Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Foreign. Welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's August 22, 2024, and today we are going to be answering the question why Mormons love plastic surgery. We are super excited to have you with us. This was, this episode was created in response to a new study, I believe, that came out from Brigham Young University by a couple professors there. And also this story was covered in the Salt Lake Tribune recently, and we're going to be talking about that story as well. But it turns out for whatever reason, plastic or cosmetic surgery amongst Mormons, and particularly in Utah, is super high.

John Dehlin [00:00:44] Like, I think in one of the stats, like four or five times the national average. But we'll talk about that again. And we're just going to talk about, why might that be? Does Mormon doctrine, Mormon theology, Mormon policy, Mormon culture have anything to do with that?

John Dehlin [00:00:58] And is it a good thing or a bad thing? That's one of the interesting findings. Is it good thing or a bad thing? Or does it depend? And what are the implications or recommendations? All that and so much more. And joining us today are three non strangers to the Mormon Stories podcast community.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] You will hopefully recognize them all if you've been paying attention over the past year or years, depending on the person we're talking about joining us today. It's been a little bit since we've had her on, but we have Dr. Julie Hanks. Hey, Julie.

Julie Hanks [00:01:35] Hello. Happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:01:36] So good to have you.

Julie Hanks [00:01:37] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:01:38] Yeah, everyone probably knows who you are, but just for the three who don't tell them, tell them really quickly who you are.

Julie Hanks [00:01:45] Yeah, Dr. Julie Hanks. And I'm a therapist, owner of Wasatch Family Therapy. I'm also on Instagram quite a bit, talking about the intersection of mental health and women's issues and faith.

John Dehlin [00:01:59] And Wasatch Family Health is a network of therapists that kind of have a Mormon expertise, but do everything right.

Julie Hanks [00:02:06] Right, right. Yeah, we see a lot of faith transitions.

John Dehlin [00:02:09] Yeah. And mixed faith. Couple couples, I'm guessing mixed faith.

Julie Hanks [00:02:12] Yep. And we see the whole family, ages 3 on up.

John Dehlin [00:02:16] And so if you live in the Utah area or specifically Salt Lake, but you could probably do Zoom too, right? In Utah.

Julie Hanks [00:02:22] Yeah. We have Lehigh, Farmington and Sandy.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] Okay. So if everyone's always reaching out to me, saying, find me a good therapist,

Julie Hanks [00:02:30] give us a call.

John Dehlin [00:02:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I hear great things. Anyway, so glad to have you.

Julie Hanks [00:02:36] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:02:37] And you have your own podcast, right?

Julie Hanks [00:02:38] Do ask Dr. Julie Hanks podcast.

John Dehlin [00:02:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So we're, we're so glad, so glad to have Julie back. Also joining us again in studio, We've had you a few times recently is Alyssa. Do you go by Alexander or Witbeck? Is that all right?

Julie Hanks [00:02:54] Yeah.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:02:55] Yep. That's great. Hello.

John Dehlin [00:02:56] Remind us who, who you are and what you do.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:02:58] Yeah. I'm Alyssa Wybeck. I'm a writer. A lot of the things that I write about talk about Mormonism and experiences of women. I also teach university composition courses and a lot of those classes talk about context for messaging, both implicit and explicit, which really, you know, comes into play when talking about the Mormon beauty landscape in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:03:21] Yeah. And you have a Tick tock, right?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:03:23] I do, yes. List likes words.

John Dehlin [00:03:25] Lys.

Julie Hanks [00:03:26] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:03:27] Is there Lys.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:03:28] Nope, just lists like swords, which I

John Dehlin [00:03:30] do so like words.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:03:32] It's descriptive. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] And you helped, you helped with the slides today and some research, I guess ever all of you helped with some of the slides. But anyway, it's great to have you, Alyssa. And finally, last but in no way least, we're super excited to have Celeste Davis back with us. Hey, Celeste. Joining us from Washington State, is that right?

Julie Hanks [00:03:52] That's correct.

Celeste Davis [00:03:52] I'm in Spokane. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:03:54] All right, well, tell, tell us a bit about who you are again, Celeste, for those who don't know.

Guest [00:04:00] Yes.

Celeste Davis [00:04:00] Also a writer. I write a weekly substack called Matriarchal Blessing. I talk a lot about patriarchy, feminism, Mormonism. My Mormon Stories episode was last year. And just happy, happy to be here talking about this today.

John Dehlin [00:04:20] Now, Celeste, if I understand it, you, you've written about this exact topic on your substack, is that right?

Celeste Davis [00:04:27] That's correct, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:29] Okay, so this is something you feel pretty passionately about.

Celeste Davis [00:04:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:33] Since. Since Alyssa and Julie, both of you are creators. Have y' all Tick tock or Instagrammed or written about any of this or done episodes?

