Mormons in the media…enough already

So I think I’ve reached my breaking point with Mormons in the media. You’d think that by being Mormon and having grown up on the east coast, where up until about 10 years ago all people knew about Mormons was that they were white polygamists from Utah who liked to ride bikes and wear white shirts with name tags, I would welcome the publicity. Unfortunately that is not the case. Granted I am grateful for the decline in arguments surrounding whether or not my parents are polygamists…they are not ; or whether or not black Mormons are like unicorns-a myth. We are real, along with Latino, Asian, South Asian and Inuit Mormons (forgive me if I left anyone out, that’s the awful side of generalizing). Yet with all the positive benefits that this new found publicity affords me, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Because for every positive example of modern day Mormonism ( see Mitt Romney, Brandon Flowers, and everyone else who participates in the I AM MORMON campaign), there are countless others who in an effort to either leverage the religion as a tool for fame or show that Mormons are like everyone else, paint a poor picture of the Church and do a great deal of disservice to those Latter-Day Saints who see the religion as a way of life, the practice of which, because of it’s tenets and the symbols of commitment it asks it’s members to display, makes them different from the world around them.

You’re probably thinking, “Oh Come on Kdub, Mormons have been in the media for years…why break your silence now? What was the straw that broke the camel’s lovely little lumps?” Well to be honest I have been wanting to post about this since February, as a direct response to an article in GLAMOUR Magazine. The article told the story of a young woman who having grown up Mormon, decided at 27 that she would no longer wait until marriage to lose her virginity and how she engaged in unprotected sex with her boyfriend, which resulted in a pregnancy scare. But to be honest a pile of straw had already formed by a article she had written, in the same magazine, a year earlier, about how while lying naked next to a naked French man she decided that her decision not to engage in sexual intercourse was of her own choosing and not because she had been raised Mormon. Let me be clear I am not angry with this girl for having sex, or for contemplating having sex while lying naked next to a French Man. It’s her life, being raised Mormon, she knows all about free agency and the power to choose. I am in no way judging her choices. I get it, its tough being a  virgin in your mid twenties, I know…trust me.  I will however be extremely irate at the fact that the way in which she chose to tell the story of her choices paints LDS women, i.e. ME and my buddies,  in a poor light. It makes us seem like sex starved, rule benders, who after years of towing the line of abstinence throw caution to the wind in an effort to get a bite of “forbidden fruit.” After her article how will any French Man, or any man for that matter, take me seriously when I tell him that I won’t sleep with him because I am deciding to live my life as a practicing Mormon? What kind of impression does her article leave on a 16 year-old girl who’s trying to be chaste but is unsure of where to draw the line when making out with her boyfriend? She is not responsible for the resulting choices in the situations posed above, but she makes it a heck of a lot harder for the individuals in those situations to make those choices and defend them. I guess my point is that I wish she would quit making it hard for the rest of us. Her actions when kept to herself do not impact others, but when she chooses to dispel them via various public mediums, which causes them to be weaved into to the social narrative of a larger group, they work to affect all the members in that group.

But I digress. The piece of straw that prompted me to post was an article in the NYTimes that interviewed a group of Mormons on the various ways they get around the various rules and restrictions of Mormonism, in an effort to be hip. Again to each his/her own, but the whole premise of bending the rules in an effort to be hip rubs me the wrong way. Seems like priorities are out of line, but whatever. What really bugs me is that if we have a group of Mormons giving advice on bending the rules, how are the rest of us going to fare when defending the decision to adhere to them .  Again, quit making it hard for the rest of us. I know I am totally harping on this point but I’ve been in situations where after I worked hard to establish the fact that I don’t do X,Y& Z because I am Mormon, I’ve been undermined by the fact that the individuals I am trying to make a point to say they’ve met Mormons who do X, Y & Z.

To wrap, I ‘ve got mixed feelings on my people being in the media spotlight. I think its healthy for members of a group to share their varied experiences. It helps to define and  create depth within the group’s identity. Alas I can’t help but gripe about the fact that sometimes the sharing of those experiences, specifically those that portray exceptions as normal  behavior (no it is not normal for a practicing Mormon girl to lay naked next to a naked man, and no, my bearded Father does not claim the inability to bare irritation from razor bumps as a means of getting to wear a beard to church), can bring about negative consequences for the group as a whole.

I’m not saying that these experiences shouldn’t be shared, I just ask that when sharing them, the sharers give their story the right context.  For example: My name is Kdubs, I am a Mormon. Mormonism encourages getting adequate amounts of rest (please see the Word of Wisdom) alas from the moment I came into this world I have struggled with practicing this aspect of my faith. This is my story of blogging at 3am in the morning…See what I did there 🙂

Kdub out…