Mormon Stories: New Mormon Garments Sleeveless

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another issue of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, John Dehlin. It's April 11, 2025, and today we are covering a story that's sort of taken the Mormon Internet by storm, and I'd say the Faithful Mormonism by storm. Over the past few weeks, the the thumbnail, the title is New Mormon Garments Sleeveless. But basically what we're here to talk about today is the Mormon Church, the LDS church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has changed the design or the style of garments again, and I think both for men and for women. Although today we are going to be primarily focusing on the changes for women. And we're. We're live streaming, so we're super excited to have a live streaming audience with us. We've asked Maven who's moderating the live chat to please star questions or comments. We really hope to integrate comments, impressions, feelings, stories from those of you who are viewing and listening. Please know that if you provide your questions or comments as super chats on YouTube, that's the best way to make sure that we see them and share them. Please like and subscribe to this episode and share it. That helps with engagement. But without any further ado, we have a couple familiar faces back to our panel and we have a couple new faces. So I'll begin by welcoming our panelists and our first panelist welcoming, who's just here recently, is Katie. Hey, Katie. Welcome back.

Mormon Stories: The Fabric of Truth

Abby [00:01:52] Hi.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:01:52] Thanks for having me back so soon.

John Dehlin [00:01:54] Yeah, us who you are?

Katie Lutho Rich [00:01:56] I'm Katie Lutho Rich. I'm a writer and independent scholar, co author of 50 Years of Exponent 2, and I'm an exponent to blogger. Like all of us panelists here today are, though we are speaking as individuals and not on behalf of Exponent 2.

John Dehlin [00:02:10] So fun to have you back. Is this what, your third. Third time on Mormon Stories, Is that right?

Katie Lutho Rich [00:02:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:15] We had you originally come and. And talk about the book.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:02:19] Talk about the book with Heather Sundal, my co author.

Abby [00:02:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:21] And then we just talked about what? Remind me. You probably just said it. What did we just have you guys on?

Katie Lutho Rich [00:02:26] So last week it was about why LDS women are leaving the church.

John Dehlin [00:02:29] That's right. That was such a good panel. People are loving it. Okay, well, Katie, thanks for being here and thanks for helping organize today.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:02:36] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:02:37] And we have Abby back. Hey, Abby.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:02:39] Hello again.

John Dehlin [00:02:40] Welcome back. Yes, tell us a bit about you.

Abby [00:02:42] Katie and I left 10 days ago. We were here on April Fool's day and it's April 11th now, and we didn't have time to talk about garments. We had thought maybe we would. And so he said, let's do another panel on garments. And we said, oh my gosh, we have so many amazing women at Exponent too, that are bloggers. So we grabbed two of them. We only could grab two. We grabbed the other two that you're going to meet now who are just experts and fantastic. They were also part of Ordain Women with me. I talked about some of that on the last episode. So that's how I know these ladies originally. But we're all Exponent to bloggers. Really excited to hear from them.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] Beautiful. All right, well, thanks for coming back. And so that brings us to a new fresh face for our Mormon Stories audience. April. Hey, April.

A New Face to Mormon Stories

April Young Bennett [00:03:26] Hello. Hi, everybody. I'm April Young Bennett. And like they mentioned, I Also blog for Exponent 2. I've been blogging there for well over a decade. So new to this, but definitely not new to Exponent. And like Abby mentioned, I was heavily involved in Ordained Women serving on its original board. And I also study the history of women's advocacy, so. So I'm the author of the Ask a Suffragist book series about how women have advocated for their rights over time.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] Oh, my gosh. I feel like this is an all star panel. This is like heavy hitters. So I'm so grateful. Welcome to Mormon Stories.

April Young Bennett [00:04:01] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:04:02] And last but not least, Joining us from St. George, Utah, Nancy. I've got you muted, so you'll have to mute and unmute yourself, but Nancy is the Nancy Ross. Nancy, tell us about you.

Nancy Ross [00:04:15] Yes, I am a. I'm also a blogger at the Exponent. I haven't been blogging quite as long as April, but I think coming up on a decade. And I am a scholar here at Utah Tech University, where I've been for about 18 years. And I write about Mormon women and religious women and RLDs, women in community of Christ, women. And I also have a forthcoming book on garments, which is an academic study which I am publishing, publishing through the University of Illinois Press with my co authors, Jessica Finnegan and Larissa Kindred.

John Dehlin [00:04:49] Wow, that's so cool. University of Illinois Press. That's not a small deal. That's awesome, Nancy.

Nancy Ross [00:04:55] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:04:56] Thanks for joining us. What's the temperature in St. George? Is it super hot there?

What's the temperature in St. George? Is it super hot

Nancy Ross [00:05:00] It is heating up. It's going to be 90 again today.

John Dehlin [00:05:03] Oh, my goodness. Do you all even get a spring or is basically winter, your spring?

Nancy Ross [00:05:07] It's really. We do have spring. It lasts for about two weeks. And so it's a really quick. It's a really quick changeover season. Have to kind of run outside and do all of your spring things. My kid has been in a hammock for the last two weeks, and I think that ends today, so that's awesome.

Mormon Women Welcoming New Temple Garments

John Dehlin [00:05:26] All right, Nancy, well, we're. We're excited to have you jump in. So let me. Maybe. Maybe to begin, I'll show a screenshot of some of the news stories and kind of how they've been framed. So the first story says something to the effect of Mormon women are welcoming a big change to temple garments, but it won't quell all the complaints. I'm not sure the source of that. It looks like it might be ksl. My eyes are failing me. But that's one way that this has been sort of trumpeted on in the news and on the Internet. I think this other one's a Salt Lake Tribune article that says what LDS women are saying about new sleeveless garments. Yes, you will be able to wear tank tops. And it's actually showing some visuals of the changes. So, yeah, so that's. That's a bit of the. The headlines. We are. We're always grateful for our. Never Mormons who have joined us. And we'll ask our Mormons or ex Mormons or devout Mormons to be bear with us as we give a tiny bit of a. Just a little bit of a backstory, just so that those who don't even have any idea what we're talking about can. Can get up to speed. Who does someone want to just kind of tell, just in a minute, kind of how and why garments were introduced? Or do y' all want me to do my best to try? Okay. Thanks, April.

April Young Bennett [00:07:03] Sure. So garments were part of the original temple ceremony way back when, starting in Nauvoo at that time.

John Dehlin [00:07:09] So we're talking 18. Like 1830. Like 1840.

Nancy Ross [00:07:13] 45.

John Dehlin [00:07:13] Yeah.

April Young Bennett [00:07:14] And at that time, the ceremony was mostly for people who were doing polygamy. So when people went through the temple for these polygamous ceremonies, they got. They came out with this special undergarment that kind of signified that they'd been through this ceremony. And it's not very clear whether people used to wear them all the time back then. I don't think they did, because Joseph Smith died not wearing it, so he clearly wasn't wearing it all the time.

John Dehlin [00:07:36] Hiram too, right?

April Young Bennett [00:07:38] Hyrum Smith also. Yes, but at the same time, he was with some other people. One of them was Willard Richards, who happened to be wearing his garment at the time, he didn't die. And they took that as being like, wow, cool. It must save you.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:07:50] So.

April Young Bennett [00:07:51] And so it became known as sort of a protective factor. Like not only is it a symbol that you went through the ceremony, but maybe it protects you in some way. And originally they were very long, like the long underwear at the time. They weren't designed to be different. They were similar to typical underwear people were wearing at the time. But around the 1920s, when clothes started becoming shorter and more practical, they said, well, garments should be shorter and more practical as well. And so they cut them off at the knees and gave them short sleeves so that people could wear them more easily underneath their clothing. Finally, in 1979, and my parents and my aunts and uncles were around for this and very, very thrilled, they finally made them into two pieces so that you could more easily use the toilet, which is very important in a piece of underwear.

Abby [00:08:35] How did they the toilet before?

April Young Bennett [00:08:37] I have no idea.

Abby [00:08:40] Do you not have parents who walked around your house all the time?

April Young Bennett [00:08:43] Oh, no, my parents.

Abby [00:08:44] No, there's a flap.

April Young Bennett [00:08:45] Oh no, my parents. I think the very second the two piece came out, they immediately burned the old things because they were not gonna wear those ever, ever again. And so that's where we are on that side.

John Dehlin [00:08:56] Okay, let's go. Oh, go ahead, Nancy. Please jump in anytime.

March on Underwear

Nancy Ross [00:09:00] So I love what April just said in my forthcoming book. I have a his. I have a chapter on garment history. And there' that I just want to clarify because I spent a little bit of time with underwear history is that when, when Joseph Smith first instituted garments, all of what April said is super great. The one thing that I want to just add there is that they were actually very progressive underwear for the time they were not typical underwear. There were still lots of like layers and bloomers that were not like single piece union suit. Single piece union suit underwear became much more popular in the later 19th century. And so when Joseph Smith instit instituted garments, garments were like progressive, trendy, like cutting edge kind of underwear on the beginning of the union suit trend and not typical underwear. And so I just wanted to throw that out there because that's often something that people don't know.

April Young Bennett [00:09:59] Yeah, I think that's great to point out too, because I think people sometimes get the idea because they are frankly not very progressive underwear anymore, that, that the purpose of garments was to like force people to maintain old fashioned styles, which definitely originally. Originally was not the purpose.

Nancy Ross [00:10:14] Correct, Absolutely correct.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:10:16] Yeah.

Moksha Raver: The LDS Temple Garments Are Not

John Dehlin [00:10:17] So I was going to ask something that one of our listeners also made an assertion. So Moksha Raver says garments were copied from the Masons. We know that the LDS Temple ceremony, that Joseph Smith was a Mason and that so much about the LDS original LDS Temple ceremony was also borrowed from the Masonic Lodge Temple ceremony. What I was going to ask is, does anyone know if the garments are also sort of a Masonic relic? And Moksha Raver is saying that they were. Go ahead, Nancy.

Nancy Ross [00:10:49] So the recent book on Freemasonry by Cheryl Bruno and Nick Letersky, and I think there's another author whose name I'm forgetting and I apologize, maybe, no, I don't think it's Devri. I think it's someone else and I do apologize for forgetting his name. But they, they point out some of these. So the, the LDS Temple garment is not a copy of any Masonic garment. So there is a pair of like, drawers that are used in a temp in a Masonic ceremony. And the symbols of the compass and the set square are borrowed from Masonry. But garments are not a copy of something that exists in Masonry. They are like Joseph Smith's assembling of symbols and things. They are not a copy. They are, you might say, inspired by the mythology of Freemasonry, but not a copy.

John Dehlin [00:11:42] Thank you. Thank you, Nancy. And I'll never forget when I first identified the Masonic symbol. It's the letter G, for those of you who don't know, it's the letter G. And then there's a compass, I think, over the G. But then also there's a square sort of intersecting with the compass and the G in the middle. And if we turn to the slides, what we do, we have a little visual of the evolution of the Mormon Temple garment over time. What you'll see is sort of a version, a depiction of the garments around 1842. And what you'll see there is around the chest area there is that, that square, I would say, over the right breast, if this is accurate, and then a compass over the left breast. And and then there's also a line around the abdomen and then also a marking around the knee. And we don't have to get into what those mean. We don't want to. It's weird because it's, maybe we should tell everybody that talking about the temple garment is considered very sensitive and very sacred for Latter Day Saints. And so many of them, let's just say, wouldn't even want to be having this type of conversation. And so we're, let's say we're all Going to try and thread the needle here of being respectful, but also realizing that we're in 2025 and this stuff's public information.

Abby [00:13:12] I'm raising my hand. Can I add something? Because I have, I live here in Utah. I have very many Mormon or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who wear their garments and love them. Women who are my friends, who feel beautiful in them, who are absolutely happy with them. I am so happy and supportive of that. I 100% believe them. I do think we can talk about garments more than we think. I think we lump garments in with temple ceremonial clothing. Now, temple clothing and robes and those things are only in the sacred temple and it's a one place kind of thing. Garments, on the other hand, are everywhere in our lives. We're changing clothes in the locker room, at the local gym and there's people in front of you, you know, wearing garments that non members who have never into the temple can look right at them. You know, in long term care or hospitals, you know, there's nurses and CNAs that are taking care of people in their garments every day. So non members are constantly seeing and talking and touching garments. I don't think they fall into the same category as sacred temple clothing. And so I would maybe just like to say that if you're uncomfortable, I understand why, but this is something we need to talk about. Because if you're, if the temple clothing is something that you're not comfortable with, it's a very short, temporary period of time. You wear them for a couple hours and then you go back to your normal life. Garments are something, especially with women, that women are wearing 24 7. And we have to be able to talk about these things. So that's, that's my little. And go back to what you're saying.

John Dehlin [00:14:41] No, thank you. Just to finish off that, that slide. What this shows is the evolution of garments over time. It looks like there was a one piece garment that was worn between 1842 and 1975. And then there's a version starting in 1923 where I guess they make the long sleeve, short sleeves and the, I guess the, the pants length, I will call it from ankle length down to sort of knee length. And then as, as I think you mentioned April, starting in 1979, they made them two piece. And you can kind of see that depiction there. Now this is the, I think this is the men's version. So it's not even really showing the women's version. But that just kind of gives people a sense for its evolution over time. And then, April, do you want to talk about what this is?

Mormon Women Wearing Men's Underwear

April Young Bennett [00:15:32] So this is the women's version. Now you said we're showing the men's version. But just to clarify, women are kind of stuck wearing this men's underwear. I mean, garments are very. For women are very similar to garments for men, or at least have been until now. Some of these new changes have some very feminine versions which are different, but they were largely very similar to men's underwear. The garment has always been based on men's underwear. And even though women have also worn it for women, it's a lot like wearing men's underwear. But here is the current rendition for women, and you'll see it's basically like wearing a T shirt and some stretchy shorts.

John Dehlin [00:16:09] So kind of. Some have called it biker shorts a little bit.

April Young Bennett [00:16:12] Yeah, they're a lot like biker shorts.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] Okay.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:16:15] Some fabrics. Yeah.

April Young Bennett [00:16:16] Which is part of the reason why I say they're. They're more like men's underwear. Because of course, women, I mean, there's no way you could attach a menstrual pad to your biker shorts.

Abby [00:16:25] Right.

April Young Bennett [00:16:25] And that's what they are like.

Abby [00:16:26] Yep. Yeah. The reason why women's underwear is so different looking, like if you go to the store at. Go to Target and buy underwear for women versus men, it looks very different. Not because women want to dress super skanky, but it's because modern day menstrual products have a pad and wings that go around the bottom of the. I don't know what the technical word is.

April Young Bennett [00:16:48] The gusset. Yes.

Abby [00:16:50] See, I'm not an underwear expert. Nancy is. She's done all the research and that's why we don't have legs on our pants or on our underwear. Whereas men, it's no problem for men to have. In fact, it fits their straight body type much better. And I. And the same thing I was reading about, like, why men? I was like, why do men wear undershirts when women don't? And I was reading and it said, oh, because you have chest hair that will pop through and it looks unprofessional, like when you're wearing like a button up shirt at work or something. And I was like, chester is not a problem. Why do I have to wear a T shirt underneath my bra? Because men have chest hair. It's men's underwear.

April Young Bennett [00:17:24] Yeah, yeah. And. And you added bras. I mean, women's underwear, you wouldn't be wearing a T shirt. Usually you'd be wearing a bra. Of course, Mormon women We still have to wear our bras. And so we're usually layering this garment on top of underwear, which is not the case for men. They can wear it instead of underwear.

Abby [00:17:42] And I will add, I was taught when I went through the temple that my bra had to go on top of my garments because my garments had to be closest to my body. And that when I was on my period, because garment bottoms don't work well with pads. Like, we were just saying I could take regular underwear and put them on top of my garments to hold things in snugger.

April Young Bennett [00:17:59] Oh, they told you that?

Abby [00:18:00] Yes, that's. Yeah, that's what I was always telling.

April Young Bennett [00:18:02] Oh, that's awful.

Abby [00:18:02] Yeah, yeah.

April Young Bennett [00:18:04] And that's another thing. And we get instructions when we go to the temple about how to wear our garments. These instructions are unscripted, and every person who goes to the temple might receive different instructions. And because of the secrecy of the way we talk about the temple and the way we talk about what happens there, I've. I've met women who have gone for years with special instructions about garment wearing. Like, I don't know how I would have survived if I wasn't allowed to put my panties close to my body during my period. But people who were told things like that and went for decades that way before they found out that wasn't a real rule. It was just something that the temple matron that they happened to talk to that day happened to say, yeah, can

Nancy Ross [00:18:44] I jump in with a story, April? Because I feel like I have a story there. So I went through the temple for the first time. So I took out my endowments and received, you know, garment wearing as a practice that I need to take on. In 2004, six weeks before my husband and I were going to get married. I was a grad student at the time, and I had heard a couple different things. I had seen that my mother always wore her bra over her garments. And. But I'd heard that the temple matron in Salt Lake City had said that it was okay to wear your bra under. And so I want. I really wanted a resolution to this question, and I was a real rule follower, and so getting a good answer was important to me. So I go through, you know, going through this process of going through the temple, and I get that moment where the temple matron is explaining to me how to wear my garments, and then she asks if I have any questions, and I have a question, and I ask her, you know, is it okay for me to, like, you know, to wear it under or wear it over, or do I need to wear it in a particular way? And she looks at me kind of horrified, and she's like, that is a rude question. And that is the end of the conversation. And so. Which surprised me, because English women are not usually so embarrassed about such things. I thought I would get an answer, and I was ready to, like, invest in whatever answer I was given. But, you know, sometimes. Sometimes you kind of try and ask the right.

What They Didn't Tell You About Women's Garments

April Young Bennett [00:20:16] The.

Nancy Ross [00:20:16] The appropriate question in the appropriate place. And. And as April just said, because these are not scripted and because the guidance given is very inconsistent, ultimately I had a very faithful question, and I was not able to get that question answered. And that left me defau to the practice that I inherited from my mother. And it wasn't until many years later, after really struggling with nursing and garments, that I finally decided, you know what? I just need to be able to wear my bra underneath my garment top. But that was a real struggle, and for something that shouldn't have been a struggle.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:20:53] I think what Nancy is sharing speaks so much to the moment that's happening right now with these changes, with the Instagram culture that we have now. Influencers are sharing about the new garment styles and are getting millions and millions of views and are going super viral. National news outlets are covering the change because women want to be able to talk about this. There's intense interest because we all have such individual experiences in what we're taught. I was taught things like, your garments can never touch the ground, so if you're folding laundry, your garments can't touch the ground. Like, we're all taught these individual things. We need to be able to talk about it. And it creates this weird culture of surveillance and, like, judging each other for how we are wearing or not wearing or folding our own laundry. Like, even. Like, so many details of our lives come down to this level of judgment about garments.

John Dehlin [00:21:44] I remember even sort of urban legends that you weren't supposed to have sex. You weren't supposed to take your garments fully off during sex. So some Mormons would have sex through their garments, through the holes that are provided, or others would, like, keep it on the ankle or keep it on the wrist so that, you know, because. And again, I don't think that was ever church policy, but there was this idea of an unwritten order of things where depending on who you. Who is your leader or who is your grandparent or who's your bishop or stake president or whatever, you would inherit these traditions that sometimes were a little bit weird or awkward.

