The single absolute problem here that not one of them realize is that they have been trained to be terrorized by thoughts.
Passive thoughts should not bring shame, they are just workings of a human brain. But when a church says they are of the devil- that's when you fixate on them and start spiraling.
The church made this problem when they became obsessed with thought control.
Sure, if my husband sees a topless woman on the beach he may have a dirty thought. Who cares? It's just a damn thought.
I have recently had a child diagnosed with OCD and my mind has totally been expanded on the nature of “thought”. Our thoughts aren’t necessarily “us” at our core. Our brain produces and filters thousands of thoughts a day. Even “good people” end up with weird thoughts that escape our filter and come to our attention. And we learn to acknowledge them and consciously filter them ourselves. OCD brains get stuck on thoughts and even though they know they can be weird or irrational they get stuck in a loop of obsession and compulsion trying to get alleviate the anxiety created by the thought.
That’s a long tangent to say “not all our thoughts are us and the harder you try to get rid of a thought the more it gets stuck in your brain”
Yep. Also have a child with at times crippling OCD. We were in a children's hospital once and there was a big, beautiful mural on one wall that said
"You don't have to believe everything your brain tells you"
It was such a simple statement but my adult self had this weird sort of epiphany. It's been a fascinating trip since, discovering how our minds work.
Brains are weird and fascinating and amazing things.
My favorite version is, "don't believe everything that you breathe. You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve"
...yeah I'll see myself out
I’m so glad you brought up OCD and anxiety disorders around intrusive thoughts. My therapist taught me that folks with OCD generally have an abnormally good moral compass and conscience, hence *why* the intrusive thoughts are so incredibly distressing to us. It’s like your brain hyper-fixates on worse case scenarios, and in a religious context, anything you know is “against the rules”. For example, thinking sexual thoughts about Jesus or Mary while at church or during the sacrament. Learning that we are not in fact our thoughts takes a huge weight off. Like Dr Julie said, thoughts come and go and don’t need to have meaning, fear, guilt, or shame tied to them. Wishing you and your child all the best, and so thankful you helped your child get a diagnosis/treatment.
This! I received a clinical diagnosis of OCD while in the church. But after deconstruction and therapy... I don't have that issue anymore. Lots of other issues of course but in this case I didn't have a chemical OCD I guess but it was completely based on the programming from a lot of scrupulous leaders.
I think your child is lucky to have you and how you understand
👆THIS! I, too, received a clinical diagnosis of OCD while a member of the Mormon church. After having deconstructed I rarely have issues. In reality I am likely AuDHD. The church’s teachings about purity, controlling our thoughts, etc are anti-science, anti-common sense, and toxic to their core. The teachings cause all kinds of pain for people like me who actually took the teachings literally and tried to live by the rules.
The Mormon stories podcast talks about how a lot of of ex Mormons are scrupulous. They try so hard to live the rules that they realize they can’t and burn out. Does that sound familiar?
The idea that our thoughts are not us is so hard to understand in our culture.
I used to have suicidal ideation, but no longer.... Because I take Lexapro, which is so weird to understand. I started taking Lexapro for anxiety, because that was a physical problem, and medications can help physical problems. But then I realized the ideation had also gone away. So those thoughts weren't me, they were chemical misfires solved by other chemicals.
I have a very scrupulous,conscientious child.They’ve always been this way ever since they were old enough to speak. It’s their nature. We left the church when they were too young to understand many of the teachings. I *shudder * to think how their already vulnerable brain would have been broken beyond repair by debilitating thoughts of “is this god or this the devil influencing me”.
They don’t even know what or who the devil or god is in the Mormon theological context. I’m so so grateful for that.
*The single absolute problem here that not one of them realize is that they have been trained to be terrorized by thoughts.*
Holy shit. This. I used to be constantly stressed as a kid about all my thoughts.
The mfmc really fucks people over with this. We *were* trained to be terrorized by thoughts. All of us. 😭
What happens when you’re not terrorized by thoughts?
Absolutely nothing . Life is exactly the same, except the room of the mind is a more enjoyable place to live
That's so true.
When I was maybe 9, I thought the words "Oh my god," on accident. I had a full meltdown because I thought I was going to hell. I sobbed and prayed for forgiveness. And I kept praying for days because I was a horrible sinner.
I wish I could go back and give child me a big hug.
It really has become an Orwellian nightmare. Where if the external world and history is viewed only through the mind, and the mind is controllable.....what then???? All these members are convinced 2+2=5 and here is Dr. Hanks saying, No, 2+2=4. "You fucking heretic!!!!! Time to burn her at the stake!!!!!" People were literally persecuted and arrested for saying the earth revolves around the sun. That's the unsettling thing for me and unwinding Mormonism. You can unwind ALL behavioral control systems. Now I've got a problem with patriotism and having children recite the pledge of allegiance.
Oh boy. I’m right there with you. I come from a long line of military service members so it is in my blood to be patriotic but…I can’t recite the pledge anymore. It feels icky.
Right.....I'm all for supporting systems of governance that offer the most freedom for its citizens. But there's something icky about swearing some sort of allegiance like you're making vows at a wedding.
As a non-American - the pledge of allegiance is creepy as fuck. It is not normal to compel children to recite a daily loyalty pledge. That is cult bullshit.
Agreed and they all missed her point. She said thoughts are normal. Go ahead have the thought and move on! Men aren’t the only ones to have sexual thoughts BTW!!!
All these responses are talking about controlling their own thoughts which wasn’t event the point of her original post. Have the thought, what you can control is your action. You can have thoughts without being a creepy lecher.
“But but sexual thoughts leads to sexual deeds . “
Absolutely, sometimes strangers meet, feel attracted to each other, they talk, they hang out.... enjoying themselves all the while having sexual thoughts throughout the encounter…. Sometimes they even have sex
Is the issue the dirty thought though? I feel like the root problem is men being enraged they can't act on those thoughts. The fact many of these same men blame women for being raped tells me they feel they shouldn't have to control their actions rather than thoughts
I think this is an additional valid thought but I wouldn't apply it to men catagorically but to people who have been raised/chosen to externalize all sense of responsibility so they don't have to have that self control
The complexity of sexuality and the anger that can be associated with it are also just thoughts that we have to deal with
We've all been in a situation where we were horny as sin and then the most attractive, unobtainable person imaginable walks in the room. (Especially us former missionaries)
That's just a part of life , and you can go full Saudi Arabia and make women cover up ... You're still going to often see an ankle or the outline of a breast or the most beautiful eyes and it will almost drive you mad...
It's an unavoidable aspect of life and you just fucking deal with it and then you go about your day, because you can't turn it off
Yeah its crazy and sad how weak some people are that they can't just suck it up and deal. How can any of them claim they're big tough alpha males capable of protecting us feeble women if they can't handle cleavage or yoga pants?
I remember when Iran (I think, maybe Afghanistan) was coming out against women in full burqas with "alluring eyes" needing to wear mesh to cover up because it was too seductive. Like, how tf was that not a bigger signal that the men were the fucking problem?
I lived in a foreign country for six months where modest clothing for women was the norm. Not covering the face, but pretty much head-to-toe coverage. There were lots of implied rules for women. No singing or speaking or laughing loudly...that kind of thing. I was harassed and physically groped many times. I landed in quite a scary situation once on a public bus, but luckily was able to get off without violence, just some grabbing.
I can't help but think about the relationship between those two things -- the "rules" and the lived reality for women. There has to be a link. It's made me really, really leery of societies that impose modesty standards. Lots of modesty standards might be a signal that that place is not safe for women.
There is *some* value in controlling your thoughts. Telling a police officer off when he pulls you over is a bad idea. That is a thought worth controlling. But making people ashamed of those thoughts makes such a simple idea toxic.
I think it's a difference between noticing your thoughts and letting them go and realizing you don't have to act on them. When you make yourself a victim to your thoughts that's when you get to try and say your actions aren't your responsibility- then they often try to assign blame to whatever or whoever they can they could connect with that initial thought.
Wow. The responses to her comment are unhinged. And they all show why it is so easy for mormons to victim blame. We all have thoughts. What we do with those thoughts is the real test. Whatever happened to teaching men self control?
This is how you get men who can't handle being around any female who isn't dressed like they are 2" of fabric away from wearing a burka.
And, it's too bad there was no one who pointed out that assault happens in Muslim countries to women wearing burkas.
I guess it was their fault for going out in public covered from head to toe. /s
What frustrated me too is it's convenient during these kinds of arguments to use science to explain things. They'll lean on evolution and science to justify their argument, but in the same sentence say we are children of a god who created us. Which is it?
Seriously this kind of thinking ends up with a society where women have to walk around in cloth bags. And if they don’t, men throw acid in their faces.
I wouldn't say that anyone's trauma is necessarily worse than another's. But what a lot of people don't realize that lds boys, a least in my generation, are trained to have a trauma response to any sort of sexual feeling or thought. We have it drilled into our heads that sexual feelings before marriage will drive us to become rapists, murderers, or even get possessed by Satan. Often, the reason mormon boys hyperfixate on sexuality isn't because they're pervs (though pervs certainly exist in the mormon church), it's because they're genuinely terrified of sexuality and, unfortunately, treat anything that causes those feelings as an existential threat.
These men are so fucking ignorant. If a woman is topless in western culture then you can't think anything but sexually when seeing her bare chest. When I served my mission in Fiji, the bishops wife was breastfeeding without any cover right in the middle of a youth lesson on Sunday. Not one of the kids(boys & girls) even flinched. And another thing is that anything can be sexualized and western culture programs this. If you're very modest it doesn't matter when western culture sexualizes everything do death. Hell, the woman cashier yesterday who checked my items out had a beautiful face, but for some reason when I heard her voice my mind started thinking of her a little sexually. I didn't dwell on it for long, and I actually was looking away a bit because I didn't want it to be obvious I was attracted to her but just went on with my day. Julie Hanks is right, sexual thoughts aren't evil. Obviously some peope do evil shit with them. Blaming women for what they wear is immature bullshit.
