts on the platter?”

“Yes,” Bob said in a way that almost sounded like ‘jes’. His Caribbean accent was obscured, like molasses in a ginger cookie. “She’s St. Agatha of Sicily, patron saint of Barcelona.”

He spoke of the legends of St. Agatha. In one, she pledged her virginity to God, but when she wouldn’t give in to a Roman ruler’s sexual advances, he ordered her breasts to be detached with pinchers. In Bob’s preferred version, St. Agatha had grown tired of the constant attention from men and sliced off her own breasts. His statue depicted her offering them to God, a symbol of her unwavering devotion.

I spent a moment imagining I was St. Agatha, bent over an array of kitchen knives trying to select the instrument that would slice through my flesh. Would I select something small for its agility? At what angle would I hold the weapon? Would I start from the bottom up? Would I cut out only the rounded tissue and fold the skin back into place and stitch it closed? Less scarring that way. I didn’t once, in my abstraction, question her motives. Even in Bob’s favored tale, the “attention” St. Agatha received was almost certainly a watered-down way of saying “abuse”. To resort to self-mutilation, she likely had been sexually assaulted multiple times, perhaps violently. Maybe she tried other deterrents first, or maybe that had been her first attempt to solve the problem. Either way, I understood the conviction to remove the thing that lured lecherous men.

I hadn’t thought to cut off my own breasts in 1994 when I was twelve, living in rural Missouri, and enduring the unwanted “attention” of a man five years my elder, but then I had been as flat as a Bible cover and not entirely sure what I’d worn to tempt him.

***

A week after I had been molested, I flipped through my copy of the For the Strength of the Youth pamphlet, an addition to my religious texts when I turned twelve, and trailed my finger under the section on Dress and Appearance. “The way you dress sends messages about yourself to others and often influences the way you and others act…” I had followed the guidelines, eschewing bikinis and revealing or provocative trends, such as low-cut or off-the shoulder styles. “Immodest clothing includes short shorts, tight pants, and other revealing attire.” I slipped into my mother’s bathroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror, wondering what he had seen in me. I imagined myself in the shorts I wore that night, analyzed the level of tightness, concluding that there should be a chart to compare your pants against to see if they broadcasted wicked signals. As a robot, I mimicked my body movements during the game of Hot Lava I’d played the evening he stared at me. I paused in certain poses and imagined my mother’s past admonitions. “Hon, don’t stand like that. It’s too…” and her mouth twisted up from the lemon of the thought. Why hadn’t I cried out that night? Said, No means no, buster! I couldn’t explain my sudden paralysis, how my limbs had ossified when he’d slid close to me, his head even with my belly and breath hot on my skin. The Australia-shaped birthmark on my hip had been exposed and still I hadn’t moved.

In the weeks to follow, when I had to leave the house for school and church, I ensconced myself in jeans and flannel shirts that I stole from my brother’s closet and wore my hair slicked back in an asexual ponytail. I had acquired a couple of baby tees, the latest in 90s trends, but I hated their snugness. I much preferred to wear a genderless cocoon of oversized sweatshirts.

At some point it occurred to me that he might not have been baited by my clothes, but by my face. I had blue eyes, a nose I hadn’t grown into, and a valance of bangs. I was hardly the stuff of magazines. I’m no Topanga. And if my face had betrayed me, it wouldn’t matter what I wore.

I anesthetized with ice cream, monkey bread, and whatever sugary foods we had or that I could bake to fill the abyss in my soul. Everything had a waxy aftertaste. Abiding by the teachings of my religion, I knelt in supplication in my closet, pleading for forgiveness until my knees became bumpy from the carpet. To put it out of my mind, I filled my head with scripture verses, hymns, and articles from The New Era, a Latter-day Saint (LDS) teen magazine whose anecdotal features stressed the importance of preparing for a proselyting mission if you were a boy and temple marriage if you were a girl. I didn’t think I could do either. In church, a teacher used gum in an object lesson about our sexuality. What I learned: someone had chewed me and now no one would want me.

