I realize that paying too much attention to what someone writing for The New Republic has to say about sexual morality is beyond silly, so I will try to keep this brief. The most interesting thing about Helen Croydon’s piece It’s Time to Ditch Monogamy is that it never really bothers to mount a serious argument. Not even a little bit. It approaches sexual morality with all the gravitas of discussing the latest fashion trends. In fact, less. I’ve seen more care and attention paid to articles on normcore than I have to this articles take on why monogamy is so five minutes ago. I cannot emphasize enough that I’m being earnest here. Normcore fashion is treated with more seriousness than monogamy. Literally.[ref]As in: the actual, original definition of the term.[/ref]
I’m also not going to indulge in any of the usual sky is falling rhetoric here. The sky has been falling and will continue to fall for the foreseeable future, but this article contributes nothing original or noteworthy to that ongoing process except as a prototypical example of “not with a bang, but with a whimper.” The debate over monogamy, among those who don’t see the point, is over precisely because they don’t even grasp that there’s anything intellectually serious to talk about. I mean, this is an article which includes “For these girls, Cameron Diaz is a good role-model.” as an ironically non-ironic statement.[ref]Meaning: Croydon realizes that’s a ridiculous thing to say. But she says it and she means it. We’re now looking to Hollywood stars not only as moral paragons, but also trenchant social commentators.[/ref]
I’ll make one final observation, and this simply that this death-rattle of monogamy (at least among a very particular cultural segment of the United States) is just the inevitable conclusion of Disney’s version of romance carried to the extreme.[ref]It’s worth nothing that Frozen was a daring departure from that con-job.[/ref] First we make a fetish out of that euphoric, transient phase of romantic love and then we realize that euphoric, transient phases aren’t really relevant or important to the real world. Well, that’s true. They aren’t.
But what does that have to do with love and marriage, again? Don’t ask Croydon. She hasn’t the faintest clue.
Earlier this month, Time posted a letter written by Ayaan Hiris Ali, which she had written in response to Brandeis University’s decision not to give her an honorary degree after all. If a university decides not to give someone an award, you can pretty safely bet it’s because someone might be offended. But it’s always interesting to me when the person who might be offended (in this case the primary victim appears to be CAIR) and the alleged victimizer (Ali) are both members of politically correct identity groups. After all, Ali is not only a woman, but also black. She is also a woman’s rights activist. But she’s an atheist and a harsh critic of Islam. So who do you side with, the WoC[ref]That’s “woman of color,” there are all kinds of terms to keep up with if you’re interested in liberal politics.[/ref] or Islam?[ref]Of course, if Ali had been attacking Christianity there wouldn’t be a problem at all.[/ref]
I’m partially interested in this out of morbid fascination, like watching a car crash. But it’s also a kind blend of fatalism and professional interest. Given my aspirations (to be a fiction writer) and my politics (anything other than party-line left) it’s more or less a question of how much I’m going to pay for my beliefs, professionally speaking, not whether or not I will. So, which are the most taboo taboos? What matters more?
Turns out, though, we can’t really tell from this story. Ali is a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Suddenly: everything is clear. Doesn’t really matter what the rest of her liberal bona fides may be; she is tainted by association with the right. She’s even married to Niall Ferguson (who is practically a colonial apologist) so there’s really no hope for her at all.
I guess Brandeis didn’t really have a hard call to make after all.
This image seems to have started making the rounds before Elder Oaks even finished his remarks on priesthood authority. I mostly ignored it at the time, but a couple days ago I came across this post which analyzed the origins of the two quotes. Biggest point? The Elder Oaks quote is wrong. He did not say that women are not free to alter the divinely decreed pattern. He said that the General Authorities are not free to make that change. That takes it from a kind of chauvinist slap-down to an expression of modest humility in what leaders can do. And, after all, the argument that God would have to reveal His will on this matter is something that even OW seems to support.
It’s always interesting to check the correspondence between the headline of an article and it’s URL. In this case, the headline reads: “Is the Oculus Rift sexist?” and the URL includes: “is-the-oculus-rift-designed-to-be-sexist/.” That nuance, that it is designed to be sexist, is going to be important as we delve into this story and ask ourselves this simple question: where do we reach the point where silliness outweighs legitimacy in the discrimination olympics?
So here’s the first fact: virtual reality (like the Occulus Rift) tends to make some people hurl. In fact, a major design point for the upcoming Occulus Rift has been to figure out how to alleviate headaches and nausea that can arise with use. And here’s the second: women tend to react much more to VR then men. But does it really make sense to fling around the term “sexist”? Danah Boyd, who wrote the piece for Quartz, clearly thinks so:
That’s when a friend of mine stumbled over a footnote in an esoteric army report about simulator sickness in virtual environments. Sure enough, military researchers had noticed that women seemed to get sick at higher rates in simulators than men. While they seemed to be able to eventually adjust to the simulator, they would then get sick again when switching back into reality. Being an activist and a troublemaker, I walked straight into the office of the head CAVE[ref]Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, a 1997-era VR technology[/ref] researcher and declared the CAVE sexist.
So, to be clear, we’re now declaring inanimate objects to be sexist.
But wait, is this just short-hand for calling the designers sexist? If someone makes a technology that is designed to make women spew chunks, but not men, that would indeed register as “sexist” in my book. But what’s actually going on?