Julie Hanks [00:04:42] I have not talked about plastic surgery specifically, but a lot of talk about body image, modesty, the Mormon culture and impact on women.

John Dehlin [00:04:54] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:04:55] So lots of related topics.

John Dehlin [00:04:56] You probably spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff.

Celeste Davis [00:04:58] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:04:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] Okay.

Celeste Davis [00:04:59] Yeah.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:05:00] Similar road as well. A lot of body image, gender expectations, eating disorders, things like that.

John Dehlin [00:05:06] Yeah. And of course, y' all should check out Alyssa's Mormon stories because she talks a lot about and if it's okay to say this, developing an eating disorder. BYU as a freshman there.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:05:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:16] Yeah. So near and dear to your heart as well, these issues as I think, to all women in the United States at least, right?

Julie Hanks [00:05:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:25] Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna go ahead and begin. We've this will probably be a couple hours. I'm thinking like a two hour kind of thing. But let's go ahead and start with the Salt Lake Tribune article. It was entitled due Latter Day. Oh, I should just say welcome to those of you who were joining us on the live stream. We really hope to be able to include some of your comments or questions. We I'm, I'm monitoring the comments today, so if y' all are able to on YouTube do super chats in association with your YouTube questions, that will help flag them for me, especially if there are lots of questions.

John Dehlin [00:06:06] But I'm going to do my best to monitor these questions and or comments and include them as I can. But we want to welcome all of you joining us to the live stream. Please subscribe and like to the YouTube channel and to Facebook. It really helps with the algorithms. And I'm always grateful for the Mormon Stories podcast donors that make all this possible. Thank you. And if you want to become a donor to keep this program alive, you can do that@mormonstories.org and click the donate button. Shout out to Gerardo, who just helped, along with my friend Dave, revamp the MormonStories.org website. It should perform a lot faster now with a lot more sleek and cool functionality, including better search and tagging and findability functionality.

John Dehlin [00:06:55] So check out MormonStories.org it's had a facelift, no pun intended. And you should enjoy it. Okay, so back to the article. The article is Peggy Fletcher Stack. She's a legend. And the article is called Do Latter Day Saints Turn to Cosmetic Surgery in a Quest for Perfection to Please God? And then the subtitle is New Body Image Study shows they undergo such procedures more often than most Americans. But BYU researchers say these members may be misunderstanding the church's theology. And we're going to get into that. Do you want to introduce the researchers, Alyssa?

Introducing the BYU Body Image Research Study

Alyssa Witbeck [00:07:38] Yeah. So we have a couple researchers here, Dr. Sarah M. Coyne and Dr. Lauren Barnes. They're both professors at BYU and they recently oversaw the largest study ever done regarding the potential connection between Latter Day Saint religion, doctrine, culture and body image, which I think this is just a really important topic that, you know, there's been a lot of cultural speculation for a long time about if these things are related, if this culture has any basis in doctrine, if the stats actually show that Mormon women are more likely to undergo cosmetic surgery than non Mormon women. And so I'm really glad that these two women at BYU just kind of set to work trying to do this research, and they interviewed a lot of people, put a lot of work into this, and so we'll be able to talk more about that.

John Dehlin [00:08:24] And, Julie, you know, do you know these professors?

Julie Hanks [00:08:26] Yeah, I've connected with both of them before. In fact, Dr. Coyne was on my podcast.

John Dehlin [00:08:33] Oh, cool. Yeah. Okay. So there's an episode about that. That's good to know. All right, so a couple. A couple factoids that we pulled from. From the study. Julie, do you want to read this one?

Utah's Surprising Plastic Surgery Statistics

Julie Hanks [00:08:46] Yeah. Salt Lake City has more plastic surgeons per capita than Los Angeles, which is where I grew up. Utah's Googled breast augmentation at the highest rate in the nation.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] Now I'll just. Okay, so those are two different things. One is just plastic surgeons per capita. I'm curious, panel. Anyone surprised by that, by that stat? Did you already know? Is this something well known by Mormon women? Are you talking.

Julie Hanks [00:09:13] I've known that for quite a while. I've been following this topic of plastic surgery for a long time. I think part of it is we have a large medical school that has a plastic surgery residency, and Mormons like to stay by family. And so even if people go away to school, they like to come back to family in Utah. So I just think there are some cultural aspects to that as well.

John Dehlin [00:09:44] Okay. All right. Any other comments from the panel?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:09:48] Yeah, I'll say that.

Celeste Davis [00:09:50] Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] Alyssa goes. Listen.

Celeste Davis [00:09:53] Oh, go me. Okay. Yeah, I. I heard this stat a few years ago, and when I first heard it, it did surprise me. We'll probably get into this later, but I feel like it kind of juxtaposed in a weird way with the Mormonism I had in my head or the Mormonism I had kind of grown up with. It was a heavy emphasis on not being worldly. But I have been familiar with the stat for several years and kind of mulling through my own theories of why this is.

