Tag Archives: purity

complaints, condescending twatbags, LDS, rants, slut shamers

Repost: Speaking of shameless shaming– Breastfeeding is not an act of public indecency!

Here’s a repost from July 27. 2018, inspired by the swath of people who seem to think that breastfeeding a baby is an act of public indecency and my recent post about the Duggars and “defrauding”. As you can see, the fundies aren’t the only ones who have screwy beliefs about modesty. I am posting it mostly as/is, as I consider what today’s fresh post will be. The featured image is in the public domain.

I would be remiss if I didn’t post about this news story I read last night about a Mormon woman who was shamed by her bishop and stake president for breastfeeding (link was removed because it no longer works).  According to KUTV, an unidentified LDS mom of four from northern Utah lost her temple recommend because she decided to breastfeed uncovered while she was in the foyer of her church.  Temple recommends are basically cards that identify worthy members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  One must have a valid temple recommend in order to visit the church’s temples, where “sacred” and secret religious ordinances, including many weddings, take place.  Temple recommends are very important to faithful Mormons.

A few weeks ago, the mother had gone to see her bishop about getting her temple recommend updated and signed.  The bishop told her that church members had complained about her openly breastfeeding her 18 month old baby.  LDS churches have “mothers’ rooms” where breastfeeding moms can go to privately feed their babies.  The bishop said she should either use the mothers’ room or cover up, since her decision to openly breastfeed might cause the men in the church to have “sexual thoughts”.  The bishop refused to sign the temple recommend and she had to get it signed by the first counselor instead.

Later, the mom visited her stake president so he could also sign her temple recommend.  The stake president also brought up the breastfeeding issue and quoted from a church pamphlet about the importance of modesty.  The pamphlet, “For the Strength of Youth”, is well-known to LDS church members and provides guidelines about how church members are to present themselves. 

The mother said that she got very upset during the meeting and had to leave the room several times to calm down.  The woman’s husband, who was also in attendance during the meeting, was told that he needed to “control his wife”.  The husband was also told that if he supported his wife’s decision to publicly breastfeed without a cover, he would also lose his temple recommend.

Some people may wonder why the woman didn’t simply use the mothers’ room.  Apparently, the room is off of the bathroom and this mother claims it’s too isolating for her.  Also, she says she can’t hear the service in the mothers’ room.  The mom warns that even after her child is weaned, she doesn’t plan to back down on this issue.  She correctly states that breastfeeding is not a sexual act and publicly feeding her child is not wrong.  She wants the church to be more accepting and sensitive toward mothers who choose to breastfeed in public.

As I read this story, I was, at first, very irritated on the mom’s behalf.  Fellas, if you’re turned on by a woman’s breasts, that is your problem.  It’s not up to women to protect you from your sexual thoughts.  You need to exercise more self control and realize that breasts are, first and foremost, intended to feed babies.  I realize that public breastfeeding is a somewhat new phenomenon in that, until recently, many women would feel uncomfortable exposing their breasts in public to feed their babies.  But dammit, breasts are not primarily for titillation.  They have a purpose.  A man’s sexual reactions to seeing a woman’s breasts are secondary to that very important purpose.  When it comes to embarrassment about breastfeeding, it’s the men who need to get over themselves, not the women.

Then, after reading about how this mom was treated by church leaders, I was irritated by her reaction.  I understand that the LDS church is the type of organization where membership is very important, particularly within family circles.  It’s not like it is in my family, where people attend different churches.  Most of my family members are protestants, but they aren’t all Presbyterians.  I have an aunt who is Episcopalian and a sister who is an atheist.  My mom played organ in Baptist and Methodist churches for most of my life.  Yes, many of my family members go to church, but there is no pressure to attend a specific church or practice a particular religion.  This is not necessarily true for Mormons.  To them, family participation is essential and in devout families, there is intense pressure to be Mormon and participate fully in the church.  Leaving the church can lead to a host of unpleasant consequences.

And yet… here is this nice couple doing absolutely nothing wrong, sitting there listening to church officials berate them for doing something totally natural and necessary for their baby’s health, and threatening them with eternal damnation for not conforming to their stupid rules about modesty.  I realize I’m not Mormon and never have been, but it’s inconceivable to me that these people tolerated those shameful remarks from church leaders.  They should have told both the bishop and the stake president to go fuck themselves (sorry, I’m in a mood this morning), gotten up, and walked out, vowing that their children would not grow up to be tithe payers.  I may be very cynical or even naive, but I think that’s ultimately a response that would get church leaders to listen.  Seriously, fuck those guys.  They are just regular men put into positions of leadership in a manmade religious organization.  They only have as much power as their members are willing to give them.  As long as church members allow them to talk to them in that way, the abuse will continue.