Based on some interesting research, Boyd concludes that men and women process two different cues for depth perception differently. Men rely on motion-parallax, which basically means that closer things move more than things that are far away. Look at the way the clouds in this video (the most distant) move the slowest vs. the tubes (the closest) which move the fastest. That’s parallax.
Women, by contrast, tend to rely more on “shape-from-shading,” which Boyd describes as “a bit trickier.” She goes on to describe it:
If you stare at a point on an object in front of you and then move your head around, you’ll notice that the shading of that point changes ever so slightly depending on the lighting around you. The funny thing is that your eyes actually flicker constantly, recalculating the tiny differences in shading, and your brain uses that information to judge how far away the object is.
It’s not just trickier to describe, however. It’s also much trickier to implement. This is obvious to anyone who knows even a little bit about computer graphics (lighting is hard!) and Boyd agrees:
It’s super easy—if you determine the focal point and do your linear matrix transformations accurately, which for a computer is a piece of cake—to render motion parallax properly. Shape-from-shading is a different beast. Although techniques for shading 3D models have greatly improved over the last two decades—a computer can now render an object as if it were lit by a complex collection of light sources of all shapes and colors—what they they can’t do is simulate how that tiny, constant flickering of your eyes affects the shading you perceive. As a result, 3D graphics does a terrible job of truly emulating shape-from-shading.
So that’s my problem with calling VR “sexist”. The problem isn’t, or at least isn’t primarily, that you’ve got a bunch of dudes who don’t care what women need and/or enjoy excluding women. The problem is that the kind of technology that men react to is computationally easierthan the kind that women react to. I’m all for recognizing that fact and working to mitigate it. Now that Facebook owns Occulus I think there’s no doubt that they are going to work hard to get to the bottom of that because you don’t want to alienate half your market. (When Occulus was a hardcore gaming device there may have been a perception that this wasn’t as important. Not anymore.)
I don’t mean to chalk this up to Boyd’s hyperventilating victim-complex. I know that editors choose headlines, and her concluding paragraphs are quite reasonable. But calling the technology itself sexist? Alleging, as the URL does, that it was designed that way? Come on, people. It’s getting silly.
Economist Mark Perry has a rather different take on the gender wage gap:
Economic theory tells us that the “gender occupational fatality gap” explains part of the “gender pay gap” because a disproportionate number of men work in higher-risk, but higher-paid occupations like coal mining (almost 100 % male), fire fighters (96.6% male), police officers (84.8% male), correctional officers (72% male), farming, fishing, and forestry (77.3% male), roofers (98.5% male) and construction (97.5% male); BLS data here. On the other hand, a disproportionate number of women work in relatively low-risk industries, often with lower pay to partially compensate for the safer, more comfortable indoor office environments in occupations like office and administrative support (73.3% female), education, training, and library occupations (73.6% female), and healthcare (75% female). The higher concentrations of men in riskier occupations with greater occurrences of workplace injuries and fatalities suggest that more men than women are willing to expose themselves to work-related injury or death in exchange for higher wages. In contrast, women more than men prefer lower risk occupations with greater workplace safety, and are frequently willing to accept lower wages for the reduced probability of work-related injury or death.
In a recent debate, feminist Camille Paglia made a similar point:
Indeed, men are absolutely indispensable right now, invisible as it is to most feminists, who seem blind to the infrastructure that makes their own work lives possible. It is overwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous work of building roads, pouring concrete, laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines, cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing the landscape for housing developments. It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings, and it is men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall. Every day along the Delaware River in Philadelphia, one can watch the passage of vast oil tankers and towering cargo ships arriving from all over the world. These stately colossi are loaded, steered, and off-loaded by men. The modern economy, with its vast production and distribution network, is a male epic, in which women have found a productive role–but women were not its author.
I’ve adjusted for hours worked (full-time vs. part-time), education choices, job choices, time off, etc. when analyzing the gender wage gap. Can’t say I’ve ever taken fatalities into consideration.
Twice a year the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds a General Conference, which consists of 4, 2-hour meetings for the general membership of the Church to attend at the giant conference center in Salt Lake, at church buildings around the world, or even from home via Internet and other sources. In addition to the general membership meetings, there is a Priesthood meeting for men and boys 12 or older and a combined meeting for women and girls as young as 8. Last year, at the Fall General Conference, the feminist Mormon group Ordain Women staged a protest at the male-only meeting. OW seeks to have women ordained to the Mormon priesthoods (there are two orders), but their request was denied and they were barred entrance. The incident made headlines, which seems to have been the purpose.[ref]I base this on both the language used (e.g. “Priesthood Session Action”) and also on the explicit emphasis placed on the publicity the event garnered: ” The images of us watching men and boys walk in instead of us and of each of us asking for permission to enter are powerful.” Alternatively, just look at the cameras and reporters in the pics.[/ref]
OW plans to repeat their action again at the upcoming April General Conference, and this has provoked a preemptive response from the Church. An official statement that was released to the public makes two important statements. First, it states that male-only ordination to the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods is “a matter of doctrine.” This draws a deliberate contrast with the racial priesthood ban which the Church rescinded in 1978 and further repudiated in a statement earlier this year. That practice was never based on any canonized revelation, and is now[ref]Original version said “had been viewed” which implied to some folks that it was always seen as just policy. That’s not accurate, and it’s not what I intended to convey.[/ref] viewed as a matter of policy (transient) as opposed to doctrine (permanent). The new statement even went farther and specifically disavowed the folk theology that had grown up around this policy: “None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church.”