John Dehlin [00:10:19] Okay. How about you, Alyssa?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:10:22] That's covered it.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] Well, okay. I'll just say, as a man, I guess I was surprised and not like, when you think. And for our never Mormons who are joining us, like, the Mormon Church has a lot of rules, as you probably all know, including, historically, no tattoos. Historically, really strong opinions about how many ear piercings you're allowed to have. And obviously, the modesty stuff we've covered almost ad nauseam in terms of, like, don't show your shoulders, don't show your legs, don't show cleavage. And so my Mormon boy self would not predict that Mormons slash Utahns would Lead the nation in something that's perceived as. And we'll talk about this being superficial about beauty, about worldliness, and altering your body. Exactly.

Julie Hanks [00:11:16] Right. You're not supposed to alter your temple.

John Dehlin [00:11:19] Exactly. Because the Mormons teach that the body

Julie Hanks [00:11:21] is what sacred body is a temple.

John Dehlin [00:11:24] Yeah. And that's actually the justification for no tattoos and no extra piercings. So immediately, if you just did a literal connection there, you'd think, well, plastic

Julie Hanks [00:11:34] surgery should be the lowest if. If that's the case. Right, but.

John Dehlin [00:11:37] Right.

Julie Hanks [00:11:38] There are exceptions, which we're talking about today.

John Dehlin [00:11:40] Exactly.

Julie Hanks [00:11:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:41] Yeah. But then the flip side of me is the experienced side that's like, you know, there's kind of that running thing about, like. And I'll just give a stereotype, like, the Relief Societies in Draper. We'll just pick Draper. Not to pick on Draper, where, like, all the Relief Society president have had breast augmentations. Like, you have y' all heard about that type of thing?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:12:01] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:02] And so you're thinking, whoa, an entire Relief Society presidency in one ward. But, like, you hear about that. And so, like, you have to. It's kind of a mixed. I don't know, mixed conceptions there. So that's what we're talking about. Okay. And then breast augmentation specifically. Like, I'm sure we can get into that. But how does that track when y' all think. Because I. Should we define cos. Cosmetic surgery versus plastic surgery versus reconstruction, or do we even want to define some terms here? What do y' all think?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:12:36] Yeah, we can. A little bit. I mean, I think when we think of reconstructive surgery, a lot of that is after an accident, cosmetic surgery. I mean, I think that what seems to be a little bit murky here is whether injections, Botox, et cetera fall into that realm. That wouldn't be considered surgery, I guess. But I think. I think the main surgeries that are most common among Mormons that we're talking about are breast augmentations and tummy tucks. And. But I think it's also important to note the, like, relevance of Botox, lip injections, things like that, and how this all is just kind of part of the beauty landscape right now, and it's all really prevalent, surgical or medical, etc.

Julie Hanks [00:13:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cosmetic is what it says for cosmetic. There's no function that's being restored, but there's a lot of overlap, especially with the tummy tuck, mommy makeover kind of thing, where there is the muscles are being repaired after having children. So there's Kind of a little gray area there, whether that counts as plastic reconstruction or cosmetic surgery.

John Dehlin [00:13:45] Okay, okay. Anything to add there, Celeste?

Julie Hanks [00:13:50] Nope.

John Dehlin [00:13:51] Okay, so just this idea. Just off the top. Breast augmentation. Again, Utah. You know, the Mormon Church is really against porn. And I don't mean to make an association here, but it's where my brain goes as a Mormon man, immediately my, my brain goes to pornography and then it goes to. Porn's bad. But then large breasts in my mind are associated with objectification of women and sort of porn based beauty standards. So when y' all hear breast augmentation, what naturally comes to your mind in terms of Utah and Mormon women? Anyone? I know it's a weird question. Does that seem obvious to you living here?

Julie Hanks [00:14:36] Yes, for reasons that we're going to talk about, I think in the slides. But it's also important to talk about Utah's high porn use. Yeah, right. Like we haven't talked about whether that's connected.

John Dehlin [00:14:50] So that's a teaser. Is that a teaser?

Julie Hanks [00:14:52] No, I just. Yeah, we haven't, we actually haven't planned on talking about that.

John Dehlin [00:14:56] Okay, so.

Julie Hanks [00:14:57] But I think there's probably some connection.

John Dehlin [00:15:00] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. A couple other stats that we'll just blow through. 14% of latter day Saint respondents have had major, major cosmetic surgery, including breast augmentation, tummy tucks and liposuction. And I don't think people would know whether that's a big number or a small number. 14%. Some would say that seems small, others would say it seems large. But the article saying that it's larger than average.