I do think it’s abusive to subject breastfeeding mothers to shame, scorn, or ridicule for daring to feed their babies in public.  If you think the church is right about this, the next time you have a meal, put a blanket over your head or go sit in the bathroom to eat.  Tell me, is that a pleasant way to dine?  Why should mothers and babies have to tolerate that?

It seems to me that this mom is very faithful to her beliefs.  She is exactly the kind of member the LDS church would not want to lose.  She cares enough about the church to want to hear what is said during meetings, even when she’s nursing her child.  While I personally think Mormonism is bullshit, she clearly doesn’t.  I don’t think she’s the kind of church member they’d want to alienate, since she has clearly had several children who will one day pay tithes… that is, if the church doesn’t one day drive them out with their outdated and anti-woman policies.

Churches are definitely losing members lately.  Nowadays, many people are abandoning religion or attending churches that offer more in the way of personal enrichment or entertainment.  I have never attended a Mormon church service, but Bill has.  He tells me they are extremely boring, except perhaps on fast and testimony days, when members get up to testify that the church is true.  I have heard that a number of colorful testimonies have been offered on those Sundays, although in order to enjoy them, you have to be fasting…  I’m not sure that’s a good tradeoff.

I’m sure the church is very important to this mother and her husband.  It’s a pity she didn’t just tell her leaders that she’d find a church where breastfeeding mothers are more respected and men are taught that they need to control their lust.  The onus should not be on women to protect men from “falling”.  The men should be taught to self-regulate.

And… for the last time, breastfeeding babies isn’t sexual.  If you think it is, you’re the one with a problem.

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book reviews, LDS, true crime

Repost: Elizabeth Smart’s My Story…

I wrote this post for my original blog on October 12, 2013. It includes the Epinions.com review of her book, My Story, which I posted on the same day. It appears here as/is.

I really hesitated before reading My Story, the book Elizabeth Smart wrote about her experiences being kidnapped by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee.  I have written a review, posted below.  This post is going to have less to do with the book and more to do with some things I realized while reading Smart’s book.

First off, Elizabeth Smart endured hell for nine months.  There’s no sugar coating it.  Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee put that girl through sheer hell.  When I think about what it must have been like for Elizabeth Smart to endure daily rapes, constant threats on hers and her family’s lives, the outdoor elements while wearing filthy rags, and, in fact, the very loss of her identity since Mitchell forced her to change her name, I am truly amazed that she has been able to recover as well as she apparently has.  I have some new respect for her.  She is certainly a strong and courageous woman.

Secondly, it occurred to me as I read her book that she was kidnapped at age 14, which is the age Helen Mar Kimball was when she “married” Joseph Smith.

I don’t know if that has to do with Brian David Mitchell’s decision to kidnap Elizabeth Smart when she was fourteen.  Certainly, at fourteen, Smart was still very much a child.  She was especially naive and sheltered and was, no doubt, easier to control than she might have been had she been older and more worldly.  Smart reveals that Mitchell planned to kidnap more girls and make them his wives.  Elizabeth Smart calls him a pedophile, but I think it’s more likely that he just wanted gullible, obedient, easily controlled girls who had not been defiled by anyone else. 

Certainly, it was easier for Barzee if Mitchell had younger girls around who didn’t compete for her place as the alpha bitch.  In any case, though, it did occur to me that Mitchell, who had proclaimed himself a “prophet”, was doing something very similar to what Joseph Smith did.  Yes, Joseph Smith did it many years ago.  Does it make it less wrong that he was fucking fourteen year old girls and “marrying” the wives of other men?  Why should anyone admire Joseph Smith on that basis alone?

Finally, once again, I couldn’t help but feel horrible for Elizabeth as she described feeling like a beautiful vase that was shattered.  I had read an account of a speech she had given some time ago about feeling like a “chewed up piece of gum”, in part because of an object lesson she had taken part in at church.  She was taught that no one would want her after a man had put his hands all over her.  As a fourteen year old girl, she certainly had no choice but to let Brian David Mitchell defile her.  Of course he overpowered her, though she is careful to point out that she did try to fight him off.  I’m sure that line was added for those who might fault her for not fighting harder to protect her virginity.  Anyone who would fault her for that, by the way, is an enormous asshole. 