This new statement on race and the priesthood is part of a major, but quiet, new initiative in how the Church talks about its own history and other sensitive issues. It is, in that sense, a sign of progressiveness in the Church. I, and many others, applauded the document when it came out. So it is very telling that the Church chose to refer to this document (however obliquely) in their response to OW. Referring to a new, progressive document conveys the message, “This far, and no farther” more powerfully than a reliance on an older or more traditional source would.
Which brings us to the second, and more controversial, statement:
If you feel you must come and demonstrate, we ask that you do so in free speech zones adjacent to Temple Square, which have long been established for those wishing to voice differing viewpoints.
We have nothing in common with those people [referring to other demonstrators in the free speech zone]. They are seeking to destroy the church. We are not against the church — we ARE the church.
The idea that the Church has chosen to ostracize OW members is widely seen by supporters of OW as victory for their movement. A raft of blog posts from prominent Mormon women, like Jana Riess, have come out stating that the Church is behaving like a bully. Riess writes:
There is something deeply symbolic about yesterday’s statement, for it reveals what the Church apparently thinks of the feminists within its fold. We, as faithful and active members of the Church, are being lumped together with the same anti-Mormon protestors who routinely crash General Conference and shout that the Mormon religion is of the devil. These protestors have started fistfights with conference-goers and even stomped on or burned temple garments.
In line with characterizations like these (although not necessarily as an endorsement of them)[ref]Kristine pointed out in a comment to this piece: “I said nothing about the merits of either side’s case; I was asked to opine on the way the media would respond, and I did.”[/ref], Kristine Haglund, another prominent Mormon feminist, called the decision a “PR disaster for the church.” She went on o say that “Goliath is never going to get better press than David — the optics are terrible.” That’s all I intended folks to glean from her quote, that it was a bad PR move, but I [/ref] On Facebook I’ve seen friends express similar twin feelings of deep hurt at being excluded along with a sense that soon the tide will turn in their favor and the members of the Church will come to see OW as the good guys. I think both of those reactions are mistaken.
First, while my heart goes out to those who feel stunned and betrayed by this announcement, I’m afraid they may have set themselves up for tragedy. The movement for female ordination often models their approach on scriptural precedents like the parable of the importunate widow, but this is a very high-risk approach to activism. But this parable is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, it is about a widow and therefore someone who self-evidently has a valid claim.[ref]The parable is more commonly known as the parable of the unjust judge.[/ref] Is it “self-evident” that we ought to ordain women? Obviously most Mormons don’t think that it is. Second, it seems like a serious mistake to apply the parable to conventional PR pressure tactics targeting the leaders of the Church instead of prayer to God. I’m not suggesting that OW should only pray about this and nothing more, but I am suggesting that enlisting this parable as a justification of conventional protests is a mistake. Unfortunately both these elements, the believe that female ordination is self-evident and also the belief in scriptural justification for their tactics mean that OW may have not really prepared themselves for the possibility that the Church simply isn’t going to go their way. I’ve often seen Mormon feminists pronounce total confidence in both the rightness and the inevitability of their cause. In light of such great expectations, there is simply no way that the Church could offer a definitive “no” that would not feel crushing.[ref]By contrast, I have often seen folks who oppose female ordination express a willingness to adapt if God reveals that to be the course for the Church. It seems this has emboldened the OW movement instead of encouraging them to consider their own back-up plans.[/ref]
Meanwhile, however, Mormon feminists often do not seem cognizant of the fact that their requests would cause just as much pain to fellow members as they themselves feel today. If they feel excluded by this statement, imagine how categorically and totally traditional Mormons (who vastly outnumber Mormon feminists) would feel were the Church to repudiate their faith and their convictions by instituting female ordination. There genuinely are two sides to this issue, and those who oppose female ordination frequently do so because of their own equally sincere convictions about what it means to be a Mormon woman. I understand that being asked to stand next to anti-Mormons may feel like symbolic ostracism. Does OW understand the extent to which, if their requests were granted, huge numbers of Mormons would feel just as betrayed? It may be asking too much while the sting is still fresh, but feelings of hurt and betrayal should eventually be examined in this context. This story ends with broken hearts, no matter how it ends.
Second, and for a great many reasons, I do not think that the Church’s statement will result in a significant shift in Mormon perception of OW. It’s important to step back and realize that OW does not even speak for all Mormons who feel dissatisfied with the status quo as it relates to the priesthood and gender issues broadly defined. As I’ve written before, the word “conservative” takes on strange connotations in a religion that is dedicated to ongoing revelation. Mormons believe in a Heavenly Mother, but we know very little about Her. Mormons believe that there are other scriptures beyond the Book of Mormon, but we don’t have them yet. We believe that God “will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”[ref]9th Article of Faith[/ref] In a broad vista of possible futures, the movement to ordain women to the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood orders is one tiny possibility that does not have broad support even among Mormons who look for forward to further light and knowledge.[ref]I also suspect that the Bloggernaccle is something of an echo chamber for a relatively radical Mormon minority.[/ref] In fact, one of my chief disagreements with OW is precisely that it seems completely deaf to the possibility of a genuinely new and uniquely Mormon resolution to the questions it raises, seeing instead only the conventional secular redress.