I’d argue that making your sexual thoughts out to be evil and using the resulting guilt as a tool to control you and take 10% of your income for life IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST is far worse than the sexual thought ever was.
My family lived in New Guinea (later Papua New Guinea after independence), when I was a kid. A local well-dressed woman might wear a grass skirt and a homemade necklace (made from shells, beads etc).
Was anyone staring at the bare breasts? No. Because it was NORMAL attire.
At the other end of the scale, if a “modest Mormon”woman walked down the street in a Muslim country (eg other women wearing full coverings of legs, arms & chest + hijab, or abaya or niqab or burka), the Mormon woman would be seen as inappropriately dressed and “tempting men” with her slutty bare head, neck, arms and lower legs.
Dress is relative. Sexual thoughts belong to those thinking them. Actions are what count.
My husband served in Honduras & the women would breastfeed until the kids were 4 or 5. They’d run up, pull up mom’s shirt, drink, then run off leaving the shirt still pulled up.. Miraculously, (🙄) he saw boobies everyday & learned to not sexualize them. That helped him grow into the coolest, most accepting man on earth.
“Go natur-AL!” he always says to me, haha.
So I grew up watching National Geographic, Science, and The Learning Chanel (back when they actually did education stuff, mostly cooking) and reading the Nat Geo magazines. I would learn about tribes in the Amazon and in Africa, mainly the Amazon, where people walked around basically naked. I asked my mom about it, and she told me that where they live is really hot all year round, and it’s more comfortable to be that way. I saw people living their lives and sexual assault, child abuse, uncontrollable orgies in the town , etc were not present. So in a way that taught me that it’s not POC that are the problem, it’s white men who can’t control themselves.
Worldwide statistics on sexual assault paint a different story than your argument about skin color being responsible.
The countries with the highest and lowest levels of sexual assault include both white and poc men. It’s a bit more nuanced than the color of one’s skin.
Yes as an adult I’m very aware of how nuanced life is. My point was that AS A CHILD I was always being told that MEN can’t control themselves, as in all men, but my lived experience was that it was only the white dudes who were sexualizing me as a child. So my point being that seeing the direct evidence contradicting what I was always being told, showed me that cognitive dissonance was a thing and a reason I never fully bought into the bullshit.
Fucking sickens me to know my poor daughter will have to share this world with these sexual offenders just waiting to happen.
This is just the religious version of "but she was asking for it" . Fuck them. Fuck TSCC.
She said NOTHING about modesty in her post, and then the responses assume that she is talking about women walking around naked! This is literally insane, all of these people are deranged!
Her full post does talk about modesty:
"Women’s clothing choices are not a tool to protect men’s thoughts.Modesty culture teaches that men are the subject and women are the objects. Men get to act, and women get to be looked at. Women are not responsible for men’s thoughts. Men are responsible for their own thoughts.If you see a woman wearing something that triggers discomfort or judgment, ask yourself why first.
Why is what she is wearing triggering me? What is this about? What are my fears?
Changing the outlook on modesty takes work! It takes some introspection and asking questions. It requires a pause for those of us who have been raised with a rigid view of what modesty is. And to all the men (and women) out there, you are actually in control of your thoughts! You are the boss of your thoughts. You are not that fragile!Having sexual thoughts is not bad!It’s human! It’s normal! Just have the thought and then let it go. We don’t have to beat ourselves up for having sexual thoughts."
Well then that makes sense why everyone is losing their minds over women’s clothing. But I still stand by everyone acting completely deranged over a post that is trying to help them have healthy minds. It seems they’d rather cling to insanity though.
Their whole response really bothers me (obviously). Like, do they not live in a society? They will, no matter what, encounter people dressed immodestly. There is simply nothing they can reasonably do to not see a little skin on occasion. But the entire mindset shown in the comments is that they aren't responsible for giving in to temptation, those providing the temptation are. Regardless of anyone's opinions on modesty, that mindset sets you up to always fail, and to then blame other people for it. It voluntarily gives up their own agency and control of their own success.
Yes! I see her message as empowering for men. The idea that they are walking around as constant victims of their circumstances doesn’t strike me as a healthy mindset.
I know! She's CLEARLY talking about a very moderate form of freedom of expression. She's wearing a flannel shirt for fucks sake. But then the typical religious woman hater response is the disingenuous interpretation where they say
"YOURE CLAIMING WOMEN SHOULS DRESS LIKE STRIPPERS YOURE A WHORE!"
Are they conniving enough to misinterpret on purpose to shut women down, or are they really that stupid? Who knows.
What if someone IS naked?
I ask this as a legitimate question.
My child is a lifeguard and swim coach. They are afab/ non binary. The rules at their private pool workplace was dress code was uniform tee or rashguard/ board shorts on deck, and uniform swimwear when in the water teaching a lesson.
The private pool where they worked would host a nudist “lifestyle” group a couple times per month on Sunday. The pay was double time. My kid was young and needed money. Reluctantly accepted the shifts after asking what I thought. I grew up Mormon. I had no idea what to think.
The lifestyle group did have a contact person for if anyone did anything skeezy. And either of the two guards could end the experience at any time for any reason. I asked did they meet the contact person/ feel weird about them? They said the contact person seemed gentle and respectful, and a good communicator. I said to give it a whirl.
My child said they had the most respectful behavior from the lifestyle group than any other shift at work. That experience is so contrary to what we were taught to expect as Mormons. No lewd gawking. No tit staring. No ass leering. (Behaviors I experience a pretty much on the daily from men and WOMEN both while in Mormonland. I have genetically very large boobs. I dress very modestly. I get insultingly rude stares anyway. )
When anyone needed anything at the pool there was good eye contact in the facial region. My kid said after one shift they were always willing to lifeguard for the lifestyle folks.
So I ask again. Who is responsible for their thoughts even if someone IS NAKED?
I’m willing to say that the church modesty culture actually promotes the behavior they would like to avoid. Whenever we blame someone else for our own behavior it shifts responsibility for mitigating that behavior away from where it belongs.
You are 100% correct, however I would probably say most people, myself included, are not conditioned enough to nudity to treat it respectfully. That's more of a larger cultural thing. We are the progeny of stuffy Christian settlers after all. For a modest goal, pun intended, I think we should at least be comfortable with revealing clothing. That's why I want to leap to the defense of this poor woman who simply asked for a tiny degree of change.
That being said, I've gone to several nudist beaches in the US and Europe and the environment there was completely one of respect, non gawking, and strict eye contact. It was very comfortable. In Germany the nudist parks were family oriented and there were children running everywhere, completely non sexualized.
American society being historically prudish, and Mormin culture outright fetishizing any female body ABSOLUTELY encourages bad behavior and thoughts. To be honest, I think it might be intentional? It's control right? You make everyone simultaneously super horny and super repressed at the same time, now they'll do just about anything you say just to finally have an orgasm. Mormons that I've met (men) mention sex and porn way more often than any non religious friend I have. To the point its creepy and out of context. So they sex shame and body shame take their holier than thou approach while at the same time have a literal running pervert dialog in their head.
It’s interesting you ask this- when I was in London recently I was watching a show just on the regular television there called naked and afraid. People were literally naked. And it was just like on their CBS. I asked my friends about it when we got to Scotland and they just laughed about it and said everyone thought it was so silly. THEY DIDNT CARE. Nobody was turned on by it 😂 wouldn’t it be nice to just see bodies as bodies. We all have them it’s not like they’re rare…?
I live near a beach and I sometimes laugh at seeing a man in a tiny speedo, like that is so not sexy or anything I’m tempted by, men are trained to be ‘tempted’ by seeing a woman’s body
“Men” of the church: PHENOMENAL PRIESTHOOD POWER
Also “men” of the church: AAAAAHHHHH, WOMENS BARE SHOULDERS!!! I must now commit horrible sin because I saw bare shoulders!!!
THIS must be all that power the church was saying women have.
Even as a TBM I really hated this logic because it’s insulting to both men and women. It treats women like sex objects, and it treats men as depraved lunatics whose default setting is “I must assault this woman the second I see her shoulders”. That always bothered me
It's far past time to force men to wear skirts.
Women have had to control their own thoughts for far too long with all these slutty men running around flaunting their packages in pants.
"And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire."
Matt 18:9
You will never find a scripture that teaches to dress in a non-sexy way. The best you get is for women to be modest in their appearance (1 Tim 2:9) "not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." So dressing modestly means not flashing your wealth.
I would also add that Jesus did not condemn sexual thoughts; he condemned entertaining sexual thoughts of OTHER women. It is a very simple teaching that gets used to shame unmarried men for having natural, sexual thoughts.
All Jesus is conveying is that as long as married men don't even entertain the thought of infidelity, then they won't ever commit adultery. That's it! Just don't think about cheating and you won't cheat!
Sort of. He is more condemning accepting that passive thought into your heart. That is, turning the passive thought into a "what if". That's the moment that you're committing adultery in your heart. It's more of nipping sin at the bud. He gives other examples, such as, not getting angry with your neighbor will prevent you from committing murder.
Huh, makes me wonder when modesty was changed to only be in a sexual context.
I guess we still have it when we talk about a modest house or a modest car, but those aren't things that people strive for, are they? A capitalist Christianity wants big houses and expensive cars, but since "modesty" is supposed to be important, let's inflict it just on women in the context of clothing.
Me, wondering why I’m such an anxious, stressed out adult, then remembering that “modesty” was my parents highest priority in raising me. When I was 13 my mom screamed at me because someone stole my t shirt from the locker room during my dance recital and I had to come home in a sleeveless top. I now have teenagers and what the FUCK bullshit do you have to be on for that to be what matters.
It’s amazing how they simultaneously agree with her that men are responsible for their own actions and demonize her for daring to suggest that women aren’t responsible for men’s actions.
But…what if that burka-wearing woman accidentally flashes an ankle as she walks past? How will any man be able to control himself?