Abby [00:22:25] Yeah, yeah.

Nancy Ross [00:22:25] There are definitely more unhealthy. There are definitely a lot of stories out there about people feeling like they can never take their garments off and so that they bathe and have sex with their garments on. And I think that a lot of that is real. I think that a lot of that really did happen. And I think that that just speaks to the variety of teaching that has existed. Sorry, Abby, go ahead.

Abby [00:22:44] Oh, no, you're great. I was gonna say real life example. My. I have a teenage daughter that we named after a grandmother on my husband' who was a pioneer, a very faithful woman. And one of the stories that I heard about her when I was learning her life and picking her name for my daughter was that when she would take a bath, she would always keep one hand on. She would take her garments off, keep one hand on them, bathe the side of her body, switch hands so she's still holding onto her garments, bathe, and then get out. She never stopped touching her garments at any point. And that was a story about her faith. And I look back and I'm like, you know what? I wouldn't do that. But for her, the garments were that meaningful. And she had put everything into coming across the plains, you know, as a woman who didn't speak English. And she was this powerful woman. And for her, she felt that power with her garments. So true life story in my family

John Dehlin [00:23:34] and from context, because people understand, but for the never Mormons out there, historically, men would normally begin wearing their garments around age 18 or 19, when they went to the temple as an adult for the first time to take out what's called their endowments. And usually that was sort of pre mission. And then historically women would begin wearing garments either right before they get married to a man in a Mormon temple or if they were going to serve a mission, usually historically at age 21, and then recently it was lowered. They would take out their endowments before they become missionaries, and that's when they would start wearing their garments. So that's a little bit of that. And then the only other thing. Can we. We talk about the history, you know, for men just to address that. Like, for me, I. I actually had a hard time stopping wearing garments. I stopped believing in the church truth claims around 2001. And I continued wearing my garments up until my excommunication, because I did associate them with, with protection. I was literally taught that, you know, I was told a story about like soldiers going off to war and being shot and the. And then the bullet would bounce off the garment and it would protect the soldier. Or I even heard some weird story about someone falling in a vat of steel and somehow the garments protected them. And I don't know how that would work with the limbs and the head, but it doesn't matter. Like, but I was also taught that I would be more likely to commit adultery to be unfaithful to my wife if I didn't have my garments on. And I was taught that, you know, it's like this last. Before you're about to have sex with somebody you shouldn't have sex with. The garments are that last reminder of your covenants. And then most importantly, like, I often lived in cold climates, so having an extra T shirt on kept me warm. So instead of having a buttoned up white shirt, I'd have a button up white shirt and a T shirt underneath. And that just made me a little bit more warm. So I associated garments with just comfort. And then the bike, the bottoms were a little bit weird because if I wore shorts, I would always wear like cargo pants, shorts that were longer. But if I sat weird, the garments would poke out the bottom. And then I have. Do I hike it up? Do I roll up the top? What do I do? So that. Because it always felt weird to have non Mormons or even Mormons seeing the bottom of my garment. So that's sort of a history of men in garments and what it was like for me. Would y' all mind sharing, just for the historical record, but also for our never Mormons. Why we've already started talking about it. But, like, these changes don't come out of nowhere. The history of changes with women's garments come from garments being particularly problematic for women. But also, let's talk about modesty culture and how garments have been used really quickly to sort of control police and shame women. Do you all mind?

Questions about Women's Clothes

Katie Lutho Rich [00:26:41] Yeah. So I'm sure Nancy has a lot of information that came out of her survey that she'll have in her book. And I guess one thing that I want to talk about related to this is Afton Southam Parker is an LDS woman who I only know through Instagram, but she lived in some different places, like in Thailand and Uganda, and gained different information about different experiences globally that women have with wearing the garments and the different challenges that they have with menstrual products with temperatures and all of that, and was able to advocate to get a meeting with the man who was in charge of garment design. And I think this was around 2018 or 2019. And she arrives with 34 slides of different challenges that women and men experience and some suggestions for garment changes. And what she experienced in that conversation was the man getting incredibly uncomfortable. If she were talking about women's bodily issues and the challenges around bras and women's underwear with garments or with menstrual products, and he'd be like, oh, you're like, talking about blood and gore. And like, I don't really want to talk about that. And as people on Instagram started talking about it more, it led to opportunities. And like, she talked to the New York Times in an article that came out in 2021 and makes this statement about either get in the underwear business or get out. Because if we can't talk about how this works as actual underwear, like, and we're asking people to wear it 247 as underwear, we have a huge problem. And so women were experiencing UTIs and yeast infections. And, like, personally, I had incredible challenges that got worse with each pregnancy because I developed what's called adenomyosis, which is where the. The. The lining of the uterus grows into the walls of the uterus and leads to, like, incredibly heavy periods and bleeding and cramping and longer periods. And so if I'm bleeding 10 days out of every 21 days, then that's a problem when I'm wearing white garments that don't work with menstrual products. And my experience is not rare, it's not unique, and it's something that we are discouraged from talking about, but increasingly we are. And so with with Afton, her experience, what I find interesting is, like, when she talks to the New York Times about it, then suddenly the general authorities are able to pay attention. And that's the only way that Mormon women can get the attention on these issues is to talk publicly, loudly, and to national media. And now we're hearing rumors. LDS change makers, Rachel, I think her name's off the look, the last name. She's hearing about studies that the church is actually working with, like, period underwear designers and are testing underwear or garments that are period underwear based.

Mormon Women's Issues in the Church

Abby [00:29:46] I just want to say, hey, old dude at the church that she talked to, actually, I don't know if he's old man at the church who was very uncomfortable hearing about blood and gore. Do you know what's even more uncomfortable than sitting and listening to someone talk about blood and gore is to actually have blood and gore coming out of your body and trying to wear garments because you just gave birth, or it's a. Or you have a particular. You have endometrier endometriosis. Or something like the fact that you

April Young Bennett [00:30:11] are just a normal woman on her monthly period. Because this happens every month for us, we think about it a lot.

Abby [00:30:18] Yes. And Nancy, did Nancy have stuff that she could input?

John Dehlin [00:30:24] Oh, you're muted, Nancy.

Nancy Ross [00:30:26] Sorry. Okay, so I love that you brought up the New York Times article, Katie. So about a week or a week and a half after that New York Times article, I was contacted by the Church Correlation Research Division because I had published a brief outline of a talk I had given at the Mormon Social Science association about women's experiences with garments. And they asked if I could present to some of my research to them. And so my, my co author at the time, Jessica Finnegan, and I, we asked them for their research questions and we presented, we gave them a bunch of information and talked a lot about women's health issues, most of which they were really not aware of. But the Church has also always been studying this and always been hearing about women's complaints. And that's an important part of garment history as well. So I love that the Church has made some changes in light of some of the research that has been offered. But I think we will also note that many of the changes that have been made don't actually address the issues that women have.

The Issues of Women's Experiences With Garments

April Young Bennett [00:31:49] Right.

Nancy Ross [00:31:49] Like shortening the sleeves is great. And that's going to make a lot of women happy.

Speaker F [00:31:54] Right.

Nancy Ross [00:31:54] That's going to make a lot of people happy who, who are garment wearers. But many of the ways in which vaginas and vulvas interface with garments is absolutely not addressed in these changes. And while there is that slip option, which is great, it doesn't really help women who need to wear pants or wear pants for whatever reason. And it, the single slip option is also made of nylon, which is really hot. And heat is one of the issues that compounds so many of women's challenges with their garments and yeast infections and UTIs, and there are many other health issues beyond yeast infections and UTIs. I think those are just the most common that people, that people experience. But there are a lot of medical issues that end up that women face because of their garments. In my study of four and a half thousand people and their experiences with garments, where we ask questions like, how do you feel when you were wearing garments and what do your garments mean to you? We had just one man report a medical issue with his garments, and that was because he had to wear a pad because of cancer treatment and the impact of cancer treatments. But we had, when we didn't even ask the question, we had Many hundreds of women reporting medical issues with their garments and the physical struggle that they had and how those physical struggles turned into a loss of faith. And this is such a critical issue, because if you believe that God asks you to do, do. To wear garments night and day, and garments do not accommodate the needs of your body, and there is not a lot of flexibility in the ways in which we talk about garments. It's going to be very easy to conclude that God doesn't really care about you. The church leaders don't really care about you. And that is a place for faith to crumble because of the way in which spirituality influence interfaces with the blood, the everyday blood and gore of, like, having a vulva.

John Dehlin [00:34:09] Yeah, there's so much there. Thank you so much, Nancy. I'm. I'm reminded that in the temple ceremony, when we're taught about Adam and Eve being the first humans, and, you know, they discover their nakedness in the Garden of Eden because of Satan, and then they're cast out of the Garden of Eden, they're introduced to garments fictitiously, I'm guessing, you know, at that point. And that's when participants are also then sort of educated about their garments officially in the temple ceremony. And then every covenant you make in the temple is sort of directly associated with your garments and with even different parts of your garments. And so for the. For the church, for Mormon doctrine and theology, the garments are like daily reminders of the covenants you make in the temple. The law of sacrifice, the law of tithing, the law of chastity. Right. I'm sure there's others.

April Young Bennett [00:35:08] Obedience.

Nancy Ross [00:35:09] The obedience. The garment is specifically associated with obedience. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] Thanks, Nancy. Yeah.

April Young Bennett [00:35:17] So to add, they did make recent changes to the temple ceremony, where they added the law of the Gospel, which is basically just. Just, well, includes Jesus, which is great. So it talks about Jesus and all the things you should do through your life to, like, obey the commandments and honor the first and second commandments, to love yourself, love your God, and love other people. And they kind of more recently tried to incorporate that into the symbolism of the garment as well. They haven't changed the garment to look different, but now they're talking about it in a different way. That now, in addition to reminding you of obedience and sacrifice and chastity, it also is supposed to remind you of Jesus.

Nancy Ross [00:35:51] Jesus.

John Dehlin [00:35:52] Love it. Okay, really quickly, before we actually dive into the changes, one last thing I wanted to make sure we cover is how women's bodies have been sort of sexualized, modesty culture, how women and men Check on each other in terms of whether they're wearing their garments or not, what parts of the bodies have historically been overly sexualized and how sort of garments policing has both controlled and influenced women, but also been a part of our culture of like seeing who's a litmus test for who's faithful or not. Do y' all have stories or just. Do y' all want to summarize that from a woman's perspective? Because I think that's an important, you know, the porn shoulders thing I think was at least partially an influencer, which is basically in the Mormon. The Mormon Internet, especially critical or ex Mormons just started referring to women's shoulders as porn shoulders as a way to sort of mock the fact that shoulders historically for let's say 200 years have been forbidden or sexualized women's shoulders, but men's shoulders have been. Okay, do y' all want to talk about that at all?

How Women's Body Have Been Policed

Katie Lutho Rich [00:36:59] Yeah. So Nancy mentioned how the initial design was relatively progressive for underwear or undergarments at the time. But as we move forward in history and clothing changes and fashion changes and underwear changes, that's when there starts to be a shift where the women's LDS garments are no longer progressive. Right. And then they are covering areas like shoulders that fashionable clothing would not necessarily cover. And then it starts getting conflated with purity culture and modesty. And the development of the For Strength of Youth pamphlet kind of reflects like preparing teens for what is going to be covered in the garment. And so in the era that I grew up in, it would say things like lots of specific things for women's bodies that needed to be covered, that it should cover your midriff, that it should not be too short, the clothing that you wear rather that your shoulders should be covered. And so there's lots of intense and specific areas of your body that that you're instructed as a youth to have covered. And we're told things like when we go to girls camp, that we have to have modest one piece swimsuits. Some wards add like wear a T shirt over it out of fear that the priesthood leaders who are there will be uncomfortable with the teen girls bodies or be tempted by their bodies. And so there's all these very strict expectations of dress. And then when you get your garments, you're expected to cover your garments. And it all it. The purity culture and the, the strict rules of teens start to get transferred to our experience as adults.

John Dehlin [00:38:46] Yeah. And so, and for women, they also. Skirt length, right. Skirts always had to be knee length or longer. But Somehow men and women's shorts had to be really long women's shorts. But men could wear, you know, boys could wear shorter shorts and show their shoulders or even their bellies or be

Abby [00:39:09] playing basketball at the church, playing skins against T shirts. And there would be boys with no shirt on at all in a church building, and people wouldn't bat an eye.

April Young Bennett [00:39:19] Yeah, that. That manual that Katie mentioned, she mentioned how it had a lot of very specific rules for girls about how they should dress. It also mentioned boys that said boys should also dress modestly. Yeah, that was it.

Abby [00:39:30] That was all it said about boys.

John Dehlin [00:39:33] Anything y' all want to say about just dress and purity culture before? What about the. What about the. Although. What about the worthiness policing, like family reunions?

Katie Lutho Rich [00:39:42] Nancy, what came out of your survey about modesty and policing each other's bodies?

Nancy Ross [00:39:48] Yeah, so I think that this is a really important point, which is that a lot of. So there's very little messaging. There's not of lot. A whole lot of, like, general conference talks, which is usually what provides the foundation of belief and teaching for the church. There's. There's kind of one main talk that's about garments, and that's given in 97 by Carlos essay and he. And a lot of the emphasis is on that garments are about like. Like they're. They're an outward reflection of an inner commitment. This idea that they're. They are extremely personal to us. And many. And many people feel and experience that garments as a personal reflection of faith and belief, but also because they are this visible thing, or rather they are hidden because they're underwear, but they're also visible. Like in the community, we can often see who's wearing their garments. I think it's been changed fairly recently, but traditionally and through most of. Through the time in which I was wearing garments, garments or women's garments were edged with a kind of itchy lace, which created a really strong raised line at the edge of your clothing that's been very distinctive. And it's been very easy to tell if someone is wearing garments under their clothing because of a particular line and, you know, hems and lines hitting in particular places and so there. And because garments are this like. Like proxy for are you living the way that you're supposed to be living? In Mormonism, garment checking becomes. Has become like this really prevalent community behavior where most people, most Mormons that we surveyed engage in garment checking behaviors. Though depending on their person's social location within Mormonism, they may not necessarily believe that people are checking their garments. But what we have then is this, like, visible but hidden signifier of people's worthiness, where everyone is very aware of the ways in which garments signal worthiness and then that. Leave this, kind that. And then there ends up being a lot of, like, fear and an understanding that there is a strong culture of surveillance when people don't like having their underwear surveilled by other people to tell if that's a secret sign as to whether you are a good or valuable, valuable person or not. And so we have created within our culture this the ways in which garments kind of reflect and reveal a power structure and the ways in which the community prioritizes being all in with the church in these very visible ways. And that that is a deeply, deeply, deeply meaningful thing to people. Where we have in our survey lots of stories of mothers in law and family members checking garments, but also rubbing people's shoulders to feel if they can feel that kind of raised garment line instead of just kind of communicating with people or recognizing that adults can make different choices, and that can be okay. But there has been such a strong pull toward conformity and the ways in which garments ultimately signal obedience to church leadership and then fear around people stepping outside of that, that we have become a little preoccupied with this kind of garment surveillance and what it means or doesn't mean in our LDS communities.

Sexual Selection in the Mormon Church

April Young Bennett [00:43:25] Can I add something there, please? This garment surveillance, it happens to everyone, but it's a lot easier to be with women than men because men garments are pretty much designed for men. They are designed around men's clothing to look like men's underwear. And the vast majority, not all, of course, but in most cultures, men can easily find clothing that covers the garment and looks like the clothing other guys in their community are also wearing. On the other hand, since this is essentially men's underwear that women are required to wear, women are required to find clothing that's very different from maybe what their peers are wearing in order to wear the garment. And so it becomes quite obvious. Like, in a summertime situation, you'll be walking around, you'll see a woman who's wearing a tank top, and there's, like, also maybe a T shirt under it to cover her shoulders. And she's got capris on. Even though it's like 110 degrees out, it's pretty likely you can guess that this person might be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and she's got to hide her garments. That means that she's wearing so many layers, right? Because she's got her bra on and then she's got her garment on, and then she's got the undershirt that's designed to hide the. The.

John Dehlin [00:44:41] Is that called a shade? Has that been called a shade?

April Young Bennett [00:44:43] That's one brand of them, yes. And then she's got her regular summer shirt on top of that or her sundress. So this surveillance is much more effective with women than men. And women feel a lot more policed than men do. I think, at least that is what I have heard from other women, is that they feel much more policed. And even when women choose to step away from the church. Choose. Choose not to wear their garments any longer, I know women who have chosen to continue to cover those areas just because they don't want to advertise every time they go to the grocery store and have a conversation with some random neighbor about what their status with the church is at that point.

Speaker G [00:45:19] Yeah.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:45:20] So culturally we're surveyed and we survey each other, and women do a lot of the enforcing of that in young women's. Young women leaders will make comments or survey the modesty. And then it leads into adulthood where you have Relief Society presidents and just other women. And within families do a lot of the policing of whether women are wearing their garments or not. But then we have this weird power imbalance situation where in order to get a temple recommend, you have to go in for temple recommend interviews. And that is always with a man. There's two men, your bishop and then a member of the state presidency or a member of the bishopric and then state presidency. And so two men, in order to get a temple recommend interview, are going to ask you about your habits with wearing garments. Are you wearing the garment night and day? And the language has changed slightly in different versions of the temple recommend interview, but they will ask if you are wearing this underwear. And you are not allowed to say, I would rather not answer that question to you, man, who I've never met before. And that's an inappropriate question for you to be asking me alone in this room with you if you want a temple recommend.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] So all Mormon women are asked behind closed doors, alone with a man about their underwear and have to account for their underwear wearing at least once every two years for their entire Mormon adult lives. Is that fair to say if they

Katie Lutho Rich [00:46:53] would like a temple recommend?

Nancy Ross [00:46:54] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:46:54] Which means that that's what you need to. To see your own child get married in the temple. That's what you need to see your missionary child off on their missions and to go through with them to have your sister, your parents, or your children, you know, go through important rites of passages, including marriage. You need a temple recommend. So it's a deeply shaming and embarrassing thing to have to stay outside the temple.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:47:21] And so, like, April is mentioning, like, what you wear to the grocery store. If you are wearing clothes where you clearly cannot wear garments and you're out publicly, then that's going to indicate your ability to have that temple recommend. And if you have a temple recommend but people see you wearing clothes that wouldn't work with garments, there's judgment. If you have a temple recommend, or rather you don't have a temple recommend, and you're dressing in ways that would indicate you're not wearing garments, there's judgment. Like whether you do or you don't.