What’s more, however, the Church’s statement isn’t in any way a proactive attack on OW itself or its members. This is not some kind of sequel to the September Six. As quick as folks are to draw comparisons with the civil rights struggle and other forms of oppression and persecution, the Church has actually done nothing as it relates to OW generally. It has only specified that if you want to come to Temple Square for the purpose of protesting the Church General Conference you have to do so in the area that has been designated for that purpose. In other words, the statement does intimate that the aim of OW runs counter to the doctrine of the Church, but the only action the Church is taking is a specific, limited, response to a single, contained tactic of OW that causes even generally supportive Mormons consternation. This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made.
Mormonism is an incredibly open-minded faith because of its atheological nature, and I do not believe that the statement from the Church presages an offensive against Mormon feminists in general or even specifically against OW. Lots of Mormons believe lots of things, and lots of Mormons think that other Mormons are crazy for the things they believe.[ref]Welcome to humanity/[/ref] When it comes to behavior, we’re a pretty rigid Church, but when it comes to philosophy it’s pretty much every man or woman for himself. And I like it that way. I like the big tent approach to philsophy coupled with firm stances on ethical actions. But there is a difference between “all people are welcome” and “all ideas are accepted.” No matter how much we as individual members may love our Church, it is ultimately not up to us to define what the Church believes. It isn’t really our Church at all. Every religious tradition must decide for itself which beliefs are essential, which beliefs are somewhat optional, and which beliefs are banned.[ref]As a general observation, I think religious traditions are always more tolerant in this sense than the individual members within that tradition wish they would be.[/ref]
I certainly don’t want to get out ahead of the prophets and declare this answer conclusively resolved based on one sentence from one public relations statement. So I am not going to try and argue that the Church’s position on female ordination is as central as, for example, the divinity of Christ or the Atonement. It isn’t, and it never can be. But I do think that proponents sometimes fail to appreciate the extent to which a commitment to gender essentialism and traditional gender roles is a deep part of our culture, history, and doctrine. Unique teachings that define Mormonism, like the centrality of the family to exaltation, are inextricable from teachings like gender complementarity. These beliefs have been reaffirmed recently with the proclamation on the family. And they seem to be at odds with OW’s particularly severe and uncompromising vision of gender egalitarianism.
There will always be some members of faith traditions who find their treasured convictions on the wrong side of the boundaries of their faith. That is an awful predicament to find oneself in. Historically, some in that position have ultimately been in error, but sometimes it is their particular faith tradition that has made mistakes. (Sometimes both, of course.) That is why, even if the Church gets increasingly explicit about male-only ordination as a matter of essential doctrine, I will sympathize with those who cling to their beliefs and their conscience. I think they are wrong, but (in this possible future) I hope that all those who find themselves in that position realize that they are loved and wanted and welcomed even if one or more of their beliefs have been categorized as out of bounds. I hope they find a way to live with the tension between their competing beliefs (a tension we all feel to some extent at different points in our lives) and remain within our community.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a frustrated counter-reaction to criticisms of Elder Callister’s article “What is the Lord’s Standard for Morality?” A lot of folks liked it. A lot of other folks did not. I found friends and family in both camps. That made me cautious as I wrote this followup. Not because I temper my words to try and please people, but because when folks I respect disagree with me I like to take the time to listen and reconsider. So I listened. And I reconsidered. This post is the result.
A Rock and a Hard Place
The idea that we should be careful in how we talk about sexual morality is valid. Last year, Elizabeth Smart provided a stark example. She described how an object lesson she’d heard in church that compared sex to chewing gum came to her mind after she was first raped by her kidnapper.
I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you know longer have worth, you know longer have value. ‘Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.’
I’m sure that the person who gave this lesson meant well, but that object lesson (along with its cousins: the nail in the board, the licked cupcake, and the crumpled rose) is an example of purity culture, and purity culture is Satanic. Most of the time when we talk about sin, we use a mistake-paradigm. Sins are mistakes, and through the Atonement they can be fixed. Jesus says “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”[ref]Isaiah 1:18[/ref] It is true that the Atonement cannot erase the consequences of our sins, but it can and does make us whole. That’s the point, and for the most part, it’s what we teach.
Except when it comes to sexual sins. Then, suddenly, we switch from a mistakes-paradigm to a purity-paradigm. You can fix something that is broken, but rotten meat is bad forever. Even more pernicious, however, purity-culture makes it seem as though virginity and chastity are the same thing. This implies that even a victim of a rape should somehow bear the guilt of sexual transgression. That is an abominable and indefensible teaching. The mistakes-paradigm is compatible with Christianity. Purity culture, although it’s often preached by Christians, is not. It is antithetical to the Savior’s message of hope and redemption. It is what Satan, the accuser, wants us to believe.
As she recounts in her autobiography, Smart remembered that lesson when it could have done the most harm to her. She was rescued from despair, however, by the memory of love. She knew that her mother and father would accept her back with loving and open arms no matter what had been done to her. Throughout her awful ordeal, she remembered the love of her family and felt the love of her Heavenly Father. Love won out, and because of that Elizabeth found the resolve to endure and, in the end, to defeat her tormentors. But first she had to defeat a false teaching she had been subjected to in Sunday school.
There is more to the story. As I wrote at the time, headlines covering her comments ran along the lines of “Elizabeth Smart: Abstinence-only education can make rape survivors feel ‘dirty,’ ‘filthy’” and “Traditional Mormon Sexual Purity Lesson Contributed to Captivity, Elizabeth Smart Tells University Audience.” There was no shortage of those who were ready to use her words to score points for the world’s view of sexual freedom, whether she agreed or not.