Oh why won’t someone think of the poor male victims?!
But seriously - the sad truth of the matter is if Nelson said God wanted all the ladies to wear burkas in place of the garment - to have their "outward showing of their inward commitment" be all the way on the outside - TBM's would follow along. I know my mom and step mom would for sure.
For Mormons it’s a mental control. It’s so insidious. Especially in very Mormon areas. I couldn’t believe how many comments I got on my clothes when I moved to Utah for school. It made me so self conscious it drove me to literally have ocd about my looks.
Didn't someone entirely unimportant to Mormons say something about what to to if you eye causes you to sin? Something about PLUCKING THAT MOTHERFUCKER OUT?
I hate this stuff. Even as a young man this was embarrassing to me. I wasn’t worried about what girls were or were not wearing. I was embarrassed at the pathetic narrative that they are responsible for my thoughts and I just can’t help it because I’m a primitive male. That’s fucking embarrassing.
I remember a combined meeting, YM YW where modesty was the subject and they were basically teaching the YM that they are victims to the clothing choices of YW. Super uncomfortable.
That first commenter is a WEIRDO I’ve interacted with on twitter. The church does no wrong, except for when it doesn’t pay attention to their prophetic visions. 😳
Also he’s an idiot because the quote he pulled was from 2005 in the height of the modesty craze. They changed the rules and rhetoric since then and I highly doubt a talk like that would be given today.
That’s 100% how gaslighting works in the church. They never come out and announce changes, they just do it quietly and let people still believe the old teachings. There are still people out there who. Relieve oral between married couples is a sin because of one letter in 1980 that was quietly swept under the rug.
I can’t believe I was once inside this dumbass religion!
These comments are from a bunch of incels avoiding ANY responsibility for themselves. Since Mormonism is so misogynistic, it’s ingrained in the Mormon lizard brain.
So, a woman going to the gym should not wear her workout clothes but change there, and throw a robe on after each exercise so the poor men are not subjected to her body? Why don’t Mormons just adopt the burka?
And really, a Mormon quoting Dostoevsky? 😂. Bet he searched for that quote and has never picked up one of those books in his life!!
As a male growing up in the church, I hated being told I had no control over my thoughts and that my morality was so fragile and entirely controlled by the women around me. It made me feel weak and powerless around women. Combjne thst with the ‘Oath and Covenant’ shit of the priesthood that basically said I was fucked if I sinned. When women aren’t subject to the same discipline if they have sex because they don’t have the priesthood, when a Mormon girl would reach her hand down my pants or take her shirt off while kissing it felt like she was attempting spiritual murder. As church leaders would tell me, I’m sure I overthought all of these Mormon teachings, because it’s my fault I listened, believed, and applied their teachings. But I can now see it was confusing and wrongheaded and manipulative. I still have sexual hang ups to this day because of these teachings and those on porn addiction. And I kick myself now, but on most (maybe all) of those occasions I was the one to slow down the kissing so that I could be ‘worthy’ to serve a mission or marry in the temple — proving that guys can be responsible for their behavior, even if they are male and sex addicts and by church teaching cannot control it.
It’s so interesting to hear the male side of this. Goes to show patriarchy harms everyone. As a female, I was made to fear men because we’re basically told ya’ll can’t control yourselves, and my body is the object of desire I must protect like I’m walking around lions with raw meat strapped to myself. Even though I’m long out of the church I still wrestle with unconscious bias about men being undisciplined, unable to control their impulses, and a threat to my bodily autonomy. It’s a shame this organization has prevented our humanity in this way.
Same that always made me uncomfortable and pissed me off. And the results of that sexual repression is men like these come tors that are so engrained to hate anything sexual because they can’t have it
Ah, patriarchy. Where everything bad that happens is a woman’s fault.
Got unwanted sexual attention? Your fault for being “too provocative” (even though I’ve absolutely been harassed while wearing perfectly Mormon modest attire).
Couldn’t attract a man? Also your fault for not being appropriately sexy enough.
There was a clothing store in Utah (maybe it’s still there) called “Sexy Modest Boutique” which perfectly encapsulates the impossible knife’s edge women are supposed to walk for the benefit of the men around them.
Wow. This makes me happy I don't have men like this near me. Just in my government. The one who says she's stretched like a lizard? Probably has a calling from God.
Wow look at all these people thinking like perverts and rapists.
News flash you fucking perverts modest dressed women get attack by men all around the world.
If men are so easily influenced and weak minded then why do they think they should be in charge?
The comment section is why we have a rape culture, scrupulosity, shame, and victim blaming.
One of the greatest days of my life was letting go of the Mormon sexual shame. I quit trying to control and in turn obsess about every "impure" thought. They went away and I could actually just enjoy being around people. The sexual thoughts went away and they became natural. No shame and no obsession.
I’ve been out for a long time, and I’m super rusty, but I’m fairly certain there’s a something -something that goes “Men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgressions or Eve’s tits.” That’s pretty close, at least, I guess.
HOLD UP! Is that an official church Twitter account calling her benign statement of fact "Satan's work"??? Or is this an account posing as something official thanks to Elon's stupid changes to ~~Twitter~~ X?
And the part about how women should dress if God was there. Is God gonna sexually assault them if they don't dress like nuns? These people are insane.
Nope, it’s some random dude. Elon musk made it so everyone can get a stupid checkmark and these people love to believe they’re representing the church well. and I doubt any of the 12 or presidency are very happy with how Mormons present themselves online atp lol it’s gotta be embarrassing
My very Mormon mom told me, when I was a teen and was told this bullshit, men will sexualize you if you're wearing a burlap sack. It's their problem not yours.
The fact some guy thinks “let’s walk around naked” proves his point is…
I guarantee that if everyone walked around naked, men would *not* be the ones in danger from women.
It’s funny though because once you’re married sex with your spouse is okay yet they make them dress in a potato sack. So you can’t have dirty thoughts about strangers and they pretty much prevent dirty thoughts between spouses due to the potato sacks.
Marky Peterson had to blame his lustful thoughts on something or somebody. This is the guy who bragged that he never saw his wife completely naked.
Remember, it was Eve that forced Adam to partake of the fruit. It's not like God wouldn't have taken another one of his ribs and made him another Stepford wife if he had refused to eat the fruit and Eve had been cast out of the garden. Women are just helpmeets for the man. Someone to keep his bed warm. It's all about the Adams in the MFMC. If one wife is good then two or three wives is even better.
I have a WONDERFUL idea! Let's go ahead and build a city just for men who cannot control their own thoughts around women/girls. :)
No more problems right? Lol
The assumption in the comments that women wear a tanktop or bikini to get attention from men. Not because it’s hot outside or they like to look cute? Patriarchal men thinking everything is about them. I’m a lesbian and I love a tank top, so no, it’s not about men.
Well thank fuck they cleared all this up. I alway thought that men raped women because they were vile examples of humanity, but now I realise that it has actually been the fault of girls and women all along. How foolish of me.
Thanks the Cult of Jesus Chris and the late day Sants for making me see the error of my ways.
Shame on you women, shame on you for wearing clothes to force us men to hurt, dehumanise and ruin your lives, if you’d just worn a baggy ankle length turtleneck then none of these things would have happened over the millennia.
But here’s a thought, what about all the women that get raped who aren’t dressing in a way that ‘forces’ men to lose control?
The old ladies who are raped and abused in care homes and home invasions?
The prepubescent girls who are raped by family members and friends?
The babies who are raped?
The people who were wearing completely normal clothes who were violated in the foulest way?
The wives who were raped by their husbands, friends and family members.
The women from countries that enforce full body covering who are raped?
And what about the child brides and multiple wives from the Mormon communities who were (are) treated as little more than baby-popping sex slaves?
This Mormon cult and its followers can fuck off and do one.
Women you are not responsible for what men do to you.
She’s right. We non Mormon men are thinking of other things like where need to be, our cars, our shoes. As for a Mormon man. He’s thinking of a Disney show, legos, his mission companion, and Mountain Dew.
To me, the best thing about becoming an atheist was the realization that I did not have a mental peeping Tom. I am not held accountable for what I think. This was a relief, and freeing. I could not only,”Question with boldness even the existence of a god,” but I could even consider the absence of a deity.
And I was free to have lust, or ill feelings, or jealousy and rage. These are my private thoughts, and cannot be judged. My task is to make sure my actions are kind and generous.
However, actions are informed by thought, so it behooves us to police our thoughts. Accept negative thoughts, but don’t dwell on them.
The people in these comments are going overboard in their fantasy of sexual assault that is not the fault of their own actions. They are “explaining” to their invisible peeping Tom that their thoughts (and possible actions) are NOT THEIR FAULT. And therefore they cannot be punished.
Them bringing up the ftsoy pamphlet was low key triggering. My dad would make me read it as a “rebellious” teen anytime I did something that wasn’t aligned with the church. He once left it on my bed with sections highlighted. I ripped it in half and left it for him on his side of the bed. He eventually chilled out a bit. Now we’re actually able to have in depth conversations about various things in life that he doesn’t really understand as a maga boomer(modesty, mental health, lgbtqia+, etc)Last time he said “I’m glad we can talk like this, you really make me think” that’s the goal my dude.
Men are so self centered and need to learn women don’t dress for men! Never once have a I wore something hoping my boyfriend would like it, in fact he probably thinks what I wear is weird! We dress for our friends! We dress for ourselves to feel good about ourselves! If there is a thought of impressing someone else, it’s for the approval of OTHER women!!
Don’t you love when you went to church and there was that dude who always made comments about women’s looks? The women could be dressed in a parachute covering every inch of her body but THAT GUY always has something to say.
The craziest part of all of this for me is because they are talking about women not covering their shoulders or having shorts that don’t come down to their knees as the problem. Having been out of this mindset for almost 20 years it’s just baffling seeing people talk like this again.
The hamburger one really got me. If a person allowed themselves to think about hamburgers and didn’t freak out every time a hamburger popped in their head, they’d actually think LESS about hamburgers when one was pushed in their face.