Survey Data: Latter-day Saints and Cosmetic Surgery Rates

Alyssa Witbeck [00:15:26] Yeah, I think it said the national average is 4.

Julie Hanks [00:15:29] It's on the next slide.

John Dehlin [00:15:31] All right, so let's jump to the next slide. 20% of latter day Saint respondents have undergone cosmetic enhancements such as laser hair removal, Botox injections, or skin procedures. So if the national average is 4% for cosmetic surgery, then it's something like three times the national average for major cosmetic surgery and potentially five times the national average for cosmetic surgery. Or.

Julie Hanks [00:15:56] I don't know, we don't have the stats on that. Yeah, for this.

John Dehlin [00:16:00] But, but a, injections and.

Julie Hanks [00:16:02] Yeah, three plus times, possibly 2, 3,

John Dehlin [00:16:06] 4 to 5x we're talking about. So that's, that's huge. Right?

Julie Hanks [00:16:11] Compared to a national average, three times is large.

John Dehlin [00:16:15] Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's go through just some of the quotes from the article just to kind of give people a sense and then, and then I'll just ask you all to jump in at any point. Celeste, can you see this? Can you see this slide?

Celeste Davis [00:16:29] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:16:30] Do you mind reading that?

Celeste Davis [00:16:32] Some respondents say they turned to cosmetic surgery for religious reasons, even praying about it. One woman who underwent nose surgery and breast augmentation told researchers, I prayed, asking if. Asking God if it was the right thing to do. I felt very comforted that it was right and there was nothing that I was doing to offend God.

Praying About Plastic Surgery and Modesty Culture

John Dehlin [00:16:52] All right, so Celeste, I'll give you first debs on that. What's. What's your take when you, when you hear about this idea of praying to God to ask about breast augmentation or. Or cosmetic surgery?

Celeste Davis [00:17:04] It's an interesting one.

John Dehlin [00:17:09] I don't know your Mormon self. Channel your Mormon brain for a second.

Celeste Davis [00:17:12] Oh, I actually think my Mormon brain would be a little judgmental. Yeah. I think my Mormon.

Julie Hanks [00:17:18] I'm.

Celeste Davis [00:17:18] I don't. I'll just say outright, like, I'm so for women choosing whatever they want to do with their bodies, they should have that choice. They should have that freedom. I'm all for women feeling confident and no shame, no shade at all for any of these surgeries.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:17:35] But.

Celeste Davis [00:17:35] But yeah, kind of like I said before, my Mormon self, and this might be just the family I was raised. I did not grow up in Utah. I grew up in Texas. I did kind of have this image in mind when I imagined in my Mormon brain a Christ like woman. It was very homely, like very Little House on the Prairie, like, no makeup, like very austere kind of woman. And so it was like my whole Mormon life actually has been like this weird kind of juxtaposition of like what I thought was like very Christ like compared to like what the standard was at church among women and beauty standards.

Celeste Davis [00:18:16] So it was. It's been kind of a wrestle my whole life to kind of make sense of this and what is spoken and what is unspoken and kind of the spoken pressure and the unspoken pressure. But I can see how all of that. I don't know, just nothing but love to the woman in this quote. It's tricky out there. It's complicated.

John Dehlin [00:18:32] Yeah. Do y' all want to also share just a kind of a disclaimer for.

Julie Hanks [00:18:38] Oh, I was thinking the same thing that I. I am all for women choosing. This is not anti plastic surgery. It's not for. It's like it's your body. Yeah, I. So I want to say the same thing. Totally supportive. And. And I think if she prayed to God and got that answer, great. You know, I personally don't think God cares about plastic surgery or tattoos. Or piercings, but, you know, that's just me. But I think she made a choice based on her values and good for her.

John Dehlin [00:19:10] Okay, Alyssa.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:19:12] Yeah. Similarly, I think we're coming at this panel with a plastic surgery. Any sort of cosmetic enhancement or change is morally neutral. But I think it's just important to recognize the context that is happening here. And also it is something that is common and I think that is rising in rates nationwide.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:19:32] But people aren't having, you know, people nationwide aren't necessarily coming to it, aren't praying to Mormon God in the same way, you know, So I think it's important to see why is it that women in Utah are making these decisions and are they different than the way that. That women are making decisions in other places? And yeah, just kind of in response to this woman who, who is praying, asking if she thought that getting a breast augmentation was a good call, I do think, similar to Celeste, that my Mormon brain would have. Would have felt judgmental, partially because I think this idea, this ultimate goal in Mormonism is this contradiction of needing to be beautiful and perfect, but without trying, without wanting to be beautiful.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:20:09] It just happens on accident genetically. And so even just being able to admit, I think from a Mormon perspective, being able to admit that she wanted to be. Change how she looked and that she wanted permission from her heavenly father, I think is impressive, and I hope and like that she was able to articulate that within a Mormon head headspace.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] Beautiful. Yeah. I'm thinking, and again, we're going to talk about all this, but I'm just thinking about, and I'm repeating something we said at the beginning, but I'm thinking about all these messages that we've discussed previously that that Mormon general authority might say, women dress modestly or you'll be walking porn. Right.