Abby [00:47:51] Men can stop wearing their garments and go about, go to the grocery store anytime they want. No one's going to bat an eye or notice that they're not wearing garments. April, when you were talking what you were saying a minute ago, it reminded me of a really great series that one of our exponent, two bloggers did. Her name's Kaylee. She calls it Garments versus the Fashion Industry. And there's three or four parts to it. Why did I forget how many? Anyways, go Google it. It's great on our website. But she talked about things like, for example, if you need to go to a formal event, men can get online. And I think she went online and, like, looked at different things, and it was like, 95% of men's fashion will work with the garments, no problem. Pick whatever you want. You'll go, you'll feel great. Women, it's like reverse. So you need to go to a formal event. 5% of the outfits will work with garments. So women have to put in all they have to. Well, first of all, instead of picking a dress, dress, or an outfit that you feel beautiful in or that fits you really well, or you love the color or it has pockets or whatever you want for that special day. You are just trying to find anything that covers your garments. Like, as long as my underwear is not peeking out, I'll take it. Or you can get a dress and you have to go spend a lot of money and effort and time modifying it. Like, trying to add, like, you find a beautiful, gorgeous green gown that covers everywhere, comes up high enough, doesn't have a slit, but you have to go try to figure out a way to add 2 inches of material here, which just makes the whole thing now look dorky and stuff. And so you go back to the original one that you didn't like, but at least it covered your underwear. Like, there's just so much brain power and mental space and money and time that goes into picking your clothing. That just doesn't happen for men with garments because their underwear is designed to work with modern clothing, because the people who are in charge of designing the underwear and approving it are all mentioned.

April Young Bennett [00:49:40] I have. When we hear these male leaders talking about shaming women essentially for not dressing modestly and for complaining about the garment is that they kind of come from a space where they're assuming that women don't want to wear all this extra garment stuff because we want to show more skin, and they're not even considering. What about all the effort women don't want to put onto that? I mean, think of the. The causes we actually care about. Think about the. That we want to contribute to, how we want to work in our communities, how we want to take care of our families. We don't want to spend all our time shopping. Shop clothes are not what were our top priority for most of us. And so the garments actually create a situation in which people who don't care a lot about clothes, women who don't care a lot about clothes, are spending lots and lots and lots of time shopping for clothes, sewing clothes, fixing clothes, taking clothes to be tailored just because they are trying to find a way to wear clothing that will cover this very large underwear.

Abby [00:50:40] And you're like, I'm not trying to dress like a lady of the night. I promise. It's just the Fourth of July, and I'm carrying two little kids on my hips to the parade in the morning, and I just want to wear shorts and not pants because it's so hot. And. And like, you were talking, April, about the multiple layers that you end up wearing and, you know, and you can identify. You know, everyone always talks about being at Disneyland and finding the Mormons because you can tell we're dressed differently. I've had people come up to me out of state and be like, are you lds? I know, I could see. Because you had your garment on the back. And then we have a reunion like, yes, it's very visible for women. It's not for men. It's not the same way at all.

The Complaint About Wearing Garments

Katie Lutho Rich [00:51:17] It's been interesting with all of this talk of garments, listening to different podcasts and different things on Instagram and seeing how active women are talking about this change and hearing women say things like, well, my body doesn't actually belong to me. My body is a gift from God. And so I am choosing to honor that gift by being uncomfortable and almost those exact words by expressing that like, yes, even with these changes, I am still physically and regularly actively uncomfortable or experiencing problems. Like, I'm grateful that I have more options. I am still experiencing problems and discomfort, but my body doesn't actually belong to me. So all these women talking about bodily autonomy, like, what are they talking about? My body isn't mine. So I heard that on a podcast and then also hearing the idea expressed that the discomfort is part of the purpose of the garments and is makes you holier by continually being uncomfortable and having some level of suffering of rhetoric.

April Young Bennett [00:52:21] Yeah, it's a Mormon hair shirt.

Abby [00:52:22] Yeah. What.

John Dehlin [00:52:24] What is that?

April Young Bennett [00:52:24] The Mormon hair shirts. Like hair shirts that. So in some other religions they will intentionally put on hair shirts to cause pain that brings them closer to God.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:52:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nancy Ross [00:52:34] No, and. Oh, Nancy, no, sorry to you go, Nancy. So, like, this is. This is. This is a real challenge because the men who set the standards for garments are often usually pretty comfortable with their garments. Usually the only complaint that people will that that many. The physical. The only physical complaint many men will have is that they feel that their garments are hot. So in the. So when they are hot, then garments add this additional heat, but this additional heat doesn't necessarily trigger and contribute to and sit up, sit alongside other health issues that go along with garments. So when women then are saying, well, garments are a sacrifice of comfort that I have to live 24, seven in. But the men who set the rules and structure around wearing garments are like, yeah, this is actually like fine for me. 90% of the time. I don't understand what you're complaining about. Then what your baseline is is that women have to sacrifice a lot of their, like, their physical self. But then as. As just been described by, by my fellow bloggers, so much mental and emotional energy both both making this right and resisting the idea that this is an unfair or unjust requirement of them and then trying to make garments work in their everyday life with the clothing that is available to them at the price points that are accessible to them.

Abby [00:54:00] Right?

Nancy Ross [00:54:01] This is a lot. This is a lot, a lot, a lot to navigate. And so when women are like, my body is not my own, and our men are like, this is fine, I don't understand what your problem is. The men who are in charge do not understand that, like, the baseline for women is pretty high bar of sacrifice. In order to make this work. Going back to this point of not feeling like your body is your Own you might be like oh well that's a little weird or whatever, but that has so many knock on effects. If you're experiencing discomfort 24, seven, there's a good chance that you have to start again ignoring what your body is telling you in order to make this practice work. You know, broadly speaking that sounds a lot like dissociation. And if you are having to not be in your body in order to make your life work and in order to make your religious practice work, then that is going to have knock on effects in other parts of your life. Right. Like it's going to be hard for you to connect to your sense of a sexual self. And you might say oh well that doesn't matter, that's not important. But a lot of people who are wearing garments probably tried to abstain from sex until marriage only to then get into marriage and realize that there are new challenges. And so garments are like a real challenge with regard to adult married people's sexuality because they disrupt the relationship that many women have with their own own bodies, reducing the amount of the, the like amount of sexual behavior that they engage in. And men also report that their women are less attractive in garments. And so there is, garments serve as a real restraining like factor in people's lives with regard to sexual behavior. And I'm talking about with regard to sexual behavior within marriage. And this is, this is making everybody unhappy. And so it's not just about oh those, those women complaining about the real situations with regard to their bodies. It's that people are having very different experiences with garments. And because there is a broad taboo, a kind of sacred silence that is, that is kind of, we feel like is mandated culturally and religious, religiously around garments, we are not hearing the stories of what other people are experiencing and therefore allowing people space to make reasonable adaptation for themselves.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:56:33] So that duality can exist where you can believe deeply in the gospel and you can believe in the power and protection and importance of the garment and daily experience discomfort. And that was the interesting thing that I was hearing from these women who were talking about the changes and how excited they were and the benefit of them while also expressing and I am deeply physically uncomfortable on the regular, even though I love this, something about this or I'm committed to it for, for whatever personal or spiritual reason. And those can exist side by side at the same time. Which kind of leads to that, that challenge then of still that it is men making decisions on what women are going to be wearing with their garments and like Nancy said, not personally experiencing that discomfort I love it.

Mormon Women's Underwear

John Dehlin [00:57:25] I love it that whenever we talk about gender roles or feminism, I think it's always important to remind men and everyone that men are hurt by patriarchy too. And in the spirit of that, I do want to, just as a man, clarify a couple things. When we say that Mormon women's garments are patterned after men's underwear. That's true, but it's not modern men's underwear. It's not typical boxers or briefs that can be short and light and relatively comfortable. It would be like heavy cotton or some weird synthetic polyester biker shorts that are super long. And I only say that because, you know, so as an example, my dad and I at different times wore briefs in addition to our garments because the garments didn't provide us the support we needed for athletics or for. Or for just wearing around the house. So I had layers too, and my dad had layers too growing up, which is not a big deal. I'm not trying to say it was in any way as hard for men as it was for women. I just want to clarify that. It's. Please don't. This isn't like normal Hanes briefs or, you know, cool Nordstrom boxers for men. It's super long, weird, uncomfortable, sweaty, you know, under, under clothing for men.

Katie Lutho Rich [00:58:54] And that's really important to bring up for lots of reasons. Like men also deserve supportive, comfortable underwear and undergarments. But you brought up, like, the material too. Right. And how over time, as the material has become less expensive in order to make it more affordable globally, even though the church could afford better products and material and natural fibers and things like that, there are people experiencing lots of discomfort because of the poor quality of the fabric.

John Dehlin [00:59:22] Yeah, I remember on my mission the garments available to Latin Americans was a super inferior fabric type. Type, and they couldn't get garments, you know, like 100 cotton garments or more comfortable garments available in the States. They had kind of the second tier, lower grade garments available in the developing world. And they used to try. When missionaries, companions would go home to the States, they would ask companions to send American garments to them because they couldn't get them in their own distribution places. The only other thing I want to say is men experience garment checking too. When I was at byu, there was a standard thing you would hear about where women you would date. You would date a woman and she would kind of touch. I saw you doing it, Katie. A woman, would you want to say what? Say what? It was? Yeah, well, yeah.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:00:13] So you're. You're taught this by your friends. If you want to Know if a guy's wearing his garments, like you kind of rub the edge like his top of his thigh over his knee and you can feel the garment line or not because if they're wearing typical boxers or briefs, that's going to be higher. But if they're wearing garments, performance is going to be lower and you can feel that bump and then you know, is that a worthy return missionary?

John Dehlin [01:00:34] Because if you're wearing the right underwear, you're clearly worthy.

Abby [01:00:36] Right now you just reminded me of a story. When I was at byu. I went on a date with a guy and I don't even remember how. Somehow I figured, I realized he wasn't wearing his garments and I said, why aren't you wearing your garments? Because I was judgy Abby in byu. And he said, oh, because I thought if our date didn't go good, I was going to go to the gym and just work out instead or something. He made some kind of comment. I'm like, like that doesn't make any sense. If our date didn't go good, it would still last the evening. I don't understand why you're not wearing garments. And I admit that I personally interrogated a man on my first date as to why he was not wearing the correct underwear. So I guess it goes both way. It's not quite as bad as men bishops interviewing us, but I interviewed a guy once.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:01:17] There are.

Abby [01:01:18] We didn't have a second date, weirdly enough.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:01:20] There are lots of standards and expectations for men around purity and chastity and you know, there are lots of rules that they do have to live up to as well. And this is not something that men escape with purity culture and with policing and surveillance culture. There are just some differences that are more typical. But this is a culture wide problem.

Nancy Ross [01:01:42] Yeah, yeah. Can I. I'd also like. So in my survey we found that men who experienced some degree of doubt in their believing in the way that they believed that they also tended to be more to really feel strong psychological discomfort over the church controlling them through requiring them to wear garments. And so that was a pretty prevalent theme that we saw. So I think that men like as you said, there's a heat, there's a, there can be still be a discomfort factor. But I would also say that there is a large psychological discomfort factor for that. We saw with many men. They just don't want the church dictating to them what kind of underwear they can wear and that that was kind of obvious to them that this was a, this was a mechanism for control and that made many men in our survey very uncomfortable.

Ex-Mormon men feel psychological discomfort about their church garments

John Dehlin [01:02:39] I'm surprised that was more men than women, because I would imagine women feeling the same way, if not more so.

Nancy Ross [01:02:47] Women who experience doubt, also women's experiences were different. So women who don't experience doubt often love the meaning of their garments. As Katie was describing earlier. They love that their garments are symbolic of their covenants and that they remind them of the temple. And they love all these things about their garments and kind of the abstract meaning of garments. But then when it comes to the actual experience of wearing garments every day, that can be a very different thing. And so they often have biased, bifurcated answers. I love the meeting of garments. I don't like the experience of wearing them. And that's for women who, women who don't experience doubt typically, you know, express some kind of answer like that. For many women who did experience doubt, they were very clear that this. And they understood that this was a mechanism for control, but they also had many physical discomforts expressed along the way. And so, so the psychological discomfort of being controlled wasn't even. Wasn't generally the primary concern. But for men who didn't always experience physical discomfort, but who did experience doubt, this psychological discomfort really emerged as a dominant theme for many men. And again, people who experienced doubt were more easily able to see that this was a mechanism for control within their church system, where people who did not experience doubt often felt like, you know, garments were still a symbol, like they were there, their individual choice. They were less able to see the system of control at work and that they felt good about those choices. But, and so belief, and whether we experience doubt or not often really influences our whole way in which we view garments and garment wearing.

John Dehlin [01:04:29] Love it. As someone who's interacted with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who've left the church, the Mormon Church, at this point, I will say that, number one, ex Mormons report high improvements in satisfaction in the bedroom. Sexually, men and women when, when they're no longer wearing garments that they feel more sexy, they form, feel more empowered in their bodies, just better sex lives. And that's something that's very commonly reported. And then I'll just say, in my experience, ex Mormon women more easily give up the garments than ex Mormon men do. I, I joke with some friends that for, for. For my wife Margi, and for another close friend for them was like, you know, they were off. The garments were off the minute that they no longer believed. Whereas, for example, for me, I kept wearing them until I Was excommunicated. So I basically Wore My garments 13, 14 years after I completely stopped believing. And I had to be told by the church when I was excommunicated. They literally write you a letter and say, you're no longer allowed to wear garments or pay tithing. And I was like, whoa, you know, that's interesting that I'm forbidden from wearing them. And that's kind of what it took for me to stop wearing them. It was way harder for me than for Margi.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:05:47] And even then, it was an act of obedience.

Abby [01:05:50] You defiantly keep paying your tithing, and you're like, I'm going to wear my garments and I'm gonna pay. Diving. Take that, church.

John Dehlin [01:05:58] Love it.

Mormon Sexual Life: How To Have Sex Without Garments

April Young Bennett [01:05:59] Something you said about the sex life I wanted to bring up. It's always been a known exception that you're allowed to take off your garments for sex. But then what's not so known, and that people get taught different things is how soon before the act are you allowed to take them off and put them back on afterwards? You have to put the darn things back on. And for lots of women, especially like, that foreplay time period is important to them. For some people, like, it's hard to feel really romantic on a date where you're not going to have sex yet if you're all covered up with lots of layers. And. And so that can affect. Even if you have always had the standard of, okay, when I get home from this date with my husband, the garments are off and we're going to get together. The fact that you had to wear the garments your entire date and that you were covering yourself for this entire foreplay time period can affect how it feels when you actually get to that point where you're going to be physically intimate.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:06:59] Yeah, you're out on a date and you have multiple waistbands that are uncomfortable and you're itchy and you're hot and you're uncomfortable and you're feeling less attractive and then supposed to switch.

Abby [01:07:12] I remember somebody, like, telling on someone else. This is all these garment memories are coming back into my mind as we tell these things. I remember talking to one member of the church, and he said that they had been in Las Vegas at a casino, and they had ran into someone else from the ward, and they were reporting and she was not wearing something that was garment. Like, apparently she was wearing a dress that she clearly was not wearing garments. And this was like a discussion we were having. And I'm like, maybe she wanted to have a sexy night with her husband in retrospect as opposed to she was leaving the church and joining the church of Satan. Maybe she just wanted to feel sexy that night and have a little bit of time to get into that mindset. I always thought it was weird that like you can't have sex, you can't have sex, nothing sexual, but you can wear really cute underwear the moment you get married and you can finally be a sexual being. Now you have to wear your grandma's underwear everywhere.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:08:02] Yeah. So all referencing again, Afton south and Parker on the last she said it podcast was talking about the feel of her husband's hand on her lower back before she's wearing garments and she can feel the heat of his hand on her back and like that, that just touch of intimacy. Not even talking about sex. But then once you put garments on and suddenly there's extra layers and you can't feel the same level of intimacy even in non sexual acts. And that impacts the physical relationship.

Nancy Ross [01:08:32] Absolutely. So that is something that my co authors and I on our board book project have talked about pretty extensively. Was that when we started working on this particular project we, we were garment wearing women and then we became not garment wearing women and then not Mormon women anymore. But one of the this exactly which is that that garments end up deadening sensation and, and then that removing garments in the process of, of leaving the church or choosing not to wear them anymore is often then a process of becoming reacquainted with our bodies. One of the things when I, before I went through the temple before I was married, my bishop was you know, very insistent and with, without my husband in the room was like, you know, when you have, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a virgin and I'm talking to the bishop and, and he's like, you know, after you have sex you need to put them straight back on afterward. And my husband never got that instruction and that started to create a lot of, and as a, as a natural rule follower I, it started to create a lot of anxiety for me because it also then encouraged me to think about. Right like the, like my understanding was that it's like once ejaculation has happened, garments need to go back on. And so that frames sex in a very particular way and around right. Like, like male sexual pleasure and then also undermines the value of all of like you know, experiencing naked cuddling and all these different things which felt very off limits and was really disruptive to feeling like satisfied in, in, in our marriage. And, and now, now I look back on all those Things and people might laugh or they might think that that's silly, but it's like when you, when you give over so much control of your life to this institution that it can tell you what under your, where you're going to wear and, you know, and all of these different things, you know, you and, and just not receive a lot in return. It's, it's very, it's a very, it's, it's very difficult. And so not having good conversation around these things, not having open dialogue around, you know, letting couples figure out for themselves what is going to, how they're going to navigate this, but rather creating a lot of rules where, and creating a lot of rules where, you know, defaulting to more conservative opinions feels like the right thing to do is, it's a, it creates a very difficult setup for navigating garment wearing in a happy life.

Temple Recommendation Interview

Katie Lutho Rich [01:11:08] And what's interesting is what brought us here is the change in garment style that allows, you know, potential wide tank tops.

John Dehlin [01:11:18] Thomas will get to that.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:11:19] Yeah.

Abby [01:11:20] But said it was a big topic.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:11:22] Those changes do not resolve these core issues that we're talking about with your connection to your body, your sex life, the power dynamics in temple recommend interviews. All of those things are not resolved by these changes. Even though I think many people who are wearing these garments are going to find things that they like about the changes.

John Dehlin [01:11:46] Oh, it's so important, you know, just the, just the situation of some middle aged bishop man sitting alone in a room with an 18 or 19 or 21 year old Mormon woman telling her how soon after the sexual act she needs to put her underwear back on. Putting sex and law of chastity aside, the power dynamic and cultural implications of that even being a thing or being a ubiquitous pervasive thing is kind of mind blowing. Right?

Nancy Ross [01:12:23] Yeah.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:12:23] Well, and to add just a little personal anecdote, the. The last temple recommend interview I had was with a member of a stake presidency in a prior stake. And his preference was that he would have a chair, not behind a desk, but he would sit on like almost knees, touching knee to knee and try and look you in the eye the whole time. And he memorized the question. So he's trying to look you in the eye the whole time, knee to

John Dehlin [01:12:45] see it near, peer into your soul.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:12:47] That was his intention. And I talked to the stake president later about how uncomfortable that made me and he was like, oh yeah, both my counselors like to do that. I prefer to sit behind the desk, but you know, I'll talk to them like this was A known thing. And these guys just take the liberty to be needed. I had never met this man before. I didn't even know his name going in. I was new to this stake. I didn't know him. And then he's sitting knee to knee, trying to peer in my eyes. And if I wanted to get that temple recommendation, and I didn't feel that I had any other option but to answer his questions as he is,

John Dehlin [01:13:22] it's kind of like you're under our eye.

Abby [01:13:23] Yeah.

