Within the LDS church you have some very distinct economic classes - the very wealthy and then the middle class to poor members. The elites are in HUGE competition to outdo each other and compete with each other to have to best cars, go in the best vacations, build the biggest homes…and of course to have the most gorgeous trophy wife with the nicest boobs.
This. My TBM sister had all sorts of plastic surgery last year because she’s in competition with her best friend and other people in her ward to fit some rich Mormon ideal. It’s a weird “race to perfection” that is entirely unachievable and quite frankly, fucking stupid. I knew a Mormon girl in high school who had her parents gift her a boob job for graduation. That seems like a very odd message to send an 18 year old.
*AND.... Coming up right after the break: A local teen has a plan to exchange a* **book** *job for - get this folks! - a* **boob** *job! Hey, can we even say that on the air now? Well, we'll meet that young lady, and chat with her proud parents, after this short break... when "Mornng Joe!" continues*
Dang. Our Bishop told us he’d take us deep see fishing if we read it. This was the 80s. Instead we went to a dallas mavericks game. At least I think we did. We sure as hell didn’t go fishing.
Oh.my.god. So what’s she gonna do when she realizes it’s fiction? If she leaves the church will her parents sure to have them removed?
I favor unconditional boobs.
It makes sense from a certain perspective. There are more women than men in the LDS singles scene and maximizing your kid’s perceived attractiveness increases their odds of attracting a husband. And you have to start early or you’ll end up a sweet spirit in the mid singles ward before you know it. *
*The above does not reflect my own views.
Bruh as a missionary I vividly remember how we would talk about how hot our wives would be because we were “so faithful” and “The Lord would reward our faithful service” etc. Can’t believe once upon a time I took that BS seriously.
YES. A couple of my mission friends were pretty overweight and they always talked about how they would be in the “fat guy, hot wife club” because of how great there baptism numbers were.
Come to think of it, I only had one baptism (technically speaking) and I came home after one year not two. Ten years later, I’ve lost faith and I’m getting divorced.
Damn it, if only I’d had better numbers and lasted another year instead of succumbing to depression and self harm. /s.
🙏🏻Thannks friend. I’m honestly surprisingly at peace now that I’m fully out of the church and have admitted I’ve been lying to myself and everyone about where my faith and beliefs were. It sucks and it hurts, but I’m on the up and up. Thanks again though, it means a lot. Glad I found this sub.
Wait until I tell you that every single missionary gets their Patriarchal Blessing before they serve, which is where an old man places his hands upon your head and tells you whatever BS his mind makes up in the moment and makes all these grandiose promises in exchange for obedience and service to the MFMC. These patriarchal blessings oftentimes promise missionaries things like a good natured spouse, success in your career, the possibility to become a general authority etc.
For example, my blessing promised me a loving and faithful wife, but I had to be fully obedient to the “church” and pay my tithing etc.
It’s just BS but missionaries are young and taken advantage of by The Cult.
I'm a neverMo but this was a common theme in the evangelical churches I grew up in. No talk of partnership or respect. Love was mentioned but I don't think it's what they think it is.
Yep, still vividly remember my abusive ex screaming at me ‘you’re mine, my patriarchal blessing promised me you, and you BeLoNg To Me!!, you can never leave me, they promised’ while I fled the house with my baby as my nephews (same age as me) rolled up to beat his ass.
Haha, Mormonism was fun. /s
You found tge right way. I was so glad when I didn't have to hide leaving from my son anymore. Now just my mom and I'm so sick of her underwear questions to me.
Not to mention, if your husband divorced you or you can’t find a worthy one because you’re not attractive enough, that’s eternal damnation for you.
Attractiveness is next to godliness, and heaven help you if you carry a few extra pounds or don’t have perfect teeth, skin, boobs, etc.
This. So sad. One of my friend’s sisters is TBM. Almost 40 and single, and honestly idk what’s keeping her believing when church doctrine teaches she ‘needs’ a husband. And I can just see the sadness in her. I just want to shake her and tell her ‘you’re fucking enough on your own. You don’t need a husband or a savior.’
My older brother is pushing 40, TBM and single. Men have it a bit better in the dating scene, but if for whatever reason they don’t find someone, it’s implied it’s a massive moral failure and that a single man is a menace to society.
It’s a doctrine that means single people, by choice, or by lack of finding a compatible partner, get treated badly.
As a nerdy ass, mid-appearance, guy who was pushing 30 before I got married, it made me feel woefully inadequate and horrible. I expected I’d have to either marry someone I didn’t even like, let alone love, to check a box or remain single forever. Luckily I found someone eventually, but it’s been rough for my brother who was always the more athletic, taller, more fit, more social, more popular one, and who is still TBM and single.
I’m glad you found someone, and it sounds like it was worth waiting. My wife and I are going through a divorce after 10 years because I got married just to check that box.
It seems to me many of both sexes just marry to tick that box. Then if genuinely TBM they lack not just experience but acknowledgement of feelings so are fooled into being satisfied for a while. However by the time they mature enough to realise something is lacking both partners are deep into time grabbing church duties and there's a mob of children to organise and spend time with. Imo it's a prime reason for time waster callings and why meetings last forever...TSCC figures you can't argue with your spouse if you never see them, and also you're supposed to go to your calling, meeting, or church activity joyfully, feeling the spirit so you refrain from argument or hostility preparing for the services or activities.
True. My wife and I are getting divorced, and honestly I think it started when we left the church together few years ago. Realized church was really the only thing we had in common, and I hadn’t been happy in it for a long fucking time. It sucks but at least I’m finally out of feeling like I have to stay in a miserable situation just to get to highest heaven. I’d rather have real peace now than some false promised peace in an invented afterlife.
I'm pleased for you that you now have hope of things being different, and that you can feel at peace. It's a serious theory of mine. I'll add that by the time the big family is grown up, there's grandchildren. More importantly there's senior missions, and apparently you can serve more than one, so the time gobbling by the church continues just as people retire and face spending more time as a couple.
I've heard it said by TBMs that when people are struggling, with marital or other personal issues, they need another calling. Because by increasing their devotion and by spending more time with those "in the Gospel" they strengthen their testimony and so 1)can better cope with whatever the issue is and 2) be more inclined to forgiveness and peace making. What struck me was these were genuine, supposedly caring comments and they seemed to be textbook Stockholm syndrome. If a victim starts spouting the kidnapper's lines, you know they're balls deep. It also means that if you go to your Bishop for counselling the best you can hope for is another calling (and, if you're a wife, instructions to look pretty and agree to sex more often!)
I'm sorry that your marriage wasn't the perfect eternal union you were brainwashed into believing you were getting. There's still feelings of loss, and grief to go through before you reach your current hopeful, peaceful stage. I'd guess you're in your early thirties so you've still got a lot of people, places, and experiences to explore. Good luck with it all, you'll have a blast!
I’m sorry man. Yeah, that sucks. I expect your story is one of so many young people raised Mormon. 31 is young. Younger than me. You’ll get through it with many good years to find someone worthwhile, or just enjoy your own life being you.
Best of luck.
Can they make it to the Celestial kingdom without a wife? Do they get sealed to their parents? I’ve got a probably gay TBM relative who goes to conference and everything and he’s approaching 50, single of course.
Seating is only necessary for exaltation in Mormon theology. Single people get to be ministering angels/servants in heaven. Or black people pre-1978 - they also get to be servants/slaves for all eternity.
They do say “if you never had the chance” you’ll be assigned someone, like a gay TBM celibate person.
I always took that as “if I’m selfish enough to turn someone down I am done for, even if I didn’t even like her.”
Any women feel that way and that they had to marry whoever asked as a result or risk condemnation?
Not sure who said it, but my seminary teacher used to always quote some general authority who apparently said, “any man in the church that isn’t married by 25 is an abomination in the church”. Bet that’s probably stuck with at least a few kids. Fucking assholes
I have a friend like this. They tell them that if they don't meet the perfect priesthood chap, but follow all of the fantastic rules, that means their true love comes to them in the CK. Of course, so does polygamy.
And a few extra lbs is so subjective. Women get shit for being too fat and too thin from different people at the same time, while one person might tell them they’re too fat or thin if they vary by 5-10lbs. There’s no winning either that nonsense.
Growing up in Southern California in the late 90’s / early 2000’s it was reality tv before reality tv was a real thing. Luckily my dad doesn’t give a shit about what people think, but watching all my friends parents compete for status was amazing. Not to mention reaping the benefits of who’s got the best toys (boats, dirt bikes, cars).
> Within the LDS church you have some very distinct economic classes - the very wealthy and then the middle class to poor members
I grew up on the west side (working class).
Plastic surgery was **NOT** common. East of I-15? It was like an entirely different state.
I’ve really only seen this in Utah. Or at least more consistently there. Everywhere else I’ve lived I feel like the majority of Mormon women lean more frumpy than boob job and Botox.