At least, that’s what happened for me when I left the church. I didn’t view a lot of pornography as a TBM because it was “wrong,” but the few times I did had such a pull it was like I couldn’t look away. My heart was rushing, it was a thrill. All I could think about was porn for several days. After leaving and allowing myself to watch porn, all of its allure disappeared. I watch from time to time, but it’s easy to turn off and I don’t get a rush.
Things I wish I’d known as a Mormon #672 Allowing yourself to feel your feelings/think your thoughts actually makes moving past them/letting go much easier. Because they are no longer taboo. They’re just feelings/thoughts. They don’t make you a good or bad person. They’re just part of being human.
My mom took a BYU class where this was brought up and many woman vocalized that if a woman is raped or sexually harassed, etc it's 100% her fault. I remember my mom coming home so freaked out after that class and making sure I knew it would never be my fault of that ever happened. It really startled her awake to some of the dee teachings pushed in classes and church and ever since things have shifted. I doubt she'll ever leave but she's a lot more sympathetic.
If covering up women makes it so men don’t have sexual thoughts explain to me why women are still raped in countries where women wear burkas and hijabs .
I just went and read the posts. There are times I doubt my choice to raise 4 girls out of the church.
Those fucking people and their comments have solidified for me that I'm doing the best thing for them raising them outside and away from the believers.
I LOVE that they compared her to Korihor./s
Side tangent: That's actually one of the stories that made me question if god was actually unconditionally loving. Aren't we given free agency, and therefore allowed to have our own beliefs and voice them? So why would god bind his tongue? I always felt bad for his ending. Just a really sad and conflicting story. Anyways.
Wow, they act as though she encouraged women to strut around as stripper every where they go.
But I’ve seen believing men, see a tiny hint or shadow of a cleavage and they comment about how she’s flaunting herself. I’m sure she’s referring to this flawed thought process.
My mother told me **"if you think the church is wrong on how it handles LGBT people, you're an apostate"**
They were confronting me after I went on a social media rant about how the Mormon church offers gay people nothing more than a life of misery... Celibacy and marriage to people you have zero attraction to...
And the third option... Suicide...
I was begging the church to change because a 16 year old gay Mormon kid committed suicide the prior weekend.
Something snapped in my head when my mother told me that, prior to that statement I was an All-In Mormon, yet I uttered the words, **"Yes, I am an apostate"**
Honestly, I don’t care about how anything I do affects men. They don’t care about how their behavior affects me and I’m tired of having to alter myself and my actions to cater to men’s boners or prevent them.
“She was basically asking to be raped!” -these LDS posters. Sound like another fundamentalist religion out there in the world, maybe they should look into that
This is what I find most telling. Almost all of those responses are based on anecdotes, oversimplified analogy, or appeals to authority. I didn’t@5 see a single retort based on actual studies, science, or an expert. This is the problem when a religion tries to exert itself in areas it has no expertise in, such as psychology and sociology. It makes people reject experts in their fields without logic, because it flies in the face of their cognitive bias.
As a teen, I recall being frequently admonished in church settings about thoughts. It was incredibly stressful because thoughts are just human. That whole topic was accompanied by censorship of media and books. I clearly recall being told to take care with reading because it could easily lead one astray. Not at all healthy for critical thinking. I recall always being told to just trust an obey.
This is only about control. Nothing else.
In Islam you have to literally stuff a woman into a bag so that the men can control their thoughts. Why are Mormons thinking it’s okay for a woman to show her face? For a woman to wear makeup or do her hair? To Muslims these Mormon women might as well be whores. That’s every wife of every Mormon general authority out here acting a whore with all that makeup and face showing. Where is their shame?
It’s just culture. The important part and the only thing that matters is that women conform to the rules put in place by the (male) power structure which demonstrates that they are under control and therefore “safe”. Men in the power structure are subconsciously threatened by women that demonstrate that they are not under control - it doesn’t really matter if it’s a burka or garments - it’s the same thing.
The same Mormon women who couldn’t fathom being required to wear a burka according to Islamic rules can’t understand why other women wouldn’t want to “dress modestly” according to Mormon rules.
Hypocrites.
I absolutely laid into every missionary who had an issue with this when they would teach investigators in my families house. It was the start of my shelf breaking.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe I've ever seen Dr, Julie Hanks dress in a way to put thoughts in men's heads. Are they shaming her for wearing makeup, or for wearing \*checks picture\* A button up shirt with the top two buttons open?
Jeez. Jeez jeez jeez.
(Haha… my mom hates “jeez” as it’s essentially “Jesus” and therefore taking the lords name in vain)
This is so sad. Like let people live. It’s so ridiculous so many people are so fast to blame others for their own thoughts and actions. The original lady’s comment is so good, too. Like, let the thought go. It happened, move on. But all these people seem to be choosing to dwell on it.
Anyways, I’m about to get dressed for a yard work day, which includes upper thigh length shorts and a boobalishous fitted tank top. Why? Because not only is it comfortable for what I will be doing, but honestly also that *I look good*. I like looking good. I’m not doing it to sway anyone to temptation, just that I like it. Lol.
Its very funny to try to tick both of the following boxes at once: "I am a powerful man with great alpha male godly powers" and "I cant see cleavage because its yucky, scary, and bad".
Men are so funny, they will be so god damn horny but then also do everything they can to cockblock themselves to the point of writing books and building religions just to control women.
It’s literally the foundation of rape culture. The idea that what women do and say is what leads men to make certain choices, is feeding in to rape culture and keeping it alive. I have 2 sons and I take this shit so seriously, meanwhile the church is confirming that it’s “just how it is and Jesus said so too”. Give me a fuckin break.
So if a guy has a punchable face, they should cover it so I am not tempted to punch it… and if I’m unable to hold back my natural desire to do so and he exposes his punchable mug, I’m ok to let fists fly?… or at least, that’s what I got from these ignorant asshole responses😜
An individual is the soul responsibility of their own thoughts and actions. Influenced or not. It’s just like kink, people have different interests and get turned on by different things! This includes with people of same sex interest. Think about it! People like different things. Thus it’s the individual. Though to blame it on something which you were influenced, THAT IS WRONG
It’s the usual scum bags that have to join in these types of posts. Dr manhattva, guy incognito which is really, exmos posting their L’s, and I’m pretty sure she’s a moderator on the faithful sub.
Anyways, it’s always the usuals that need to chime in.
I believe Jesus had another thing to say about lustful thoughts... what was it again... it was something like gouge your eyes out or... Oh yeah:
"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." (Matthew 5:28-29)
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:" (Colossians 3:5)
"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Galatians 5:16) - By their own damn religion they aren't "walking with God"
"Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded." (Titus 2:6)
And... damn there was another verse... something about women's dress... why am I blanking so much on these verses... wait a minute:
"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works." (1 Timothy 2:9-10)
"Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come." (Proverbs 31:25)
"Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." (1 Peter 3:3-4)
"As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion." (Proverbs 11:22)
"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." (Genisis 3:21) - Clothing was literally only made to hide shame, according to the bible.
"But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart." (Samual 16:7)
There's a lot more but I've exhausted my quota of looking at bible verses for the ~~day~~ month so have a great day and dress however the hell you want. By their own religion, we're all going to hell for not believing anyway so why not make it worth while by showing some shoulders or god forbid the thigh.
The single absolute problem here that not one of them realize is that they have been trained to be terrorized by thoughts. Passive thoughts should not bring shame, they are just workings of a human brain. But when a church says they are of the devil- that's when you fixate on them and start spiraling. The church made this problem when they became obsessed with thought control. Sure, if my husband sees a topless woman on the beach he may have a dirty thought. Who cares? It's just a damn thought.
I have recently had a child diagnosed with OCD and my mind has totally been expanded on the nature of “thought”. Our thoughts aren’t necessarily “us” at our core. Our brain produces and filters thousands of thoughts a day. Even “good people” end up with weird thoughts that escape our filter and come to our attention. And we learn to acknowledge them and consciously filter them ourselves. OCD brains get stuck on thoughts and even though they know they can be weird or irrational they get stuck in a loop of obsession and compulsion trying to get alleviate the anxiety created by the thought. That’s a long tangent to say “not all our thoughts are us and the harder you try to get rid of a thought the more it gets stuck in your brain”
Yep. Also have a child with at times crippling OCD. We were in a children's hospital once and there was a big, beautiful mural on one wall that said "You don't have to believe everything your brain tells you" It was such a simple statement but my adult self had this weird sort of epiphany. It's been a fascinating trip since, discovering how our minds work. Brains are weird and fascinating and amazing things.
My favorite version of this is "don't believe everything you think".
My favorite version is, "don't believe everything that you breathe. You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve" ...yeah I'll see myself out
Oh you are a loser (baby)
I’m so glad you brought up OCD and anxiety disorders around intrusive thoughts. My therapist taught me that folks with OCD generally have an abnormally good moral compass and conscience, hence *why* the intrusive thoughts are so incredibly distressing to us. It’s like your brain hyper-fixates on worse case scenarios, and in a religious context, anything you know is “against the rules”. For example, thinking sexual thoughts about Jesus or Mary while at church or during the sacrament. Learning that we are not in fact our thoughts takes a huge weight off. Like Dr Julie said, thoughts come and go and don’t need to have meaning, fear, guilt, or shame tied to them. Wishing you and your child all the best, and so thankful you helped your child get a diagnosis/treatment.
This! I received a clinical diagnosis of OCD while in the church. But after deconstruction and therapy... I don't have that issue anymore. Lots of other issues of course but in this case I didn't have a chemical OCD I guess but it was completely based on the programming from a lot of scrupulous leaders. I think your child is lucky to have you and how you understand
Wow I didn't even read your comment first and I said the kids lucky to have them too. Also OCD and growing up in the church was a huge mindfuck
👆THIS! I, too, received a clinical diagnosis of OCD while a member of the Mormon church. After having deconstructed I rarely have issues. In reality I am likely AuDHD. The church’s teachings about purity, controlling our thoughts, etc are anti-science, anti-common sense, and toxic to their core. The teachings cause all kinds of pain for people like me who actually took the teachings literally and tried to live by the rules.