Nancy Ross [01:13:24] Can I.

Abby [01:13:25] Can I tell a story? I know we are getting to these slides.

John Dehlin [01:13:28] No. But I think we're doing the important stuff.

Abby [01:13:30] I'm okay with sharing that I don't wear garments anymore. I stopped. And. And just as we're talking about the story of men and bishops and stuff, this is very applicable to my story. So if it's all right if I take a minute here. In 2013, I was pregnant with my youngest child, and I had had. This was my third child that was born. And so I had wore. I. When I watch, like, these garment influencers, I'm like, oh, they remind me of me in my 20s. Like, I absolutely connect to them. I was, like, trying to make it work. I wore them through pregnancies. I was a very good garment wearer. And. And the hardest time for me was when I was pregnant. And then immediately postpartum, when your body is just bleeding and leaking and you're trying to nurse, and it was really hard because your body. I gain a lot of weight when I'm pregnant, and I do nine months up, and I do about nine months down, and I expand significantly when I'm pregnant. So for me, garments and maternity garments were not my favorite thing, but I would do them. I would say, hey, Heavenly Father is going to bless me. He knows. Knows how much I dislike these, but I'm going to be blessed because he'll be like, Abby, thank you, daughter. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You were uncomfortable your whole life. I don't know why I thought he was going to be so happy with that. But anyways. But maternity garments were like torture for me, and I was on my. Okay, sorry. I'm getting to my point. So it's 2013, and I'm hitting the third trimester of this pregnancy, and I reached a breaking point where every day, pulling out these awful maternity garments, I was. Was so uncomfortable. I was so miserable that I just was almost in tears every single day when I would do it. And I remember thinking, there was this one moment, this one day. Sorry, I was in Target and I was like, spur of the moment. I walked past the maternity section and I grabbed a pack of maternity underwear, just normal, everyday, secular underwear, and I put it in my cart. And I remember like being so nervous that I had just done that. Like, this was my giant act of rebellion as a Mormon mom. It wasn't like going to a mal strip club or like starting a gambling addict addiction or something. It was like I bought maternity underwear and I went home, I took off my garment bottoms and I put on the maternity underwear from Target. And I remember feeling like I could just cry tears of relief. It was so much more comfortable because the maternity garments go up over your belly and they were getting so tight and it was so uncomfortable. And then you had like another top, like a tent on top of it. This underwear just sat underneath my belly. And so comfortably. And I mean as comfortably as you can be when you're in your third trimester of pregnancy. And as soon as I had done that, I was like, I don't think I can go back. I don't think I can put my garments back on again until after I give birth to this child. And I, I did that almost secretly, like. Like I didn't want to tell anyone that I wasn't wearing my garments. And then I had my baby. She was born the end of June of that year. And then that postpartum period again. You know, like, I have my. My normal garments, but I'm nowhere near my pre pregnant pregnancy weight, so they're really tight and uncomfortable. But I don't want to go buy a whole bunch of new ones that are like a bigger size that, you know, won't fit me six months from now. And so I was. So I was. Anyways, by the end of that summer of 2013, I was trying to wear my garment skin. And it was like I was going back and forth between that Target maternity underwear that was still so comfortable on my postpartum body and then putting garments on. I'd wear them to church, I'd wear them part of the day and I'd switch back forth. Anyways, it came up time for me to remove, renew my temple recommend. And I went in and I had my interview with one of the counselors in the bishopric and I answered every single question, right? And we got to the garment question And I was 100% honest. And I said, hey, look, if you look at my garment wearing for my entire life as an adult, since I was endowed, I've been really good. But if you take just the last Six months. I've really had a hard time. It was the end of my pregnancy. I was postpartum. I'm trying to wear them again. I have them on right now. I'm just. I. You know, I'm trying to get back to it. And I remember he was a little, like, I don't know. And he pulled out the handbook, and he kind of read through, and then he said, you know what? I think you're okay. Like, you're wearing them again. You're, you know, I think.

What I Learned About My Temple Recommend

Speaker H [01:17:32] Think you're all right.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] But even that, he's, like, giving you permission.

Abby [01:17:35] Well, and I was asking for permission, and I think he looked visibly uncomfortable. So to be fair, it's not him that. I mean, he did bring it up, but it was. He was told to bring it up as a temple question. So anyways, and I remember saying, like, so I guess I just need to see if the Stake Presidency member, because I have to go to my second interview. And I remember he said kindly, he said, you know what? I think you're okay. I don't think you have to bring it up again. Maybe he's trying to save the other poor guy the embarrassment that I had given him. So, anyways, I got my temple recommend. And then the fall of 2013, so just a couple months later, is when ordained women went to Temple Square for the first time. And that is when I became acquainted with April and Nancy here, who I know from Ordain Women. I was having lots and lots of. And probably the reason why I was willing to switch out of maternity garments to Target underwear was because I was having all these feelings of frustration as a woman in the church. And so when ordained women came onto the scene, and I love them, I decided to put up a profile on their website saying, I agree. I think we should have our prophet pray about this question for us. I had a bishop that really reacted really badly to that. And one of the first things he did was take away my temple recommend when I wouldn't take down my ordained women profile like he told me to. And we kind of. My husband at one point stopped him in the hallway at church in the middle of all this drama and said, you know, there's not a single other person who's just put a profile up on ordained women who has lost their temple recommend over this. Like, you're allowed to have different opinions, right? You don't have to agree with your bishop on everything. She's. She can answer every single temple recommend question correctly. I don't think it's fair. You took her recommend away. And my bishop said to my husband, who then told me later at home, he said, you know what? We had a bishopric meeting about this. And we realized she really shouldn't have had a temple recommend in the first place because she hadn't been wearing her garment correctly. And I remember when my husband told me this, it was like that record scratch moment where I was like, wait, wait, what? And I'd been so accustomed my whole life to men asking me about my underwear and having control over it that somehow I was able to finally step back and realize a group of men in my ward had a closed door meeting about what kind of panties I was wearing and then decided as a group of men who have never been pregnant or postpartum or nursed a baby decided that the type of panties I was wearing let them declare me unworthy to be in the house of God because of my underwear. And I just. That was the beginning of the end for me. I didn't stop wearing garments that moment. But as time went forward, I was like, I'm not okay with this. And so when I look at like all of these changes, like making the garments a little bit shorter or the skirts, like, and I even think about, about like how I got in trouble for wearing regular maternity underwear, like, I could actually do that with the. If I was wearing a skirt or a nightgown at night, like a slip, I could actually now wear the underwear that I was in trouble for wearing underneath one of those slips. But I look at it and I'm like, all of these nice changes. I'm happy for the changes for the women who are who I was, you know, in my 20s and early 30s. But I look back and I think none of that would erase the problem of a bunch of men having a meeting about my underwear and how creepy and humiliating it is to realize that that's happening behind your back and that type of humiliation and just gross inappropriateness happens to women every day in the church. And until we start talking about how creepy and embarrassing and gross it is, it's going to keep happening to women everywhere.

April Young Bennett [01:21:12] So.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:21:13] Right. And these recent tumble changes came with, with some language in the temple recommend interview that gives space for different health concerns, that you can adapt these general rules according to your personal health concerns, but that is not going to take away the pressure that you have to adjudicate your experience with the men who are in charge of your temple recommend that a lot of women are still going to feel the pressure to ask permission from their bishop. From their stake president to accommodate their needs. And these are going to be men with. With mostly probably good men with good intentions, but without experience or training or any reason that they should be deciding what underwear any individual given woman should wear. And then am I going to have to explain? Okay. Have you heard of adenomyosis? Have you. Do you understand the amount of blood and how frequently and all of that, like all these different women having different concerns. I mean, or men. Any garment wear really. Right. Any garment wear who has a medical concern that this implicates may feel that need or pressure to work it out with individual precipitate leaders about their underwear.

Women Talk About Their Underwear Changes

Abby [01:22:18] However, a big difference is, as women, we're going to men about our medical concerns. Imagine as a man if you were like, I have chronic jock itch strip. What's it called? I'm not a guy.

John Dehlin [01:22:29] Somebody wrote crotch rods.

Abby [01:22:31] Crotch rod. Okay. I have chronic crotch rot because of my underwear. I have to go to Katie, the woman in my. The woman in my ward, and be like, I'm really having a hard time with my panty situation right now. Well, no, men wouldn't say panty. My boxer shorts situation because of my chronic croc crotch. Oh my gosh. Can't even say it. Crotch rock.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:22:51] I've never heard of crotch rock. Can you please explain in detail what that is?

Abby [01:22:54] So my testicles get really itchy. And I've talked to my doctor about it, and the doctor said, says that my underwear I'm wearing is causing a problem. So I was. My female doctor was telling me that maybe I should not wear my garment bottoms as often to get rid of my crotch rot.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:23:11] I don't know your doctor, but I think I need to ask you about 20 more in depth questions before I can give you an answer.

Abby [01:23:17] Yep.

Speaker F [01:23:17] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:23:18] Approval.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:23:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:19] Your blessing.

Abby [01:23:21] Yes. But I'm just wondering. I want to be able to go see. My kid is getting married next month and I don't want to have. Have to sit outside the temple.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:23:27] I'm going to have to think pretty seriously about that and go talk to a group of other women before I

John Dehlin [01:23:32] can give you a crotch rod.

Abby [01:23:34] Yeah.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:23:34] Well, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:35] And.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:23:35] And actually, I'm going to write down some notes about your crotch rock to then go talk to a group of other women about it and we'll, we'll get back.

Abby [01:23:41] And then will you get back, actually, to my wife. Could you tell her in the hallway at church what you meant what you women have decided about my underwear issue? And then she'll tell me what you guys Say, okay, perfect. There you go. There's the reverse situation.

John Dehlin [01:23:53] That was great. Thank you and thanks for sharing. Abby, your personal stories as well, and Katie and everyone. Nancy, all your research like this really helps drive it home. The truth is we haven't really even talked about the changes, but that's not bad because we're highlighting for everyone why the changes really don't probably address 2% of the most important things. Is that fair to say?

Katie Lutho Rich [01:24:18] It is. And at the same time, like. And let's transition to the response of those changes and all of the Instagrammers and people who are talking about it, because for people who are struggling and want to hold on to their faith and want to wear garments like this is going to be helpful for a variety of people, even if it doesn't erase these other problems. And I'm happy for them.

Women's clothing has been changed

John Dehlin [01:24:43] Well, let's jump to it. So we've got a photo. We've shown them briefly, but we've got a photo of the changes. There's four photos here. For those who are just listening, do you all want to describe each of the four photos and what's new or unique about them and just visually what they look like? For those who are just listening, but. But can't see.

Abby [01:25:08] Oh, you. I was checking my phone.

John Dehlin [01:25:10] No, that's okay.

Abby [01:25:10] Request.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:25:11] Oh, okay.

Abby [01:25:11] So, describing the photos.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:25:13] So the, the top change, even in this picture, it makes it look a little bit wider, but based on how people are able to wear it, it's more like a thin or like a thick tank top. Right. It's open sleeve is what they call it. They don't call it tank top, but it's the woman's. The woman's top. I. My understanding is that there is also an open sleeve men's top as well.

Abby [01:25:34] And it makes me laugh that they don't call it a tank because we've been taught our entire lives, don't wear tank tops. Tank tops are. Again, pants are improper and immodest. And so they're like, no, it's not a tank top. It's. It's open sleeve.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:25:46] It's open sleeve, yes. The shorts, from what I understand, like, maybe there are different materials depending on the exact style, but they are fairly unchanged. And some individuals who are reporting they feel even longer. But that's going to depend a lot on your body type and your height. Then there is the, the long, the slip that is knee length, roughly. And it's gonna. Depending on your height will depend on exactly where the hemline falls. But as an Open sleeve slip that could be worn under a dress. And then there is a skirt slip that I guess. Do they call it a shift dress and then a half slip? Yeah, that could be nice for like

Abby [01:26:27] a nightgown for sleeping.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:26:29] I would think for under dresses and especially in cultures where women wear dresses most of the time, those options are going to be very valuable.

Abby [01:26:37] Oh, and you know what? Do you know? Another reason why I know that the one piece garments have a flap in the crotch is because I bought them and I had my own pairs because I hated wearing garments underneath dresses because they would always come untucked and you can't, when you have a dress on, you can't reach in and like tuck it back in like you can when you have pants on. And so I would get the one piece garments because then the flap was really annoying. But if you put pantyhose over it, then it would hold the flap in place. And I remember there was a. This one day I was at church and I was trying to go to the bathroom. I was trying to pull the pantyhose down. Which pantyhose do not work with garments. It's really hard to put them over an item of clothing rather than regular underwear. And I like was holding it down. I was with my other hand, I was holding up my big long skirt that I was trying to pull the flap so that I could pee without peeing all over my clothes. And I remember just having this moment where I was like, this is not a normal thing adult women do. Like most women do not do this. So I think that the, the slip dress would have solved that problem. So yay for improvements.

John Dehlin [01:27:34] Okay. And just so I want to make sure I understand the changes and also just to visually describe this. So the picture on the left is a woman's top. And what's different about it is it's just fully. There is no longer a cap sleeve or a sleeve at all. There's still what, a two inch, you know, what would you call that? A two inch inch band?

Katie Lutho Rich [01:27:57] Shoulder strap.

John Dehlin [01:27:58] Shoulder strap. But it allows you to wear what that they couldn't.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:28:02] According to the influencers, there's lots of wide tank tops that are. That will work with this top.

April Young Bennett [01:28:08] And thank you influencers, because I had lots of questions when I saw the pictures the church put out. And I could not tell based on those pictures what you might be able to wear under that with that thing. Right. And so influencers really helped me to answer those questions.

John Dehlin [01:28:21] And we'll be showing some of their videos. I Just wanted to make sure.

April Young Bennett [01:28:23] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:28:23] We described it. So the second picture is sort of the bottoms for women. And they still very much look like biker shirts.

Abby [01:28:30] And they don't work with modern day menstrual products.

John Dehlin [01:28:32] Yeah. Okay. So they're still as problematic as ever. They're not shorter?

April Young Bennett [01:28:37] Oh, no.

John Dehlin [01:28:37] They haven't decreased the. The length. Okay. The third is a slip. And that's new. Right. There's never been a slip before. Right, right. And for. Why is that good? Why is that good or not good for women?

Abby On The Slip

April Young Bennett [01:28:49] Afton earlier. I want to just throw it a. Thank you. Afton often, because she did mention that in her slideshow. This was one of the. The suggestions that she made was that they have a slip version.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:28:59] Yeah.

April Young Bennett [01:28:59] And make that available. And it looks like they took her up on that.

John Dehlin [01:29:01] And tell us men why that having a slip version of garments is a cool good thing.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:29:06] Like what Abby was just describing with the difficulty of wearing pantyhose and garments and the ridiculousness of trying to go to the bathroom with all of that. That is difficult. With a slip, whether it's the skirt, the half slip, or the full sleeve slip, you can choose the personal underwear that you wear under that, which can allow accommodation of menstrual products or just different styles depending on your culture and what you're wearing.

Abby [01:29:28] The only weird thing is like, is it going to be like Mormon women? Oh, once a month for a few days, she wears a dress. Oh, we know she's on her period right now. It only works if you're wearing a dress that you can. This is normal underwear.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:29:41] Yeah, Yeah, A dress or skirt.

John Dehlin [01:29:43] Okay. Okay. Okay. So that's the slip. And. And I'm assuming that it's still got the little marking, the knee marking at the. At the bottom of the. Of the slip. Because that all garments kind of have to have that. Okay. And then the final one is a skirt that's not a full slip. What is that called?

Katie Lutho Rich [01:30:05] Called a half slip.

John Dehlin [01:30:06] It's a half. It's a half slip. And so that's like the regular garments bottoms, but in. They're.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:30:12] They're open skirt version. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:14] So you could wear whatever under clothing you want.

April Young Bennett [01:30:16] So if you're wearing like a business suit with a skirt, like those are pretty typical. You would often choose to wear a slip like that underneath your business suit. In this case, your slip could also double as your garment so you don't

Abby [01:30:27] have one more layer.

April Young Bennett [01:30:28] Right.

Abby [01:30:28] That's nice.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:30:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:30] Because women would wear a skirt, a slip and garments.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:30:34] Yeah.

Abby [01:30:34] And pantyhose and pantyhose.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:30:36] I don't know if everyone is giving.

April Young Bennett [01:30:37] It's that time of the month. And so they're also wearing their panties and their.

Abby [01:30:42] It's insane. The layers that you get a friend

Katie Lutho Rich [01:30:45] on a mission wearing. Garment, bottoms, pantyhose, a slip, then a skirt, and riding a bike and being on your period.

Abby [01:30:53] Yes.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:30:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:54] Like, I just. Yeah, we have. Men have no idea.

Nancy Ross [01:30:57] Yep. And I would just add too, that even when we look at the photo or like, or at the image of the new garments, that there's still tremendous overlap between the tops and the bottoms. So, like, that creates its own extra layer. Right. So that the bottoms and the, like, the bottoms and the top overlap significantly. And that heat is a significant discomfort issue, but it also creates and aggravates many medical issues. And so heat is also not avoided with these separate tops and bottoms that are sleeveless, just only in the slip version.

What Would Your Orthodox Mormon Brain Think of The Gospel Changes?

John Dehlin [01:31:36] So let me ask this just because I don't want people to have to. I don't think it should matter what our faith is or isn't or what our even observance is or isn't. Right now. I'm going to ask all of you to put your most orthodox Mormon brain on, whether that's now or in the past. Tell me how your orthodox Mormon brain would have or does receive these changes from an orthodox you mindset. Does that make sense? Is your orthodox self excited about these changes? Is like, whoa, this is awesome. Or is your orthodox self going, meh, not really a big deal.

April Young Bennett [01:32:13] Mine is, whoa, this is awesome. Not because it's enough, because of course it's not. But I think I have the same reaction that my parents did back when they said, finally you can have a separate bottom and so you, you can go to the bathroom easier. So I, I imagine like, okay, finally I can wear a sleeveless shirt. I can blend in. There's more clothes I can buy the store. I can spend less time shopping. When it summertime you go to the store and it is such a search trying to find something with sleeves that'll cover those dang garments. And the thought of not having to do that much work just to find a summer shirt I can wear it sounds great. And the idea of not having to wear a second shirt to cover up my garment top, that's. That saves me a lot of heat. I mean, the shirt itself with the sleeveless, that's not going to save you a lot of heat. I mean, it's just sparing you an inch. Right. But what it caused was that women had to wear another shirt on top of that garment top and that caused a lot of extra heat and then put their normal summer clothes over that. And so this saves you from that. So it saves you from heat, from, from some heat and that'll be great.

Abby [01:33:12] It was always weird to me that like women like you, if you had like a low calendar cut shirt or something, you couldn't use the garment as like a, a way to keep from showing too much cleavage or something. Or if you had like an inch peeking out here, that was all taboo. You had to put an entire other shirt underneath, which always seemed weird because the garments were to cover your nakedness. But I had to put something over my cover of my nakedness to cover my cover up. And it seemed a little weird. But men like John, like you have like a white shirt right there. Like if you can change the camera to John, like that's. Men would peek out their garment top shops all the time.