That summer, my ward (church community) hosted a two-day youth trip to the Dallas Temple—my first one. In several vehicles, we would caravan southwest and in the temple perform proxy baptisms for the dead. I wanted to attend, but we sinners weren’t allowed. It was a special kind of sin to enter the temple knowingly unworthy, and yet, I figured I’d apologized enough to God that surely he’d forgiven me, and maybe I’d missed the confirmation in my heart. I pretended not to be dirty as I packed for the trip. I pretended when the Young Men and Young Women (the LDS groups between the ages of twelve through eighteen) divvied into minivans. And I pretended for eight hours on the drive to Texas. My memories of that trip are murky, clouded by remorse. I can recall a distinct image from the temple: my tentative steps into the baptismal font, a trough of luminous water on the backs of twelve alabaster oxen and the sense that my sin leaked from my pores, blackening the water upon my immersion.

On the drive back, the Ashley boys “accidentally” left a pimple-faced kid, Gary, at a gas station. They drove out of sight, watching him wave, drop his bag of Swedish Fish, and step futilely toward the road. I knew that feeling. Abandoned. He could’ve use the payphone, if they’d really left him. He could’ve called his parents, and someone would’ve made the drive across two states to save him. There was someone I could call too. The repentance process had been drilled into me since I was eight and had been baptized, cleansed of wrong-doings. Not forever. Life happened. Sin happened. And in that case there was the sacrament. We sinners were to pray for forgiveness and then, each Sunday, partake of the bread and water to renew our baptismal covenants and be purified by the metaphoric body and blood of Christ. But some crimes required another rung on the repentance latter. Egregious offenses needed a third party, the ward bishop, to hear a confession. My voice would absolve me.

Upon return, I made the appointment with Bishop Ashley, a weary man with a round face and promontory baldness. He had a reputation for being spiritual and honest. I trusted him. We sat across from each other, he behind a plain desk flanked by photos of the prophet and twelve male apostles, and I on the other side of the office in a cushioned folding chair. The carpet, flecked with sepia and sage threads, curved up along the walls and rose midway up in a peculiar wainscoting, coarse enough to draw blood if you raked an elbow on it.

The platitudes were dispensed, over too quickly, and I waded in the flood of tension surrounding his question, “What can I do for you?”

My tongue dried up, words along with it, and all the moisture seemed to transfer to my tear ducts. It got so silent, not even a clock ticked. I swallowed down a nest of remorse, heaved an inhale, and wept my confession. I disclosed my wickedness, whimpered out vague details about how my molester touched me and how I just let him do it. I plucked tissue after tissue, soaked up the snot, and dropped them wadded in my lap like dead moths.

Bishop Ashley rubbed his brow. “Is this boy in the ward?”

“No. He’s not a member.”

I hoped I’d said enough to thwart questions, because I didn’t want to give up the bit of information that I found most humiliating: the fact that I let a seventeen-year-old touch me when I wasn’t even allowed to date for three more years.

The skin around his mouth drooped in a frown, like a cartoon butler or a hound dog.

“As a bishop, the Lord has blessed me with the ability to forget some of the confessions I hear. In this case, I’m going to pray that Heavenly Father helps you forget what happened too. You are clean and Heavenly Father forgives you.”

I felt as if my spirit had been blasted with a wind. Mentally, I greeted it chin-first with arms stretched in the cross. I could breathe with ease.

He and I prayed together, and I insisted he promise not to tell my parents. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I left, grateful to have peeled the Devil’s fingers from my soul.

***

In the years after I was fondled, I suffered from a sort of palliative amnesia or at the very least compartmentalized the trauma. I never forgot it, as the bishop prayed I would, but I could set the ordeal aside so that it didn’t torment me daily. The violation had slashed the nylon of my soul, and repentance patched it back together. The relief seemed immediate at the time but, looking back, my eighth grade progress report for the fall semester showed that I earned three Cs and two Ds, one in Language Arts. My grades had never dipped that low and never in English.

Part II of this essay will be posted tomorrow.

Rena is an English professor at Utah Valley University and former correspondent for The Daily Herald. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and her prose has appeared in Ruminate, Segullah, Superstition Review, Gris-Gris, Pinball, Bloody Key Society, Salt Lake Tribune, and Washington Post. She was a semi-finalist for the 2016 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and finalist in the 2018 Writers@Work CNF Contest.  She can be found at renasprose.com. This essay was originally published in Gris-Gris in Jan. 2016.

 

“Healing the Wounds of Racism” by Darius Gray at LDS.org

[image error]“The first step toward healing is the realization that the problem exists, even among some of us in the Church,” says Darius Gray, a founding member and former president of Genesis, a group established by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that helps serve the needs of African-American members.