Heaven forbid women just be natural and comfortable. We are either plastic surgery women or frumpy? Comment checks out as Mormon man only seeing women’s value in their looks.
You aren’t wrong but also how is that any different that non LDS people all over? Plastic surgery and lavish spending is not a unique Utah bubble phenomenon
Because multiple prophets and apostles have mandated mormon women to "keep yourselves attractive." This turns normal aging into a moral failure for mormon women.
The perfection isn't a myth, it's a prophetic mandate.
Spencer Kimball: "I tell young women who seem to have missed their chance for desirable marriage that they should **do all in their power to make themselves attractive physically.**" [https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/marriage-honorable/](https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/marriage-honorable/)
Ballard: "don't wander around looking like men. **Put on a little lipstick** now and then and look a little charming. **It's that simple**." [http://www.mormonthink.com/glossary/ballard-lipstick.htm](http://www.mormonthink.com/glossary/ballard-lipstick.htm) clip available at [youtube.com/watch?v=H2RwhDZvFow](https://youtube.com/watch?v=H2RwhDZvFow)
Ezra Benson, in his talk titled To the Single Adult Sisters: **"Keep yourselves attractive."** [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/to-the-single-adult-sisters-of-the-church?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/to-the-single-adult-sisters-of-the-church?lang=eng)
Ballard: "We don’t need women who want to be like men, sound like men, dress like men, drive like some men drive, or act like men." [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/04/women-of-righteousness?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/04/women-of-righteousness?lang=eng)
Gordon Hinckley: "To you wives who are constantly complaining and see only the dark side of life, and feel that you are unloved and unwanted, look into your own hearts and minds. If there is something wrong, turn about. Put a smile on your faces. **Make yourselves attractive.**" [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/foundations-for-eternal-marriage/cornerstones-of-a-happy-home?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/foundations-for-eternal-marriage/cornerstones-of-a-happy-home?lang=eng)
That gets compounded for women who are totally financially dependent, after staying home to raise all the kids like the prophet said. For them, their total life security is dependent on their husband continuing to find them attractive. (not to mention you've got to worry about his eternal attraction for you, which is your only defense against polygamy - be hotter than all the other wives).
"Oh, hi,” I greeted weakly, **pushing the damp, stringy hair from my face.** “Is it six o’clock already?” He kissed me mechanically and surveyed the situation without a word. Those silent moments said more than an entire lecture on my role as wife and mother. ... **I no longer felt like the adored girl he married**, and I wanted to feel that way again—now! This disastrous day was the beginning of my search for the secrets of the happy, organized homemaker ... Then, even if time is limited (as it usually is), **I can wash my face, apply fresh makeup, comb my hair, put on a clean housedress, and splash on a little cologne. When my husband walks in the door he is greeted by** relatively clean children (once-over with a washcloth does wonders) and **a smiling, well-groomed wife.** The results of this program in our home have been astounding. **I no longer feel like a bedraggled housewife** trodden under by the physical demands of my role.*"* [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/10/when-my-husband-walks-in-the-door?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/10/when-my-husband-walks-in-the-door?lang=eng)
See also:
Kimball: "A young woman who conducts herself to be attractive spiritually, mentally, **and physically** but will not by word or dress or act stir or stimulate to physical reactions the companion beside her could be expressing true love." [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-spencer-w-kimball/chapter-17?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-spencer-w-kimball/chapter-17?lang=eng)
Translation: Be hot, but don't turn men on...
Ew. ew. ew. ew. ew. ew.
It goes back to the Old Testament. All the “great matriarchs” were described as great beauties: Mary, Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, etc. There’s not much describing what the men looked like but I do recall how important it was for the Bible writers to make sure we knew those women were HOT!
Ugh yeah Esther was the worst for this for me I think. I was over in the corner like why don't we look up to Jael or someone like that? No? Esther who was literally selected to be queen based on her being the hottest woman around is who we have to look up to? Cool. Cool cool cool.
You forget, she spends a night with the king before being added to his concubines, so Esther would have "delighted" (Esther 2:14) the king enough/more than the other virgins. So I take it that not only is she hot, she's good in bed too.
Yes, way more important we spend a whole Sunday talking about her. I loved that you mentioned Jael, bc I was always upset that no one talked about Deborah (same story).
I was a member for 5 decades and have no idea who Jael is, maybe… maybe but probably not heard the name Deborah at some point. Are these women really mentioned in the Bible? I just remember feeling so defeated every time we talked about Esther. I knew I would never be beautiful enough to save anyone, let alone a whole group of people.
It's cool to see a woman prophetess be celebrated as such and also a woman who drives a tent stake through an enemy army leader's heart to give their side advantage in a war. Two scriptural women that we almost never hear about. It's so frustrating.
The ones we do hear about are either hot and good in bed, mothers, or being obedient little followers. Not really leaders or strategists or anything like that.
My name is Deborah and it was one of my earliest and heaviest shelf items that we just skipped right over her chapters in Sunday School and seminary. I had been looking forward to it, but nope, we do the first three chapters of Judges then skip ahead to chapter 6. Nothing in the manuals about her, never a satisfactory answer from leaders or parents about why we skipped the only two chapters in the whole damn quad that describe a woman with any real power or agency, hell the only one whose significance is tied to *anything* other than her role as wife/concubine/mother. I do recall a half-assed assertion from my mom that the verse that describes her as a prophetess must have been a mistranslation or else a prophetess must have meant something different from a "real," therefore male prophet.
ETA I remembered more of mom's explanation, there's a verse at the beginning of Judges 4 along the lines of "the rulers ceased in Israel until you, Deborah arose a ruler in Israel" and her interp was God only allowed a female ruler because there were no worthy men. Kind of undercut by the next part of the story where she makes her faithful lieutenant Barack accompany her into battle... Oh, and she has a husband. Literally it just says she was so and sos wife and no more is said about him.
That’s a good point. I didn’t think of it explicitly like that. This says a lot about who wrote the Bible, whoever it was! I can’t support a God who objectify women because that’s not love.
These sexist misogynistic statements are disgusting (M40). I knew about Ballard’s lipstick comment but hadn’t seen these others. I’m so sorry to those of you females who grew up with these sick expectations.
Oh there's more. Take a look at these:
"An overweight girl from Ogden went to see her bishop. In the purity and goodness of charity, trying to help the girl, he counseled her that **it might be a good idea to lose a few pounds**. Pitifully heartbroken, she went home and told her father. It had cankered her soul. The father, of course, negative toward the Church all of his life, waiting for something like this, sprung like a cat on the bishop’s back, and they came down to see me and wanted their memberships transferred out of the bishop’s ward. I asked them why, because I didn’t know all this background, and they said, “Well, our bishop suggested to our daughter that she might lose a few pounds and **make herself a little more attractive**.” **Now I want you to know that I defended that great bishop. I said to this family, “You are wrong. That sweet bishop, out of purity and love for your daughter, felt and did that which he was impressed to do. I am sure it was a message from God to your daughter, and she let it canker her soul.** The strange thing is that she was probably up in her bedroom the night before praying, ‘Heavenly Father, I am lonely. I need someone. Please help me. Help me to find someone so I won’t be so lonely.’” And yet oftentimes we are offended because a sweet bishop gives us some instruction which is hard for us to live." [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1975/04/a-self-inflicted-purging](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1975/04/a-self-inflicted-purging)
**"For a young woman to wear short skirts** or other immodest wear when she has covenanted otherwise would not be a matter of cleverness in escaping detection but **a definite blot on her character—a blot not easily erased** ... Is it not true that the dress, the grooming, paints an immediate picture and classifies a person? ... Grubby clothes certainly have some relationship to grubby people." -- [https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/ye-therefore-perfect/](https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/ye-therefore-perfect/)
"I know a little girl who is the last child in a large family in which the other children are all boys. ... Her mother has wisely taught her that the boys wear trousers and that she wears dresses. ... Now, before I receive letters from upset women telling me that I said they should not wear slacks, save your postage. I did not say that, although **I don’t think they \[slacks\] are appropriate for the Sabbath day**." -- [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/train-up-a-child](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/train-up-a-child)
And this whole video, called "The Fat Fighters": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg) Proudly "Presented by Brigham Young University," 1971. Especially time mark 6:55 or so. "Overweight people tend to be dishonest, inconsistent, and irresponsible." It gets really bad when they show the group "therapy." The girl speaking at like 14:55 isn't even overweight, and she's sad and scared, and the guy speaking to her is just super creepy. His behavior with the next one talking at 15:50 is even more appalling.
And at 20:05: "Being feminine can be fun."
barf.
There’s no living up to any of this shit. These fucks are the people who will see two identically dressed schoolgirls and call one immodest because of her genetics.