John Dehlin [01:33:43] Maybe I'm still wearing garments.

Abby [01:33:45] We're gonna turn you in. The church is going to come after you. They're going to be like, well now you have to be re baptized. So anyways, it was always frustrating to me as a woman that like men and men would have their like legs up like you were talking about. They'd hang out, there'd be pictures of guys like, you know, rappelling off the mountain and their garments are hanging out and people would post pictures of that on Facebook and I'd be like, I could never get away with being like, here I am doing something fun and my shirt came up. Here's my garments or I'm gonna do just have them showing every single day. You always had to add another layer to cover them up and that was frustrating. My orthodox brain says, yay. Sorry, your actual question. My orthodox brain says, same as April says, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. The church is true. They are. The men in charge are listening to women. They're allowing us to be more comfortable and they're hearing us. Like, I knew it. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:34:34] Also modern day revelation, right? This is the unfolding, expanding new and everlasting gospel revelation.

Abby [01:34:42] That's what my brain would say.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:34:43] Okay, if I was pre temple, most orthodox self, like teenage me because I got married at 20, I'm like, that is amazing. Like this is, this is awesome. What a great change. Like they're listening or like, like I'm just excited for these additional options. The me who was actually wearing garments would be happy and mad that I was so Uncomfortable. And when I would bring it up, would be shamed and silenced, and then suddenly the change is okay. And so I think even my Orthodox self would have felt a bit of betrayal, both from the institutional church and from the actual individuals, like my most or most orthodox self going to the distribution center at the basement of BYU Bookstore and. And talking about the discomfort of the waistband and the woman telling me how wrong it was for me to say that. And I'm like, this is me trying to wear garments actively, faithfully, and I am being shamed for mentioning discomfort. And so even the most orthodox me is like, why did I have to be hurt that way?

April Young Bennett [01:35:57] And that is something we've heard from a lot of women online who are. It's kind of almost like a jealousy. Why didn't they have this when I was 20? Why did I have to go through these several decades of dealing with this? And now all of a sudden, I learned it wasn't important in the first place.

Abby [01:36:12] Why was my dream wedding dress immodest? Because it came to here, and I had to go pay $300 to get a little tiny strip of sleeve added, you know, to make it modest, you

John Dehlin [01:36:22] know, to look less pretty, maybe.

Abby [01:36:24] Yeah. And it won't match, and it will look dorky because it wasn't the way the designer made it. So.

John Dehlin [01:36:29] Yeah.

Nancy Ross [01:36:29] Yeah. So I think that my Orthodox self would have been, like, was less concerned about sleeve length, though. I think that would have been great. And just more concerned about, like, heat and menstruation and just constant sweating. And I live in St. George, and I've lived in St. George for a while when. When I lived in England, you know, there was less sweat sweating, but there's a lot more sweating now, and. And there has been for several decades.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:36:57] But.

Nancy Ross [01:36:58] But I don't think that this would have changed all that much for me. And so I like that there are a few more options here. But none of these changes would have ultimately solved my problem. And except if I had maybe decided, okay, well, now I have to wear skirts and dresses full time, because I think that that will give me more airflow. But they would have required major changes in my dressing habits in order to find relief for some of my challenges, which I didn't feel like, you know, I don't think wanting to wear pants to work is all. All that. All that challenging and ask. You know, that's radical.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:37:43] Women wearing pants, Nancy.

Nancy Ross [01:37:45] Wild. Like wild and inappropriate. So. So for.

March on Women's Garments

April Young Bennett [01:37:50] For me, I think I would have

Nancy Ross [01:37:51] been glad that it would have opened absolutely opened up some options. And I think that April is so right about that. But it wouldn't have have like addressed my fundamental discomfort with garments. It also doesn't address at all the issue of needing to adapt regardless of like, changes in design. I would argue that something that that could be changed about garments that would actually improve women's experience with them is opening up the conversation around garments culturally so that people can share their experiences and so that different groups of people can understand that there are very real concerns that need to be addressed. As we started writing and studying the survey that we had that we had done, one of the comparisons that we used was with fasting. So fasting is a practice that many Mormons engage in once a month. There are very clear carve outs for when it's not appropriate to fast. You know, if you're pregnant, if you're nursing, if you're taking medication, you know, there are a whole bunch of reasons why you wouldn't fast. And if you take a drink from the watering fountain on fast Sunday, probably not a lot of people are going to judge you. But we don't treat garment wearing like fasting. You know, we have this veil of secrecy over it. And so therefore we cannot carve out more appropriate accommodations rather than just like, you know, exercise and sex and showering and that we cannot help people navigate this through their own best choices, but rather feel like we have to make these community wide choices for which there is not a lot of flexibility.

Temple Recommendation Interview Change

April Young Bennett [01:39:38] Can I talk about another change I was really excited about way back in 2019, which I think went under the radar for a lot of people. In 2019, they changed the temple recommend interview question and they used to ask you if you wore the garment day and night in accordance with the covenant you made in the temple. And there were a lot of problems with that question. One of them is there is no covenant to wear the garment garments day and night in the temple. And they still to this day, even though they made changes and updates to the temple ceremony, it still never mentions that you need to wear the garment day and night. So this is entirely a rule that was created outside the temple and has never been part of the temple ceremony. And in 2019, they changed the question. And I believe it was because of advocacy of people like me, for example, as one of them, people like Nancy who went, who also we both have had experiences going to church headquarters talking about these issues with people there, where they removed that part of the question and only asked if you were wearing them throughout your life, which is A lot broader, more broad of a statement. Right. Some things. One thing that Jana Reese said that kind of stuck in my head is she said we're supposed to exercise throughout our life, but that doesn't mean we exercise 24 7. Right. And so there's a lot more room for interpretation when we're talking about wearing garments throughout our life. Like how am I going to wear them throughout my life? Well, maybe I will wear them every time I go to church or maybe I'll wear them every time I go to the temple throughout my life. It doesn't necessarily mean I am going to wear them right up until the moment when I start to have sex with my husband. You know, that's a very different kind of a rule. So taking day and night out I think was a very helpful thing to do. They also took out in every temple recommend interview they, they read this paragraph statement. It's very uncomfortable where your bishop reads aloud to you a list of rules about temple recommend, about no, excuse me, about garment wearing. And one of those was that you could not wear it while doing yard work. And a lot of criticism that came to that is people were saying, well this is a really cultural context specific thing. This comes from people in Utah who have big yards, who live in the suburbs, who have money and that's why they're thinking about yard work. And I agree. But also that one example of you can't you have to wear garments while doing yard work. It said a lot of specific things to you about how you had to wear the garments. When you're doing yard work. You're usually outdoors in the heat. You do that in the summer. Right. You have to wear them even if you're extremely uncomfortable and you're out in the heat. You're. That's a very physical, high physical activity activity. When you're doing excessive physical activity where it would be maybe safer and more comfortable not to wear big underwear, long underwear out there. It's a very dirty activity. You're literally in the dirt. So you have to wear them even when it might destroy the underwear itself. When you're to going garments might get ruined because you're working around in the dirt. So it made it, it was pretty heavy handed example of how you're expected to wear these garments. And they took that out in 2019 and they added something into the paragraph about how you should seek the direction of the Holy Spirit in determining how to wear the garment. Well, that's. So this is inviting a lot of flexibility into how one might wear the garment and even if the garment is poorly designed, even if it's, it doesn't fit your body well, if you have the flexibility to say, okay, right now I'm doing something that I think maybe I'm going to the temple, I'm going to be inside an air conditioned room the entire time. It's a mostly sedentary activity. I'm going to be doing a spiritual rite and this is when I want to wear it, then it's not so much of a problem. On the other hand, if you're forced to wear it while you're menstruating and you're working in the yard and you're doing all these other activities where it's maybe not so appropriate and maybe you also have a yeast infection, whatever, you know, then it's a real problem. So having that flexibility to choose when you wear the garment, even if the garment isn't wonderfully designed, can make it still be, work better as a spiritual practice that doesn't interfere with your, with your life and create a lot of distractions. Because when I'm thinking about my yeast infection, it's really hard to focus on Jesus, regardless of what I'm doing, you know.

Mormon Women on the Code of Conduct

Katie Lutho Rich [01:43:31] So do they still want the Spirit to guide your decisions or what change?

April Young Bennett [01:43:35] No, they do not. No, no. So, so this happened in 2019. And unfortunately, at about the same time that these changes rolled out with the sleeveless garments and the skirt option, they also changed the question again. And day and night came back. It's not directly in the question. They're not going to ask you directly now if you wear them day and night in the question, which I think is still slightly better than before. But it's in the paragraph where they say they expect you to wear them day and night. And they removed the part saying that you should seek the, seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit about how to wear them. Don't seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Instead, listen to the rules we're telling you. And, and, and Dallin H. Oaks, he actually gave a talk in General Conference that accompanied these changes where he said something that was really extreme. Basically, he said that when you take off the garment, you were saying that you're rejecting your coverage covenants, which is pretty extreme. I mean, maybe I want to take off the garment because I have bacterial vaginosis and I'm working out outdoors all day and I'm going on a hike, but am I going to reject my covenants today just because of those things?

John Dehlin [01:44:46] Also, like professional athletes or even intercollegiate athletes would, would Wear would not want to wear garments or wouldn't be able to wear garments as part of their uniforms. I remember when Mitt Romney was running for president, there was a lot of people checking out Ann Romney and she was wearing a ball to some sort of, you know, evening. A ball gown. And people were noticing that there's no way that she could have had garments. But. But there are sometimes in Mormon culture, celebrities or people of status, actors, athletes, public figures, you know, entertainers who kind of get passes for all of this stuff.

April Young Bennett [01:45:27] Oh, and Romney did not get a pass? No.

John Dehlin [01:45:30] What happened? What happened?

Abby [01:45:31] Oh, everyone was talking about it. Like, everyone was like, does she have her garments on? I remember she was on. Was it the Tonight show she was on or something?

Nancy Ross [01:45:38] And she was like a black leather

Abby [01:45:40] skirt and her legs were crossed and it looked like it went up kind of high and you couldn't see garments. I remember everyone talking about, I'm just

John Dehlin [01:45:46] fighting her bishop or stake president didn't grill her is what I mean by a pass.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:45:49] So that, that's where I think the, the social policing comes in, where her bishop may not be inclined to call her into his office about wearing something publicly like that. But that we are talking about it right now and that it was national news indicates she was not given a pass and that she was judged pretty harshly. Culturally.

John Dehlin [01:46:08] Yeah, culturally. But there's ecclesiastical past and then cultural past. Right.

Abby [01:46:12] There's all these different ways that you, you can be judged as a Mormon woman wearing your garments. There's all different ways. And, and military. You didn't mention, my husband's in the military. And because you can't wear a white shirt underneath your camo. You know, when you're deployed, you could just get the regular T shirts. You send them into the. You. You get them from the army and then you send them into the. And you have to get like, special permission. Your bishop has to sign off and say, this is an actual military member. And then we'd send them in and they would put the markings and they would screen. What's the word? But it's not like screen print, screen printed on the inside of his T shirts. And so he has all of them there. They're not showing. He just looks like he's wearing a normal T shirt. I remember one day he came home from drill and it was a hot day and I was pregnant and I was wearing all these dang layers maternity garment bottoms and then the maternity top on top of that, and then a bra and then a shade shirt to cover my garments. And then the top shirt, I was wearing all these layers. I was so miserable. And Marie came home from drill and, like, took off his, you know, top, top, whatever jacket they wear in the military. And he was just lounging on the couch in just one T shirt, one layer. And I was like, I do not feel like this is fair because he was wearing his garments. But anyway, sorry, that's a side story. Let's go back to what we were saying. I forgot where we were.

Wonders of the Mosaic Code

April Young Bennett [01:47:26] What I was saying was that this is a policy that I've advocated for, for years. And I think that they were making some progress in 2019, I think, with various advocates that were propose proposing some more flexibility, not just changes to garment design, but also flexibility to how you're required to wear the garment. That they were moving in that direction, and I think that was the right direction to go. That would really resolve the problem of garments. It makes it so that people who do feel like their garments are spiritually empowering, who do find them useful as spiritual reminders, they can wear them as often as they want. And the garments wouldn't go away. They would still have them available to them. I would never want to take that away. Away from someone who does feel spiritually empowered by wearing them. But for those who are finding themselves in situations where wearing the garment is so distracting, it takes their. It makes it hard to think spiritually. Right. Because it is so distracting. Thinking about what is feeling like a hair shirt to you that you're tugging at, you're pulling at, that's making you sick in some way. They would have the option to not wear the garment at those times, but put it on when it feels spiritually empowering to them in whatever occasions and circumstances those might be.

Abby [01:48:36] And just knowing, like, with my husband, like I was just saying, there's nothing special about the white T shirt or now that we're training, you know, women's garments are now shorter. Obviously, the shape and color of the undergarment is not important. Like, why could we not scre. Why can't we get, like, homes. What is it called? Silk screening kits, and just put them on the inside of all of our clothes? Why can't I pull this shirt out and put one right here and one right here and one right here and just wear my pink shirt with my garment? Silk screen with the marks?

John Dehlin [01:49:04] Yeah, because the marks are the important thing. Maybe.

Abby [01:49:06] Yeah, because otherwise, why do military. And I think there's other police and firefighters and stuff. They just silk screen them in their regular clothes. Why can't every member do that, Right.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:49:15] And then there's other thoughts of moving them back to being liturgical clothing, right? Where when they started, they were the first layer of the temple robes and clothes, clothes that were part of, like, priestly liturgical clothes for temple worship. And then with different lore that developed over time and different practices that then they became daily undergarments. And there are thoughts that. Can we return to the concept that these are priestly liturgical clothes that we wear in particular contexts, like in temple worship and move out of the underwear business? And that would remove so much judgment and so many of these health problems problems and these concerns, while allowing them to be liturgical clothes for specific spiritual empowering purposes. And if you felt like those symbols because of all of this history in this time were essential, like, you can find other ways to have. You could have a ring that have. Has the symbols that you want. Like, there's so many different ways that you could maybe wear a cross and think of the atonement of Jesus Christ, but and still still have the garment as part of your priestly robes in ceremonial clothing.

The issue of sexual orientation in the Church

John Dehlin [01:50:23] Nancy, I think you're mentioning offline. You may have to run soon. Do you want to get a final word in before you have to jump off?

Nancy Ross [01:50:28] Yes. And I just. I just want to emphasize that I love what Katie and April are saying here, and I absolutely agree, which is the problem is that if garments are underwear that you wear 24 7, then they need to be good underwear. But if they are not underwear that you need to wear 247 and that you can be more selective about what feels right, then then a whole so many more opportunities emerge, whether that is just liturgical clothing that you might wear to the temple or that you might wear at church or wearing when it. When it feels, as April said, spiritually empowering. I think that that would. This would just create very different meanings and experiences with karma because people felt like they had flexibility. Just in the current system, there is not a lot of flexibility. And that creates a lot of social rigidity and challenge. Right. The challenges really come from this expectation of 24, 7 and then the social and cultural expectation of wearing them 24 7. Anyway, thank you.

Nancy Hathaway on the Book

John Dehlin [01:51:29] Love it, Nancy. Well, Nancy, thanks so much for joining us. I'm sorry I have to drop off, but also we're so grateful you were on this panel to provide your insight and your expertise. Anything you want to say before signing off?

Nancy Ross [01:51:41] No. Thank you for having me.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:51:43] When does your book come out?

Nancy Ross [01:51:45] Right now. The release date is end of March 2026. So we're pretty excited about that.

Non-Orthodox Mormons on the Temple Changes

John Dehlin [01:51:52] All right, Nancy, well, we hope this isn't your last time on Mormon Stories podcast.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:51:56] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:51:57] Thanks for coming really quickly. I just want to give kind of my orthodox answer to the question, and that's that. And I'm kind of surprised, but kind of not surprised that nobody mentioned this. My most orthodox self would have been bothered by the changes because I was taught a very Joseph Fielding smith, Bruce R. McConkie type of Mormon doctrine, which is that the Mormon temple ceremony is direct revelation from God and that the Mormon garments were given to us through direct revelation from God. And the difference between prophets and the rest of the world is that prophets get their instruction from God. They don't cave to social pressure, they don't cave to social media, they don't cave to external criticisms or forces. They just tell us what God wants for us. And our job is to sacrifice and to obey. And so the idea that there would be, just like with the temple ceremony, these trickle of temple ceremony changes over decades, obviously in response to criticisms from evangelical Christians and for being mocked in the media. The idea that there would be these trickle of changes to garments in response to YouTube criticisms, ex Mormon criticisms, feminist criticisms, TikTok, you know, concerns about public media and the church being mocked, that would have offended my Mormon self and made me wonder, wait a minute, is the church led by God and by prophets, or are we literally, are church leaders literally just caving to social pressure and really just following the times instead of God and prophets leading what we should do?

Katie Lutho Rich [01:53:45] So the orthodox response that I've been hearing right now is that this is, you know, a church of continuing, continuing revelation. And that, you know, things change over time. And, you know, that's the answer that I am hearing women who are excited about these changes give. And I, and I respect that perspective. And I also understand that when you look at the truth claims, if you are taught that this was given in direct revelation and that the garment design was direct revelation, then, yes, that becomes a huge problem. Right? And that's one of those domino testimony effects where if you're, if this is a, a pillar of truth and then that gets knocked down, what else gets knocked down? And I think a lot of people experience that and it can feel like a deep betrayal and it can feel like a hurt. And. But people who do not believe that aren't tied to that particular truth claim may struggle more with their actual lived experience of what wearing garments are, what it felt like to be in the temple with certain, certain words or phrases said or done. As opposed to whether or not it had to be this one pure true version.

John Dehlin [01:54:48] Yeah. And that's. That's a very important perspective. I'm sure it's the most prevalent perspective. To my orthodox Mormon self, that would have felt like spin.

Abby [01:54:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:56] To. To just say when. When changes are obviously in response to public pressure or criticism, to call that modern revelation. It's like no modern revelation or. What's the terms you used? Evolving revelation or evolving with the times, the apologetics. Yeah. For me, continuing revelation would be like, oh, a new commandment or a new ordinance or a new prophecy.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:55:28] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:55:29] That is relevant. But like taking something out of a temple ceremony because we were criticized for it, or shortening things so that they can fit in the right cute outfit or whatever. That doesn't feel. My old orthodox Mormon self, that doesn't meet the criteria for, like, continuing revelation. That's. But. But I know that that's how it's being framed.

Abby [01:55:50] I say, could it be that you were a man who liked your garments? Because I think my brain would have said, heavenly Father has watched me suffer since day one wearing these. I been praying about it, crying about it, and Heavenly Father is answering my prayer and the prayer of all women. So that could just be a difference in how. If it was something that you had been praying about.

John Dehlin [01:56:09] Yeah.

Abby [01:56:10] For a decade, maybe you'd be like, praise the Lord, thousand percent.

John Dehlin [01:56:15] Yeah. It's just. Yeah. The way I was raised and the way my brain works and my privilege, all that's going to influence it.