Read the complete article at LDS.org:

Healing the Wounds of Racism

 

Guest Post: Projects

[image error]by Kaylee

I’m in the season of life where I can’t seem to finish anything.

I’m in the middle of reading three books, two very short, yet they sit unfinished.

I have yarn projects my fingers ache to work on, and a pattern to perfect and publish.

I have beads purchased to make a necklace to honor a woman I met once.

I have a research project, and books I want to write, and a handful of half finished poems.

(I can’t give birth to all my creations at the same time, but I’m trying to anyway.)

I’ve been doing my best to ignore my rather-long-and-still-growing list of house projects.

Project: Try A Triathlon had to be put on hold yesterday so that I would have energy in the evening for Project: Keep My Job.

Writing these words is a luxury in stolen time, while my baby fusses in her highchair.

Last night she woke up early, before I went to bed.

Unlike usual, she didn’t nurse back to sleep.

Usually I would be reading my scriptures right then.

Part of me felt like I “should” be reading my scriptures right then.

I could not.

How could I have possibly ignored my baby’s cries?

I relished the weight of her body on my shoulder. Her soft skin, soft scent, soft pats on my neck.

This is the time I have to seek God, but I’m too busy.

I’m too busy comforting the weary and feeding her with my own flesh and blood.

I am so hungry.

This is the time I have to seek God, so I did. I saw Her projected in my own actions. Or was it Jesus?

I am so hungry.

In our ordinances, we worship a male god who symbolically gives birth, who lactates. I don’t understand why this doesn’t seem to help us provide loving places for everyone on the gender spectrum. I ache to know more.

The men at church frequently tell me to read my scriptures every day. (I really do try.) It has occurred to me though, that the point is not to read. The point is to seek God. Reading scripture is just one way to seek. And I am so hungry.

I relish the days I can go to second church: playing in the woods with my kids, pouring Mother Nature into our bodies and curiosity into our minds. It’s hard to find Her at first church. I am so hungry.

With the nursing and the exercise, my grocery bill has increased dramatically. It’s so hard to keep myself fed. I’m always hungry.

For a moment, in bed nursing my daughter and snuggling her to sleep, I felt that my actions were at one with what God would do. I would have supposed such an impression to feel immensely satisfying. But no. I went to sleep hungry, and now I am ravenous to see God projected in my actions again. Often. That feels like a really big project.

 

Kaylee only wears sensible shoes (if she has to wear shoes at all) and is passionate about pants with functional pockets (even her Sunday slacks). She has degrees in physics and electrical engineering, but has spent the last few years as a rather alarmingly domesticated mostly-stay-at-home mom.

Guest Post: I was sexually harassed while working at LDS Family Services #MormonMeToo

[image error]by Marisa McPeck-Stringham

I worked at LDS Family Services in Ogden, Utah from 2007-2013 as an Adoption/Birth Parent caseworker. I first started there as a practicum student while earning my Bachelor’s degree at Weber State University in Social Work. I was hired two months after I graduated, and became licensed, because of the great work I did as an intern. I loved the work I did there and the clients I worked with.

In 2009 I was called into my Adoption supervisor’s office. I believe that he is a good man, but also a man who bought into the patriarchal modesty standards of the church. He let me know that a secretary (or a couple secretaries, I was never sure which) complained that when I folded my arms my cleavage would show. At the time I was an endowed member who wore her garments in the correct way. I also have a larger chest, which is nature-given, by the way.

I was shocked that this was being brought up. He told me that the secretary(ies?) were concerned about my modesty. I assured him that I was wearing my garments in the correct way and as long as I’m wearing garments then I am being modest, and professional in my dress and appearance. I was befuddled and confused that fellow women would care so much about my cleavage, and if they were that worried about it, that they didn’t speak to me directly. Bringing my supervisor into the conversation felt like I was being disciplined.

He then went on to tell me that even though we don’t work with them, a lot of men come to our agency for counseling for sexual issues. He said if one of those men caught sight of my shapely body or cleavage, were sexually stimulated, and then went and raped someone it would be my fault. He assured me that he knew I wouldn’t want that to happen.

I was stunned that a man who was licensed in marriage and family therapy actually believed that my body could entice another person to rape someone. I was so stunned I didn’t know how to respond.