In any case, Elizabeth Smart felt like a shattered vase or chewed up piece of gum after Mitchell forced her to “marry” him and then raped her.  She felt like she no longer had any value.  That rape took away her self-worth because she was taught that sex before marriage is filthy.  Certainly being raped can be described as filthy, but a person doesn’t lose their intrinsic value as a person because they have been raped or because they have had intercourse before marriage.  Plenty of good people have been raped.  Plenty of good people have had premarital sex.  What happened to Elizabeth Smart was not her fault.  It grieves me to think that even for a moment, she felt worthless because she was victimized.  I think many religious organizations need to do a better job instilling self worth in girls.  That goes for any restrictive faith that places a high premium on chastity and modesty.

One other thing I noticed in Smart’s book was her description of the food Mitchell would steal.  I have never been LDS, but I have read a lot of accounts of the type of foods many Mormons eat.  They seem to be big on casseroles, Spam, and Jello.  For instance, Utah is the world’s leader in green Jello consumption.  Here’s just one thread on RfM about odd cuisine.  Mitchell apparently was very fond of mayonnaise and would mix it with carrots and raisins.  Just the thought of that makes me want to retch.  And Elizabeth washed it down with warm water from a plastic canteen shared by her captors… when she wasn’t forced to drink cheap wine or beer or liquor… Or smoking cigarettes…  Yeah.  I can see why she’d want to forget that time in her life. 

To add insult to injury, when she was finally found, the cop handcuffed her before he took her to the police station.  Why he cuffed her, I don’t know.  It must have been procedure.  Maybe he thought she’d have some kind of Stockholm Syndrome and might bonk him on the head.  Poor Elizabeth.  That was just one more thing she never should have experienced.

Anyway, I think the book is worth reading if you want to read Elizabeth Smart’s perspective of the horrible experiences that made her famous.  It’s definitely gotten me to thinking.   

Below is my reposted review.

I really debated purchasing Elizabeth Smart’s 2013 book, My Story.  I have read other books written by crime victims and, generally speaking, have found that victimhood does not necessary make one a good writer.  But Smart had help writing this book from ghost writer, Chris Stewart, and having seen her in the media in the eleven years since she was abducted from her home in June 2002, I figured I might as well. 

I managed to read Smart’s account of her abduction and nine months in captivity at the hands of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee in one sitting.  The book is written in the first person, as if Elizabeth Smart is standing at a lectern relating her story.  She begins with the story of the first time she laid eyes on Brian David Mitchell.  It was a chilly day in November 2001 and Mitchell was on a Salt Lake City street begging.  Elizabeth Smart was out shopping with her mother and a couple of her siblings.  Smart’s mother, Lois, felt sorry for Mitchell.  She gave him five dollars and her husband’s cell phone number so that they might offer him work.  Elizabeth Smart explains that she made eye contact with Mitchell and gave him a slight smile.  She, too, felt sorry for him.  At that moment, Mitchell determined that Elizabeth Smart would be his “second wife”.

Many people already know what happened next.  On the night of June 5th, 2002, Mitchell broke into Smart’s home and awakened the sleeping fourteen year old by pressing a knife to her neck.  Smart, who had been sleeping next to her younger sister, Mary Katherine, silently got out of bed and, wearing nothing but her red satin pajamas and a pair of running shoes, left her home with Mitchell.  She was gone for nine months.

Smart explains that after being forced to “wed” and then repeatedly raped by Mitchell, she felt like a priceless vase that had suddenly been smashed to bits.  What do you do with a shattered vase?  You sweep up the pieces and throw it away.  Smart writes that Mitchell had defiled and demoralized her to the point at which she felt like her life was meaningless and no one would ever want her.  Smart writes that Barzee treated her like a slave and seemed to have no empathy whatsoever for Smart’s plight.  In fact, Smart writes more than once that Barzee had “given up” her six children so she could be with Mitchell.  I’m not sure that giving up access to one’s children automatically makes someone *bad*…  After all, in divorce situations, men are asked to do it all the time.  However, I definitely see how Elizabeth Smart made that determination about Wanda Barzee, under the circumstances.

Aside from the cruel treatment and neglect she received at the hands of her captors, Smart writes of the very uncomfortable living conditions she was forced to endure.  Mitchell and Barzee were derelicts who lived outside; consequently, Elizabeth Smart, who had grown up privileged and comfortable, found herself going days without eating, going thirsty, and wearing filthy clothes that were cast offs from other homeless people.  Mitchell also forced Smart to drink alcohol, smoke, and view pornography, activities that were strictly against Smart’s Mormon beliefs.