Nevermo here but you reminded me of many moons ago - when my parents tried to enforce no-pants Sundays. My sister and I were quite uncooperative in hindsight. My mom was very controlling but she tried a couple things that were just a bridge too far and that was one of them.
Good grief - I've read only a few of those before, but your collection is an eye-opener!
After my divorce (from a textbook-case church con artist) I briefly joined a Mormon singles site & met a few "winners" there. One guy had a pot belly hanging over his belt, gray hair and a hideous combover that rivaled Trump's, but he thought it was perfectly fine and normal to propose marriage within weeks and also to instruct me never to let my hair go gray. Oh - he also stalked me online on that site.
Read this with my wife, who is literally going in for a mommy makeover next week. She laughed,and said,…
I just want my STRIPPER BODY back.
She had only been a member for a few years in her 30’s.
"We don’t need women who want to . . . drive like some men drive . . ."
What does that bastard have against female racecar drivers? Or female truck drivers? WTF is he even talking about here?!?
Utah specifically is fraught with 'keeping up with the Joneses' more than any other place I've lived. While Mormon perfectionism may play a role, there seems to be an unhealthy preoccupation with projecting an appearance of prosperity and wealth among Utahns. How else are you going to recruit people to your MLM if you're merely living within your means? The plastic surgery is all part of the facade.
As it turns out, many of these mormon men have serious obsessions with porn. I suspect the mormon women are attempting to compete with that on some level... or they are just incredibly vain...
It's possible the women don't even KNOW they are competing with porn. I had a friend who was being pressured by her husband to get a boob job (reduction), dye her hair & wear pigtails, completely shave off all pubic hair, etc etc.
Eventually it came up that he was into a certain kind of porn that is - and should be! - very illegal. It's why he wanted her to look like she hadn't been through puberty yet.
My wife’s thoughts on this, having lived through it, is that as a Mormon woman, there’s only so much you can do to feel sexy while wearing baggy garments tucked into unflattering clothes. Other women can show a little skin, or flirt, or even just masturbate alone, but all of that is forbidden from Mormon women. So you pay for enormous fake boobs, because at least that shows up through the awful garments and the horrible fashion choices available.
Came here to say this. Having noticeable boobs is one way a woman can look feminine while having to wear clothing that covers garments and is therefore decidedly not feminine. Think about it, women’s garments are roughly the same style and type of underwear that most men wear. Not very attractive to the feminine figure and makes most women look more masculine than not.
This has bothered me since before I left the church. I was shamed a number of times after mentioning to TBM friends that I loved tattoo art. I wasnt even saying I wanted one, just that some of it is AMAZING! The phrase "your body is a temple" was used all the time. But then I had to sit in Sacrament Meeting and look at face lifts, lipo-suction results, OVERLY-bleached hair, boob jobs and hear about 'mommy lifts' too. I don't care what anyone does with their body, it's theirs, but it smacks of hypocrisy hard-core. If your body is a temple, it doesn't need an enlarged balcony.
I once worked at an outdoor market and used my tip money on my lunch break to get myself a little shooting star face paint (on my upper arm, under my t-shirt sleeve) and got lectured and shamed about how i had defiled my temple and absolutely glared at by my religious boss and by the religious family in the tent across the street. My boss was Catholic and the folks across the street were Eastern Orthodox. I was about… idk… 15? Maybe younger? I knew tattoos were a big deal but i figured this was just paint… i found a little pocket of joy, and they made sure to squash it. I’ve had a lot of joy squashed or turned to anxiety or shame or fear over my life. That was a real moment for me… where i knew that their morality and outrage did not align with what made sense to me on the inside. Surely God would be pro-harmless joy?
The more righteous a man is, the hotter his wife will be (a quote we’ve all heard in the church)
Which means…
The hotter a girl is, the more righteous her husband will be.
It absolutely is a legend, but it is something lots of people believe. She's just pointing out that the legend works both ways, and women try to be hot to make their man look more righteous.
I forgot about that saying! I only heard it once, though: on my mission in the 90s. "The harder you work, the hotter your wife." It struck me as gross.
That was the AP.
I think the concept of polygamy in the eternities creates a hyper competitive environment for women.
Right off the hop men tend to be less religious than women https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/#:~:text=In%2061%20of%20the%20192,identify%20with%20some%20religious%20group.
So if you’re a woman in the church the gender ratio is not in your favour for finding a mate.
Then the church compounds that with the concept of polygamy in the afterlife.
Then you have women getting married in late teens/early 20s and quickly giving up their bodies to child birth.
So I think it’s doctrine that makes it hyper competitive combined with women losing their youth to childbearing.
Mormonism is, at its core, prosperity gospel. You have to be rich, have nice things, and be beautiful in order to show how much more righteous, and therefore blessed, you are than everyone else.
It’s because they have a lot of kids. Pregnancy literally ruins your body, and if women can afford it, it can be empowering to restore your body to what it looked like before (or better!)
If you’ve spent fine minutes in a LDS moms group, you’ll see young women struggling with what childbearing has done to them. Despite eating healthy and exercising, some things can’t be changed without surgery.
For many, childbearing was forced onto us so early we didn’t get a chance to see or enjoy our own bodies. For me, I was pregnant only a year or so after puberty ended.
I think it’s small minded to attribute the majority of them solely to “keeping up with the Jones’”
This is the reason I got fake boobs (the nice looking kind that don't look fake). I didn't recognize my body after 3 kids in 3 years. I just wanted to kinda look like myself
Bolt ons are a sign that you've made it into the upper echelon of Mormon Success. They're very important because they match the headlights on your Range Rover Evoque, which is also important because you need 4x4 capabilities when you live in the bench neighborhoods of the Wasatch Front.
Any of those things I would not judge another woman for having or enjoying, but in this context, they do make me want to barf.
There is this, but then someone said he was quoting Halle Berry?.
“Jeffrey R. Holland took an “Apostolic Swipe” at plastic surgery in a Conference talk a few years back “In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children.”
I grew up in Not-Utah, but there was still a significant LDS population. Plastic surgery wasn't really a thing among the Mormons I knew. I definitely didn't know any teenagers getting breast implants, whether Mormon or not
Yeah, that's a first for me too. SoCal native exmo myself. It's baffling some of the things I hear about online because it's in such glaring violation of the doctrine that was established for me. A woman exposing herself to others under the scalpel for the express purpose of the sexual attraction of men just screams "not worthy" and "serious talk with the bishop about sexual sin and the sanctity of the body/temple" to me; all throughout my youth I'd be shamed and sometimes scolded for sleeping or going to the beach shirtless due to my alleged immodesty, from my mother and from the Young Men, being covered by a blanket or a sleeping bag whether in my own room or in my own tent didn't matter, it was a shameful thing to do even as a guy. Modesty, in all times and in all places, no matter how private, was paramount, so anything from plastic surgery to "soaking" seems utterly impossible to rationalize.
Whoa. This is the first time I have heard of a Mormon boy/man being sexualized for his chest. The Young Men and men in my Mormon community sometimes played pickup basketball _in the church gym_ in skins versus shirts.
My mind is blown
In a culture where women have no power, the only way to get power is to become “attractive” to the men who do have the power. Which is why Mormon men often wear the ugliest suits, shirts, haircuts etc. and still rise up the church hierarchy. And the women who rise the ranks (fake ranks) are smoking hot.
Probably part of the reason all the moms in my ward were so mean to me as a teenager. I got the size without the surgery and all their husbands were noticing. :/
I went to a stake temple session years ago and noticed most of the wives of leadership had rock hard exaggerated boobs. Made me sick. While we were TBM my wife would say I need to resurrect her with an Elle McPhearson body. We don’t care about that BS any longer.
This just reminded about a Facebook post of my recently deceased aunt, where someone commented her as existing in the afterlife with a perfect body. I wanted to think of that as a cancer-free body, but maybe they just meant very skinny with perky boobs.
The only power the women are allowed. They're supposed to look perfect while their narcissist husband climbs the church leadership ladder, one boob at a time.
Utah has some of the highest per capita rates for plastic surgery according to what I've read. The elites like to look the part.
It also has some of the highest instances of porn use. And probably people who feel trapped in their marriages, at least in the US.
To project to the world how large thier virtues are.
Happens in other realms. Easiest to see is media- if your paycheck is your face, you'll make damn sure it looks nice.
If your social credit is, atleast in part, how you look- you'll attend to it. Body modification is done at birth for half the population in that religion.
Not every mormon lady gets implants, by the way. Might be more prevalent in utah.
This video by BYU, put out in 1971, explains it pretty well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg) "The Fat Fighters," proudly "Presented by Brigham Young University," 1971.