Later the next week we were discussing in staff meeting an inappropriate comment the agency director made toward one of my fellow caseworkers. She had gone to Human Resources about it and it became “a thing.” I was so angry on her behalf and mentioned how inappropriate it is for anyone to talk about other people’s bodies in the workplace. I made mention that if anyone talked about my body or my breasts again I would go directly to Human Resources and talk to an attorney (who is my sister, but she’s still pretty amazing and qualified).

No one ever brought up my body, what I was wearing, or my breasts again and I continued to work there for another four years.

Now almost a decade later I regret not going to Human Resources about this incident. It was completely inappropriate to be talking about my breasts in the workplace, but the secretaries felt entitled to because we often discuss womens’s bodies in the church and how they do and do not measure up to our standards of modesty. It was inappropriate for those concerns to be brought to someone in charge of my employment and not to me directly. And it was completely morally and professionally unethical for my supervisor to say that my body or breasts could cause someone else to violate another person.

Discussing my breasts and saying that I would be responsible for rape because of them is sexual harassment. It happened to me while I was an employee of the church by other employees of the church. This is my #MormonMeToo moment.

Marisa blogs at https://theirondaisywrites.wordpress....

Guest Post: Dear Survivor of Sexual Assault

[image error]Dear Survivor of Sexual Assault,

I have had the privilege of being a sexual assault prosecutor for 28 years and have handled thousands of cases. I have learned much about both the fragility and the resiliency of the human spirit, which sometimes coexist in an uneasy and unexpected alliance. Here are some things I have learned along the way and I share them with you in hopes of helping you in your journey to recovery.

The impact is not what you imagined it would be.

People who have not been a victim of a sexual assault have a picture in their heads of how they would respond if it happened to them. That picture is almost never correct.

Most people think things such as “I would fight.” “I would run.” “I would call 9-1-1.” The truth is that victims almost never do any of those things.

The first thing you must acknowledge is that trauma has a powerful affect upon both behavior and memory. You may not and often cannot behave in a planned, logical and rational way because of the phenomenon of trauma. One common reaction is “tonic immobility,” which means that the trauma causes verbal and/or physical immobility. Stop beating yourself up for the way you reacted or didn’t react and the way your life is affected. Accept the fact that you have been affected by sexual assault you as you would the impact of a serious car accident, because the impact upon you may be just as powerful. Then look to the future and focus on healing.

Not everyone is going to believe you. And that’s OK.

Some people may not believe you for various reasons. Some are aligned with the perpetrator. Some hold false extreme views that women make up stories about being sexually assaulted. But I believe that many people who are doubters doubt out of self-preservation. They simply do not want to believe that sexual assaults happen in their family, or their neighborhood, or their church group, because such an acknowledgement would make them feel unsafe and vulnerable. They try to find a way to explain away your assault consistent with their world view to make themselves and their family members feel safe. They feel safer in believing that sexual assaults do not happen, even though that belief is a myth.

You must accept the fact that there will be naysayers. Do not let this affect you. Ignore them. Avoid them. Don’t listen to them. The best approach to deal with doubters is to stay focused on the truth of your report, and stay firm in seeking justice and in finding the help that you need. The naysaying often fades away and can become less and less hurtful and impactful as time goes by. They and their alternate reality they have created will likely fade into oblivion as you heal and become stronger.

Confide in someone you trust.

You may underestimate the power of social support at this critical time in your life. Do not make that mistake. You need support from people who love you. Choose someone you trust, and not just mildly: choose someone you would trust with your life. Confide in that person. Let them know how this is affecting your life. Ask for their help and support.

I often tell victims that the road to becoming a survivor may be a long and winding one. There will be twists and turns. There will be potholes. There may be times when you are broken down on the side of the road. The key is to just keep going. Take this journey one step at a time. Get through the next step and then the next step and each step after that. And have people you love and trust traveling with you on what may be the most difficult road trip of your life.

Seek counseling.

Most people think that they shouldn’t need a counsellor or therapist – that they should just “tough it out” on their own. Give therapy a try, even if it is just for a few sessions. Most states have programs that will pay for counselling for victims once a crime has been reported. Use that service if you need financial help. You may be pleasantly surprised at how much you benefit from counseling. There are compassionate people who know much about the exact road you are traveling, and they know the potholes, the twists and turns. Please keep in mind that different people need these services at different times. You may be doing just fine for a while and then need help. Be bold and proactive about seeking help whenever you need it.

Report what happened to you to the appropriate authority.