The Church’s unwavering adherence to strict moral standards is unusual in our modern society, and it is under constant attack. This attack could have tragic consequences, precisely because the Church’s stark and plain teachings on chastity and morality have measurable, beneficial effects. A 4-year study conducted at the University of North Carolina found that, compared to other religious denominations, Mormon youths were more devout, more able to articulate their own faith, and more likely to adhere to the standards set by the Church. As Deseret News reported, the study found that fewer Mormon teens:
Engaged in sexual intercourse
Had ever smoked pot
Drank alcohol a few times a year
Watched x-rated or pornographic programs in the past year
There’s good reason to believe that clear teachings contribute to these measurably different outcomes for Mormons. Researcher Stephen Vaisey interviewed more than 20 Mormon youths for the project, and subsequently noted:
One of the groups that stood out … were the Mormons. In general they tended to be more articulate about their religion, what their religion actually taught and what kind of religious constraints it placed on them. [emphasis added]
Plain and unflinching talk from Church leaders is a shield between our children and the dangerous temptations of our modern world. These teachings are not a matter of sheltering youth, but rather of empowering them to see clearly the choices that lie before them.
We are trapped between the rock of purity culture and the hard place of the world’s dismissal of the seriousness of sexual sin.
Daggers Placed to Pierce Their Souls
The response to my original post that surprised me the most was the oft-repeated complaint that I had skipped over the worst line in the talk. That was:
In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for.
Some folks accused me of leaving it out because I didn’t know how to account for it, but the truth is that I left it out because it didn’t even register as problematic. I took it to be just a simple observation that dress, along with many other factors, is one way that like-minded individuals identify potential mates in a process known in economics, sociology and anthropology as assortative mating. If you would like to marry a man who values modesty in dress, then it makes sense to dress modestly. (The existence of assortative mating is itself so well known that some studies fault it for rising income inequality.)
Others, however, pointed out that the word “get” as opposed to “marry” was just too similar to the phrase “get what they deserve” and that, combined with a reference to a woman’s dress, it was just too close to victim-blaming. I do not dispute the validity of this reaction. One of the things I’ve learned, especially in private discussions, is that people can react to the same words in very, very different ways and that if you are willing to listen you will generally learn that people have good reasons for reacting the way that they do.
More than anything else, these discussions reminded me of Jacob’s haunting and cutting words when he spoke about chastity:
7 And also it grieveth me that I must use so much boldness of speech concerning you, before your wives and your children, many of whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate before God, which thing is pleasing unto God;
8 And it supposeth me that they have come up hither to hear the pleasing word of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul.
9 Wherefore, it burdeneth my soul that I should be constrained, because of the strict commandment which I have received from God, to admonish you according to your crimes, to enlarge the wounds of those who are already wounded, instead of consoling and healing their wounds; and those who have not been wounded, instead of feasting upon the pleasing word of God have daggers placed to pierce their souls and wound their delicate minds.
10 But, notwithstanding the greatness of the task, I must do according to the strict commands of God, and tell you concerning your wickedness and abominations, in the presence of the pure in heart, and the broken heart, and under the glance of the piercing eye of the Almighty God.[ref]Jacob 2:7-10[/ref]
I always imagined, when I read these verses as a kid, that the women and children in the crowd must have just had very delicate Victorian sensibilities about the topic of sex. Now I realize how dubious that reading is, and I wonder how many of those in the audience had been traumatized by sexual assault, rape, and abuse. I don’t say this to give Elder Callister a get-out-of-jail-free card, because after all the big difference between Jacob’s words and the Ensign article is that Jacob gave this extended apology/warning (the earliest known trigger warning?) and Elder Callister did not.
My position is this: I think Elder Callister meant no ill will, and that it’s probably impossible to talk about these issues without causing pain to at least some people. As an audience, we should try to understand the principle behind the words. But I also would hope that our leaders can continue to learn how to be as careful as they may, without diluting the message, in picking their words, and I sincerely acknowledge the validity of those who were hurt by these words. Perhaps it is some comfort, in re-reading Jacob 2, to find yourself in good company.
What is Rape Culture, Anyway?
A post at Feminist Mormon Housewives called me out for misunderstanding what the term “rape culture” means. To be fair: that’s valid. I have my own definition of rape culture, but I shouldn’t have used a non-standard definition without more carefully explaining what it was and that it’s non-standard. I’m not going to get into that now, either (although the basics are in my original post). Instead, let’s just pause and consider a small irony.
One of the primary concerns with Elder Callister’s talk is that he used words and phrases that could be hurtful to his audience, even if the hurtful meaning wasn’t intended or even logically implied by his words. And that is valid. But wouldn’t the same concern apply to deploying a deliberately inflammatory term like “rape culture” to describe the talk? After all, there are quite a few people who aren’t familiar with the technical definition (that’s not in dispute, since the FMH post takes the trouble of providing the definition) so, by their own logic, perhaps critics ought to be more careful with their language? Just to be clear, my concern is not that Elder Callister’s feelings might be hurt, but rather that a very large number of faithful Mormons who do not keep current on feminist political terminology will be confused and hurt when some of their fellow Mormons start associating a general authority and advocacy of rape. So really, by the logic of the critics of the talk, we shouldn’t even be having a conversation using the term “rape culture” at all.