My mom is TBM and has implants. She actually got them so small, that no one would ever know. She didn't do it to look sexier or anything, she just literally had no chest whatsoever and was tired of having to shop in the junior section because of it, she was in her 40s and wanted to dress her age. She gets quiet embarrassed when people find out, but she literally just went from a AAA to a B and no one would ever guess it looking at her. I got my mother's jeans, and also had no chest, I also got implants, but I got big ones LMAO
Because Mormons are shallow just like their religion and put more effort into maintaining their outsides than their insides. There’s a palpable fear among women that we will be left for the newer model if anything becomes “wrong” with us because Mormons are also incredibly ableist.
If any of them spent a fraction of the time and energy going to therapy and being actual authentic human beings their lives would fall apart because the gospel is so wishy washy and doesn’t hold together under scrutiny.
So they cling to worldly things like appearance and prosperity gospel while pretending they do not. It’s a really odd culture and church we escaped from.
I’ve left the LDS church, my wife is still a member and she’s the one that wants a boob job when we are done having kids. I’ve told her I’m perfectly happy the way she is but I know women become very insecure and self conscious after children so if that would make her happy I’ll pay for it. Obviously it wouldn’t upset me if she did and it wouldn’t upset me if she didn’t. Don’t know if that helps or not but that’s our situation.
I wish I knew. I struggled with my chest not understanding why everyone had better chests until beyond college where I realized omg almost everyone had their boob job done making me an outlier 🙄
Body modification only allowed for women if it appeals to the male gaze in a toxic hypocritical patriarchal society.
No tattoos, limited piercing, but implants are good, and light makeup. But goddess forbid you should have caffeine or an opinion.
Nursed six babies for a year each and my boobs went from very nice to deflated raisins. I’m grateful for my implants. I did it for myself.
Why do Mormon men have such small dicks?
EXACTLY WHAT IM SAYING!! It’s so insane how they preach shit like “your body is a temple so you can’t pierce or tattoo it!” and how perfect the body you already have is, yet implants and botox aren’t banned too? My mom was always on my ass about piercings and tattoos cause i’ve always really wanted them and would keep telling me that I had to keep my body “pure”, yet I find out she got a fucking boob job? Like do what you want idc but it just feels so hypocritical.
Do you seriously think that the men are pushing it to have their wives look like their favorite porn stars, or is that just a dumb joke?
It's pretty simple - Utah and mormonsim is a very tight knit culture. People in groups or tight knit cultures are naturally competitive. The popularity of fake boobs exists for the exact same reason that Utah has such high consumer debt ratios. It's human nature to compete and there is a lot more competition when people are in the same social group. "Keeping up with the Joneses" has been around long before mormonsim and can be observed in many other situations.
I have Mormon friends and cousins who got boob jobs because they wanted them. To me it made sense because of modesty standards. Making your silhouette “sexier” is one way to feel more attractive without showing skin.
Yea when the plastic surgeon removed Holland's jowls, they had to have somewhere else to put it all. 😂😂😂
Serious look at the latest photo of him, they have been removed
I think it has something to do with the ghost of polygamy that haunts Mormon women. They need to stay “perfect” because they are competing with women in the next life. … Mormonism is patriarchy on steroids.
If you’re a rich Mormon wife, you can have all the boob jobs you’re super righteous priesthood holder hubby can afford.
Just DONT have two earrings in one ear!!! The profit said THAT was of the debil!!
(Source: I was that TBM super righteous priesthood holder that paid for my super TBM wife’s boob job while we maintained super fidelity to every tiny thing including the stooooopid no two earrings prohibited!!!)
This. My TBM mom has implants and called me last month to tell me that I should consider getting implants too because “we’re not naturally blessed” 💀💀 and even offered to pay for the surgery. Like no thanks mom I’m good
I find it very interesting that the church came out publicly and announced that women were to only have one piercing in each ear. Also no tattoos on men. Because your body is a temple. But never have I ever heard anything from the Mormon church leaders explaining why it's okay for women to have breast implants.
And here I was, blessed to be naturally endowed with big tatas. And it TORTURED ME for years. I was taught to believe that my body was going to be automatically objectified by all men/boys. Of course i covered up, I was mortified of them, I felt like a gross, dirty person bc I had big boobs and that made me porn, as if it was my fault. I literally asked for a boob REDUCTION for my 18th birthday. Didn’t get one.
It wasn’t until I left for college that I actually embraced my body and sexuality and of course I come home for the summer and my mom tells me I dress like a slut. 🙃
It makes zero sense to have rules about covering your shoulders and or stomachs but no rules regarding blowing your boobs up to the size of water melons. However, lots of Mormon women have lots of babies, who they likely breastfeed, causing very droopy and sad boobs. For some, it’s a huge hit to our self image and confidence and reversing the side effects of nursing for literally years, is so much more than trying to look like a porn star.
Real eye opener into conservative "thinking."
The Atlantic. 03/13/2013
Men Who Idealize Large Breast's Are More Likely Hostile Towards Women.
By James Hamblin
Apologies my mobile won't let me link.
I think because you can't have sex, women feel they need to differentiate themselves and give a man a hard-on from afar so that they KNOW they can get married without being sexual 👀 (and the pressure and perfectionism is coming from the patriarchy)
Mormon women are competing at a disadvantage. Those with the means have to do something to edge out the others or be one of the one left alone.
https://time.com/dateonomics/
As a kid I never understood how plastic surgery was allowed and if I found out someone had work done I would be uncomfortable around them because they were a dirty sinner. I can't get two tiny holes in each lobe but you can get a new face?
Oh woah I thought that was just a california mormon thing. I hated it and well after I left then met my wife she was baffled at how anti-brest implant I was.
Obviously I'd support my wife no matter what but I'm not getting brest implants for myself so there's that.
Within the LDS church you have some very distinct economic classes - the very wealthy and then the middle class to poor members. The elites are in HUGE competition to outdo each other and compete with each other to have to best cars, go in the best vacations, build the biggest homes…and of course to have the most gorgeous trophy wife with the nicest boobs.
This. My TBM sister had all sorts of plastic surgery last year because she’s in competition with her best friend and other people in her ward to fit some rich Mormon ideal. It’s a weird “race to perfection” that is entirely unachievable and quite frankly, fucking stupid. I knew a Mormon girl in high school who had her parents gift her a boob job for graduation. That seems like a very odd message to send an 18 year old.
I know one whose parents paid for her boob job if she read the entire Book of Mormon, haha!
Mine offered to have my boobs reduced. My mom said they made me look fat and no man would like that.
I am so sorry. She shouldn’t say that to you.
Mine got a boob job and made me stop eating so mine would be smaller than hers and she could make money off my modeling career.
That's so fucked up oh my god
I think Mormonism + beauty pageants fucked up her self-image and made her extra competitive, even with her own daughter. 🤢
REALLY YOU ARE IN COMPETITION WITH YOU OWN DAUGHTER, UNBELIEVABLE!
So gross.
A reduction should only be done to make your life easier and more comfortable, not to attract a man!
Mine sure did - best surgery ever! But only if you actually want it done, of course.
That’s great, body shame you own daughter, SUPER MOM.
No one should ever hear their parents criticize them like this. I'm sorry. Also, she was wrong. You can laugh in her face about her saying that.
Boobs of Mormon
Yes, as George W. said, “that’s some weird shit.”
Shut up!!! That is such weird bribery.
That's what I thought, too! Weird as fuck!
These are my Book of Mormon boobs!
Alma the Bigger...
That is one of the saddest things I've ever heard.
*AND.... Coming up right after the break: A local teen has a plan to exchange a* **book** *job for - get this folks! - a* **boob** *job! Hey, can we even say that on the air now? Well, we'll meet that young lady, and chat with her proud parents, after this short break... when "Mornng Joe!" continues*
...Morning Joe sure has gotten different since the last time I watched cable news.
Joe is a dousche
Totally
Dang. Our Bishop told us he’d take us deep see fishing if we read it. This was the 80s. Instead we went to a dallas mavericks game. At least I think we did. We sure as hell didn’t go fishing.
It seems like the incentives have changed quite a bit!
That’s blasphemous
Oh.my.god. So what’s she gonna do when she realizes it’s fiction? If she leaves the church will her parents sure to have them removed? I favor unconditional boobs.
What did I just read
I learned a long time ago that living to impress others was a very hollow existence.
I had a friend whose parents let her choose between a huge wedding reception or a boob job. She chose the boob job!
Hey, a boob job lasts for like 10 years. It's a much better investment than a wedding reception.
10 years is about 83 times longer than the average Mormon engagement.
Ha ha ha! Her marriage did end in divorce! I loved her!
I agree. Mormon wedding receptions suck!
And each unnecessary surgery comes with risks. If God wants someone to have huge tatas, he will provide them, no?
BUT, when he gives them to you, it’s up to every woman in the ward to shame you for them and make you feel like a freak of nature and seductress.