It is your choice whether to report your assault. Please know, however, that when it comes to the criminal justice system, the sooner a crime is reported, the better the case will be. Evidence like DNA profiles and documentation of injuries need to be gathered right away or will be lost forever. Other evidence is also often fleeting, such as evidence left at the scene of the crime. It is often critical to interview witnesses right away. Also, the sooner a crime is reported, the sooner you will have access to help and support that you otherwise would not have, such as victim advocate services that will help you through the process.

You can choose to get a medical exam and it is confidential unless you decide it should be disclosed to the police. It is your choice whether to have a medical exam, but remember that critical time-sensitive evidence may be lost forever if you choose not to have an exam soon after the assault. If you have not decided to report to the police and begin the criminal case process, you could have the medical exam done so that evidence is preserved if you do decide to go forward at some time in the future. And the primary reason to have a medical exam is so that you can get medical treatment for the assault.

Do not assume that if you report your assault to a religious leader, school authority or therapist, that is all that needs to be done. The criminal justice system is separate and on its own. Criminal justice professionals such as police, prosecutors, and advocates have training and experience in these cases that other authorities do not have. A pastor may be well intentioned, but is probably not trained specifically about sexual assault trauma and how to recover. Choose to work with professionals that are highly trained and experienced in working with sexual assault victims.

Commit to the long haul.

I am not going to sugar coat it: participating in the criminal justice process can be a difficult and frustrating experience. If you report your assault, an investigation will be done and charges may or may not be filed. If charges are filed, the case may take many months or even years to come to an end. The criminal case may seem to be focused on the defendant. Do not be surprised by this. Do not be discouraged by this. Do not be offended by this. The Constitution gives criminal defendants many rights which must be protected by prosecutors and judges. The defendant has a lawyer, often paid for by the state, and you may not. This is because if they cannot afford to hire a lawyer, they can only be prosecuted if they have a lawyer provided to them.

In the criminal justice system, speak up for yourself. Ask questions. Give input. Be an active participant in your case. The police and prosecutors involved will welcome your active participation. But please remember that the criminal case is brought by the government, and decisions may be made that you do not agree with. A good and compassionate prosecutor will always seek your input on important matters such as resolving the case. But please know that a prosecutor is required to make decisions for the case.

It may surprise you to know that most states have laws and even some state constitutional provisions that provide rights for crime victims. Seek out information on your rights as a crime victim. Criminal justice professionals are required to respect your rights. And always remember that you have a right to speak to the judge at different points in the case. Take advantage of your right to give input in court, and speak whenever you have the opportunity. Your input may make a difference in the outcome of the case.

Your healing does not depend on the outcome of the criminal case.

Think of the criminal justice case as separate and apart from your healing process. It may not provide all the answers, and it will not fix everything in your life. Be confident in moving forward, regardless of what happens in the criminal case.

Your participation in the criminal justice system will give you some comfort in that you will know that you have done everything you could do to seek justice. If the result is exactly what you hoped, great. If the result is not what you wanted, then you can still move forward with your life knowing that you did what you could according to your ability at the time.

I once had a case with Nellie, an 87-year-old woman who was a rape victim. She came to meet with me in my office and I was terrified that the criminal case would be hard on her, and cause her further damage. She came in to meet with me with a sense of humility and even humor about her situation. In the meeting, she was the person who comforted me. She leaned across my desk, took my hand and said “Do you see this body? It’s not me. It is like a piece of furniture that I move around my house every day. Don’t worry. He didn’t hurt me. He just hurt the furniture. I am going to be fine.” And she was fine. She had found a way to separate the sexual assault from herself and move on with the life that she had left.

When you are ready, find a distance between yourself and the assault. Do not let it define you. Seek out positive experiences and relationships in your life. You deserve a happy and full life.

Donna Kelly

Sexual Assault Prosecutor

Guest Post: The Power of the Priesthood as a Male/Female Composite

[image error]by Mathy

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the way that the priesthood is administered in the Church and some of the issues that have arisen lately that challenge the policies and procedures that have become the norm in the way things are administered. It seems to me that moving forward it would be helpful to acknowledge that the Priesthood as defined by the LDS faith is not a power that belongs to men, but it is the power of Deity that belongs to a male/female pairing.

Elder Erastus Snow (Quorum of the Twelve, February 12, 1849–May 27, 1888) said:

“What,” says one, “do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of man and woman?” Most certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself . . . I must believe that deity consists of man and woman. . . . There can be no God except he is composed of the man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, or ever will be a God in any other way. We may never hope to attain unto the eternal power and the Godhead upon any other principle . . . this Godhead composing two parts, male and female.”