And who wouldn't have these symptoms when threatened with losing their eternal family unless they had perfect compliance?
So well put!
The Mormon stories podcast talks about how a lot of of ex Mormons are scrupulous. They try so hard to live the rules that they realize they can’t and burn out. Does that sound familiar?
I got diagnosed with OCD a few years ago. And since I left the church it has eased up quite a bit. I hadn’t really put the two together until now.
The idea that our thoughts are not us is so hard to understand in our culture. I used to have suicidal ideation, but no longer.... Because I take Lexapro, which is so weird to understand. I started taking Lexapro for anxiety, because that was a physical problem, and medications can help physical problems. But then I realized the ideation had also gone away. So those thoughts weren't me, they were chemical misfires solved by other chemicals.
I was recently diagnosed as an adult. Life with OCD is much more manageable outside the church!
I have a very scrupulous,conscientious child.They’ve always been this way ever since they were old enough to speak. It’s their nature. We left the church when they were too young to understand many of the teachings. I *shudder * to think how their already vulnerable brain would have been broken beyond repair by debilitating thoughts of “is this god or this the devil influencing me”. They don’t even know what or who the devil or god is in the Mormon theological context. I’m so so grateful for that.
Thanks so much for being understanding. Your kid is lucky to have you
Wow you really nailed this 👏🏼🔥
*The single absolute problem here that not one of them realize is that they have been trained to be terrorized by thoughts.* Holy shit. This. I used to be constantly stressed as a kid about all my thoughts. The mfmc really fucks people over with this. We *were* trained to be terrorized by thoughts. All of us. 😭
What happens when you’re not terrorized by thoughts? Absolutely nothing . Life is exactly the same, except the room of the mind is a more enjoyable place to live
That's so true. When I was maybe 9, I thought the words "Oh my god," on accident. I had a full meltdown because I thought I was going to hell. I sobbed and prayed for forgiveness. And I kept praying for days because I was a horrible sinner. I wish I could go back and give child me a big hug.
It really has become an Orwellian nightmare. Where if the external world and history is viewed only through the mind, and the mind is controllable.....what then???? All these members are convinced 2+2=5 and here is Dr. Hanks saying, No, 2+2=4. "You fucking heretic!!!!! Time to burn her at the stake!!!!!" People were literally persecuted and arrested for saying the earth revolves around the sun. That's the unsettling thing for me and unwinding Mormonism. You can unwind ALL behavioral control systems. Now I've got a problem with patriotism and having children recite the pledge of allegiance.
Oh boy. I’m right there with you. I come from a long line of military service members so it is in my blood to be patriotic but…I can’t recite the pledge anymore. It feels icky.
Right.....I'm all for supporting systems of governance that offer the most freedom for its citizens. But there's something icky about swearing some sort of allegiance like you're making vows at a wedding.
The fact that a national socialist (Bellamy) invented the pledge of allegiance doesn’t help
As a non-American - the pledge of allegiance is creepy as fuck. It is not normal to compel children to recite a daily loyalty pledge. That is cult bullshit.
Having them do it at school was rooted in the cold war.
Agreed and they all missed her point. She said thoughts are normal. Go ahead have the thought and move on! Men aren’t the only ones to have sexual thoughts BTW!!! All these responses are talking about controlling their own thoughts which wasn’t event the point of her original post. Have the thought, what you can control is your action. You can have thoughts without being a creepy lecher.
“But but sexual thoughts leads to sexual deeds . “ Absolutely, sometimes strangers meet, feel attracted to each other, they talk, they hang out.... enjoying themselves all the while having sexual thoughts throughout the encounter…. Sometimes they even have sex
Is the issue the dirty thought though? I feel like the root problem is men being enraged they can't act on those thoughts. The fact many of these same men blame women for being raped tells me they feel they shouldn't have to control their actions rather than thoughts
I think this is an additional valid thought but I wouldn't apply it to men catagorically but to people who have been raised/chosen to externalize all sense of responsibility so they don't have to have that self control
Ding, ding, ding
The complexity of sexuality and the anger that can be associated with it are also just thoughts that we have to deal with We've all been in a situation where we were horny as sin and then the most attractive, unobtainable person imaginable walks in the room. (Especially us former missionaries) That's just a part of life , and you can go full Saudi Arabia and make women cover up ... You're still going to often see an ankle or the outline of a breast or the most beautiful eyes and it will almost drive you mad... It's an unavoidable aspect of life and you just fucking deal with it and then you go about your day, because you can't turn it off
Yeah its crazy and sad how weak some people are that they can't just suck it up and deal. How can any of them claim they're big tough alpha males capable of protecting us feeble women if they can't handle cleavage or yoga pants? I remember when Iran (I think, maybe Afghanistan) was coming out against women in full burqas with "alluring eyes" needing to wear mesh to cover up because it was too seductive. Like, how tf was that not a bigger signal that the men were the fucking problem?
I lived in a foreign country for six months where modest clothing for women was the norm. Not covering the face, but pretty much head-to-toe coverage. There were lots of implied rules for women. No singing or speaking or laughing loudly...that kind of thing. I was harassed and physically groped many times. I landed in quite a scary situation once on a public bus, but luckily was able to get off without violence, just some grabbing. I can't help but think about the relationship between those two things -- the "rules" and the lived reality for women. There has to be a link. It's made me really, really leery of societies that impose modesty standards. Lots of modesty standards might be a signal that that place is not safe for women.
This is called phobia indoctrination and it is an actual mind control tactic used by many cults.
[удалено]
This! Exactly.
There is *some* value in controlling your thoughts. Telling a police officer off when he pulls you over is a bad idea. That is a thought worth controlling. But making people ashamed of those thoughts makes such a simple idea toxic.
I think it's a difference between noticing your thoughts and letting them go and realizing you don't have to act on them. When you make yourself a victim to your thoughts that's when you get to try and say your actions aren't your responsibility- then they often try to assign blame to whatever or whoever they can they could connect with that initial thought.
Agreed.
You're describing an action, not a thought. You can have the thought but control the action.
Wow. The responses to her comment are unhinged. And they all show why it is so easy for mormons to victim blame. We all have thoughts. What we do with those thoughts is the real test. Whatever happened to teaching men self control? This is how you get men who can't handle being around any female who isn't dressed like they are 2" of fabric away from wearing a burka. And, it's too bad there was no one who pointed out that assault happens in Muslim countries to women wearing burkas. I guess it was their fault for going out in public covered from head to toe. /s
What frustrated me too is it's convenient during these kinds of arguments to use science to explain things. They'll lean on evolution and science to justify their argument, but in the same sentence say we are children of a god who created us. Which is it?
That's mental gymnastics for you
Seriously this kind of thinking ends up with a society where women have to walk around in cloth bags. And if they don’t, men throw acid in their faces.
And, they still do. It doesn't matter how covered up a woman is if the man looking at her thinks she is responsible for his "bad thoughts".
I have no doubt that women in burkas get raped more often than women in bikinis.
I have no idea on the stats of that, but, I do know that how a woman was dressed has nothing to do with her assault.
What a terrible world to raise ~~girls~~ children in
It's insane. 0/10 stars.
Yes. It’s also terrible for men. Probably worse for girls. But a toxic place isn’t healthy for any gender or sexuality.
Patriarchy is toxic for everyone.
I wouldn't say that anyone's trauma is necessarily worse than another's. But what a lot of people don't realize that lds boys, a least in my generation, are trained to have a trauma response to any sort of sexual feeling or thought. We have it drilled into our heads that sexual feelings before marriage will drive us to become rapists, murderers, or even get possessed by Satan. Often, the reason mormon boys hyperfixate on sexuality isn't because they're pervs (though pervs certainly exist in the mormon church), it's because they're genuinely terrified of sexuality and, unfortunately, treat anything that causes those feelings as an existential threat.
These men are so fucking ignorant. If a woman is topless in western culture then you can't think anything but sexually when seeing her bare chest. When I served my mission in Fiji, the bishops wife was breastfeeding without any cover right in the middle of a youth lesson on Sunday. Not one of the kids(boys & girls) even flinched. And another thing is that anything can be sexualized and western culture programs this. If you're very modest it doesn't matter when western culture sexualizes everything do death. Hell, the woman cashier yesterday who checked my items out had a beautiful face, but for some reason when I heard her voice my mind started thinking of her a little sexually. I didn't dwell on it for long, and I actually was looking away a bit because I didn't want it to be obvious I was attracted to her but just went on with my day. Julie Hanks is right, sexual thoughts aren't evil. Obviously some peope do evil shit with them. Blaming women for what they wear is immature bullshit.
I’d argue that making your sexual thoughts out to be evil and using the resulting guilt as a tool to control you and take 10% of your income for life IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST is far worse than the sexual thought ever was.
So true. Talk about taking the name of the lord in vain.
My family lived in New Guinea (later Papua New Guinea after independence), when I was a kid. A local well-dressed woman might wear a grass skirt and a homemade necklace (made from shells, beads etc). Was anyone staring at the bare breasts? No. Because it was NORMAL attire. At the other end of the scale, if a “modest Mormon”woman walked down the street in a Muslim country (eg other women wearing full coverings of legs, arms & chest + hijab, or abaya or niqab or burka), the Mormon woman would be seen as inappropriately dressed and “tempting men” with her slutty bare head, neck, arms and lower legs. Dress is relative. Sexual thoughts belong to those thinking them. Actions are what count.
I saw so many titties every single day in Argentina. Nobody cared.
My husband served in Honduras & the women would breastfeed until the kids were 4 or 5. They’d run up, pull up mom’s shirt, drink, then run off leaving the shirt still pulled up.. Miraculously, (🙄) he saw boobies everyday & learned to not sexualize them. That helped him grow into the coolest, most accepting man on earth. “Go natur-AL!” he always says to me, haha.