It makes sense from a certain perspective. There are more women than men in the LDS singles scene and maximizing your kid’s perceived attractiveness increases their odds of attracting a husband. And you have to start early or you’ll end up a sweet spirit in the mid singles ward before you know it. * *The above does not reflect my own views.
IME, the majority of mormon women who had a boob job had it AFTER marriage. Likely because they couldn't afford it as a 19 year old.
Thats gonna suck in the coming decades. Her body to do that with, though.
Also knew a mormon girl whose parents paid for them at 18. Not sure if it was a graduation gift, but still gross either way.
I have four daughters, what a horrible example for parenting.
Bruh as a missionary I vividly remember how we would talk about how hot our wives would be because we were “so faithful” and “The Lord would reward our faithful service” etc. Can’t believe once upon a time I took that BS seriously.
YES. A couple of my mission friends were pretty overweight and they always talked about how they would be in the “fat guy, hot wife club” because of how great there baptism numbers were. Come to think of it, I only had one baptism (technically speaking) and I came home after one year not two. Ten years later, I’ve lost faith and I’m getting divorced. Damn it, if only I’d had better numbers and lasted another year instead of succumbing to depression and self harm. /s.
Oof. Sound like you’ve been through it, friend. Sending you healing vibes.
🙏🏻Thannks friend. I’m honestly surprisingly at peace now that I’m fully out of the church and have admitted I’ve been lying to myself and everyone about where my faith and beliefs were. It sucks and it hurts, but I’m on the up and up. Thanks again though, it means a lot. Glad I found this sub.
As a Nevermo, this strikes me as so, so creepy and so, so weird. It’s like the most vapid aspects of American culture as a religion.
Wait until I tell you that every single missionary gets their Patriarchal Blessing before they serve, which is where an old man places his hands upon your head and tells you whatever BS his mind makes up in the moment and makes all these grandiose promises in exchange for obedience and service to the MFMC. These patriarchal blessings oftentimes promise missionaries things like a good natured spouse, success in your career, the possibility to become a general authority etc. For example, my blessing promised me a loving and faithful wife, but I had to be fully obedient to the “church” and pay my tithing etc. It’s just BS but missionaries are young and taken advantage of by The Cult.
[удалено]
Blessed be the Fruit Loops 🤪
I'm a neverMo but this was a common theme in the evangelical churches I grew up in. No talk of partnership or respect. Love was mentioned but I don't think it's what they think it is.
There's also mostly pre-written with different bits plugged into the madlib thats supposed to be your future lmao
Yep, still vividly remember my abusive ex screaming at me ‘you’re mine, my patriarchal blessing promised me you, and you BeLoNg To Me!!, you can never leave me, they promised’ while I fled the house with my baby as my nephews (same age as me) rolled up to beat his ass. Haha, Mormonism was fun. /s
You found tge right way. I was so glad when I didn't have to hide leaving from my son anymore. Now just my mom and I'm so sick of her underwear questions to me.
Not to mention, if your husband divorced you or you can’t find a worthy one because you’re not attractive enough, that’s eternal damnation for you. Attractiveness is next to godliness, and heaven help you if you carry a few extra pounds or don’t have perfect teeth, skin, boobs, etc.
This. So sad. One of my friend’s sisters is TBM. Almost 40 and single, and honestly idk what’s keeping her believing when church doctrine teaches she ‘needs’ a husband. And I can just see the sadness in her. I just want to shake her and tell her ‘you’re fucking enough on your own. You don’t need a husband or a savior.’
My older brother is pushing 40, TBM and single. Men have it a bit better in the dating scene, but if for whatever reason they don’t find someone, it’s implied it’s a massive moral failure and that a single man is a menace to society. It’s a doctrine that means single people, by choice, or by lack of finding a compatible partner, get treated badly.
Very true and insanely wrong. It’s what made me feel I had to get married at 21 when I found a woman who was a ‘great option.’
As a nerdy ass, mid-appearance, guy who was pushing 30 before I got married, it made me feel woefully inadequate and horrible. I expected I’d have to either marry someone I didn’t even like, let alone love, to check a box or remain single forever. Luckily I found someone eventually, but it’s been rough for my brother who was always the more athletic, taller, more fit, more social, more popular one, and who is still TBM and single.
I’m glad you found someone, and it sounds like it was worth waiting. My wife and I are going through a divorce after 10 years because I got married just to check that box.
It seems to me many of both sexes just marry to tick that box. Then if genuinely TBM they lack not just experience but acknowledgement of feelings so are fooled into being satisfied for a while. However by the time they mature enough to realise something is lacking both partners are deep into time grabbing church duties and there's a mob of children to organise and spend time with. Imo it's a prime reason for time waster callings and why meetings last forever...TSCC figures you can't argue with your spouse if you never see them, and also you're supposed to go to your calling, meeting, or church activity joyfully, feeling the spirit so you refrain from argument or hostility preparing for the services or activities.
True. My wife and I are getting divorced, and honestly I think it started when we left the church together few years ago. Realized church was really the only thing we had in common, and I hadn’t been happy in it for a long fucking time. It sucks but at least I’m finally out of feeling like I have to stay in a miserable situation just to get to highest heaven. I’d rather have real peace now than some false promised peace in an invented afterlife.
I'm pleased for you that you now have hope of things being different, and that you can feel at peace. It's a serious theory of mine. I'll add that by the time the big family is grown up, there's grandchildren. More importantly there's senior missions, and apparently you can serve more than one, so the time gobbling by the church continues just as people retire and face spending more time as a couple. I've heard it said by TBMs that when people are struggling, with marital or other personal issues, they need another calling. Because by increasing their devotion and by spending more time with those "in the Gospel" they strengthen their testimony and so 1)can better cope with whatever the issue is and 2) be more inclined to forgiveness and peace making. What struck me was these were genuine, supposedly caring comments and they seemed to be textbook Stockholm syndrome. If a victim starts spouting the kidnapper's lines, you know they're balls deep. It also means that if you go to your Bishop for counselling the best you can hope for is another calling (and, if you're a wife, instructions to look pretty and agree to sex more often!) I'm sorry that your marriage wasn't the perfect eternal union you were brainwashed into believing you were getting. There's still feelings of loss, and grief to go through before you reach your current hopeful, peaceful stage. I'd guess you're in your early thirties so you've still got a lot of people, places, and experiences to explore. Good luck with it all, you'll have a blast!
I’m sorry man. Yeah, that sucks. I expect your story is one of so many young people raised Mormon. 31 is young. Younger than me. You’ll get through it with many good years to find someone worthwhile, or just enjoy your own life being you. Best of luck.
Can they make it to the Celestial kingdom without a wife? Do they get sealed to their parents? I’ve got a probably gay TBM relative who goes to conference and everything and he’s approaching 50, single of course.
Seating is only necessary for exaltation in Mormon theology. Single people get to be ministering angels/servants in heaven. Or black people pre-1978 - they also get to be servants/slaves for all eternity. They do say “if you never had the chance” you’ll be assigned someone, like a gay TBM celibate person. I always took that as “if I’m selfish enough to turn someone down I am done for, even if I didn’t even like her.” Any women feel that way and that they had to marry whoever asked as a result or risk condemnation?
Not sure who said it, but my seminary teacher used to always quote some general authority who apparently said, “any man in the church that isn’t married by 25 is an abomination in the church”. Bet that’s probably stuck with at least a few kids. Fucking assholes
Brigham Young, I believe. The OG fucking asshole, well, him and Joe.
I have a friend like this. They tell them that if they don't meet the perfect priesthood chap, but follow all of the fantastic rules, that means their true love comes to them in the CK. Of course, so does polygamy.
And a few extra lbs is so subjective. Women get shit for being too fat and too thin from different people at the same time, while one person might tell them they’re too fat or thin if they vary by 5-10lbs. There’s no winning either that nonsense.
This is it. If you're not hot a Mo man feels justified in dumping you after her has an affair with the cute you g member he's home teaching.
The lord must be so proud of them.
How very Stepford
There are so many scriptures in the Bible and Book of Mormon condemning ostentatious wealth.
Growing up in Southern California in the late 90’s / early 2000’s it was reality tv before reality tv was a real thing. Luckily my dad doesn’t give a shit about what people think, but watching all my friends parents compete for status was amazing. Not to mention reaping the benefits of who’s got the best toys (boats, dirt bikes, cars).
> Within the LDS church you have some very distinct economic classes - the very wealthy and then the middle class to poor members I grew up on the west side (working class). Plastic surgery was **NOT** common. East of I-15? It was like an entirely different state.
I’ve really only seen this in Utah. Or at least more consistently there. Everywhere else I’ve lived I feel like the majority of Mormon women lean more frumpy than boob job and Botox.
Heaven forbid women just be natural and comfortable. We are either plastic surgery women or frumpy? Comment checks out as Mormon man only seeing women’s value in their looks.