Further support for this outlook is found in the Temple, wherein the highest sacrament of the priesthood is ordained upon a male/female pair. Additionally, to serve in high offices in the Church, one must be a married high priest. This implies that when a bishop, for example, is called, it is not the man that is being called, but a husband and wife pairing to serve the ward. Clarification of this policy might help with many strained situations we find ourselves in. If we acknowledge that the Bishop’s wife also hold the authority of the Bishop, she could be present for interviews and meetings and help shoulder the burden of the responsibility. This would not even require a doctrinal change on the part of the Church as the policy and doctrine is already in place. Only a clarification and expansion of what already exists.

Expanding on this idea, there is also evidence to support that a male/female Priesthood pairing does not necessarily have to be a husband/wife pair. Moses’s female counterpart, for example, was his sister. And in another Old Testament example (that never gets it’s just discussion in our Sunday School classes) the pair is the prophetess Deborah and the war leader Barak. One of my favorite parts of this example is that Deborah specifically tells Barak that by working in conjunction with her, he will not receive the honor of the impending victory. And Barak, in true feminist fashion, says, “If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.”

It seems evident to me that women in the Church are already a part of what we call “the priesthood”. As Sheri Dew put it (and I paraphrase here) “The question isn’t why don’t women have the priesthood. The question is why do men have to be ordained to the priesthood and women don’t?” Or as Dallin Oaks put it “We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman—young or old—is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood. Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties.” 2014 Or as Joseph Fielding Smith said: “While the sisters have not been given the Priesthood, it has not been conferred upon them, that does not mean that the Lord has not given unto them authority. … A person may have authority given to him, or a sister to her, to do certain things in the Church that are binding and absolutely necessary for our salvation, such as the work that our sisters do in the House of the Lord. They have authority given unto them to do some great and wonderful things, sacred unto the Lord, and binding just as thoroughly as are the blessings that are given by the men who hold the Priesthood.”

I want to explore the point that while men are ordained to the Priesthood, women hold the Priesthood without ordination for a moment without much doctrine to back my next few ideas. Bear with me. There is a term “mental load” which describes the undo stress of managing a relationship that women take on (for a great comedic explanation of this see here. I have felt this in my own relationship at times. What if we shifted our focus on the male ordination to the Priesthood as, not a specific duty to lead (as we know that this takes both a man and a woman) but a specific request to step it up. The Doctrine and Covenants has specific warnings about men being susceptible to unrighteous dominion, and states that, “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness, and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile…” Doctrine and Covenants 121: 41-42. What if our view of what male priesthood ordination meant from being “in charge” to being called to be more present in one’s relationships?

In my view it would do a great deal of good to emphasize that the Priesthood is a power that men AND women have access to in the Church, and are at their most effective when in a male/female pairing. Emphasizing this wouldn’t even require any doctrinal or policy changes, and would fit in beautifully with what we’ve been told about the male/female relationship of Deity. As Susa Young Gates put it, ““the divine Mother, side by side with the divine Father, [has] the equal sharing of equal rights, privileges and responsibilities.”

Another of my favorite Old Testament stories (that also doesn’t get it’s due in Sunday School) is the story of Isaac and Rebekah. Rebekah was given a prophetic revelation while pregnant with her twin sons that the younger son would be the one who should receive the birthright. As both sons grew, it became obvious why this revelation had been given and yet when the time came, Isaac still stubbornly insisted that he was going to give the birthright to Esau. So Rebekah intervened. She deceived her husband into giving the birthright to her righteous son Jacob. And she was in the right. Isaac was the priesthood leader, but he was dead wrong in his judgments, and if he hadn’t had a righteous and tenacious woman equal in her ability to receive Heavenly guidance and carry out righteous judgments, the line of the Priesthood would have been lost.

It’s a good thing she was there.

Mathy is an early childhood educator, Mom, and lover of the Doctrine of the LDS faith. She is blown away by the idea that a Supreme Being would even make an attempt to communicate with short sighted and fallible mortal beings.

An Interview with Theologian and Bible Scholar Ellen F. Davis

When I entered my  PhD in religion program, it was a joy to read articles and books by women scholars grappling with sacred texts and finding ways to relate those texts to contemporary life. One of the most illuminating classes I took was on women in the book of Genesis. We carefully read every single word written about certain women using several translations and online Hebrew Bible tools, discussed the relationships and characterization of these women for hours, and in the end, I took away a real appreciation for how much we can glean from (often) very few verses.