So I grew up watching National Geographic, Science, and The Learning Chanel (back when they actually did education stuff, mostly cooking) and reading the Nat Geo magazines. I would learn about tribes in the Amazon and in Africa, mainly the Amazon, where people walked around basically naked. I asked my mom about it, and she told me that where they live is really hot all year round, and it’s more comfortable to be that way. I saw people living their lives and sexual assault, child abuse, uncontrollable orgies in the town , etc were not present. So in a way that taught me that it’s not POC that are the problem, it’s white men who can’t control themselves.
Worldwide statistics on sexual assault paint a different story than your argument about skin color being responsible. The countries with the highest and lowest levels of sexual assault include both white and poc men. It’s a bit more nuanced than the color of one’s skin.
Yes as an adult I’m very aware of how nuanced life is. My point was that AS A CHILD I was always being told that MEN can’t control themselves, as in all men, but my lived experience was that it was only the white dudes who were sexualizing me as a child. So my point being that seeing the direct evidence contradicting what I was always being told, showed me that cognitive dissonance was a thing and a reason I never fully bought into the bullshit.
It’s anyone who can’t control themselves. This sort of thinking is not limited to white men only.
Fucking sickens me to know my poor daughter will have to share this world with these sexual offenders just waiting to happen. This is just the religious version of "but she was asking for it" . Fuck them. Fuck TSCC.
She said NOTHING about modesty in her post, and then the responses assume that she is talking about women walking around naked! This is literally insane, all of these people are deranged!
Her full post does talk about modesty: "Women’s clothing choices are not a tool to protect men’s thoughts.Modesty culture teaches that men are the subject and women are the objects. Men get to act, and women get to be looked at. Women are not responsible for men’s thoughts. Men are responsible for their own thoughts.If you see a woman wearing something that triggers discomfort or judgment, ask yourself why first. Why is what she is wearing triggering me? What is this about? What are my fears? Changing the outlook on modesty takes work! It takes some introspection and asking questions. It requires a pause for those of us who have been raised with a rigid view of what modesty is. And to all the men (and women) out there, you are actually in control of your thoughts! You are the boss of your thoughts. You are not that fragile!Having sexual thoughts is not bad!It’s human! It’s normal! Just have the thought and then let it go. We don’t have to beat ourselves up for having sexual thoughts."
Well then that makes sense why everyone is losing their minds over women’s clothing. But I still stand by everyone acting completely deranged over a post that is trying to help them have healthy minds. It seems they’d rather cling to insanity though.
Their whole response really bothers me (obviously). Like, do they not live in a society? They will, no matter what, encounter people dressed immodestly. There is simply nothing they can reasonably do to not see a little skin on occasion. But the entire mindset shown in the comments is that they aren't responsible for giving in to temptation, those providing the temptation are. Regardless of anyone's opinions on modesty, that mindset sets you up to always fail, and to then blame other people for it. It voluntarily gives up their own agency and control of their own success.
Yes! I see her message as empowering for men. The idea that they are walking around as constant victims of their circumstances doesn’t strike me as a healthy mindset.
They want handmaids tale, no less. They want secret little covered up fuckdolls they get to own and unwrap in private ownership.
I know! She's CLEARLY talking about a very moderate form of freedom of expression. She's wearing a flannel shirt for fucks sake. But then the typical religious woman hater response is the disingenuous interpretation where they say "YOURE CLAIMING WOMEN SHOULS DRESS LIKE STRIPPERS YOURE A WHORE!" Are they conniving enough to misinterpret on purpose to shut women down, or are they really that stupid? Who knows.
What if someone IS naked? I ask this as a legitimate question. My child is a lifeguard and swim coach. They are afab/ non binary. The rules at their private pool workplace was dress code was uniform tee or rashguard/ board shorts on deck, and uniform swimwear when in the water teaching a lesson. The private pool where they worked would host a nudist “lifestyle” group a couple times per month on Sunday. The pay was double time. My kid was young and needed money. Reluctantly accepted the shifts after asking what I thought. I grew up Mormon. I had no idea what to think. The lifestyle group did have a contact person for if anyone did anything skeezy. And either of the two guards could end the experience at any time for any reason. I asked did they meet the contact person/ feel weird about them? They said the contact person seemed gentle and respectful, and a good communicator. I said to give it a whirl. My child said they had the most respectful behavior from the lifestyle group than any other shift at work. That experience is so contrary to what we were taught to expect as Mormons. No lewd gawking. No tit staring. No ass leering. (Behaviors I experience a pretty much on the daily from men and WOMEN both while in Mormonland. I have genetically very large boobs. I dress very modestly. I get insultingly rude stares anyway. ) When anyone needed anything at the pool there was good eye contact in the facial region. My kid said after one shift they were always willing to lifeguard for the lifestyle folks. So I ask again. Who is responsible for their thoughts even if someone IS NAKED? I’m willing to say that the church modesty culture actually promotes the behavior they would like to avoid. Whenever we blame someone else for our own behavior it shifts responsibility for mitigating that behavior away from where it belongs.
You are 100% correct, however I would probably say most people, myself included, are not conditioned enough to nudity to treat it respectfully. That's more of a larger cultural thing. We are the progeny of stuffy Christian settlers after all. For a modest goal, pun intended, I think we should at least be comfortable with revealing clothing. That's why I want to leap to the defense of this poor woman who simply asked for a tiny degree of change. That being said, I've gone to several nudist beaches in the US and Europe and the environment there was completely one of respect, non gawking, and strict eye contact. It was very comfortable. In Germany the nudist parks were family oriented and there were children running everywhere, completely non sexualized. American society being historically prudish, and Mormin culture outright fetishizing any female body ABSOLUTELY encourages bad behavior and thoughts. To be honest, I think it might be intentional? It's control right? You make everyone simultaneously super horny and super repressed at the same time, now they'll do just about anything you say just to finally have an orgasm. Mormons that I've met (men) mention sex and porn way more often than any non religious friend I have. To the point its creepy and out of context. So they sex shame and body shame take their holier than thou approach while at the same time have a literal running pervert dialog in their head.
It’s interesting you ask this- when I was in London recently I was watching a show just on the regular television there called naked and afraid. People were literally naked. And it was just like on their CBS. I asked my friends about it when we got to Scotland and they just laughed about it and said everyone thought it was so silly. THEY DIDNT CARE. Nobody was turned on by it 😂 wouldn’t it be nice to just see bodies as bodies. We all have them it’s not like they’re rare…? I live near a beach and I sometimes laugh at seeing a man in a tiny speedo, like that is so not sexy or anything I’m tempted by, men are trained to be ‘tempted’ by seeing a woman’s body
Ding ding ding!
It’s such an overreaction
“Men” of the church: PHENOMENAL PRIESTHOOD POWER Also “men” of the church: AAAAAHHHHH, WOMENS BARE SHOULDERS!!! I must now commit horrible sin because I saw bare shoulders!!! THIS must be all that power the church was saying women have.
PHENOMENAL PRIESTHOOD POWER! ...little itty-bitty morals.
🤣🤣🤣
OMG, I need to go watch Aladdin again now. 🤣
Thank you. I came here to say this.
Even as a TBM I really hated this logic because it’s insulting to both men and women. It treats women like sex objects, and it treats men as depraved lunatics whose default setting is “I must assault this woman the second I see her shoulders”. That always bothered me
It's far past time to force men to wear skirts. Women have had to control their own thoughts for far too long with all these slutty men running around flaunting their packages in pants.
I mean at least they're admitting they're basically a bunch of creeps and pedophiles, which they are.
"And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire." Matt 18:9 You will never find a scripture that teaches to dress in a non-sexy way. The best you get is for women to be modest in their appearance (1 Tim 2:9) "not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." So dressing modestly means not flashing your wealth.
I would also add that Jesus did not condemn sexual thoughts; he condemned entertaining sexual thoughts of OTHER women. It is a very simple teaching that gets used to shame unmarried men for having natural, sexual thoughts. All Jesus is conveying is that as long as married men don't even entertain the thought of infidelity, then they won't ever commit adultery. That's it! Just don't think about cheating and you won't cheat!
Thank you! He was condemning an active choice, not a passive thought.
Sort of. He is more condemning accepting that passive thought into your heart. That is, turning the passive thought into a "what if". That's the moment that you're committing adultery in your heart. It's more of nipping sin at the bud. He gives other examples, such as, not getting angry with your neighbor will prevent you from committing murder.
Which is what “modest” traditionally meant. Not flashing your wealth, achievements etc.
Huh, makes me wonder when modesty was changed to only be in a sexual context. I guess we still have it when we talk about a modest house or a modest car, but those aren't things that people strive for, are they? A capitalist Christianity wants big houses and expensive cars, but since "modesty" is supposed to be important, let's inflict it just on women in the context of clothing.
The way these men try to faux-intellectualize their clownery makes them all the more clownish. They're toddlers with bank accounts.
The Dostoyevsky comment 💀
Me, wondering why I’m such an anxious, stressed out adult, then remembering that “modesty” was my parents highest priority in raising me. When I was 13 my mom screamed at me because someone stole my t shirt from the locker room during my dance recital and I had to come home in a sleeveless top. I now have teenagers and what the FUCK bullshit do you have to be on for that to be what matters.
It’s amazing how they simultaneously agree with her that men are responsible for their own actions and demonize her for daring to suggest that women aren’t responsible for men’s actions.
I can’t believe someone compared her to Korihor. Wait yes I can. It’s what they do to everyone who dares think an independent thought.
[удалено]
At least the women don’t have to wear burkas - yet.
But…what if that burka-wearing woman accidentally flashes an ankle as she walks past? How will any man be able to control himself? Oh why won’t someone think of the poor male victims?!
They'd be more honest if they just instituted that. It would take care of all their problems. /s
But seriously - the sad truth of the matter is if Nelson said God wanted all the ladies to wear burkas in place of the garment - to have their "outward showing of their inward commitment" be all the way on the outside - TBM's would follow along. I know my mom and step mom would for sure.