John Dehlin [00:20:56] And. And women, you know, dress modestly or, you know, young, young men will have bad thoughts or impure thoughts or kind of this rape culture idea that if you dress immodestly, you know, and then you're assaulted, then it's your fault because you tempted or caused bad thoughts to come up in the person. Like, obviously horrible, horrible messages.

John Dehlin [00:21:20] So I'm trying to think about a Mormon woman who grew up with those messages, and then she's thinking, oh, maybe I'll. Maybe I will choose breast augmentation in the instance of possibly it'll make me more attractive. Like how. I'm wondering how a Mormon woman might process that contradiction. I'm curious if you all have thoughts on that.

Julie Hanks [00:21:42] Well, I think the phrase modest is hottest is exactly like, be modest but also be hot. Right. Show, you know, be sexy but not too sexy. Don't try. There are mixed messages all over the place. And we'll get into kind of why. Why that is.

John Dehlin [00:22:04] Is that. Is that hard for. Tell me in your perspective, Julie, is that hard?

Julie Hanks [00:22:08] Oh, I think it's. It's really hard because it's like, wait, you're. You're never acceptable. You're either, like, not attractive enough or too attractive or too sexy. Not sexy enough, not modest enough. Like, there's where. Where's the place where you can feel good about yourself? It's very elusive.

John Dehlin [00:22:29] It would be impossible to know where to put that dial.

Julie Hanks [00:22:32] And I see that in my practice that most Latter Day Saint women that I have worked with do not feel good about themselves and do not feel good about their bodies.

John Dehlin [00:22:45] Alyssa, do you have reflections?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:22:46] Yeah, I was thinking just for, for people who are currently active in the church especially. And I think, I don't know. I think, though, really, like, equating getting a breast augmentation to porn may not necessarily be a very accurate representation. Mostly because I don't think that Mormon women, or women generally who want to get a breast augmentation necessarily means that they plan on showing more cleavage than other women would. And so I think that's an important distinction.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:23:15] When people are talking about, or like, when a Mormon woman is thinking about getting a breast augmentation, they might not necessarily say, I want to have bigger boobs and then show them off. Rather, I want to have bigger boobs once I'm married, or I'll still have them covered so I can look sexy when I'm covered or whatever. But I, I don't think that the behavior or the dress would necessarily change based on someone getting cosmetic surgery.

John Dehlin [00:23:38] Yeah, I'm thinking, like, as a, as a young Mormon boy growing up, like, breasts were off limits. Right. And you shouldn't look at them, and you certainly shouldn't do anything else with them. And so they're. They're forbidden in that sense. But we all know that you, when you're told not to look at the pink elephant, you're going to look at it all the time. And I think, honestly, if I think about a way I was harmed by patriarchy slash these moral standards is I. You know, eventually you go to the Louvre or you just go to the doctor's office, or you take care of someone who's sick, and you realize these are just body parts, but when they've been exoticized and made forbidden Then you're.

John Dehlin [00:24:25] Then as a man, and I don't mean to make this about men, but, like, then you're constantly thinking about them because you were kind of primed to. But then you're also constantly feeling horrible that you're thinking about them all the time. That's like a dark inverse. I don't know if the shame.

Julie Hanks [00:24:42] The shame, Right. And then I'm thinking about breasts, but I shouldn't be thinking about them. That means I'm a bad person. I mean, that's the harm. And then there's the obsession and the compulsive behavior that. That grow out of that. So I have tons of compassion for Mormon men, but I had a really interesting situation where I was with a family member who is not raised in the church and one who was, and their reaction to a scantily clad woman or, you know, with cheeky bathing suit or whatever, it was like, it wasn't even an issue for the one who wasn't raised Mormon and the one who wasn't like, why do people dress like that?

Guest [00:25:25] Why?

Julie Hanks [00:25:26] How come? Right. And it was such a stark contrast. It's like, oh, it's a. But, you know, who cares? And so that just really illustrated the emotional charge that the teachings can give to body parts that are just parts, you know, parts of the human body.

John Dehlin [00:25:44] Exactly. Celeste, let's get you in here.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:25:46] Yeah.

Celeste Davis [00:25:47] I think a really important missing piece of this puzzle is that from the. From a very, very, very young age, basically, as soon as a teenage girl develops breasts, the responsibility for men's sexuality is placed on the woman, is placed on the girl. And when you're growing up, that looks like it's your responsibility to cover your shoulders and your chest and your legs, so. So that you don't give the boys dirty thoughts. It's your responsibility to not tempt the boys. It's your responsibility to never act like a Potiphar's wife and to be very chaste and to walk very chaste and to watch your body language and dress modestly.