The substance of the rape culture accusation could be made without the incendiary terminology. Using the conventional definition, rape culture is the idea that common attitudes can lead indirectly to rape. Specific examples of rape culture include anything that condones or advocates (1) victim-blaming, (2) sexual objectification, or (3) trivializing rape. I don’t think anyone is seriously arguing that the talk trivializes rape. We’ve already talked about how the “get the type of man they dress for” line sounded like victim blaming. I have already conceded the validity of that painful association, but I am not willing to go from sounds like victim-blaming to engages in victim-blaming. (The observation that women’s dress can affect men doesn’t rise to the level of victim-blaming, either.)
So that leaves sexual objectifcation. Here the problem is not with any particular phrasing of any particular talk, but with the concept of modesty as it exists in Mormonism. Critics argue that emphasizing modest dress turns women into sexual objects, and that the only solution is to talk about modesty less. (They also argue that we should encourage women to dress modestly for themselves and not just for the sake of men, but I’m not going to go into that because I agree with it.) So, should the Church shut up about modesty, or at least talk about it a little bit less?
Will the Real Moderates Please Stand Up
As I mentioned, the number one criticism of my post was that I had skipped over the “get the type of man they dress for” line. Only slightly less prominent, however, was the argument that the critics of Elder Callister’s talk didn’t have anything against the Church’s standards or teachings on modesty. The theory was that the big kerfuffle wasn’t about what Elder Callister said. It was just about how he said it. I don’t for a moment doubt that the folks who told me that were sincere, but it’s worth pointing a couple of things out. First, even though some of them said (effectively) “I’m not going to criticize the content, just the delivery” they also disagreed with the content. Their position was “I think Elder Callister is wrong about sexual morality, but I’m choosing only to criticize his delivery. Not his message.” In other words, lots of the critics do, indeed have a beef with the Church’s positions. Secondly, plenty of the folks criticizing the talk did quite plainly criticize the Church’s teachings as well.
The original piece that set me off (Natasha Helfer Parker’s Morality? We can do much better than this) included an explicit rejection of the Church’s teaching that homosexuals ought to remain chaste and urged a shift to accepting monogamous gay sexual relations as moral. Several of the commenters on my piece insisted that, since there’s no direct scriptural evidence against masturbation, it ought not to be considered a sin (or at least, not a serious one). I was tempted to write this off as one of those weird, fringe issues that make the Internet such an interesting place until another piece at Feminist Mormon Housewives made the exact same case:
If you are going to say that the Lord condemns masturbation, please cite me chapter and verse on that. Masturbation is something that a vast, VAST majority of people on the earth and in the church have done. If it is sinful, it is a sin like lying, being inconsiderate, or any number of other mistakes that we all deal with.
And of course, in addition to teachings on homosexuality and masturbation, there are also those who would call for the Church to stop speaking so loudly and clearly about modesty. So, to my friends who tried to tell me that I was getting upset at nothing because no one actually challenged the Church’s teachings, I have to say: “look again.”
Keep in mind that in the first section of this post I argued (1) that the Church’s uniquely clear teachings on moral issues had led to uniquely positive results for our youth and (2) that the world outside is ready to abuse any possible opening to attack those teachings. In that context, the important thing isn’t that certain members of the Church feel comfortable publicly calling for the Church to retreat from traditional teachings. Instead, the important thing is why. What is the rationale behind this call for the Church to moderate moral teachings?
Sara Katherine Staheli Hanks’ (who wrote the FMH piece quoted above) argument boils down to the ever-classic: But everyone’s doing it! (Her exact words, just to re-quote, were that “Masturbation is something that a vast, VAST majority of people on the earth and in the church have done.” So, how bad can it be, right?) Parker, on the other hand, wrote that the standard on homosexual sex should be lowered because it “sets the Mormon LGBTQ population up for almost guaranteed failure,” and then broadened that logic at the end when she said: “The way that sexual standards are presented in this type of talk is unrealistic and sets people up for failure.”
It’s impossible to tell exactly which standards, other than those concerning homosexuality, Parker believes the Church should revise downwards, but the logic is basically limitless. If we accept the idea that whenever the Church’s standards get too high we need to lower them to more realistic levels, then they aren’t really standards at all. They are more like best practices or conventions. The principle of idealism cannot survive that assault. As I stated in my original piece: this logic is fundamentally anti-Christian. It’s the counterpart to purity culture. Purity culture says the Atonement cannot save you, and lowering standards until people can achieve them on their own says the Atonement is not needed to save you. These are just two different ways to repudiate the Gospel.
As much as moderate critics of Elder Callister’s talk may earnestly and sincerely believe in simply improving the way that we talk about sexual morality, it’s important to realize that we’re having that conversation in the midst of a greater battle. There are people both inside and outside the Church who are more than happy to use sincere complaints about how the Church teaches what it teaches to fuel their complaints about what the Church teaches. I don’t think that means that moderate critics ought to be silent or that their concerns are not legitimate. I just hope it explains the reaction of folks like me.
The Man-in-the-Middle Attack
This last section of my response is the most theoretical, but perhaps also the most important. It starts with a concept from cryptography. The man-in-the-middle attack is basically just what it sounds like: two people are trying to communicate to each other and a third party steps between them, intercepts the message, modifies it (possibly), and then sends it on. For example, if you’re logging on to your bank and a hacker is trying to intercept your communication to steal your password, then he’s trying to pull off the man-in-the-middle attack.
In this illustration, Mallory is performing a man-in-the-middle attack on Alice and Bob.