Caving to Social Proposals

April Young Bennett [01:56:22] I also think just talking about the difference between men and women, when we use that term, caving to social pressure. I hear a lot of men use that term. I don't hear as many women use that term. And I think because we, frankly, our only form of communication is social pressure. Like, that's all we can do to talk to the brethren about church policies is socially pressure them. And so that is our means of communication. So I think that for men who are actually in the hierarchy or have potential to grow within the hierarchy and become decision makers, it feels very different. And than it is for women who. This is our means.

Katie Lutho Rich [01:57:01] Caving to social pressure may feel a lot like finally listening to what women have been telling you for centuries.

April Young Bennett [01:57:07] Exactly.

Abby [01:57:08] That's true. You know what's funny? I mean, I'm just thinking about this. Since April and Nancy, who just left were here because I met them, when I put a profile up on ordering women, they had been. I was a baby Mormon, feminist, honest. And they were like, experienced, brilliant, you know, Wise women that I could look at for two, for answers and stuff. I look at like these new garment influencers and they're so. They're so different than even just 12 years ago when ordering women happened. Because I remember coming and again, and there's probably a lot of people listening to this podcast actually in 20. Very quick side note, if you're in 20, 25 listening to this podcast and you were in a very different place, place with the LDS Church when ordained women happened. And you have in your mind that we were this writing group protesting angry women on Temple Square, disrupting everything. I want you to know it was actually very nice women. It was me, it was April, it was Nancy, it was a lot of women who. I was drawn to it because I was feeling a lot of problems as a woman in the church and I didn't know what to do. And I found ordained women publicly because you guys were speaking up and being loud aloud in a very reverent way manner. But you were speaking up and you had made a website and you were talking about these things and you went to Temple Square and waited in line. And I got to see that. But I saw these women who were smart, capable, faithful, knowledgeable women, women, respectful, respectful women. And they were saying like they could see the writing, you guys could see the writing on the wall, which was, we cannot continue to keep women and girls out of leadership. And we have to include for things like this. There was tons, there's tons of different things. Garments is one of them, that we need women in leadership and decision making positions. And so I saw you guys saying to the church, you know, the church saying back to you, well, sorry, like the people who make the decisions about garments, people who are general authorities, people who are bishoprics and high councils and stake presidencies and disciplinary councils, everything you have to. Those are priesthood leadership position. So it has to be men. And I saw these women like April, Nancy saying, okay, well, we're a church of continuing revelation and we have a prophet and we have expanded the priesthood in the past from white men only to now men of all races. What if we ask our prophet in a very respectful manner, we say, president Monson at the time, will you pray to Heavenly Father and see if he would be open to expanding his priesthood at this point in history to his daughters as well as his sons. Anyways, it was this whole. It was this whole thing. I joined it. And the church, you know, immediately made us seem like we were unfaithful ex Mormons, you know, whereas we all had Callings and temple recommends. And we were, many of us were very actively engaged in the church. That's why we were putting ourselves on the line. We were trying to make our church better. And I look at this, and one of the big responses that we got, Sam, getting to my point, it's going to tie it back to garments, I promise. One of the big responses that I heard over and over again was like, this is not the way we do things in the church. We don't cause big public things and bring in news reporters from around the world. What you need to do, if you have a problem with women in the church, that is okay. Now you need to go and pray about it quietly in your closet and think about these things in your head and tell them to Heavenly Father. And then if Heavenly Father thinks it's a good idea, he will go over to the male leadership and he will tell them, here's an idea of something you need to change for women in the church. And then if that change happens after you pray silently alone in your room, if the change happens, it means the church is true and God heard your prayer and he answered it because you went through the right line of authority. Now, if nothing changes and it stays just as awful it's always been, that just means God didn't like your idea and the church is still true. And it was very much like. Like, do not talk about these things out loud. We don't do this. Now I'm looking at these garment influencers who, again, they remind me so much of myself. Like, in my 20s, I'm like 100. I was trying to make garments work. You know, I identify with these women so completely, and, you know, they may love garments the rest of their Life, or in 20 years, they may be me and not wear them anymore. Like, it. There's lots of different options there. But I look at this, so they're. I'm in. I'm almost to my mid-40s. I'm looking at a lot of these girls. They seem like a lot of them are in their 20s, so maybe a generation younger than us. And I just see them not even occurring to them that they shouldn't talk about these things publicly, that they should just privately go in their closet and pray to Heavenly Father and be like, oh, I'm going to talk to you about garments and hope that you alert the male leaders about women's problems. They're so much more open. And I love that. I love that we are not going back. And like Afton was talking about, it was Afton It's Afton, right? Was talking about how she got the attention of church leadership by being in the New York Times. Where was it? I love that the next generation of women are like, nope, we're not going to just silently pray about this anymore. We are coming together because we have social media and the Internet and we are talking about it, and we are not stepping down until change, changes are made. And this is better for everyone. So I love that.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:02:16] Well, let's look at some of those clips from the influencers and talk about how that kind of relates to the broader culture and other religious traditions that wear religious garb.

John Dehlin [02:02:27] Let's do it. All right, so the first. First video we're gonna watch is from Andrea Fawcett. And this is either Instagram, I got

New Summer Clothing for Short People!

April Young Bennett [02:02:35] my hands on the new garments for

Speaker F [02:02:36] those that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ. You know what I'm talking about?

Abby [02:02:39] About.

Speaker F [02:02:40] And so I am going to be

Abby [02:02:41] wearing a couple different styles of outfits now that the styles have changed.

Speaker F [02:02:45] But look how amazing. Can totally wear something like this.

Abby [02:02:49] So our summers are about to get

Speaker F [02:02:51] so, so upgraded, you guys.

John Dehlin [02:02:58] So for those who are just listening and not watching, will one of you describe what she's wearing just so that they can have a sense for. For how excited she is and what she's wearing.

Abby [02:03:08] It's a very cute woman. And she. I think this influencer lives in Hawaii because I watched her stuff and she's wearing, like a little jumper.

John Dehlin [02:03:17] Denim, right?

Abby [02:03:18] Yeah, a little denim jumper that comes several inches above her knees, which I am a short person and I never could.

April Young Bennett [02:03:25] I don't know.

Abby [02:03:25] My garments went to my knees. I had. I couldn't. So I don't know if they're shorter or she just has different, longer legs than me.

John Dehlin [02:03:31] But sometimes Margi told me many women and men would hike up their lower garments so that they could wear versions.

April Young Bennett [02:03:37] But when you really are petite versions,

Abby [02:03:41] doesn't help those of us who already have way too much material. It's either pull the garments up to, like, your bra line so that they sit there, or they sag. And anyways, it doesn't matter. Sorry, getting off topics, back to what she was wearing, this cute little jumper, and it comes several inches above her knee, and it is sleeveless. And it's something that would blow your mind. If you're used to Mormon garments, you'd be like, there's no way that woman has garments on. But she does have them on.

Are We Sending American Made Garments to Desert Women?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:04:08] She's be judged for wearing that to Young Women's Activity 100.

Abby [02:04:11] You'd be sent home.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:04:13] Yeah, I would have been to young women's, like a youth dance or even girls camp.

John Dehlin [02:04:18] Like if you went to the Heber girls camp in Utah, that's super hot, 100 degrees on a summer day, Mormon girls would have been sent back to their cabins or sent home for wearing what she's wearing. My daughter went for 200 years, like, right.

Abby [02:04:34] Yeah. My daughter went to young women's camp just a few years ago and I think it's the one you're talking about up in the canyon. And they, you had to wear pants because. And they said the reason was because there are senior missionaries there, there are male missionaries there and so the girls had to wear pants. So.

John Dehlin [02:04:48] Yeah, in 100 degree summer.

Abby [02:04:50] Yes. It was in a heat wave. It was, it was awful.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:04:53] So Andrea lives in Hawaii and is showing this, you know, super cute outfit and how her summer is going to get upgraded and just giving an idea that, you know, she was mailed the garments from somebody in another country so that she could see what they were like. She has some for her husband as well and shows what the sleeves are like for the men and is just giving an idea of a huge difference in what can be worn while wearing garments.

Nancy Ross [02:05:20] Mormons.

John Dehlin [02:05:20] I'm not sure we mentioned that. So these aren't available to Mormons in Utah right now, is that correct?

Abby [02:05:25] Not yet.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:05:25] Until 4th quarter of.

April Young Bennett [02:05:27] I think they expect there to be a big demand for them. I expect that. And they were not prepared for the Utah market in terms of production. That's my guess. So they're sending them only to countries that have smaller Mormon populations where.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:05:41] Hotter climates.

April Young Bennett [02:05:42] Yeah, well, they say hotter climates. That is. That's so weird.

John Dehlin [02:05:45] St. George, like, Utah's a desert, literally.

April Young Bennett [02:05:48] But Ecuador isn't one of them, you know, like what about Arizona?

Abby [02:05:52] Right.

April Young Bennett [02:05:52] So, so they, they say hotter climates, but it, I think the thing they're not saying is hotter climates plus a smaller Mormon population so that we can handle the demand. And until they can kind of build up enough of a stock that we don't have a riot here in Utah, which we probably will anyway, when they're

Abby [02:06:10] gonna be like Black Friday lines outside of beehive clothing. Can you imagine there'll be like a midnight re lease and they'll have like people camping out all night.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:06:17] Well, just like you were saying about missionaries coming home and sending back American made garments to former companions. Right. Like this is kind of this situation where we have, where influencers in the United States are getting mailed packages from friends and family members in other countries so they can have early access to this style.

John Dehlin [02:06:36] This is speculation, but I'm just trying to think about why the church would do it this way. Because normally they would think about Utah first or Utah Arizona, Idaho first. And by the way, Utah, Arizona and Idaho are all desert. Southern California is desert. A lot of Mormons in Southern California. So, like, this doesn't totally add up for me. And what my speculation would be, and I'm totally speculating here, is that they don't want to upset the orthodox Mormon population by saying we're making garments sexier or making garments more skimpy. Caving a social pressure. So the soft way to roll this out is, oh, my gosh, there's people. The church is expanding in Africa. Africa is clearly a desert. So we need to get those desert new African Mormon converts garments so that they don't die from 150 degree temperatures. So that's where it's available. And, you know, if a Utah Mormon woman or an influencer happens to get a, you know, her own version, well, she was industrious. But it's really primarily not because we're caving to social pressure, not because we're getting more skimpy, not because we're changing our, you know, appearance or chastity or grooming standards. It's for the third world African desert countries.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:07:59] So it is possible that they're trying to do that soft roll at that. Right. Or like April mentioned the manufacturing demand and the time it takes to do that, whether it's about a soft rollout or manufacturing demand. But I also do want to think that maybe, maybe sometimes American women aren't the first center. You know, like maybe, hopefully sometimes.

John Dehlin [02:08:24] That's darling. That's darling. That's cute. No, I'm kidding. I'm joking. Okay. Should we show the next clip?

Abby [02:08:30] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:08:31] I don't. I don't mean to minimize your comment because it very well could be true and I'm totally speculating, but.

April Young Bennett [02:08:36] And you know, going back to what Afton said about her meeting with general authorities, it was about other countries where people were having different kinds of challenges than we're having here in Utah. And so maybe they are considering those other countries first.

John Dehlin [02:08:49] Yeah. Maybe they're big complaints there and big barriers or needs.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:08:53] Like, even if they're like, complaining ends up sounding, I think, so negative and. Or rather speaking about the. Their faith and their desire to have these covenants and honor these covenants and the challenges of their clothes.

Speaker F [02:09:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:07] What's hard about that is Mormon women in Utah and Idaho and Arizona have been expressing needs and concerns for so long.

Abby [02:09:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:14] Why would all of a sudden, it's the African Saints or the Middle Eastern saints that get listened to? You know what I'm saying? That's why it's hard.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:09:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:23] Yeah.

Nancy Ross [02:09:23] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:09:24] The next influencer is Vika Froelich. I don't know. Vika. Vika. So let's hear what she has to say.

Carnesa Woman's Dry Stretch Top Review

Speaker G [02:09:31] Okay, today, guys, I have the review for the new garment top. It is called the woman's dry stretch. Starting off with fabric, this is 88 polyester and 12 spandex. This top is almost identical, in my opinion, to the Karenesa, whatever that's called. The Carnesa is 98% percent polyester and 2% spandex. The biggest difference for me in this fabric is that this new garment is a lot lighter than the other one, the Caressa. Next, we're going to talk about the style. So I have on a tank top that is almost identical to where the garment is going to fit. On me personally, everybody is different. It's going to fit different. For reference, I am five' four, and I am 110 pounds, if that helps. So here, I would say the sleeve is almost. It's, like, pretty much exactly here. The Caressa came up, like, in your armpit. This one I measured is 2 inches lower in the garment, so it's not even in your armpit. This neck, you can't see, but it's actually a lot lower than what the original Caressa is. It's a lot lower here and is a lot lower in the back. The length of the garment itself, the old one, like, the Care Nessa, came, like, down to here on me. This one is, like two inches more. It's, like, right here. If you want to see what the garment is going to look like, kind of generally, this would be it. This, it can be a lot lower. But besides that, everything that you're seeing here on the arms and everything is kind of what it looks like. These guys, these garments will be out for everyone by the end of the year. Depending on where you live, you can check online and see when they will come out for you. Specifically, if you're in the United States, they will not be coming out till the fourth quarter, which is probably not going to be till October or November anyway. I can't wait till everyone gets these garments because they really are so amazing, and I'm so happy with all of the changes. Let me know if you guys have any comments. And I'm going to try my best to answer them and I will do a review on the other ones later.

April Young Bennett [02:11:38] So this was the first video I saw that actually reviewed the garments. And thank you. It really answered some questions for me because the biggest question I had, and I'm literally on the record for asking this, because we had a reaction on Exponent before we had seen any, where I said, I have a question about the armpits, because it seems like in the past, like, they've put out garments that have very short sleeves. But the reason why you still have to wear great big puffy sleeves with them anyway, or you have to wear really tight sleeves, sleeves is because these armpits go up to here. And so even if you're wearing enough sleeve, your armpits show whenever you raise your hand. And so you have to wear longer sleeves just to prevent that problem. And so I had the question. I'm like, I wonder, like, it's great that they don't have sleeves, but are they still gonna have, like, up to your armpits so that if you do wear a sleeveless shirt, you're gonna always have be showing your garments every time you reach up? And so I really appreciated that she pointed out how it works on your armpit. I had big questions about that.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:12:36] Yeah, I do find it really helpful and also so different than what we experienced as we were trying to wear garments because people didn't talk about it openly like this. We didn't get examples of what it would be. But this particular influencer also has this very interesting reel of walking into church with the sleeveless dress with what I assume are her two young boys and saying the anxious feeling you get when you walk into church wearing the new sleeveless garments. Wish me luck.

Abby [02:13:00] And how many views has that one had? It's had, like, like, I think millions. I mean, that one's gone very viral. I bet a lot of people have seen it.

John Dehlin [02:13:07] In other words, these women are a little worried about how they're going to be looked at when they show up to church wearing clothes.

Abby [02:13:15] Yeah, there's lots of different little ones of, like, ah, the scariness of walking in. And there's also influencers.

John Dehlin [02:13:20] Text it to me. I can show it.

April Young Bennett [02:13:21] Right?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:13:22] Yeah. 4.2 million views on this one.

Nancy Ross [02:13:24] What?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:13:25] Yeah.

Abby [02:13:25] And these garment influencers are everywhere. There's. And there's new ones popping up, especially just in the last couple months. Months, they have been popping up. A new one every day. And these original ones that started, like, doing it, they're millions of Views millions and millions.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:13:41] And what I find interesting about that as this week, preparing for this, I looked into some other religious traditions that wear religious garb and have influencers who show what they're wearing. And there's one model who wears a hijab and has content to help other women feel comfortable wearing those. And their concern in these reels was discrimination and like public discrimination right at their workplace and out in the neighborhood and racism and elements like that. And it was about. I'm sure these individuals also within their own religious communities do face challenges with wearing or not wearing or when they wear. And I'm not not meaning to minimize or suggest that they don't have internal challenges, but the reels that I saw were about feeling confident against judgment from non believers. While here, the concern or the anxiety that I'm seeing is about judgment from other Mormons. And I find that to be an interesting commentary on how we treat each other about garments in our community.

Abby [02:14:58] I remember once getting in a car for a girls night out with neighborhood women just so much my friends. We'd go out to, you know, people, women in the ward. We'd go out to dinner every month or so. And I remember getting in the car and the immediate first question that a neighbor might ask was like so is so and so wearing garments or not? Like I see her and I just. That's burned in my memory kind of of like the very first conversation topic when somebody happened. We nobody else outside of Mormonism is looking in and being like, are those Mormon women wearing their garments? But Mormon women together are talking about, about each other. Oh, and it looks like you have that up.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:15:31] Yeah, let's do that.

John Dehlin [02:15:32] Yeah. Let me quickly see how to share. Oh, that Let me quickly share the

I Stopped Wearing Garments

Katie Lutho Rich [02:15:40] screen about this one is how real it is.

John Dehlin [02:15:44] Okay, so it's, there's no how real.

Abby [02:15:45] The realist. It's a real real.

John Dehlin [02:15:48] I'm just adding it to the realist page. There's a little bit of technical difficulties. Just one second. I will stop.

Abby [02:15:54] It is. I remember when I, I, when I stopped wearing garments. There was one day the bishopric member who had interviewed me originally back for that first time when I told him I'm having a hard time wearing garments. The last six months haven't been great with my end of my pregnancy and postpartum period. But I'm trying again. I had decided I am stepping away from this underwear and taking a break. Like I'd made a very definite decision. And I went to church that Sunday and I was wearing kind of A, not like a see through shirt, but like a sure enough shirt that you could see if someone has the garment, like the background, the lace that Nancy was talking about that like shows up through your clothes. And I remember the way it ended up. I was sitting in a pew right in front of this man. That bishopric had been released and now he was back sitting in the pew with his family. And I was sitting in front of this man. And I remember the entire time like, you know, you get bored in church and you kind of like lean forward, like this kind of thing. And I kept wanting to lean forward but being like, I can't, I can't. I have to like keep my back as straight as possible because I knew if I leaned forward, my back shirt would go tight against my garment top. And you would be able to. Well, it wasn't there. You'd be able to see that all I had was a bra on and no garment, top line. Oh, I moved my thing around there. Can you hear me? So anyways, I remember being so worried that that man. Because this whole thing had gone down and I'd been like, I'm wearing my garments. And I didn't want him to know that actually I'm not wearing them today. So I remember sitting the entire time like this. The judgment is very real and the fear of people seeing you not wearing garments is very real.

April Young Bennett [02:17:21] I remember going to a fourth of July picnic that my ward sponsored. It was just in the neighborhood. It wasn't at the church, it was just outdoors at somebody's yard. And right after the fourth of July ward picnic, I was going to go straight from there to go swimming. And that morning I didn't think very hard about what I was wearing. I just put on my swimsuit and put a tank top over the top and went off to the picnic. And then I got there, I'm like, oh my gosh, all my ward members are here and I'm wearing a tank top. And I. I was so nervous and I felt like I had. And to be clear, one of those other exceptions that's allowed is swimsuit. Swimsuits, you're allowed to not wear your garments when you're wearing a swimsuit. So it's a known exception to everyone. But while I was at this picnic, I felt the need to. Every ward member came up and talked to me. I felt the need to squeeze into the conversation right after this, I'm going

Abby [02:18:03] swimming, you know, like so, so that.