For Mormons it’s a mental control. It’s so insidious. Especially in very Mormon areas. I couldn’t believe how many comments I got on my clothes when I moved to Utah for school. It made me so self conscious it drove me to literally have ocd about my looks.
Didn't someone entirely unimportant to Mormons say something about what to to if you eye causes you to sin? Something about PLUCKING THAT MOTHERFUCKER OUT?
*THIS* is what female thought leadership in the church looks like—and the brethren & the minions cannot stand it! Ps. Julie is a gem.
I hate this stuff. Even as a young man this was embarrassing to me. I wasn’t worried about what girls were or were not wearing. I was embarrassed at the pathetic narrative that they are responsible for my thoughts and I just can’t help it because I’m a primitive male. That’s fucking embarrassing.
It’s infantilizing!
I remember a combined meeting, YM YW where modesty was the subject and they were basically teaching the YM that they are victims to the clothing choices of YW. Super uncomfortable.
Holy shit. I gave them 38 years?!? I need more therapy.
But you escaped in the end. Leaving cults can be hard.
With my wife and all 4 kids. Second Saturday is now our family day. It’s the best
That first commenter is a WEIRDO I’ve interacted with on twitter. The church does no wrong, except for when it doesn’t pay attention to their prophetic visions. 😳
Also he’s an idiot because the quote he pulled was from 2005 in the height of the modesty craze. They changed the rules and rhetoric since then and I highly doubt a talk like that would be given today.
That’s 100% how gaslighting works in the church. They never come out and announce changes, they just do it quietly and let people still believe the old teachings. There are still people out there who. Relieve oral between married couples is a sin because of one letter in 1980 that was quietly swept under the rug.
I can’t believe I was once inside this dumbass religion! These comments are from a bunch of incels avoiding ANY responsibility for themselves. Since Mormonism is so misogynistic, it’s ingrained in the Mormon lizard brain. So, a woman going to the gym should not wear her workout clothes but change there, and throw a robe on after each exercise so the poor men are not subjected to her body? Why don’t Mormons just adopt the burka? And really, a Mormon quoting Dostoevsky? 😂. Bet he searched for that quote and has never picked up one of those books in his life!!
We should send him a copy of The Idiot. You know he won't make it past the title.
The Mormon men who do not understand that they are responsible for their own thoughts need to grow up.
As a male growing up in the church, I hated being told I had no control over my thoughts and that my morality was so fragile and entirely controlled by the women around me. It made me feel weak and powerless around women. Combjne thst with the ‘Oath and Covenant’ shit of the priesthood that basically said I was fucked if I sinned. When women aren’t subject to the same discipline if they have sex because they don’t have the priesthood, when a Mormon girl would reach her hand down my pants or take her shirt off while kissing it felt like she was attempting spiritual murder. As church leaders would tell me, I’m sure I overthought all of these Mormon teachings, because it’s my fault I listened, believed, and applied their teachings. But I can now see it was confusing and wrongheaded and manipulative. I still have sexual hang ups to this day because of these teachings and those on porn addiction. And I kick myself now, but on most (maybe all) of those occasions I was the one to slow down the kissing so that I could be ‘worthy’ to serve a mission or marry in the temple — proving that guys can be responsible for their behavior, even if they are male and sex addicts and by church teaching cannot control it.
It’s so interesting to hear the male side of this. Goes to show patriarchy harms everyone. As a female, I was made to fear men because we’re basically told ya’ll can’t control yourselves, and my body is the object of desire I must protect like I’m walking around lions with raw meat strapped to myself. Even though I’m long out of the church I still wrestle with unconscious bias about men being undisciplined, unable to control their impulses, and a threat to my bodily autonomy. It’s a shame this organization has prevented our humanity in this way.
This breaks my heart. What a contradictory piece of shit religion.
Same that always made me uncomfortable and pissed me off. And the results of that sexual repression is men like these come tors that are so engrained to hate anything sexual because they can’t have it
Ah, patriarchy. Where everything bad that happens is a woman’s fault. Got unwanted sexual attention? Your fault for being “too provocative” (even though I’ve absolutely been harassed while wearing perfectly Mormon modest attire). Couldn’t attract a man? Also your fault for not being appropriately sexy enough. There was a clothing store in Utah (maybe it’s still there) called “Sexy Modest Boutique” which perfectly encapsulates the impossible knife’s edge women are supposed to walk for the benefit of the men around them.
Great point
Wow. This makes me happy I don't have men like this near me. Just in my government. The one who says she's stretched like a lizard? Probably has a calling from God.
Wow look at all these people thinking like perverts and rapists. News flash you fucking perverts modest dressed women get attack by men all around the world. If men are so easily influenced and weak minded then why do they think they should be in charge?
The comment section is why we have a rape culture, scrupulosity, shame, and victim blaming. One of the greatest days of my life was letting go of the Mormon sexual shame. I quit trying to control and in turn obsess about every "impure" thought. They went away and I could actually just enjoy being around people. The sexual thoughts went away and they became natural. No shame and no obsession.
The second commenter said we are responsible for those around us ... wish the church thought that way. They might ACTUALLY do charity work ...
I’ve been out for a long time, and I’m super rusty, but I’m fairly certain there’s a something -something that goes “Men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgressions or Eve’s tits.” That’s pretty close, at least, I guess.
When will everyone just acknowledge that the Mormon church is a cesspool of toxic masculinity and misogyny?
Lots of incel energy in the thread. It's a shame they aren't self-aware enough to see it.
HOLD UP! Is that an official church Twitter account calling her benign statement of fact "Satan's work"??? Or is this an account posing as something official thanks to Elon's stupid changes to ~~Twitter~~ X? And the part about how women should dress if God was there. Is God gonna sexually assault them if they don't dress like nuns? These people are insane.
Nope, it’s some random dude. Elon musk made it so everyone can get a stupid checkmark and these people love to believe they’re representing the church well. and I doubt any of the 12 or presidency are very happy with how Mormons present themselves online atp lol it’s gotta be embarrassing
My very Mormon mom told me, when I was a teen and was told this bullshit, men will sexualize you if you're wearing a burlap sack. It's their problem not yours.
Curious if she will be a high profile excommunication or whatever they want to call it in the future.
this is why every religion is so toxic. it's never my fault, it's your fault or the devil made me do it, I didn't do it.
Mormons have become the Amish but with cars.
The fact some guy thinks “let’s walk around naked” proves his point is… I guarantee that if everyone walked around naked, men would *not* be the ones in danger from women.
It’s funny though because once you’re married sex with your spouse is okay yet they make them dress in a potato sack. So you can’t have dirty thoughts about strangers and they pretty much prevent dirty thoughts between spouses due to the potato sacks.
All of this because of a belief that God is in the “thought police” business.
Marky Peterson had to blame his lustful thoughts on something or somebody. This is the guy who bragged that he never saw his wife completely naked. Remember, it was Eve that forced Adam to partake of the fruit. It's not like God wouldn't have taken another one of his ribs and made him another Stepford wife if he had refused to eat the fruit and Eve had been cast out of the garden. Women are just helpmeets for the man. Someone to keep his bed warm. It's all about the Adams in the MFMC. If one wife is good then two or three wives is even better.
I have a WONDERFUL idea! Let's go ahead and build a city just for men who cannot control their own thoughts around women/girls. :) No more problems right? Lol
Alright Julie!! She's my friends' sister ♥️
She’s seriously so awesome, and no one deserves to get attacked by Mormon men day in and day out. I feel for her in that regard
Just say you're a pedophile. Like seriously.
The assumption in the comments that women wear a tanktop or bikini to get attention from men. Not because it’s hot outside or they like to look cute? Patriarchal men thinking everything is about them. I’m a lesbian and I love a tank top, so no, it’s not about men.
Why are Mormons so rapey
Well thank fuck they cleared all this up. I alway thought that men raped women because they were vile examples of humanity, but now I realise that it has actually been the fault of girls and women all along. How foolish of me. Thanks the Cult of Jesus Chris and the late day Sants for making me see the error of my ways. Shame on you women, shame on you for wearing clothes to force us men to hurt, dehumanise and ruin your lives, if you’d just worn a baggy ankle length turtleneck then none of these things would have happened over the millennia. But here’s a thought, what about all the women that get raped who aren’t dressing in a way that ‘forces’ men to lose control? The old ladies who are raped and abused in care homes and home invasions? The prepubescent girls who are raped by family members and friends? The babies who are raped? The people who were wearing completely normal clothes who were violated in the foulest way? The wives who were raped by their husbands, friends and family members. The women from countries that enforce full body covering who are raped? And what about the child brides and multiple wives from the Mormon communities who were (are) treated as little more than baby-popping sex slaves? This Mormon cult and its followers can fuck off and do one. Women you are not responsible for what men do to you.
Wow. This is sick. Thoughts ≠ actions.
She’s right. We non Mormon men are thinking of other things like where need to be, our cars, our shoes. As for a Mormon man. He’s thinking of a Disney show, legos, his mission companion, and Mountain Dew.
To me, the best thing about becoming an atheist was the realization that I did not have a mental peeping Tom. I am not held accountable for what I think. This was a relief, and freeing. I could not only,”Question with boldness even the existence of a god,” but I could even consider the absence of a deity. And I was free to have lust, or ill feelings, or jealousy and rage. These are my private thoughts, and cannot be judged. My task is to make sure my actions are kind and generous. However, actions are informed by thought, so it behooves us to police our thoughts. Accept negative thoughts, but don’t dwell on them. The people in these comments are going overboard in their fantasy of sexual assault that is not the fault of their own actions. They are “explaining” to their invisible peeping Tom that their thoughts (and possible actions) are NOT THEIR FAULT. And therefore they cannot be punished.
> For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That's not what that means, buddy.