Let’s imagine someone trying to pull of a man-in-the-middle attack to sabotage communication between the general authorities (at one end) and the members of the Church (on the other end). A silly example would be to try and hack into the Church’s servers and modify the text of the Ensign so that what the GAs sent out and what the members received wasn’t the same. That’s a silly example because it would be so obvious (among other reasons). But what if, instead of hacking into the Church’s servers, an adversary were to metaphorically hack into the minds of members of the Church and change the way they perceived certain words and phrases? In that case, the words the General Authorities used would not mean the same thing to their audience that they meant to the General Authorities. More importantly, however, the sabotage would be a lot harder to detect because everyone would be so busy arguing about what the “right” meaning of the terms was. The argument over who to blame, the leaders or the members, would obscure the deeper reality: someone had driven a wedge between the watchmen on the walls and the people they are there to warn.
What might this look like in practice? The most obvious examples is the way that professional counselors (like Parker) took Elder Callister to task for using the word “abuse” (when he called masturbation “self-abuse”) in a non-technical sense. Not only did Parker do this, but Hanks followed suit: “Do not co-opt a clinical term used to describe things like ritualistic cutting or burning of the skin to describe masturbation.” This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way language works. Every specialized discipline in the world finds the need to invent new jargon and repurpose existing words from everyday language, but these technical terms are derived from the ordinary words and they are only valid within specific contexts. To argue that someone in a non-specialist outlet ought to be subject to specialized use of a term is not only irrational, it’s impossible. This is because quite often the same word will get repurposed again and again by different specialties. Off the top of my head, the phrase “tipping point” has a perfectly understandable meaning in plain English, but it also has a more technical meaning in economics and another, different, technical meaning in catastrophe theory. There’s a reason that Wikipedia had to invent disambiguation pages.
This example is too obvious to be a really powerful man-in-the-middle attack. The whole point of Parker’s critique is to assert the dominance of her expertise by calling Elder Callister wrong. Later on, when it starts to become a matter of course that we should bow to expert terminology, it may start to function as a man-in-the-middle attack, but for now we’re looking for a more subtle example. For example: Is it possible that the reaction to the “get the type of man they dress for” line is exacerbated because adherents of rape culture are actively looking for suspicious phrases? In other words, if you really believe in a political philosophy dedicated to unmasking sinister meanings behind otherwise ordinary terms, you’re probably going to find them whether they exist or not. This is the same danger behind accusation of dog whistle politics. When you’re accusing someone of something that is by definition hidden, how can they defend themselves? The reality is that anyone dedicated enough and clever enough is going to be able to find evidence of rape culture just about anywhere with only a little bit of effort and creativity.
This may seem like an academic quibble about linguistics, but the reality is that arguments about language are almost always really arguments about principles in the end. Without questioning the validity or sincerity of those who were hurt by Elder Callister’s word choice, I simply want to raise the possibility that in figuring out who is to blame, we may want to consider those who actively encourage us to look for evil intentions behind every ordinary turn of phrase. To the extent that secular politics (from any end of the spectrum) start to change the way we perceive the words we hear, there’s a risk that we’re starting to lose contact with the General Authorities. We should probably make it a matter of conscious effort to set aside our political filters somewhat when listening to what they have to say.
The crazy-sounding name actually comes from a Bible story found in Numbers 27.
For someone who writes about Mormonism an awful lot (and blogs at Mormon blog Times And Seasons), I’m actually surprisingly new to the “bloggernaccle“.[ref]Side not: it tickles me to no end that this entry actually exists in Wikipedia, even if it is technically for “Mormon blogosphere.”[/ref] Which means I’m not really very familiar with a lot of the big-name blogs, even if I’ve heard of them. Like Zelophehad’s Daughters. (Easier to remember than to spell!) I take it that my bloviating on issues related to gender roles and overall skepticism of feminism and all things socially left might get me into some pretty hot water over there, but that’s just a guess. I don’t actually know.
In any case, I happened upon this piece by Eve over there called Don’t Be My Ally, and I really liked it.
Her main point, which is that the relationship of “ally” is incredibly dehumanizing for ally and allied alike, is profound. To my mind, it’s basically a politer version of the “identity politics” criticism from the right-wing of American politics: reducing people to their categories is an awful thing to do to someone. She’s also unafraid to point out what I consider to be far and away the worst trait of Mormon feminism:
In recent years I’ve been unsettled to see how often Mormon feminism roots itself more deeply in in various secular feminisms than it does in Mormonism or in Christianity.
My own relationship with the term “feminism” is… complex. I go back and forth. But if Mormon feminism were really and truly distinct from secular feminism (i.e. the political dogma of the American left), I would be very excited and much more interested in engage and self-identifying as feminist. (I am concerned about women’s issues; I’m just leery of the baggage that comes with the word “feminism.”)
Lastly, she manages to get in some good digs at male allies that (1) I firmly believe need to be said and (2) made me chuckle:
Inevitably some allies tote their ally(ship? hood?) to enhance their own status and credibility, and some usurp the voices of those they ostensibly champion.
Yup. I like to refer to this as “White Knight Chauvinism,” although another variety (which I have yet to name) is basically a slightly better-disguised of nice-guy whining. You know, when “nice-guys” (which usually, at best, means “socially impotent”) complain that girls always date jerks as though they could sort of browbeat attractive ladies into dating them. It’s weird and creepy. And, as a guy, I can’t help but notice that more or less the same motive seems to operate for some allies who view their support as a way to ingratiate themselves with the ladies.