April Young Bennett [02:18:07] So that people wouldn't think that I just discarded my garments because. Not because I felt like I was doing anything wrong, but I was worried

Katie Lutho Rich [02:18:13] about the judgment because you were aware of what she's showing.

John Dehlin [02:18:15] So here is the video we're talking about. And for those who are listening or can't see, it's a. A woman. I'm guessing she's in her late 20s or early 30s.

Abby [02:18:27] Can you play the music? The music makes it.

John Dehlin [02:18:29] I don't know if you can. There's music.

Abby [02:18:31] Yeah. It's got very dramatic.

John Dehlin [02:18:37] And Julia, text me if you can hear that audience. Tell me if you can hear that. It's basically a woman with long brown hair, sleeveless white dress, walking with her sons into a chapel, and she's got a sleeveless dress on. And then the text says the anxious feeling you get when you walk into church wearing the new sleeveless garments. And like you said, Katie, it says, wish me luck. That's pretty. That's pretty dramatic.

Abby [02:19:15] Yeah.

Nancy Ross [02:19:15] Right.

John Dehlin [02:19:15] But I don't think it's. I don't think they're. I don't think they're exaggerating. Right.

Abby [02:19:20] How do we pause that music? Music is adding to the ambiance.

John Dehlin [02:19:25] But I mean, how scary it is culturally. It would be terrifying, wouldn't it?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:19:29] Right. And I know that these women who are having. Having millions of views on their garments, like, there's such an interest in knowing how these new garments are going to fit, and it's valuable information for people who are going to be wearing them. It's interesting information for people who are not, but are. We're in a culture where we could not talk about things like that publicly, but I know that they are getting heat, and I've heard of some getting threats because they are talking so publicly about their garments and they're showing what it.

Abby [02:19:56] Where.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:19:56] What they can wear it with.

Abby [02:19:57] And I want to say, good for you ladies. Like, lay off all the haters. Like, thank you, women for bringing this conversation up and putting it in the forefront. Because the only way changes get made is when we stop praying quietly in our head to heavenly Father at home and we start talking about these things. So, yeah, I see haters on there, giving them a hard time. And I'm like, you go for it, you garment girlies. That's a cute thing. They always say. They're always like, this is for my garment girlies. That's a cute thing. So garment girlies, that.

Mormon Women Influencers and the Fashion of Mormonism

April Young Bennett [02:20:26] It's not just that. It's also useful for. You talked about people who currently wear garments. Of course it's useful for them. And you talked about it's interesting to people who don't wear them anymore. Well, there's also people who don't wear them anymore, but don't necessarily want to, want everyone to know they don't wear them anymore. Yeah, it's useful for those people too because they're like when they go out and they're doing their summer shopping and they'll be like, okay, when I go to my family reunion and I have a Mormon family and they're all, they all see me, what can I, what kind of shirt can I wear that isn't going to have people like coming up to me and asking me questions about my personal salvation?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:20:56] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:20:57] And that's, that's a conversation we've had just about Mormon women influencers. There's all sorts of very national or internationally known Mormon women influencers who do fashion blogging who oftentimes are showing off clothes or wearing clothes or promoting clothes that aren't necessarily garment friendly. And there's always that policing that continues anyway. That's fascinating. Let's go ahead if y' all want, let's go ahead and go to the next video. And I think this is a video again from Andrea Fawcett and this is about the new slip dresses. So she's wearing sort of a brown, tight, form fitting sleeveless dress that comes up to her knees and I guess she's wearing a slip. So let's see that.

The New SLIP Dresses

Speaker F [02:21:52] I just wanted to show the new slip dress and why it is literally amazing and such a game changer. Number one, it's amazing to sleep in. Number two, it's so lightweight. Number three, you can wear whatever you want underneath it. If I had the slip dress pregnant, like game over and then there's nothing on your belly or your tummy. I just feel like overall it's so much more flattering. If you're wondering where the slip goes to, to. So you can see the slip goes to right about there. So I'm five three, so on me it's definitely a little longer. However, I had my friend who's member of the church tried on and she's quite a bit taller than me. She's like 5 7. And I would say it went to about here on her. And the nice thing is with the dress when you're like moving, like if you're bending over or moving and your dress is a little shorter, the slip's gonna move with it rather than like the previous shorts where they like staying in place. So if you walk then it's like showing. Right. So that's what Makes it really convenient. Anyways, also, this dress is $8.

Nancy Ross [02:22:36] You need it.

John Dehlin [02:22:39] So is it okay if I just a couple really quick things I wanted to note. Number one is I've talked to women who went to BYU Idaho who were stopped for wearing a purse that had a strap that went over their shoulder that went between their breasts.

Abby [02:23:00] There was a guy who wrote at byu wrote like a letter to the BYU Daily Universe about how he thought it was really inappropriate. So not just BYU Idaho. I went to BYU Provo and this guy wrote in. He was like those crossover, it lifts one boob up and it just makes it really hard for men to. It's very immodest.

Speaker H [02:23:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:19] Whether it's that or yoga pants or just tight fittings.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:23:22] Elder Hamilton. And how you shouldn't be wearing yoga pants instead of clothes that are more appropriate with garments.

Abby [02:23:29] Yeah, yoga pants work great with garbage.

April Young Bennett [02:23:31] That speech just right ahead of the changes to the temple recommend interview where they brought day and night back. Thanks a lot. And, and he, and he kind of hinted that we don't like the way women are looking right now. You guys are looking like you're taking days off and so we're gonna bring those strict rules back.

John Dehlin [02:23:48] Wait, this is the general authority?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:23:49] Yeah.

Speaker F [02:23:49] Okay.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:23:50] He was just released. He was a general authority. 70 elder Hamilton.

Abby [02:23:54] And say who he's related to?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:23:55] No.

Abby [02:23:56] Okay, okay.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:23:57] He is. He gave a general conference garment talk recently, a couple conferences ago, basically saying

April Young Bennett [02:24:06] it wasn't general conference.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:24:08] It was not.

April Young Bennett [02:24:08] No, it was a regional conference in California and it just got some publicity because. Well, because he hinted that they were going to be going back from those 2019 flexibility kind of changes and they were going to be making a hard U turn on that. And we were all hoping to. No, please. No, he didn't actually say that. He just hinted maybe he's wrong that

John Dehlin [02:24:27] they'd be getting more strict about garments.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:24:28] Right?

April Young Bennett [02:24:28] Yes, they got more strict again.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:24:30] Yeah. And so his nickname is Yoga Pants Hamilton.

John Dehlin [02:24:33] Okay, well, my point, my only point was on the one hand, I'm so delighted to see these changes. And when I see the image of that woman feeling good in her body, feeling good with what she wears, I'm, I'm ecstatic for her and for Mormon women at the same time. When I actually look at what she's wearing, you know, a form fitting dress that's sleeveless, I'm like, that's. It's kind of a new world. That is not the Mormonism I, I grew up in.

Abby [02:25:13] And do you want one of us to say it so you don't feel like you're the gross man saying it. We wearing tight clothing. I was always told, hey, it's not just the length. Like if you put on a really tight outfit, that's just as inappropriate and immodest as if you were wearing something low cut, cleavage. And I have seen lots of these garment influencers and again, I'm like, great, go for it. Who have been like, look, you can be sexy and beautiful and wear your garments. Like there's one I'm thinking of with this gorgeous woman wearing this gorgeous ball get. Or her evening gown that's red and she steps back. She has a fantastic body and it is like skin tight to her. But she's saying, look, you can dress sexy and wear your garments. But I was always taught, no, no, no, that's immodest. Like putting on a tight clothes. So like that cute influencer there, she's wearing a really tight brown little dress that's sleeveless. That would have been completely inappropriate. Not just because it was sleeveless, but because it was really tight and she's got a cute figure and I'm happy for her. But yeah, those things. And like you were, sorry, Jen, we I'll cut you off. But you're talking about like the CR body bags. Like there have been so many things where women's bodies and clothing, we've been told that this, that was where purity culture really hit women. I think men and women get hit in different ways. And women and girls, we were taught you do not dress in a way that would make any man ever have any sexual feelings of any kind. So I don't know what we were supposed to wear to accomplish that. Like, were we just supposed to blindfold the men?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:26:40] Can't wear purses or crossbody bags.

Abby [02:26:44] Seat belts are against the law.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:26:45] Or you are watching pornography or you are driving pornography. And yeah, so I mean, it does kind of hit on that broader purity culture issues and how that blends into the challenges with garments. Gen Z is different in, in how they are approaching a lot of different things. And we'll see what those ultimate changes be like. There's that saying that change in the church happens one funeral at a time.

Speaker G [02:27:10] Time.

The Mormon Church's Plan for Gen Z

Katie Lutho Rich [02:27:10] And who knows many funerals from now. What changes will progress based on a whole new population that they're trying to retain.

John Dehlin [02:27:21] Well, you could, yeah, you could also say one cohort at a time because I think the church feels like it's hemorrhaging Gen Z members and if it doesn't make some of these changes. I think it just worries the hemorrhaging is only going to accelerate. Is that possible? That's one of the motivations for these changes, is to not lose so many young women.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:27:40] Absolutely.

Nancy Ross [02:27:41] Yeah, I agree.

Half Slip Garment Review

John Dehlin [02:27:42] Okay.

Abby [02:27:43] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:27:44] All right. Lots of comments coming in. I we've got a few more videos, but let's show the next video that's celebrating the new half slip garment review. Do you all want to describe this dress that she's wearing so I don't sound creepy or weird?

Abby [02:28:01] Gotta play it. I don't think I've seen this one.

April Young Bennett [02:28:02] Okay. Yeah, I haven't seen it either.

John Dehlin [02:28:04] It's basically a white, flowy summer dress that's sleeveless and it's a twirly white dress that comes up to her knees. So it's almost bell shaped. And I'm just like, hooray. Like for Mormon women. Right.

Abby [02:28:18] The girly, loving, feminine things in me is like, oh, I love that. Like exactly. The flowy and the everything.

Speaker F [02:28:25] Yeah.

Abby [02:28:25] It makes me feel happy. It makes me feel, I think sometimes like we were almost another thing going with that purity culture we were just talking about, like, don't dress in a way that will. Will prompt men to have any type of sexual feelings whatsoever. I think it felt like it was wrong for me to want to dress in a way where I felt feminine and desirable and sexy. That that was wrong on me for wanting to have those feelings. So.

John Dehlin [02:28:47] Or even cute, right? Not just sexy, but cute.

Speaker F [02:28:50] Right.

April Young Bennett [02:28:50] I don't know.

Abby [02:28:50] Cute. I feel like I could get away with cute or beautiful, but like sexy. That's where you're crossing the line. Feeling that way. Like if you want to wear like a sexy for the garment. Sorry. Going back to underwear, like if I wanted to put on like a sexy pair of underwear from Victoria's Secret and feel sexy. No, that's wrong. You can't even do that on a date with your husband. You got to leave those garments on and then flip a switch in 30 seconds.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:29:13] So there's clearly a greater sense of freedom in how to dress, how to express yourself in a way that I hope leads to a healthier culture. But I'm not persuaded that we'll get there.

Nancy Ross [02:29:27] Yeah.

Abby [02:29:28] All right, let's see the Twirly Drive dress.

John Dehlin [02:29:30] All right, let's do the Twirly dress.

Half Slip Women's Garment

Speaker F [02:29:34] Let's chat Half slip. We haven't talked about this yet. That's a new garment style that's coming out. It's literally a half slip. Like what you would wear underneath a dress. That's see through a slip. I have it on here and I have it with this dress. Literally exactly where the slip hits me. You can see it here right above the knee. If you're taller, obviously that's going to be shorter and it's also going to depend where you put it. Like right now I have the slip right where like a high waisted jean would go. Obviously you can pull it up higher or pull it down lower. It's that same sheer style, super breathable fabric. I'll put a little picture of the fabric right here so you can see it. Literally ultra breathable. One thing, it's amazing because it moves with your dress. So now when I'm walking or before, the bottoms like aren't hanging out. When you walk, it moves and flows. When you bend over or whatever it is that you're doing. As a busy mom, the only thing I would say is like a little bit longer than what I hoped. I'm also only 53 and fairly short.

John Dehlin [02:30:18] She's basically saying that taller Mormon women are going to be able to wear cuter things and relatively shorter skirts.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:30:25] That's always.

Abby [02:30:26] That has always been true.

April Young Bennett [02:30:27] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:30:28] Tall privilege.

April Young Bennett [02:30:29] What hasn't always been true that she pointed out and made a big deal out of, is that this, the slip moves with your skirt. So right now, if you're wearing like these essentially bike short garments underneath your dress every time you sit down, it's like an adjustment that you have to deal with because they don't move in the same direction they as your skirt does. And so they're always kind of sliding out whenever you move. And they're, they're just a big pain to deal with that way. And she's saying if you're wearing this, it's shaped like your skirt, so you're not going to have that problem anymore. Which sounds great because I think that one thing that men don't have to think about too much because the garments are shaped more like their clothing is how the garments, we have to regulate them all day long as women when we're wearing them, making sure that they're not sliding up or sticking out or moving around and that they match our clothing and don't come out or creep up within. Even when they're not coming out within our clothing. A lot of times they're scrunching up like, and hitting us and we have to like pull on them because it

Katie Lutho Rich [02:31:28] was always such a challenge when a skirt was long enough. If I'm standing in front of the mirror at a dressing room and it is long enough. And then I maybe even sit down in the dressing room and in that moment it's long enough. But then later I'm holding my toddler on my lap and I'm sitting down at church and Suddenly I have 2 inches of garments hanging out of the bottom of my, my dress or my skirt. Like that's something that even when you're trying to dress appropriately, the garments don't work with clothing that way very well. And so this is a difference.

Abby [02:31:59] Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I was gonna say. And that's one reason why a lot of women were saying, can we please do pants to church. Because especially if you're working in the nursery or you're with the sunbeams and you're down on the ground or something like, yeah, our white garments are flashing all the time. Could we wear really nice pants? And people would say, no, that's im. And you're like, but my underwear is showing. That's better. How is that better? And it was just, you could not win. There was no way to win really quickly.

Super Chat: Scrambled Egg On Men

John Dehlin [02:32:27] Let me just share a few of the super chats. I've been terrible about sharing comments. Scrambled Egg writes, the church should teach men how to control their thoughts instead of telling women what to wear. It's all about all about it. The men, men, but gotta blame the women. So that's scrambled eggs perspective. Do we have agreement on that? Amen. Amen. Okay, thank you Scrambled eggs.

Abby [02:32:54] You can be normal human beings and feel sexual arousal and be attracted to other human beings. Instead of saying that that happening is a bad thing that we need to avoid at all costs. It's hey, this is part of being. It's a great part of being a human being. Now here's how you actually act like a normal human being and not an animal. When you feel sexually aroused around a woman you think is beautiful, you don't go take your body bag off, your crosstrep off. No, you just say, oh, she's beautiful. I'm a human being and now I'm just going to treat her with respect

April Young Bennett [02:33:25] like she deserves my eyes instead of staring at her breasts.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:33:27] Yep, that sounds crazy.

John Dehlin [02:33:32] Love it. Okay, next comments from Kiki. She writes, I serve my mission in Arizona and was in a biking area in the middle of summer. Biking in 117 degree heat in garments and a shirt and skirt and it was torture. So Kiki, sorry that I served a

Super Chat

April Young Bennett [02:33:50] bike riding mission too.

John Dehlin [02:33:51] I understand you agree. Can you confirm?

April Young Bennett [02:33:54] Yes. And speaking of the modesty issue.

Speaker F [02:33:57] Okay.

April Young Bennett [02:33:57] They made us wear skirts on our bikes and they say we're supposed to cover our garments. Do you know how well garments stay hidden when you're biking in a skirt?

Abby [02:34:07] Not well.

John Dehlin [02:34:08] Yeah. Okay, Kevin Mpe writes. Great episode. Thanks for all of your hard work. Thank you, Kevin, and all of you for your super chat. Thanks to Diane Denton as well. I think there's one more super chat. Nope, that's all I see. Thanks to all of you who support us through these chats. Also, I'll just add, we've got over a thousand people. If all of you, all thousand of you will like this episode, subscribe to this channel and share this episode, you're going to help a lot more people see this. So thanks to all the chats, we've only got a couple quick videos left and then we can wrap up. We promised that we wouldn't go too long. Here's. This is from Nicole Everston, and it's similar to the video we saw of the woman walking into church. It's about when you show up wearing new garments to church. And so it's going to have, I think, a few Mormon women here talking,

The Awkward Woman Walks Into Church (

Speaker F [02:35:11] hey,

Nancy Ross [02:35:14] how y' all doing

April Young Bennett [02:35:18] now?

John Dehlin [02:35:18] What's. What's that emotionally conveying? Do y' all want to interpret emotionally?

Katie Lutho Rich [02:35:22] Well, it's a popular meme sound, right, where it's, you know, show up and. And it's this awkwardness and this like, I'm going to be judged or people are looking at me and. And this, this discomfort. It is. It's recognizing that even though you are wearing authorized garments produced by the church, that you are aware that eyes are going to be on you, judgment is going to be on you, and that you are going to feel uncomfortable even wearing clothes that cover the garments.

Abby [02:35:50] And I felt kind of like April was talking about going in her swimsuit, like, to a ward activity and feeling like she needed to drop in. I feel like I'd be sit excited. I'd be like, hey, everybody, before the opening prayer, I just want to say I have the new garments. I'm wearing the right underwear. Just wanted to clear that up.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:36:06] I want to make sure my. My grandma and the bishop's wife and the sick, like all these women know that. That I'm good.

Abby [02:36:15] Yeah, I would totally feel like I needed to do that.

John Dehlin [02:36:18] Okay. All right. This next one's from Vika or Vika Froelich. Again, it's entitled I can Wear Garments and stuff still.

Mormon Women Influencers: Has the Church Coordinated with Them

Speaker G [02:36:26] I can wear garments and still wear cute sleeveless tops. I can wear my garments and still look sexy. I can wear my garments and still dress sporty. I can go on vacation and still wear my garments. I can dress adventurous and still wear my garments. I can dress girly and still wear my garment. But most importantly, I can dress confidently knowing that I have a daily reminder of Jesus Christ.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:36:50] So it reminds me a little bit that I'm a Mormon. But you can't say Mormon anymore because that's a victory for Satan. But now I can wear my garments and like, that's a nice new way to proclaim your we're totally normal.

John Dehlin [02:37:05] Yeah, I'll just say I think that it's my opinion it's a zero percent chance that these influencers and others like them are not coordinating with church headquarters. That's my opinion. That doesn't mean they got their garments from the church headquarters. Maybe they were told, go figure out how to get the garments. But I've even seen recently faithful Mormon women influencers making short videos saying, hey, I just got invited to church headquarters to meet with the PR department and general authorities and they want to meet with us and the, the church. The LDS Church has been meeting with Mormon influencers and specifically Mormon women influencers since the blog hugging era of 2004, 2005. And I have no doubt, in my opinion, that these women have met with church leaders. They've been told what things they can and can't talk about, what things they probably should emphasize that the PR department would like them to emphasize. In my opinion, there's a zero percent chance that these videos aren't coordinated with the church. That's my opinion.