My thoughts

I had read Bringing Elizabeth Home, a book written by Ed and Lois Smart in 2004.  I wasn’t very impressed with that book because it was very sanitized and offered little information that wasn’t already in the news.  Moreover, it also included a lot of religious “preaching” related to the Smarts’ belief in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I was a little afraid that Elizabeth Smart’s book would contain more of the same, although I had read that the book was going to focus much more on what went on during her actual captivity.

My Story is, in fact, about what happened to Elizabeth Smart during those nine months she was away.  I have to admit, after reading this book, I have new respect for Elizabeth Smart.  Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee put her through hell.  Smart makes it clear that given a choice, she would certainly favor Barzee over Mitchell, whom she describes as a narcissistic pedophile who was unspeakably cruel to her. 

I finished this book in a couple of hours.  It’s printed in large type and written in a conversational style that includes a lot of sentence fragments which I think was supposed to be engaging.  Personally, I find one word sentences annoying.  I also noticed at least one instance in which Smart’s captor was referred to as David Brian Mitchell.  That’s not a big deal, but I did catch it.  There are no photos, not that I really expected Smart to have pictures from that time period.  This book is not nearly as graphic as it could be, which is certainly understandable.  For many readers, I’m sure the lack of graphic details will be a relief.   

Overall

I don’t think the writing in My Story is the stuff of Pulitzer Prizes, but it’s not bad.  The book was a quick read and doesn’t include a whole lot more information than what has been printed in the media already, though it does give Smart’s perspective more so than any news article could.  I admire Elizabeth Smart’s fortitude during that ordeal.  I think My Story is worth reading if you’re interested in what really happened to Elizabeth Smart.  The writing could be better, though.

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book reviews

Repost: Jessica Valenti’s The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women…

I originally wrote this book review for Epinions.com in July 2009. I reposted it on my original blog on September 5, 2015. I am reposting it again as is.

Pros: Points out how women’s rights are affected by legislation regarding sexuality.

Cons: A little too rabidly feminist for my taste. Not that well written.

When I was a teenager, it seemed like everyone was having sex except me. As a 13 year old, I vividly recall a girl in my 8th grade English class telling me about how she’d gotten “laid” by her boyfriend the previous weekend. At the time, I didn’t even know what “getting laid” meant. As I got older, I learned more about euphemisms for having sex and watched as my friends gained an unnatural appreciation for turtlenecks, thanks to the hickeys left by their boyfriends. On my high school graduation day in June 1990, three of my classmates were so pregnant they could have given birth on the football field as we collected our diplomas.

Once I got to college, I truly did feel like a minority because I wasn’t having sex. On more than one occasion, I walked in on a roommate who was in the middle of intercourse. More than a couple of my friends had pregnancy scares. And there were a couple of times when I found my friends crying in the bathroom, despondent over a sexual relationship gone bad. Strangely enough, I still felt like a freak for not having those experiences when I was in my 20s. I waited until I was 30 years old before I finally gave up my virginity. Now that I’ve done the deed, I couldn’t be happier that I waited. Not having sex made my life much simpler.

Jessica Valenti, author of the 2009 book The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, did not wait until adulthood before she had sex for the first time. Indeed, Valenti lost her virginity at the tender age of 14. Her then boyfriend marked the event by drawing a heart on the wall with the couple’s initials and the date. Soon after their sexual union, Valenti found herself the object of derogatory remarks. Suddenly, because she’d had sex, Valenti was considered “at risk”. When Valenti’s mother found a condom in her purse, she warned that no man would want to marry her if she was promiscuous.

Now an adult, Jessica Valenti is a blogger and a feminist who has written articles for Ms. Magazine and The Guardian, as well as several books on feminism. In The Purity Myth, she takes on the supposed attitude that girls who have sex before marriage are somehow “damaged goods” and that the virginity movement is somehow hurting women. She rails against abstinence only education, the religious right, and misogynistic attitudes that she claims reduce women to mere objects, vessels that are only as good as their ability to carry babies.

Valenti’s prose is indignant as she highlights cases in which women are treated as second class citizens because they’d had sex. She cites one case in which a woman tried to get a “morning after” pill when her boyfriend’s condom broke and was subjected to the third degree by the medical establishment. The woman ended up getting pregnant and had an abortion.

Valenti writes of another woman who was attempting a home birth and went to a hospital for fluids. When the hospital staff saw that she had a scar from a c-section, they told her she couldn’t leave the hospital to give birth at home. When the woman snuck out of the hospital anyway, a police officer was dispatched to her house. He shackled her and brought her back to the hospital against her will, where she was forced to submit to another c-section. The woman sued, but lost. Apparently, according to state law, the fetus’s rights trumped her own.