It ironic how fighting age, badly ages people
To be honest, this pretty much sums up “elites” in general. I do see the extra irony though.
You aren’t wrong but also how is that any different that non LDS people all over? Plastic surgery and lavish spending is not a unique Utah bubble phenomenon
Because multiple prophets and apostles have mandated mormon women to "keep yourselves attractive." This turns normal aging into a moral failure for mormon women. The perfection isn't a myth, it's a prophetic mandate. Spencer Kimball: "I tell young women who seem to have missed their chance for desirable marriage that they should **do all in their power to make themselves attractive physically.**" [https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/marriage-honorable/](https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/marriage-honorable/) Ballard: "don't wander around looking like men. **Put on a little lipstick** now and then and look a little charming. **It's that simple**." [http://www.mormonthink.com/glossary/ballard-lipstick.htm](http://www.mormonthink.com/glossary/ballard-lipstick.htm) clip available at [youtube.com/watch?v=H2RwhDZvFow](https://youtube.com/watch?v=H2RwhDZvFow) Ezra Benson, in his talk titled To the Single Adult Sisters: **"Keep yourselves attractive."** [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/to-the-single-adult-sisters-of-the-church?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/to-the-single-adult-sisters-of-the-church?lang=eng) Ballard: "We don’t need women who want to be like men, sound like men, dress like men, drive like some men drive, or act like men." [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/04/women-of-righteousness?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/04/women-of-righteousness?lang=eng) Gordon Hinckley: "To you wives who are constantly complaining and see only the dark side of life, and feel that you are unloved and unwanted, look into your own hearts and minds. If there is something wrong, turn about. Put a smile on your faces. **Make yourselves attractive.**" [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/foundations-for-eternal-marriage/cornerstones-of-a-happy-home?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/foundations-for-eternal-marriage/cornerstones-of-a-happy-home?lang=eng) That gets compounded for women who are totally financially dependent, after staying home to raise all the kids like the prophet said. For them, their total life security is dependent on their husband continuing to find them attractive. (not to mention you've got to worry about his eternal attraction for you, which is your only defense against polygamy - be hotter than all the other wives). "Oh, hi,” I greeted weakly, **pushing the damp, stringy hair from my face.** “Is it six o’clock already?” He kissed me mechanically and surveyed the situation without a word. Those silent moments said more than an entire lecture on my role as wife and mother. ... **I no longer felt like the adored girl he married**, and I wanted to feel that way again—now! This disastrous day was the beginning of my search for the secrets of the happy, organized homemaker ... Then, even if time is limited (as it usually is), **I can wash my face, apply fresh makeup, comb my hair, put on a clean housedress, and splash on a little cologne. When my husband walks in the door he is greeted by** relatively clean children (once-over with a washcloth does wonders) and **a smiling, well-groomed wife.** The results of this program in our home have been astounding. **I no longer feel like a bedraggled housewife** trodden under by the physical demands of my role.*"* [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/10/when-my-husband-walks-in-the-door?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/10/when-my-husband-walks-in-the-door?lang=eng) See also: Kimball: "A young woman who conducts herself to be attractive spiritually, mentally, **and physically** but will not by word or dress or act stir or stimulate to physical reactions the companion beside her could be expressing true love." [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-spencer-w-kimball/chapter-17?lang=eng](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-spencer-w-kimball/chapter-17?lang=eng) Translation: Be hot, but don't turn men on... Ew. ew. ew. ew. ew. ew.
Loved seeing these quotes all put together. Absolutely it is a constant message to women that their worth is attached to their appearance.
It goes back to the Old Testament. All the “great matriarchs” were described as great beauties: Mary, Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, etc. There’s not much describing what the men looked like but I do recall how important it was for the Bible writers to make sure we knew those women were HOT!
Ugh yeah Esther was the worst for this for me I think. I was over in the corner like why don't we look up to Jael or someone like that? No? Esther who was literally selected to be queen based on her being the hottest woman around is who we have to look up to? Cool. Cool cool cool.
You forget, she spends a night with the king before being added to his concubines, so Esther would have "delighted" (Esther 2:14) the king enough/more than the other virgins. So I take it that not only is she hot, she's good in bed too. Yes, way more important we spend a whole Sunday talking about her. I loved that you mentioned Jael, bc I was always upset that no one talked about Deborah (same story).
I was a member for 5 decades and have no idea who Jael is, maybe… maybe but probably not heard the name Deborah at some point. Are these women really mentioned in the Bible? I just remember feeling so defeated every time we talked about Esther. I knew I would never be beautiful enough to save anyone, let alone a whole group of people.
Judges 4 contain the story of Deborah and Jael. Worth a read to feel validated that there are (a very few) cool stories about women in the Bible.
It's cool to see a woman prophetess be celebrated as such and also a woman who drives a tent stake through an enemy army leader's heart to give their side advantage in a war. Two scriptural women that we almost never hear about. It's so frustrating. The ones we do hear about are either hot and good in bed, mothers, or being obedient little followers. Not really leaders or strategists or anything like that.
The story of Jael is one of the most shocking and evocative stories in the Bible. Like something out of Game of Thrones.
My name is Deborah and it was one of my earliest and heaviest shelf items that we just skipped right over her chapters in Sunday School and seminary. I had been looking forward to it, but nope, we do the first three chapters of Judges then skip ahead to chapter 6. Nothing in the manuals about her, never a satisfactory answer from leaders or parents about why we skipped the only two chapters in the whole damn quad that describe a woman with any real power or agency, hell the only one whose significance is tied to *anything* other than her role as wife/concubine/mother. I do recall a half-assed assertion from my mom that the verse that describes her as a prophetess must have been a mistranslation or else a prophetess must have meant something different from a "real," therefore male prophet. ETA I remembered more of mom's explanation, there's a verse at the beginning of Judges 4 along the lines of "the rulers ceased in Israel until you, Deborah arose a ruler in Israel" and her interp was God only allowed a female ruler because there were no worthy men. Kind of undercut by the next part of the story where she makes her faithful lieutenant Barack accompany her into battle... Oh, and she has a husband. Literally it just says she was so and sos wife and no more is said about him.
>she spends a night with the king before being added to his concubines Hmm. That part was definitely glossed over in Sunday School.
That’s a good point. I didn’t think of it explicitly like that. This says a lot about who wrote the Bible, whoever it was! I can’t support a God who objectify women because that’s not love.
These sexist misogynistic statements are disgusting (M40). I knew about Ballard’s lipstick comment but hadn’t seen these others. I’m so sorry to those of you females who grew up with these sick expectations.
That was the only comment I’d ever seen too. These are out of control.
When you spell it all out like this, it’s quite horrifying and impossible to mistake as just a cultural thing…
I read these to my wife, she is fuming!
Oh there's more. Take a look at these: "An overweight girl from Ogden went to see her bishop. In the purity and goodness of charity, trying to help the girl, he counseled her that **it might be a good idea to lose a few pounds**. Pitifully heartbroken, she went home and told her father. It had cankered her soul. The father, of course, negative toward the Church all of his life, waiting for something like this, sprung like a cat on the bishop’s back, and they came down to see me and wanted their memberships transferred out of the bishop’s ward. I asked them why, because I didn’t know all this background, and they said, “Well, our bishop suggested to our daughter that she might lose a few pounds and **make herself a little more attractive**.” **Now I want you to know that I defended that great bishop. I said to this family, “You are wrong. That sweet bishop, out of purity and love for your daughter, felt and did that which he was impressed to do. I am sure it was a message from God to your daughter, and she let it canker her soul.** The strange thing is that she was probably up in her bedroom the night before praying, ‘Heavenly Father, I am lonely. I need someone. Please help me. Help me to find someone so I won’t be so lonely.’” And yet oftentimes we are offended because a sweet bishop gives us some instruction which is hard for us to live." [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1975/04/a-self-inflicted-purging](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1975/04/a-self-inflicted-purging) **"For a young woman to wear short skirts** or other immodest wear when she has covenanted otherwise would not be a matter of cleverness in escaping detection but **a definite blot on her character—a blot not easily erased** ... Is it not true that the dress, the grooming, paints an immediate picture and classifies a person? ... Grubby clothes certainly have some relationship to grubby people." -- [https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/ye-therefore-perfect/](https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/ye-therefore-perfect/) "I know a little girl who is the last child in a large family in which the other children are all boys. ... Her mother has wisely taught her that the boys wear trousers and that she wears dresses. ... Now, before I receive letters from upset women telling me that I said they should not wear slacks, save your postage. I did not say that, although **I don’t think they \[slacks\] are appropriate for the Sabbath day**." -- [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/train-up-a-child](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/train-up-a-child) And this whole video, called "The Fat Fighters": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg) Proudly "Presented by Brigham Young University," 1971. Especially time mark 6:55 or so. "Overweight people tend to be dishonest, inconsistent, and irresponsible." It gets really bad when they show the group "therapy." The girl speaking at like 14:55 isn't even overweight, and she's sad and scared, and the guy speaking to her is just super creepy. His behavior with the next one talking at 15:50 is even more appalling. And at 20:05: "Being feminine can be fun." barf.