Celeste Davis [00:26:23] And then once you get married, it is your responsibility to make sure that your husband does not get into porn or have an affair. So you have to be very sexually available. And I think that's a very important piece of this puzzle. And like. Like you said earlier, it seems like a paradox that we're so warned against pornography, but then breasts maybe are, you know, thought of as pornography.

Celeste Davis [00:26:49] But I think there's a lot of pressure on Mormon wives to be very sexually pleasing for their husband, so they don't turn to porn, which is an interesting link. And yeah, just like Julie said with the mixed messaging, there's very intense mixed messaging, spoken and unspoken. Just in the Mormon dating world of, like, so much emphasis on not being sexual and not having sexual thoughts and not dressing sexually. But at the same time, there's immense pressure on getting married. In order to get to the top heaven of the celestial kingdom, you must be married. And in order to be married, you need to be sexually attractive.

Celeste Davis [00:27:27] And so there's immense pressure to be both sexually attractive, both before marriage and after marriage, but not be sexual. So it's this very weird paradox going on with definite mixed messaging.

John Dehlin [00:27:42] Speaking of that, you. You hear about Mormon teens or young adults getting sort of, let's just say, Brexit augmentation as sort of a gift in their late teens, early 20s. Is that a thing, or am I just. Is that making that up?

Julie Hanks [00:27:59] I know people who have.

John Dehlin [00:28:01] Okay, yeah,

Alyssa Witbeck [00:28:04] yeah, I do as well.

John Dehlin [00:28:05] Okay. And so that. And so that's. And then. Then we don't know what the prevalence rates would be. But that seems. In my mind, that seems abnormal. Not normal, not in a bad way. Just like not the norm is what I mean by abnormal.

Julie Hanks [00:28:21] So if a parent's job culturally is to prepare their children for marriage, one might think, oh, that's a way I can make my child more attractive to a potential mate, if that's the ultimate goal. So from that line of thinking, it kind of makes sense. Not that I think it's a good idea, but it makes sense, right? You want your child to be an attractive mate and partner.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] Yeah. No, I mean, there's logic. There's logic there, for sure. Yeah. Okay, cool. Let's. This is great. So let's go ahead and. And go to the next. The next slide. Alyssa, do you want to read this one?

Perfectionism, Appearance, and Mormon Religious Life

Alyssa Witbeck [00:29:09] Yeah. Indeed, Coin and Barnes discovered a subtle religious impulse in individual decisions to enhance their bodies. The need for perfection. Respondents who are most likely to have had cosmetic surgery were those who were wealthy, since such procedures can be costly, and who also had the highest religious salience. The researchers explained these individuals were highly religious. However, they may erroneously believe that religion is tied to perfection in a variety of ways, including physical appearance or finances. And they may attempt to conform to what is referred to as a thin ideal in the United States.

Guest [00:29:41] Culture.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:29:41] Culture.

John Dehlin [00:29:42] Okay. Thank you for reading that. And I would say perfection is for sure one of the top three themes I saw in the little Instagram stories, Julie, that you and I did. Who wants to. Who wants to give Kind of the summary of the Mormon teaching of perfection and then talk about how it might then be applied here. Anyone?

Julie Hanks [00:30:00] Well, I, I see this as a theme in my practice a lot is, you know, be therefore perfect, and perfect means flawless. That was Jesus. Yeah. Me was talking about love, loving people. Be perfect in love. But we have taken that out of context and made it mean be therefore flawless.

Julie Hanks [00:30:23] And that teaching has just been used to beat women up. Right. Like to beat themselves up. I'm not perfect. I'm not. I'm not this. And the, the standards are unrealistic of what perhaps perfection is externally and in terms of motherhood and wifehood. It's. It's not. Perfection is not attainable.

Julie Hanks [00:30:49] And I think we equate religiosity with financial success and appearance and your family looking a certain way. And so I think those are, are tied together as well. So it's like a sign that we are righteous, we're prospering, and we look the part, right. We. We look the part of the happy Mormon successful family.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] So there's a tie in Mormon minds, some Mormon minds, between righteousness and perfectionism.

Julie Hanks [00:31:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:22] And beauty. Yeah. Celeste.

Celeste Davis [00:31:26] Yeah. I feel, I feel a little,

Julie Hanks [00:31:31] I

Celeste Davis [00:31:31] don't know, compassion towards Mormons who. There can be this messaging of like, oh, silly Mormons, silly Mormon women. They are so perfectionistic. They just need to be perfect or all of these things. But I think it goes so much bigger than just the culture. I think it goes straight to the top, to the Mormon God who really does, like, doesn't dwell in unholy places or unclean things. You have to be completely clean to be in his presence. And to reach the top of the celestial kingdom, you have to be completely cleansed through the atonement of all of your sins. Like, he really does demand perfection.