Valenti discusses purity balls and “daddy/daughter dates”. Purity balls are father/daughter dances in which young women “pledge” their virginity to their fathers, promising to wait until marriage to have sex. Daddy/daughter dates supposedly show young women that they can be loved by a man, yet not engage in sexual activity. Valenti seems to think that both concepts are creepy and, I have to admit, on some level I agree with her.  Even though these events are supposed to discourage girls from having sex too soon, there’s something about them that strikes me as innappropriate and vaguely incestuous.  

Valenti also writes a great deal about how difficult it is nowadays to get an abortion and how so many of the laws regarding abortion were created by men. Indeed, Valenti seems pretty damned angry at men, whom she seems to think still subjugate and oppress women. She jeers at the sex education offered in schools today, which focuses only on abstinence and, by the way she describes it, serves to keep young people in the dark about how they can have healthy sex lives as teenagers.

I’ll be honest.

As someone who did wait a long time to have sex, I have a hard time swallowing Valenti’s assertions that teenagers should be having “healthy” sex lives. I don’t feel this way because I’m religious. I feel this way because I think it’s impractical for teenagers to have sex. Sex complicates relationships and, let’s face it, can cause problems on a variety of levels from health-related to legal. However, I also understand that many young people are going to have sex regardless and I agree with Valenti that a person’s decision to have sex should not define their goodness or moral status.

Like Valenti, I bristle whenever I read a news story about women who get in legal trouble because of something they did while they were pregnant. Valenti cites one memorable case from 2004 in which a Utah woman was charged with murder because she refused to have a c-section and one of her twins died. While I think it’s sensible for pregnant women to follow competent medical advice, I also think pregnant women are starting to become a special class of people in which others feel it’s perfectly okay to protect them from themselves, all because they’re nurturing another life inside their bodies. It seems the rights of pregnant women are starting to slide down a slippery slope, as some legislation is drafted to protect the rights of unborn children over the rights of their mothers.

I agree with a lot of what Valenti writes… so why does this book rub me the wrong way?

First off, I don’t think The Purity Myth is particularly well written. Valenti’s prose reads as if she’s standing in front of a crowd, angrily ranting about the oppression of women. She uses a lot of repetitive phrasing that I found a bit irksome after awhile. She also uses a lot of distracting footnotes and endnotes. The footnotes mostly consist of secondary comments that she could have either omitted or included within the paragraphs. The print is double-spaced, which may make it easier for some people to read, but also serves to pad the book a bit.

Secondly, while I agree that sometimes women still get the short end of the stick, I also think that life can be just as unfair for men. I don’t really like the very angry ranting tone of The Purity Myth because I don’t think it really strengthens Valenti’s case. While I can see and agree with Valenti’s points regarding the rights of pregnant women, I have also witnessed firsthand how men’s rights are often trampled on once those kids are born.

Valenti writes a lot about rape and how many people (women included) think that rape victims somehow “ask” to be raped. But she also seems to imply that most men subscribe to the attitude that women ask for rape. I have known a lot of males who take a rather piggish view toward women, especially regarding rape. However, I’ve also known a lot of wonderful, sensitive males who don’t take that attitude. I don’t like to see an entire gender get painted with the same broad brush.

Finally, while I agree that there’s nothing “dirty” about sex and it shouldn’t be a shameful act, I truly believe that teenagers are better off if they don’t have sex and it shouldn’t be encouraged. Valenti refers to her graduate school years a lot when she makes her points. With that in mind, I will refer to my graduate school years, when I worked with pregnant teenagers and teenaged mothers. While most of the young women I worked with loved their babies, they also had a tough time finishing their adolescence as they took care of their children.

Overall

I agree with some of Valenti’s points about women’s rights, particularly when it comes to reproduction. But I don’t like her excessively angry tone and I don’t agree that America is obsessed with virginity. In fact, given my personal experiences growing up in America, I’m inclined to think that just the opposite is true. Moreover, I don’t think virginity hurts young women. If a young woman can have casual sex outside of marriage or a serious relationship and avoid the baggage that can come with it, more power to her. But I have seen with my own eyes how casual sex can be complicated and make life difficult. And I managed to live just fine without sexual intercourse for a good portion of my life. For me, the best part about waiting is the fact that my husband truly is the best lover I’ve ever had.

I think The Purity Myth is worthy reading for those who are interested in women’s studies and sexual politics. I have no doubt that a lot of women will agree wholeheartedly with Valenti’s viewpoint. I just don’t happen to be among that group of women. I guess I’m just not as liberal as I thought I was.

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