Thursday, February 16, 2012

Mormon Voluntary Modesty Police Force!



So the latest episode of the "Voluntary Modesty Police Force" happened on Tuesday at BYU for those of you who haven't heard about it yet living under a rock .  Like last Fall, I dismissed it just as that one "crazy" guy you get in a singles ward.  However, one of the writers on FMH stated this, "As long as we keep teaching boys they are too weak to behave themselves, they’re going to believe it," and it got me to thinking.  In the LDS (Mormon) Church, young women are taught sometimes that they should dress modestly because otherwise men will have unpure thoughts.  In fact, I read something to that effect in one of the conference talks this past year because I remember disagreeing and stewing over it for several weeks.  I ended up just tossing the idea out the window because I still disagree with it.  I think it's potentially harmful to teach young women that they are "guardians" of men's thoughts and virtue for several reasons-one being that it can give young men the idea that they are powerless over their thoughts.  
The letter above is a Young Man reminding a Young Women of this concept that was taught at church.  Was this just a "crazy" guy at BYU-I and BYU or are we going to see more instances of "skinny jeans" that embarrass most of the rest of us?  What do you think?  Oh, and if you disagree with me--I'm more than happy to hear what you have to say.   

4 comments:

Brenda said...

I heard about this. My guess is the guy who wrote the note has a porn problem and goes around undressing women with his eyes. Just a guess.

Steve said...

You know who else blames women's dress on mens' poor behavior and inability to control themselves? The Taliban. Maybe BYU should adopt a Burka-only attire to please these guys that lack self control! hahaha

mj said...

I just want to clarify that there are lots of people at BYU that don't think like this. (Either that or I WAS living under a rock when I went to school there.) I was kind of a rebel at the school, though. I even wrote a few articles for the alternative student paper.

On the other hand, I remember being taught that the purpose of modesty is to show respect for yourself and to acknowledge that your body is "the temple of God." I did later hear from random other girls about helping men have pure thoughts, but I thought it was pretty asinine so I ignored it.

I hope Young Women's leaders are teaching them self respect first, but I have seen plenty of evidence that it is high time to update the manuals. How do we make that happen, anyway? Can I volunteer? I am an editor after all.

ChelMo said...

I try not to pay attention to this type of idiocy. The bubble world of some of these students makes me want to vomit - as if church members don't have enough to try and explain away already. I may be way outside the LDS norm (I transfered from BYU to UC Berkeley, after all), but I find these incidence to be beyond embarrassing, and definitely destructive.

You may have already read it, but here's a post by a friend of mine that I think you'd appreciate: http://bycommonconsent.com/2011/11/10/leggings-modesty-and-efy/