Celeste Davis [00:32:04] And I think that can be said of a lot of the things with Mormon culture actually stem from the Mormon God in my mind, like racism, sexism, homophobia, culture of judgment, culture of perfection. All of those things are things that the Mormon God does kind of demand for the top of the celestial kingdom. So I feel like, I don't know if it's their fault that it's. We have this doctrine and these teachings and these expectations and these standards that really do demand. That really do demand perfection to be completely clean. Maybe not in this life, but in the next life. So I don't think it comes from nowhere and I don't think it's like their fault.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:32:41] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:32:42] Thank you.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:32:43] Yeah. One thing that the article talked about. I don't think we ended up putting it in the slides. That just kind of goes off of what Julie was saying a moment ago about how appearance and religiosities tend to be tied together. And I think one of the things that was discussed is how when we go to church all in our Sunday best, and there's the common joke that I've seen referenced, you know, in conference talks, like, oh, everyone's, you know, arguing in the car on the way to church and fighting. And then you get there and oh, you know, you feel the spirit and everything's good.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:33:11] But I think that's really representative of, you know, that chaotic morning trying to make everything look nice. And then once you're, once you're at church, you're in your best dressed outfit and I think you see other people looking their best, which I think can is a double edged sword. You know, you're able to, you know, dress up and feel good to look nice, but then you're also going to be comparing yourself even more so. And I think there is this idea, you know, when you see the big families and every child has the coordinating outfits and they're even matching with their parents and I think subconsciously that can have a, have a big effect on us that, you know, oh man, like I, I want to show that I'm just as righteous as, as the family that has, you know, somehow eight of the same dress in different sizes.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:33:56] That's beautiful and amazing and, and the little girls that have their hair braided so articulately. And I remember when I was a little kid, like seeing other kids at church and their hair was braided better than my mom could braid hair. And I remember being like frustrated that she couldn't do my hair for church as well as like these other kids had their moms do their hair for church. And I think that yeah, just like seeing these people at their highs only can also just be, it can cause or be a factor in perfectionism as well.

John Dehlin [00:34:27] You just made me think, Alyssa, and y' all tell me no, if you don't want to answer this question, but I, I'm assuming you've all felt perfectionist is perfectionistic tendencies in your Mormon journeys. I'm curious if you can remember like the earliest point where you started really feeling it, some sort of story or memory where you, you can think back and saying, you know, here's an example of when I really started embodying this sentiment of Mormon perfectionism. Does anything come to mind?

Julie Hanks [00:35:06] I can't remember not feeling that really, like, I, as far back as I can remember, I had this desire to be, you know, everything all the time, the best, the. Whatever.

John Dehlin [00:35:23] Did that come. Do you think that. Not to put blame on parents, but like, was there a family culture?

Julie Hanks [00:35:28] I'm fine blaming. No.

John Dehlin [00:35:29] Okay. Is there a family culture in your family? Like, I can, I can picture the Mormon mom. It's like, like, like you said, Alyssa, let's do the hair perfectly. And everybody's. Let's get all the shirts, the coordinating suits and shirts and ties and hair just right. And let's all sit just in the, in the pews in a row. Like there is this Mormon thing about like soccer meeting, showing up, all the kids looking great. Was that.

Julie Hanks [00:35:53] I'm one of nine. My dad was the bishop. We sat on the front row. Yes. We played the part for a long time. Then it kind of all fell apart. But because it does.

John Dehlin [00:36:06] Because it's too much, isn't it? Because it's too much to do.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:36:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] It's too much to hold.

Julie Hanks [00:36:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:11] Yeah. But is it. Was there. Was there a pressure of like, we gotta look great, you know?

Julie Hanks [00:36:16] Absolutely. And my dad was famous too, so.

John Dehlin [00:36:19] Right.

Julie Hanks [00:36:20] And that was another added pressure.

John Dehlin [00:36:24] Yeah. For those who don't know, do you want to tell you.

Julie Hanks [00:36:26] Yeah. My dad's just, He's a musician. Lex Diazebedo. He did a Mormon Stories episodes a couple of years ago.

John Dehlin [00:36:32] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:36:33] He wrote, wrote probably the best known Saturday's Warrior, the stage play from, from the 70s.

Celeste Davis [00:36:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:40] And I read your dad's book, Pop Music and Morality.

Julie Hanks [00:36:43] I'm sorry, John.

John Dehlin [00:36:44] Growing up. No, I loved it. No, I loved it. It was condemned rock music and, you know, all sorts of stuff, but I, I was into it at the time. He was a hero. Alyssa, do you have memories about feeling the weight of Mormon perfectionism and in your family context as well? I know your parents, by the way.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:37:02] Yes, you do.