On top of being an article I really liked, it just made me happy to see such common sense coming from an outlet that I would be predisposed to view with skepticism. It’s always good to be reminded of the possible common ground between reasonable people no matter what their political home turf may be.
Yesterday I decided to poke a hornet’s nest again and write about gender roles at Times And Seasons once more. Some folks are emailing me to tell me how much they like it (which doesn’t happen very often). Other folks are describing it as “the most excruciating pseudo-intellectual, and self-contradicting drivel I’ve read in recent years.” [ref]This is my favorite thing that anyone has ever said about anything I’ve ever written. I’m so pleased.[/ref] ByCommonConsent provided their own insightful commentary, which you can see below:
Not gonna lie: I laughed. Then I wished I had some rolls.
For what it’s worth, one of the main reasons I write about this issue is because lots of other folks (some of whom could certainly do better than me) won’t touch it. I respect that. It’s sort of like running for political office: you have to question them motives of anyone who voluntarily does it, but you also have to wish that more normal human beings would. I think these hot-button issues are really important, and I hope that I can make a case for a basically socially conservative position that will enhance the discussion.
With that goal in mind, I’m planning on one more post on this topic. This one took 3 from-scratch attempts, though, were most of my blog posts are done in one.[ref]With revisions, mind you![/ref] So it will probably take another 2-4 weeks before I come out with the next one.
When arguing about abortion, I’ve seen a lot of people claim “sex isn’t a contract.” Other variations of this idea include:
Consent to A doesn’t mean consent to B (that is, consent to sex doesn’t mean consent to reproduction).
You clearly don’t consent to reproduce if you use birth control.
Sex is not a crime and shouldn’t be punished / Rights cannot be restricted unless there is a crime.
The problem is, when it comes to reproduction, these arguments only apply to women.
If a man gets a woman pregnant–be it his wife, girlfriend, affair, or one night stand–he is legally bound to provide support for that child. In other words, because the man participated in the child’s conception (because the man had sex), his rights are altered. It doesn’t matter if the man was only consenting to sex, and not to reproduction. It doesn’t matter if he used birth control. It doesn’t matter that sex isn’t a crime. He fathered the kid, so the law considers him responsible for the kid.
And the law takes a pretty hard line on the subject. Courts can require a father to pay child support based not just on what he earns, but on what courts believe he has the ability to earn. Child support obligations remain even if a father goes to prison, or declares bankruptcy. Even if he wants to terminate his parental rights (and therefore his parental responsibilities), the courts usually won’t allow it unless there is another adult prepared to adopt the child and take over that responsibility. And there are many methods for enforcing child support. A man’s tax refunds can be intercepted, his property seized, business or occupational license suspended, and in some states his driver’s license can be revoked. If he still fails to make payment, he can be held in contempt and given jail time.
In short, if a man has sex he runs the risk of being (rather tightly) legally bound to any new life he creates.In the essay “Abortion and Fathers’ Rights“, author Stephen D. Hales summarizes the situation:
…the father, having participated in conception, cannot escape the future duties he will have toward the child. The father can decide that he cannot afford another child, that he is not psychologically prepared to be a parent, that a child would hinder the lifestyle he wishes to pursue, and so on, to no avail.
Sound sad? If a man is forced to pay child support, that could mean serious emotional, psychological, financial, and social repercussions for him. So why do we have child support laws? Is it because we hate sex, and want to punish people for having sex?
No, of course not. And interestingly, you rarely see anyone even suggest as much. No, it’s clear to most people that we have child support laws in order to, you know, support children. Child support laws aren’t enforced to punish men for having sex—they’re enforced because it’s best for the child. In the same way, abortion shouldn’t be outlawed to punish women for having sex—it should be outlawed to protect fetal life. In both cases, it’s not about punishment, it’s about protection.
And that’s as it should be.
I’d love to live in a world in which there are no unplanned pregnancies and no unintentional parents. I think people should have control over whether they become parents, in the sense that people should have control over whether they get pregnant or get someone pregnant. That’s why I support comprehensive sex education: I want people to understand their own fertility and, if they do choose to have sex, I want them to understand how they can best prevent pregnancy while being sexually active.
However, once pregnancy has happened, once there’s already a new human organism in the picture, it changes everything. I think the people whose actions created that new life should be responsible for its protection.
Of course, many people disagree. Abortion rights advocates place reproductive freedom over protecting the lives we create, at least when it comes to women and pregnancy. How would this mentality look if they also applied it to men and child support? Hales has an idea:
A man has the moral right to decide not to become a father (in the social, nonbiological sense) during the time that the woman he has impregnated may permissibly abort. He can make a unilateral decision whether to refuse fatherhood, and is not morally obliged to consult with the mother or any other person before reaching a decision. Moreover, neither the mother nor any other person can veto or override a man’s decision about becoming a father. He has first and last say about what he does with his life in this regard.
(And if we’re being really consistent, he doesn’t have to inform the woman he impregnated, or anyone else, about his decision to refuse fatherhood.)
It seems to me that consistency requires abortion rights advocates to argue for the man’s right to choose as well as the woman’s: the pro-choice mentality means that, as women can “walk away” from their pregnancies, men should be able to walk away from the women they have impregnated.
Not very uplifting, is it?
Or we could strive for a different kind of consistency–the kind that holds both men and women to a higher standard. This is why I’m for child support laws, and this is why I’m against abortion.
) so there’s really no hope for her at all.