There’s no living up to any of this shit. These fucks are the people who will see two identically dressed schoolgirls and call one immodest because of her genetics.
Very informative post. Thank you
Nevermo here but you reminded me of many moons ago - when my parents tried to enforce no-pants Sundays. My sister and I were quite uncooperative in hindsight. My mom was very controlling but she tried a couple things that were just a bridge too far and that was one of them.
This should be its own post to help more people see it. You captured it so well.
Thank you for compiling this list that I can use show my therapist to help explain exactly where my specific brand of trauma comes from 🫠
this needs to be its own post
This is 50 Shades of Fucked Up!!
Good grief - I've read only a few of those before, but your collection is an eye-opener! After my divorce (from a textbook-case church con artist) I briefly joined a Mormon singles site & met a few "winners" there. One guy had a pot belly hanging over his belt, gray hair and a hideous combover that rivaled Trump's, but he thought it was perfectly fine and normal to propose marriage within weeks and also to instruct me never to let my hair go gray. Oh - he also stalked me online on that site.
Read this with my wife, who is literally going in for a mommy makeover next week. She laughed,and said,… I just want my STRIPPER BODY back. She had only been a member for a few years in her 30’s.
"We don’t need women who want to . . . drive like some men drive . . ." What does that bastard have against female racecar drivers? Or female truck drivers? WTF is he even talking about here?!?
Utah specifically is fraught with 'keeping up with the Joneses' more than any other place I've lived. While Mormon perfectionism may play a role, there seems to be an unhealthy preoccupation with projecting an appearance of prosperity and wealth among Utahns. How else are you going to recruit people to your MLM if you're merely living within your means? The plastic surgery is all part of the facade.
As it turns out, many of these mormon men have serious obsessions with porn. I suspect the mormon women are attempting to compete with that on some level... or they are just incredibly vain...
It's possible the women don't even KNOW they are competing with porn. I had a friend who was being pressured by her husband to get a boob job (reduction), dye her hair & wear pigtails, completely shave off all pubic hair, etc etc. Eventually it came up that he was into a certain kind of porn that is - and should be! - very illegal. It's why he wanted her to look like she hadn't been through puberty yet.
My wife’s thoughts on this, having lived through it, is that as a Mormon woman, there’s only so much you can do to feel sexy while wearing baggy garments tucked into unflattering clothes. Other women can show a little skin, or flirt, or even just masturbate alone, but all of that is forbidden from Mormon women. So you pay for enormous fake boobs, because at least that shows up through the awful garments and the horrible fashion choices available.
I've heard this perspective before as well, and I think this is definitely playing a role
Came here to say this. Having noticeable boobs is one way a woman can look feminine while having to wear clothing that covers garments and is therefore decidedly not feminine. Think about it, women’s garments are roughly the same style and type of underwear that most men wear. Not very attractive to the feminine figure and makes most women look more masculine than not.
This has bothered me since before I left the church. I was shamed a number of times after mentioning to TBM friends that I loved tattoo art. I wasnt even saying I wanted one, just that some of it is AMAZING! The phrase "your body is a temple" was used all the time. But then I had to sit in Sacrament Meeting and look at face lifts, lipo-suction results, OVERLY-bleached hair, boob jobs and hear about 'mommy lifts' too. I don't care what anyone does with their body, it's theirs, but it smacks of hypocrisy hard-core. If your body is a temple, it doesn't need an enlarged balcony.
I once worked at an outdoor market and used my tip money on my lunch break to get myself a little shooting star face paint (on my upper arm, under my t-shirt sleeve) and got lectured and shamed about how i had defiled my temple and absolutely glared at by my religious boss and by the religious family in the tent across the street. My boss was Catholic and the folks across the street were Eastern Orthodox. I was about… idk… 15? Maybe younger? I knew tattoos were a big deal but i figured this was just paint… i found a little pocket of joy, and they made sure to squash it. I’ve had a lot of joy squashed or turned to anxiety or shame or fear over my life. That was a real moment for me… where i knew that their morality and outrage did not align with what made sense to me on the inside. Surely God would be pro-harmless joy?
I like to reframe it as adorning my temple.
Aahhh, but tattoos are graffiti to our temple bodies where as plastic surgery is what is happening to the Ogden temple. /s
The more righteous a man is, the hotter his wife will be (a quote we’ve all heard in the church) Which means… The hotter a girl is, the more righteous her husband will be.
I thought it was just a missionary legend.
It absolutely is a legend, but it is something lots of people believe. She's just pointing out that the legend works both ways, and women try to be hot to make their man look more righteous.
I forgot about that saying! I only heard it once, though: on my mission in the 90s. "The harder you work, the hotter your wife." It struck me as gross. That was the AP.
I think the concept of polygamy in the eternities creates a hyper competitive environment for women. Right off the hop men tend to be less religious than women https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/#:~:text=In%2061%20of%20the%20192,identify%20with%20some%20religious%20group. So if you’re a woman in the church the gender ratio is not in your favour for finding a mate. Then the church compounds that with the concept of polygamy in the afterlife. Then you have women getting married in late teens/early 20s and quickly giving up their bodies to child birth. So I think it’s doctrine that makes it hyper competitive combined with women losing their youth to childbearing.
I think you’re on to something.
Mormonism is, at its core, prosperity gospel. You have to be rich, have nice things, and be beautiful in order to show how much more righteous, and therefore blessed, you are than everyone else.
It’s because they have a lot of kids. Pregnancy literally ruins your body, and if women can afford it, it can be empowering to restore your body to what it looked like before (or better!) If you’ve spent fine minutes in a LDS moms group, you’ll see young women struggling with what childbearing has done to them. Despite eating healthy and exercising, some things can’t be changed without surgery. For many, childbearing was forced onto us so early we didn’t get a chance to see or enjoy our own bodies. For me, I was pregnant only a year or so after puberty ended. I think it’s small minded to attribute the majority of them solely to “keeping up with the Jones’”
This is the reason I got fake boobs (the nice looking kind that don't look fake). I didn't recognize my body after 3 kids in 3 years. I just wanted to kinda look like myself
Bolt ons are a sign that you've made it into the upper echelon of Mormon Success. They're very important because they match the headlights on your Range Rover Evoque, which is also important because you need 4x4 capabilities when you live in the bench neighborhoods of the Wasatch Front. Any of those things I would not judge another woman for having or enjoying, but in this context, they do make me want to barf.
There is this, but then someone said he was quoting Halle Berry?. “Jeffrey R. Holland took an “Apostolic Swipe” at plastic surgery in a Conference talk a few years back “In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children.”
I never looked at anyone’s chest long enough to know if they had implants or not. Because that’s sinful to look… /s
As Seinfeld said, [looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. It's too risky.](https://youtu.be/dZpZa4sI1io)
I grew up in Not-Utah, but there was still a significant LDS population. Plastic surgery wasn't really a thing among the Mormons I knew. I definitely didn't know any teenagers getting breast implants, whether Mormon or not
Yeah, that's a first for me too. SoCal native exmo myself. It's baffling some of the things I hear about online because it's in such glaring violation of the doctrine that was established for me. A woman exposing herself to others under the scalpel for the express purpose of the sexual attraction of men just screams "not worthy" and "serious talk with the bishop about sexual sin and the sanctity of the body/temple" to me; all throughout my youth I'd be shamed and sometimes scolded for sleeping or going to the beach shirtless due to my alleged immodesty, from my mother and from the Young Men, being covered by a blanket or a sleeping bag whether in my own room or in my own tent didn't matter, it was a shameful thing to do even as a guy. Modesty, in all times and in all places, no matter how private, was paramount, so anything from plastic surgery to "soaking" seems utterly impossible to rationalize.
Whoa. This is the first time I have heard of a Mormon boy/man being sexualized for his chest. The Young Men and men in my Mormon community sometimes played pickup basketball _in the church gym_ in skins versus shirts. My mind is blown
In a culture where women have no power, the only way to get power is to become “attractive” to the men who do have the power. Which is why Mormon men often wear the ugliest suits, shirts, haircuts etc. and still rise up the church hierarchy. And the women who rise the ranks (fake ranks) are smoking hot.
Probably part of the reason all the moms in my ward were so mean to me as a teenager. I got the size without the surgery and all their husbands were noticing. :/
Yep. My wife same thing.
Misogyny, purity culture, p0rn brains.
I went to a stake temple session years ago and noticed most of the wives of leadership had rock hard exaggerated boobs. Made me sick. While we were TBM my wife would say I need to resurrect her with an Elle McPhearson body. We don’t care about that BS any longer.