Recently, LDS writer Kurt Manwaring interviewed Ellen F. Davis, Bible and Theology professor at Duke Divinity School. I love her tips for reading the Hebrew Bible and her comments on Ruth, one of my very favorite characters in the Bible. Below is an excerpt of that interview.

Kurt Manwaring: What would you say to encourage someone who wants to study the Old Testament but feels the language, length, and content daunting?

Ellen Davis: Don’t try to read the whole thing at one go!

For obvious reasons, one good place to start is Genesis.

Get one of the brilliant newer translations, such as those by Robert Alter (my teacher) or Everett Fox.

Take it slowly, a chapter at a time. Learning to read slowly is crucial. Don’t read for plot (you know it!); read for character, for relationships. Look for what surprises you when you slow down.

Moving on, you don’t have to read straight through the whole Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and probably should not do so. If you want to start with a little book, my annotated translation of Ruth, with woodcuts by Margaret Adams Parker (Who Are You, My Daughter?) might be useful.

Kurt Manwaring: You have written about the ways in which suffering uniquely qualifies one to speak of God. Is there an Old Testament figure other than Job to whom you look as an example of coming to know God through suffering and trial? How have you applied the example of this person in your life

Ellen Davis: I have just mentioned Ruth. She herself embodies the three classic biblical categories of the vulnerable person; she is widow, sojourner, and orphan-by-choice, having left her birth family to accompany Naomi to a foreign land, a small rural town (Bethlehem) where a Moabite woman would be viewed with suspicion.

She is a model for me of someone who crosses borders for the sake of life — borders both literal and figurative, as she acts in unconventional and selfless ways to create a new community out of a situation of profound loss.

I don’t know that I have modeled myself after her, but I tell her story and have found that many people, especially my colleagues working in reconciliation work in East Africa, respond strongly to it.

Kurt Manwaring: Have you encountered anything in your academic career that has tried your faith? Should non-academics be afraid of history and theology when it comes to their religious beliefs?

Ellen Davis: No, I have not. On the contrary, an adult lifetime of study, including history and theology, has given substance to my faith.

History helps us to see how these texts have emerged from cultures and situations where we can recognize the basic challenges that the original hearers faced; it should also enable us to see how those cultures differed (greatly) from our own, so we often have to adjust our thinking to comprehend the Bible.

Theology is altogether a matter of learning to think in radically new ways, to see the wider dimensions of reality which we mostly overlook in the press of our daily business — until we suddenly discover our need to think in new ways, to reckon more fully with the “invisible” dimensions of our lives.

Being a professional theologian is an enormous privilege, simply because it challenges me to think daily about what is most essential for a truly human life.

Guest Post: Premortal Promise

[image error]by Elizabeth

The following guest post  is a kind of feminist midrash, a retelling of Biblical or religiously foundational stories in order to incorporate women’s viewpoints.  As theologian Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza has written, using our poetry, our imagination, our vision to bring out women from the shadows of our sacred texts and origin stories can help lead us to a better future.

 

“Mother” I asked,” tell me again why I must leave you.”

“Oh, my heart,” She replied, “you do not yet see your beauty”

“When we created you,” added Father, “we created also worlds of beauty.

You will find them there.”

“I am sure I will long for you.” I whimpered.

Mother’s lip quivered in time with mine.

Father spoke quietly this time, “We are sure you will.”

“But you will come back to Us.” She added quickly.

The spark in Her eye shot at me with fierceness I had not yet experienced.

“Okay.” I told Them.

“Okay.” Tears rolled down my Parents’ cheeks.

“Okay.” I took Brother’s hand and He lead me away.

We laughed as He told me stories of the place I was going

He made it sound magical.

“Wait!” the call came when were nearing the end of our path

I turned toward the familiar voice and smiled again at Her warmth and grace.

She came close to me and for the second time I experienced fierce love

in Her gentle eyes

“It will not be easy to find me there. But do it. Find me, my heart.”

“Okay.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was promising, but I knew I meant it.

Elizabeth is a college student who loves her Heavenly Parents and enjoys dancing, laughing, reading, writing, and dreaming of ways to crush the patriarchy. She thanks Rachel Hunt Steenblik for inspiring her to write about Heavenly Mother.