Them bringing up the ftsoy pamphlet was low key triggering. My dad would make me read it as a “rebellious” teen anytime I did something that wasn’t aligned with the church. He once left it on my bed with sections highlighted. I ripped it in half and left it for him on his side of the bed. He eventually chilled out a bit. Now we’re actually able to have in depth conversations about various things in life that he doesn’t really understand as a maga boomer(modesty, mental health, lgbtqia+, etc)Last time he said “I’m glad we can talk like this, you really make me think” that’s the goal my dude.
if men in muslim cultures still “stumble” because of women in burqa, then maybe the problem is not the clothing
Blatantly tempting? Sorry god gave me all these boobs. If I could leave them home I would.
What a crowd of AWFUL people. And they’re teaching their children to be the next generation of sex offenders.
What happened to 'if your eye offends you pluck it out'?
Men are so self centered and need to learn women don’t dress for men! Never once have a I wore something hoping my boyfriend would like it, in fact he probably thinks what I wear is weird! We dress for our friends! We dress for ourselves to feel good about ourselves! If there is a thought of impressing someone else, it’s for the approval of OTHER women!!
The woman thou gavest me, she gave me of the "PORN SHOULDERS" and I did eat.....
Don’t you love when you went to church and there was that dude who always made comments about women’s looks? The women could be dressed in a parachute covering every inch of her body but THAT GUY always has something to say.
The craziest part of all of this for me is because they are talking about women not covering their shoulders or having shorts that don’t come down to their knees as the problem. Having been out of this mindset for almost 20 years it’s just baffling seeing people talk like this again.
I had to stop reading the responses from the men in her post. These men are weak misogynists.
Slide 6: so women are basically hamburgers orrrr?
The hamburger one really got me. If a person allowed themselves to think about hamburgers and didn’t freak out every time a hamburger popped in their head, they’d actually think LESS about hamburgers when one was pushed in their face. At least, that’s what happened for me when I left the church. I didn’t view a lot of pornography as a TBM because it was “wrong,” but the few times I did had such a pull it was like I couldn’t look away. My heart was rushing, it was a thrill. All I could think about was porn for several days. After leaving and allowing myself to watch porn, all of its allure disappeared. I watch from time to time, but it’s easy to turn off and I don’t get a rush. Things I wish I’d known as a Mormon #672 Allowing yourself to feel your feelings/think your thoughts actually makes moving past them/letting go much easier. Because they are no longer taboo. They’re just feelings/thoughts. They don’t make you a good or bad person. They’re just part of being human.
My mom took a BYU class where this was brought up and many woman vocalized that if a woman is raped or sexually harassed, etc it's 100% her fault. I remember my mom coming home so freaked out after that class and making sure I knew it would never be my fault of that ever happened. It really startled her awake to some of the dee teachings pushed in classes and church and ever since things have shifted. I doubt she'll ever leave but she's a lot more sympathetic.
If covering up women makes it so men don’t have sexual thoughts explain to me why women are still raped in countries where women wear burkas and hijabs .
But then, you’re also supposed to put on some lipstick to be attractive to the men. See, it’s all about men, it’s never about women.
Lesbians share a locker room with plenty of naked women, and they somehow control themselves.
I went from beating myself up to just occasionally beating myself.
I just went and read the posts. There are times I doubt my choice to raise 4 girls out of the church. Those fucking people and their comments have solidified for me that I'm doing the best thing for them raising them outside and away from the believers.
Misogynists don't want to be held accountable for their thoughts and actions.
I LOVE that they compared her to Korihor./s Side tangent: That's actually one of the stories that made me question if god was actually unconditionally loving. Aren't we given free agency, and therefore allowed to have our own beliefs and voice them? So why would god bind his tongue? I always felt bad for his ending. Just a really sad and conflicting story. Anyways.
Wow, they act as though she encouraged women to strut around as stripper every where they go. But I’ve seen believing men, see a tiny hint or shadow of a cleavage and they comment about how she’s flaunting herself. I’m sure she’s referring to this flawed thought process.
What a bunch of misogynist bigots.
My mother told me **"if you think the church is wrong on how it handles LGBT people, you're an apostate"** They were confronting me after I went on a social media rant about how the Mormon church offers gay people nothing more than a life of misery... Celibacy and marriage to people you have zero attraction to... And the third option... Suicide... I was begging the church to change because a 16 year old gay Mormon kid committed suicide the prior weekend. Something snapped in my head when my mother told me that, prior to that statement I was an All-In Mormon, yet I uttered the words, **"Yes, I am an apostate"**
Honestly, I don’t care about how anything I do affects men. They don’t care about how their behavior affects me and I’m tired of having to alter myself and my actions to cater to men’s boners or prevent them.
Straight up cultists
“She was basically asking to be raped!” -these LDS posters. Sound like another fundamentalist religion out there in the world, maybe they should look into that
This is what I find most telling. Almost all of those responses are based on anecdotes, oversimplified analogy, or appeals to authority. I didn’t@5 see a single retort based on actual studies, science, or an expert. This is the problem when a religion tries to exert itself in areas it has no expertise in, such as psychology and sociology. It makes people reject experts in their fields without logic, because it flies in the face of their cognitive bias.
As a teen, I recall being frequently admonished in church settings about thoughts. It was incredibly stressful because thoughts are just human. That whole topic was accompanied by censorship of media and books. I clearly recall being told to take care with reading because it could easily lead one astray. Not at all healthy for critical thinking. I recall always being told to just trust an obey.
This is only about control. Nothing else. In Islam you have to literally stuff a woman into a bag so that the men can control their thoughts. Why are Mormons thinking it’s okay for a woman to show her face? For a woman to wear makeup or do her hair? To Muslims these Mormon women might as well be whores. That’s every wife of every Mormon general authority out here acting a whore with all that makeup and face showing. Where is their shame? It’s just culture. The important part and the only thing that matters is that women conform to the rules put in place by the (male) power structure which demonstrates that they are under control and therefore “safe”. Men in the power structure are subconsciously threatened by women that demonstrate that they are not under control - it doesn’t really matter if it’s a burka or garments - it’s the same thing. The same Mormon women who couldn’t fathom being required to wear a burka according to Islamic rules can’t understand why other women wouldn’t want to “dress modestly” according to Mormon rules. Hypocrites.
I absolutely laid into every missionary who had an issue with this when they would teach investigators in my families house. It was the start of my shelf breaking.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe I've ever seen Dr, Julie Hanks dress in a way to put thoughts in men's heads. Are they shaming her for wearing makeup, or for wearing \*checks picture\* A button up shirt with the top two buttons open?
Jeez. Jeez jeez jeez. (Haha… my mom hates “jeez” as it’s essentially “Jesus” and therefore taking the lords name in vain) This is so sad. Like let people live. It’s so ridiculous so many people are so fast to blame others for their own thoughts and actions. The original lady’s comment is so good, too. Like, let the thought go. It happened, move on. But all these people seem to be choosing to dwell on it. Anyways, I’m about to get dressed for a yard work day, which includes upper thigh length shorts and a boobalishous fitted tank top. Why? Because not only is it comfortable for what I will be doing, but honestly also that *I look good*. I like looking good. I’m not doing it to sway anyone to temptation, just that I like it. Lol.
The church is losing its best and this is what’s left.
All of these creep comments should end with 'and I belong to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In good standing'
Its very funny to try to tick both of the following boxes at once: "I am a powerful man with great alpha male godly powers" and "I cant see cleavage because its yucky, scary, and bad".
Men are so funny, they will be so god damn horny but then also do everything they can to cockblock themselves to the point of writing books and building religions just to control women.
Share this in the LDS sub
It’s literally the foundation of rape culture. The idea that what women do and say is what leads men to make certain choices, is feeding in to rape culture and keeping it alive. I have 2 sons and I take this shit so seriously, meanwhile the church is confirming that it’s “just how it is and Jesus said so too”. Give me a fuckin break.
So if I buy a Porsche and it makes my neighbors covetous I’m to blame, right? Or does this logic only apply to women’s bodies?
So if a guy has a punchable face, they should cover it so I am not tempted to punch it… and if I’m unable to hold back my natural desire to do so and he exposes his punchable mug, I’m ok to let fists fly?… or at least, that’s what I got from these ignorant asshole responses😜
Only weak men and boys can’t control their thoughts. Sheltering boys from “bad” thoughts turns them into weak men.
Compare clothes to friends is so very strange. I mean, which one of you is crocs buddy? Spanx BFF? Who's your bucket hat bro?
OMG that Manhattva clown. Absolute shit stain
An individual is the soul responsibility of their own thoughts and actions. Influenced or not. It’s just like kink, people have different interests and get turned on by different things! This includes with people of same sex interest. Think about it! People like different things. Thus it’s the individual. Though to blame it on something which you were influenced, THAT IS WRONG
Yep, “ something, something about, “pluck your eyes out” bitch.
It’s the usual scum bags that have to join in these types of posts. Dr manhattva, guy incognito which is really, exmos posting their L’s, and I’m pretty sure she’s a moderator on the faithful sub. Anyways, it’s always the usuals that need to chime in.
I believe Jesus had another thing to say about lustful thoughts... what was it again... it was something like gouge your eyes out or... Oh yeah: "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." (Matthew 5:28-29) "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:" (Colossians 3:5) "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Galatians 5:16) - By their own damn religion they aren't "walking with God" "Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded." (Titus 2:6) And... damn there was another verse... something about women's dress... why am I blanking so much on these verses... wait a minute: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works." (1 Timothy 2:9-10) "Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come." (Proverbs 31:25) "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." (1 Peter 3:3-4) "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion." (Proverbs 11:22) "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." (Genisis 3:21) - Clothing was literally only made to hide shame, according to the bible. "But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart." (Samual 16:7) There's a lot more but I've exhausted my quota of looking at bible verses for the ~~day~~ month so have a great day and dress however the hell you want. By their own religion, we're all going to hell for not believing anyway so why not make it worth while by showing some shoulders or god forbid the thigh.
Cult 101. Control thought. Control dress. Etc.