April Young Bennett [02:38:10] So I have a different opinion.

John Dehlin [02:38:11] Yeah, yeah, please.

April Young Bennett [02:38:12] So, so in two parts. First of all, because these women have described how they've gotten their garments and it sounded hard, like they actually got them from the countries where they're for sale already. And they had to have like, friends of friends send them to them and they weren't able to get them very quickly. And it sounded like kind of a pain. It didn't sound like they got, you know, when you're going to review a book, they just mail it to you directly and say, here's your book. Go ahead and review that. It wasn't like that. So that's the first, first reason, I think now. And the second is because I was, I've literally been invited to those Mormon influencer events. I, I have attended.

John Dehlin [02:38:47] From your work on Exponent?

April Young Bennett [02:38:49] Yes, for my work at Exponent as a known Mormon woman who speaks publicly about Mormonism in The I have been invited to Mormon influencer events, and they are very vague in. In their nature. And they're usually like, a lot of women are invited at the same time. They spend service brunch, and they tell us about a new thing. Like maybe they have a new book out about women's history, or maybe they have some speakers talking about a new initiative, and they don't give you very specific instructions like I actually do professionally. I've had a lot of different jobs where I've done public relations, and I've actually given people press kits where I've said, okay, where we want to advertise this new initiative. And here's some things you can say, and here's some sample tweets you could write from back when we used to have Twitter or some sample Facebook posts or Instagram posts. And I never received that from the church. I did get invited to these influencer events where I came with a big group of other women and they fed us brunch and were nice to us and showed us things.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:39:57] Yeah. So one thing I want to kind of apologize for my initial super snarky response about, like, Vika's video, because I don't want it to seem directed to. Towards her and what she is trying to show and help people feel comfortable who want to fill their garments or, like, wear their garments. And so just wanted to say that. But with what April is saying, I agree that there's probably not super direct feedback that they're getting from the church, even if they're getting invited to influencer events, that the instruction and the coordination is probably not so direct. But there are levels of pressure according to what you want to be able to do in your future with the church and in your public appearances. And so if you are aware that certain types of influencers get invited to certain events, get certain opportunities, are able to speak at different events, and that influencers who talk about things in a different way do not get those opportunities, then that becomes a pressure without the church even having to directly coordinate just the awareness of the social pressures and the different dynamics. Like, within the Mormon Studies space, there are scholars who, because they're connected to the church, cannot present at certain types of conferences and cannot go on certain types of podcasts, and kind of vice versa where there are these camps. And so the pressure doesn't have to be direct. It can stop conversations before they even happen, by the awareness of the opportunities that can or cannot come.

April on the Church's Proposals for Influencers

April Young Bennett [02:41:33] And I would also think it's important to add that pretty much every Sunday when you go to church, you're getting an opportunity to have a certain degree of PR training because they teach you at church that we talk about things this way, we don't talk about them that way. And especially since this push has come out to be more firm about the rules around garment wearing. I know that lots of local wards have happened, had a lot of Sundays where we've discussed garment wearing, and that has been our thing. And we've been discussing karma wearing the entire time, which is kind of ironic because they say it's to help you remember Jesus, but then instead of talking about Jesus, we talk about underwear rules the entire time. But in those meetings, it becomes very obvious which kind of comments are going to be shut down immediately and which kind of comments are welcome. Right. And if you're making the kind of comments that are unwelcome on the Internet and you're getting viral views use, that's going to be a problem not only in your local ward, but elsewhere.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:42:26] Right.

Haley Rawl on the Mormon Church Changes

John Dehlin [02:42:29] All right. Well, we're getting close to the end. We've got. Now we. We're turning away from the faithful Mormon women influencers. And we've got one video from Haley Rawl of Girls Camp. She's. We've had her on the show a few times.

Abby [02:42:47] Times.

John Dehlin [02:42:47] And I guess she's going to share. I'm guessing she's going to represent

Speaker F [02:42:53] ex

John Dehlin [02:42:53] Mormon women or women who have left the church, or maybe even progressive or liberal Mormon women who are grieving or feeling sad or upset about these changes instead of happy about them. So let's hear what Haley has to say.

Mormon women celebrate the new T-Shirt

Speaker H [02:43:10] So the Mormon Church just released the new tank top garment Mormons. And I've been feeling so tender and also riled up about it. And I think I figured out the biggest reason why. Seeing active Mormon women so excited about this change and celebrating it so much just goes to show how much they wanted this in the first place and how repressed their desire was to have a little more autonomy over what they wear. All along, when I was Mormon and wearing garments, I did this mind game where I either convinced myself that I genuinely didn't care about having to wear a cap sleeve and spandex shorts, which is what garments are under my clothing at all times and also at night, I convinced myself that it was wrong to care, that it was prideful and vain, or I would tell myself, yeah, this sucks and this is a sacrifice, but it's actually a really noble thing to do to suffer in the name

April Young Bennett [02:44:06] of God or religion.

Speaker H [02:44:07] Religion. Having the distance I have from Mormonism. Now it all seems so simple. Of course I wanted to choose how I dressed. That is a perfectly normal desire to have. It's really strange to see these women celebrating something that they just should have been allowed to do all along. I can already hear the voices saying, well, they do get to choose what they wear. They're just choosing to wear garments. And garments are, are an outward expression of an internal commitment to God. I can understand that to an extent, but you cannot convince me that wither, intentional or not, the byproduct of garments being the thing that shows the internal commitment ends up resulting in control over what people wear.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:44:53] It's fantastic. And I totally resonate with that and saw that when it came out. And I've seen the faithful response from some people with the exact same criticisms that she's naming. And some people coming back with, like I said earlier, like my body isn't actually mine, that it's a gift from God. And so I'm choosing to honor God by following these rules and in the same breath, sometimes acknowledging that they are still feeling physical discomfort, but that the discomfort is part of the righteousness.

Abby [02:45:24] But if it could actually be a real choice, like April talks about, like you were talking earlier, like, where it actually could be like, hey, even if you don't wear these, we'll still let you go to the temple, even if you don't wear these, you don't have to miss your, your favorite aunt's temple ceiling or something, then it would actually be a choice. It's not a choice when we say this is the only way you can be temple worthy.

April Young Bennett [02:45:48] Right. Invoking a punishment that's attached to it really makes a difference in what kind of a spiritual thing it is. And I also, like she mentioned the outward expression expression, which is literally part of the, the speech that you're read to when you go to the temple recommend interview. And there are some theological problems with that, with making this outward thing that people in the public can judge you for your expression of your covenants to your Savior. And I actually recently posted about this at the exponent about how this is exactly the sort of thing that Jesus criticized Pharisees, Pharisee leadership for. It was creating a whole bunch of rules that you had to follow to prove you were righteous and that wearing visible signs on your clothing that people would check on you to see if you were following the rules. This, there's some problematic things about that. And if you look at the newest, the very newest rendition of the temple initiatory ceremony, in the past, they would literally put you in garments as part of that ceremony. They don't do that anymore. So it's just they say now you're wearing the garment and it's not literal. It's just a pronouncement. Well, if we don't have to literally put them on in the temple to go through the ceremony and have it have the same meaning, why do we literally have to put them on every morning to show that we honor that covenant.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:47:06] Yeah. And she talks about that feeling of kind of sadness, the tenderness of hearing people celebrate a change that you had talked about public publicly. And I think all of us can relate to that. That idea of things that we've advocated for and spoken for, challenges that we talked about, whether it's on the Internet, on the X1 blog, or just within our families and our wards, talking about challenges and getting feedback that it was wrong for us to want these things that was unrighteous to ask about it, that we're not supposed to talk about these things publicly. And then seeing some of the same people who, who have directly judged us celebrate the change when we it was a missed opportunity for connection in the past where a missed chance for empathy and for relationship building. When people feel that they have to deny their true feelings and experiences in order to be righteous. And then when the change comes, openly celebrate it without acknowledging how dismissive they were of those desires and wants before.

John Dehlin [02:48:14] Love it. Powerful. Very beautiful. Okay, really quickly, a couple super chats I just want to share. Jacqueline O writes, I'm mourning all of the clothes I couldn't wear while I was younger. That's a very valid perspective. Thanks Scrambled Egg for your super chat as well. Brandy Hepler writes, and the church set it up to allow allow all to chime in on who should and when systems. It's for a hotter climate area. I'm not exactly sure I read that well, but Brandy, thanks for sharing. And then Scrambled Egg also writes, oh, we already, we already shared that. Okay. Oh, J.C. writes, as a Nevermo woman in Utah, the level of emotional labor required among true believing Mormons on top of family and callings is a waste in her opinion. There are so many real problems Mormon women could be helping address versus this culty underwear obsession. And again, number one, thank you for sharing, J.C. obviously our faithful Mormons are not going to like their church being called culty, but it's also also your perspective and so we're happy to share it.

Mormon Underwear Obsession

April Young Bennett [02:49:31] And I think it does point to what we talked about earlier about the amount of time women are forced to think about their garments just even while they're wearing them, like, pushing them in and out as they go out of place under their clothing, when we would love to focus on other things that are more important to us and our

Katie Lutho Rich [02:49:48] communities because we have all of the American beauty standard pressures on top of the garment pressures. Like, there's. There's layer upon layer upon layer of the expectations of how women look and how they dress and how they appear in public. And it. It does take a lot of mental energy.

Purity Culture

John Dehlin [02:50:05] All right, well, the last video I wanted to show was a video by you, Abby.

Abby [02:50:11] Oh, yeah, if you want to. It's totally.

John Dehlin [02:50:12] Did you make this video before the garment change?

Abby [02:50:16] I think I made this video at my kitchen table in January one morning before the recent garment changes happened last August. But they hadn't hit, like, nobody had them and was trying them out yet. So this is between them being announced and people actually trying them on. This was just me talking. I did a couple videos. This is the first one that I did, just listing Mormon purity culture things. And one of them that I mentioned on here is dress is about modesty.

John Dehlin [02:50:43] And so I think, as we're. I think this is just a fun and interesting video that people will like. But also, I think it's worth ending as we kind of begun, which is as awesome as these changes are for whoever feels they're awesome. I think there's still a lot of core issues that are yet to be addressed.

Abby [02:51:04] It's breadcrumbs, right. And we're starving.

John Dehlin [02:51:07] So I think this will convey at least some of the issues that are still needed to be addressed. Is that fair to say?

April Young Bennett [02:51:14] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:51:14] All right, let's roll. Let's roll this final video, and then we'll wrap up

Abby [02:51:23] purity culture.

If Your Virginity Was Ever Discovered, Put A Finger Down

John Dehlin [02:51:25] Okay.

Abby [02:51:25] Put finger down. If your virginity was ever.

John Dehlin [02:51:28] I'm starting over. Okay. Oh, it's starting muted. Everyone, forgive me.

Abby [02:51:34] Put a finger down. Virginity was ever referred to as an object, like a licked cupcake or a

Katie Lutho Rich [02:51:39] chewed up piece of gum.

Abby [02:51:41] Put a finger down. If you ever read the book Sex Is like an Apple, Don't Spoil a Good Thing by Brad Wilcox. Put a finger down. If you were not allowed to date until you were 16, only group date until you turned 18. And then the moment you graduated high school, you were supposed to find an rm, get married, and probably be pregnant by the time you're 19. Put a finger down. If you were taught as a teenage girl that the adult men in your ward would be distracted by you on Sundays. If your skirt was too short. Or if you wore a crop top or a two piece swimsuit at girls camp. Put another finger down if that made you feel super creeped out by the older guys in your ward. Put another finger down if, as either a teenage girl or an adult woman, you had to go alone with a man into a room, close the door and disclose all details about your personal sex life to him until he was satisfied. Put a finger down if you were taught as a girl that you are the gatekeepers of purity and it's your responsibility to keep the boys clean. Okay, this last one is the funniest one to me. Okay. Put a finger down. If you, when you were a teenage girl, were taught that if you did something to make a boy unworthy to serve his mission, either so that he didn't get to go at all, or that he went on his mission, but he wasn't worthy to fill the spirit because of whatever you had done with him, that you are personal going to be held responsible for all of the people who could have been taught by that boy on his mission, but weren't. So that when you die and you get to the afterlife, people are going to come up to you and be like, hey, are you Abby who went to this high school in Utah in the 90s and did you date Kevin Made up name and you say, yeah. And they'll say, tevin was supposed to come and teach my family the gospel in 1999 in Alabama, but because of what you did with him, he was not worthy and we did not get taught the gospel and it's your fault. And then not only that, they would take all of the people, like this person had sons in their family who were supposed to then go on a mission to Brazil and Italy. And now all these Brazilian people and Italian people are going to be like you, you're the reason why Kevin didn't go.

Speaker F [02:53:46] And.

Abby [02:53:47] And you're going to be spending eternity apologizing to these people for ruining their salvation because you really liked making out with Kevin. Okay, that's just like a very short, abbreviated list. What would you add to it? Okay, let's play put a finger down.

John Dehlin [02:54:03] That doesn't sound like a hypothetical.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:54:05] Nope.

Abby [02:54:05] And I loved that there were lots of women in the comments saying, oh my gosh, I was taught the same thing. If I do something to mess up a boy's mission, I'm responsible for everyone he would have taught on his mission. And like I said, I made a part two. If you, if you guys want, want to follow reels like that. If you want to read the bloggers, me, Katie, April, Nancy, other fantastic women. If you want to submit a guest post, the the best place we're having conversations right now are we have there's actually two Instagram accounts for Exponent 2. The one that I manage the most and that we put all of our blog stuff in is called Exponent II Blog. And that's where that reel came from. We talk about all of the topics immediately when they happen. We talk about garments on there. We talk about know Jared Halverson a couple weeks ago. We cover everything to the minute there. Please come follow us there and engage. We also have a magazine with Exponent too, and that has an Instagram account too you should follow. It's going to be much more curated, beautiful artwork planned six months in advance. So it's not going to be to the minute stuff like the blog is, but it's gorgeous and amazing and that is Exponent iimag. So come follow us and join us us. We'd love if you're a baby feminist or if you're a post Mormon woman or you're a Mormon man or a post Mormon man, come and learn about these issues and deconstruct the patriarchy that's within all of us.

John Dehlin [02:55:28] So love it. Love it. All right, well, we're almost at three hours, so let's give all of you just a chance for any final thoughts perspectives. I'm so grateful that y' all are Nancy too, are willing to come on Mormon Stories and share your perspective. Perspectives.

Perspectives: 50 Years of Exponent

Katie Lutho Rich [02:55:43] Thank you, John. So I was thinking in studying the history of exponent and writing 50 years of exponent, to how initially the first editor, Claudia Bushman, did not allow Carol Sheldon, one of the other founding mothers, to write about garments in the Exponent quarterly. It was then a newspaper and she was writing about like the challenges with. With different styles. And it was too sensitive a topic to talk about in that big of a platform. They could talk about it with each other as friends or in small groups, but didn't feel it was ultimately appropriate to publish about it. And that has changed pretty significantly over 50 years. And I'm just glad that whether you're active or not, that it can be talked about publicly, that you can show reels and talk about it and bring these conversations to the light. Because I think that's where change is going to happen is when the conversations are public enough that the cultural pressure of women's voices make matter.

John Dehlin [02:56:37] So buy the book.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:56:39] Buy the book. And yeah, hold it up one more time. 50 years of exponent too.

John Dehlin [02:56:44] All right, let's make it an international bestseller today on Amazon. All right. Thanks, Katie. Thank you.

Mormon women speak out on the issues

Katie Lutho Rich [02:56:49] Thank you.

April Young Bennett [02:56:50] And for my last word, I would just like to make sure that I say thank you to people like Nancy, people like Afton, who actually lobbied for these changes or for even better changes, which we're still waiting and hoping for. Because I think that a lot of times when they this news comes out, we focus on the church itself and the church leadership, the male leadership. And we're either really grateful to these male leaders for making the change or we're really disappointed in these male leaders because the change was not big enough and it was too little, too late. But we forget about the women behind the scenes who actually brought about the change through their advocacy. So I want to say thank you

Abby [02:57:24] and I'll maybe just say my very last word. I was thinking about all the women who loved me when I was growing up in my ward here in Utah, my young women's leaders, my primary leaders. These were women who are all older now and I love them. And I think they were wearing the one piece garments they were going through the temple before 1990. I look back and I think, oh, that's so hard. And I realized like, oh, but I built on what they did. We on this 50 years of exponent, like what this older generation did and now this younger generation is building on top of what we did with ordained women. And we're just, I don't want us to forget like what came before and what women have done in the past and that we just keep paying it forward to everyone. I think it's beautiful, like bring us all together.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:58:03] Mormon women stand on the shoulders of giants.

April Young Bennett [02:58:05] Yep.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:58:06] Don't forget.

Abby [02:58:07] And don't forget you legacy, you cute garment influencers in your 20s. The reason why you have these adorable new outfits to try on is because of women like Nancy and Afton who came before you and did all this advocacy. So pay it forward.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:58:21] Dr. Julie Hanks talking publicly. So many other key players in bringing these conversations forward, forward.

John Dehlin [02:58:26] But like Carolyn Pearson and Maxine Hanks and you know, Nadine McCombs Hansen and all the Sunstone and Dialogue and, and Exponent 2 contributors and feminists for many decades. Right. Who were excommunicated or silenced or intimidated, saying much more benign and much more faithful things to allow these TikTok Mormon faithful influencers to wear cute clothes on the Internet today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, so much thanks to Katie, Abby and oh my gosh, I'm spacing Nancy and April. Nancy and April.

Mormon Stories: Exponent 2

Abby [02:59:10] There's lots of us. Sorry, april, just say exponent 2.

John Dehlin [02:59:13] April, it's so fun to have you on the show. Thanks for coming.

April Young Bennett [02:59:16] Thank you. Excited to be here for the first time.

John Dehlin [02:59:18] Yeah. Yeah. And it was great to have Nancy and we hope you all will come back. All right.

Katie Lutho Rich [02:59:23] Be great.

John Dehlin [02:59:23] And thanks to the women who help Mormon stories happen. Julia and Maven and Brooklyn and Margi and, you know, we couldn't do it without them as well. So thanks to all of you. Thanks to all our listeners and donors and viewers. Again, please subscribe to the channel. Please like it, please share, please comment. All that stuff helps the algorithm. We couldn't do this without our donors. So thanks to our donors who make all this possible. We don't. We get offers all the time for sponsorships and product placement. We just have avoided all of that. But we do need donations to make this possible because our ad revenue is a fraction of what we need to run this place. So thanks everyone who makes this possible. If you want be to of become a donor if you support this type of content, go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button and become a monthly donor. But just liking subscribing, commenting, sharing goes a long way if you're not able to support us financially. Anyway, hope you enjoyed today's episode. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. And check out Exponent 2 in all its iterations. Take care, everybody.