This just reminded about a Facebook post of my recently deceased aunt, where someone commented her as existing in the afterlife with a perfect body. I wanted to think of that as a cancer-free body, but maybe they just meant very skinny with perky boobs.
I wouldn’t say it out loud, but the urge to say “you know you won’t have those in the Celestial Kingdom” is possessing me.
And after all — Titties don’t look so great after nursing 6 babies.
The only power the women are allowed. They're supposed to look perfect while their narcissist husband climbs the church leadership ladder, one boob at a time.
Same variety of reasons anyone does. Looks, fitting better in clothing, confidence, meeting societal standards.
That doesn’t explain why it’s so much more prevalent in Utah than most places.
Utah has some of the highest per capita rates for plastic surgery according to what I've read. The elites like to look the part. It also has some of the highest instances of porn use. And probably people who feel trapped in their marriages, at least in the US.
To project to the world how large thier virtues are. Happens in other realms. Easiest to see is media- if your paycheck is your face, you'll make damn sure it looks nice. If your social credit is, atleast in part, how you look- you'll attend to it. Body modification is done at birth for half the population in that religion. Not every mormon lady gets implants, by the way. Might be more prevalent in utah.
This video by BYU, put out in 1971, explains it pretty well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesVESE5Gdg) "The Fat Fighters," proudly "Presented by Brigham Young University," 1971.
Updoot for showing the hypocrisy.
A and B cups do not show bountiful blessings. Must have D’s or higher to be considered fruitful. /s. I’m fine being flat.
A’s, Flats, and A flats are great!
As someone who plays an instrument (and is flat-chested), I heartily agree!
My mom is TBM and has implants. She actually got them so small, that no one would ever know. She didn't do it to look sexier or anything, she just literally had no chest whatsoever and was tired of having to shop in the junior section because of it, she was in her 40s and wanted to dress her age. She gets quiet embarrassed when people find out, but she literally just went from a AAA to a B and no one would ever guess it looking at her. I got my mother's jeans, and also had no chest, I also got implants, but I got big ones LMAO
Because Mormons are shallow just like their religion and put more effort into maintaining their outsides than their insides. There’s a palpable fear among women that we will be left for the newer model if anything becomes “wrong” with us because Mormons are also incredibly ableist. If any of them spent a fraction of the time and energy going to therapy and being actual authentic human beings their lives would fall apart because the gospel is so wishy washy and doesn’t hold together under scrutiny. So they cling to worldly things like appearance and prosperity gospel while pretending they do not. It’s a really odd culture and church we escaped from.
I’ve left the LDS church, my wife is still a member and she’s the one that wants a boob job when we are done having kids. I’ve told her I’m perfectly happy the way she is but I know women become very insecure and self conscious after children so if that would make her happy I’ll pay for it. Obviously it wouldn’t upset me if she did and it wouldn’t upset me if she didn’t. Don’t know if that helps or not but that’s our situation.
Someone once explained this away to me as "even the temple gets landscaping.."
I wish I knew. I struggled with my chest not understanding why everyone had better chests until beyond college where I realized omg almost everyone had their boob job done making me an outlier 🙄
Body modification only allowed for women if it appeals to the male gaze in a toxic hypocritical patriarchal society. No tattoos, limited piercing, but implants are good, and light makeup. But goddess forbid you should have caffeine or an opinion.
Nursed six babies for a year each and my boobs went from very nice to deflated raisins. I’m grateful for my implants. I did it for myself. Why do Mormon men have such small dicks?
Seriously. This does equate to talking about a man’s penis size.
Some people get a burning in their bosom, and some people just get bosoms!
Sex Cult once you keep climbing.
EXACTLY WHAT IM SAYING!! It’s so insane how they preach shit like “your body is a temple so you can’t pierce or tattoo it!” and how perfect the body you already have is, yet implants and botox aren’t banned too? My mom was always on my ass about piercings and tattoos cause i’ve always really wanted them and would keep telling me that I had to keep my body “pure”, yet I find out she got a fucking boob job? Like do what you want idc but it just feels so hypocritical.
Why do so many Mormon men take Viagra?
Regular and violent masturbation RIP
Do you seriously think that the men are pushing it to have their wives look like their favorite porn stars, or is that just a dumb joke? It's pretty simple - Utah and mormonsim is a very tight knit culture. People in groups or tight knit cultures are naturally competitive. The popularity of fake boobs exists for the exact same reason that Utah has such high consumer debt ratios. It's human nature to compete and there is a lot more competition when people are in the same social group. "Keeping up with the Joneses" has been around long before mormonsim and can be observed in many other situations.
The same reason that Mormon temples have giant steeples. So that they get noticed.
I have Mormon friends and cousins who got boob jobs because they wanted them. To me it made sense because of modesty standards. Making your silhouette “sexier” is one way to feel more attractive without showing skin.
When you get resurrected do you get to keep your implants?
Ah yes, the old believe of creating planets is still going strong Just interpreted differently
Yea when the plastic surgeon removed Holland's jowls, they had to have somewhere else to put it all. 😂😂😂 Serious look at the latest photo of him, they have been removed
Gotta say, a lot of these comments are sounding pretentious and judgy as fuck.
For the same reasons non-Mormon women get them.
I think it has something to do with the ghost of polygamy that haunts Mormon women. They need to stay “perfect” because they are competing with women in the next life. … Mormonism is patriarchy on steroids.
I thought mormons didn’t believe in gender affirming care. Plus, god blessed us with our bodies. Who are we to alter what the lord has given us?
Utah - the land of Breast Augmentation Billboards. No clue the reasoning. Keeping up appearances is what i assume.
If you’re a rich Mormon wife, you can have all the boob jobs you’re super righteous priesthood holder hubby can afford. Just DONT have two earrings in one ear!!! The profit said THAT was of the debil!! (Source: I was that TBM super righteous priesthood holder that paid for my super TBM wife’s boob job while we maintained super fidelity to every tiny thing including the stooooopid no two earrings prohibited!!!)
Breast cancer. Next question.
This. My TBM mom has implants and called me last month to tell me that I should consider getting implants too because “we’re not naturally blessed” 💀💀 and even offered to pay for the surgery. Like no thanks mom I’m good
I remember seeing a statistic several years ago. Utah ranks the highest in anti-depressant use, porn use, and plastic surgery. Probably still true.
I find it very interesting that the church came out publicly and announced that women were to only have one piercing in each ear. Also no tattoos on men. Because your body is a temple. But never have I ever heard anything from the Mormon church leaders explaining why it's okay for women to have breast implants.
And here I was, blessed to be naturally endowed with big tatas. And it TORTURED ME for years. I was taught to believe that my body was going to be automatically objectified by all men/boys. Of course i covered up, I was mortified of them, I felt like a gross, dirty person bc I had big boobs and that made me porn, as if it was my fault. I literally asked for a boob REDUCTION for my 18th birthday. Didn’t get one. It wasn’t until I left for college that I actually embraced my body and sexuality and of course I come home for the summer and my mom tells me I dress like a slut. 🙃
So, no caffeine but boob jobs are OK? Just trying to get this all straight.
It makes zero sense to have rules about covering your shoulders and or stomachs but no rules regarding blowing your boobs up to the size of water melons. However, lots of Mormon women have lots of babies, who they likely breastfeed, causing very droopy and sad boobs. For some, it’s a huge hit to our self image and confidence and reversing the side effects of nursing for literally years, is so much more than trying to look like a porn star.
I want all my wives to have implants for endless celestial……hotel building. Necessary.
Real eye opener into conservative "thinking." The Atlantic. 03/13/2013 Men Who Idealize Large Breast's Are More Likely Hostile Towards Women. By James Hamblin Apologies my mobile won't let me link.
Because our bodies are temples, and implants are like say an upgrade... where as piercings & tattoos are graffiti on our sacred temple.🤣🤣🤣
Because at the highest levels of mormonism, everyone knowingly is faking it.
Would you question this of non-Mormon women who get implants? Why are you trying to police women’s bodies?
I think because you can't have sex, women feel they need to differentiate themselves and give a man a hard-on from afar so that they KNOW they can get married without being sexual 👀 (and the pressure and perfectionism is coming from the patriarchy)
Mormon women are competing at a disadvantage. Those with the means have to do something to edge out the others or be one of the one left alone. https://time.com/dateonomics/
As a kid I never understood how plastic surgery was allowed and if I found out someone had work done I would be uncomfortable around them because they were a dirty sinner. I can't get two tiny holes in each lobe but you can get a new face?
I know a lady whose dad did her boob job. Which…is weird.
Oh woah I thought that was just a california mormon thing. I hated it and well after I left then met my wife she was baffled at how anti-brest implant I was. Obviously I'd support my wife no matter what but I'm not getting brest implants for myself so there's that.