Guest [00:37:04] Yeah.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:37:04] No, I've been a perfectionist since I was really little. Like first, second grade, my teachers were. Were commenting on it to my parents, but in a Mormon context. I mean, I think it's always been there. But I really remember at my baptism feeling so, so worried.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:37:19] And I had definitely religious scrupulosity. And I started think. I remember thinking like a swear word. I don't even know swear words. I think the only swear word I knew was. And I thought it and I was just devastated. And I also remember I. My. My baptism was in the spring and my baptism dress had a little bit of pink on it. And I remember Being really stressed about that as well. My mom was like, oh, great, cute dress. And I was saying, like, it's not completely white. Like it's not, it's not all the way pure. Like what if it doesn't count? You know, that type of thing.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:37:50] So that has definitely. That really was cemented into my existence at least by 8, but definitely earlier. And I don't know, my, my family context is somewhat confusing because I'm definitely the most anal, the most anxiety ridden. I have high achieving parents which I think, you know, I see them be successful. So I'm sure that made me want to be successful. But a lot of that pressure was, was put on myself and I, I had much more laid back parents as far as, like no one was telling, I mean no one was telling me that I, that I needed to do all the things that I was doing. I was just internalizing all these messages from, I don't know, maybe church, maybe comments, I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:38:33] And we'd be remiss to not acknowledge just American beauty culture, right on women, like, yeah, that's, it's a layer as well. Celeste, did you. I don't even know you enough to know whether you had or have kind of perfectionistic sides to your personality.

Celeste Davis [00:38:54] Yeah, I do. I think that for most of my life I've known so many women around me who are more perfectionistic, so I've never really identified, but I can definitely see the threads for sure. But like similar to Alyssa, my parents were never especially looks wise. They weren't helicoptering over me, making sure my hair was just so or I was just so with what I was wearing or needed to be looking a certain way. But it's so. That's very interesting looking back, how I can definitely see this unspoken pressure.

Celeste Davis [00:39:28] Like I can think of two stories off the top of my head that was like against my better judgment, I, I performed this. I must look perfect or I must look really well going to church. Even though I didn't think it was that important. And I wouldn't say it was that important, but like it was a huge, huge fight in my marriage so often because we were always late to church because I was like doing my hair and makeup and Bridge was like, it doesn't matter. I was like, I know it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You're right. But like I just, like I'm just, just, just one more minute, just two more minutes.

Celeste Davis [00:39:56] And I was like, looking back, it's so absurd to me because I have nothing else in My life that I feel the pressure to like look that way for anymore. And so it's like, and against kind of my personality to, to be that perfectionistic look wise. But I definitely felt that pressure at church every week. I really did. And the other story that like really did go against my judgment was like, I think it was like our last year we were attending church in like 2019, my six year old daughter wanted to wear a spaghetti straps dress that a neighbor had given her to church.

Celeste Davis [00:40:26] And I was having such like, I knew I didn't care and I knew it didn't matter and I knew the God in my head did not care, but I still felt this pressure of the judgment that she would get if we let her wear the speaker getty strap shirt to church dress to church. I wanted her to wear a shirt under it or a sweater over it. And we got into a fight and she's like, it doesn't care, it doesn't matter. I'm like, you're right, it doesn't matter. But like do it anyway. Just kind of this pressure, this unspoken, it was very real for me.

John Dehlin [00:40:51] Yeah, yeah. Once, once a kid is told that what they wear could have eternally negative consequences and then they kind of marinate in that, that could really probably affect your psyche in significant ways for a long period.

Julie Hanks [00:41:08] Lots of therapy, right?

John Dehlin [00:41:10] That's a big deal.

Julie Hanks [00:41:12] No, personally, lots of therapy. Yeah, for me.

John Dehlin [00:41:15] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:41:15] Around that, yeah, around perfectionism and. Yeah. Just not feeling good enough.

John Dehlin [00:41:22] Yeah. You don't want to feel like your body's a weapon that can do damage. And I'm just saying that that would probably amp up the tendency towards perfectionism if you think the stakes are that high, maybe.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:41:36] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:41:37] Okay, really quick, just before we leave perfectionism, like I, you know, the Bible, all Christians, you know, have the Bible and so that that Jesus quote, be therefore perfect applies to Christians generally. So is there something I, I, but I don't know that the average Christian has the same level of intensity that the average Mormon does, even though they're reading from the same Bible and have that scripture.

Julie Hanks [00:42:04] Well, they don't have all the other cultural factors. Right. I mean a lot of Christians that I grew up with, they went to church and one hour a week and that that was it. And they were kind and loved each

John Dehlin [00:42:18] other and loved God or just on holidays.

Julie Hanks [00:42:22] There wasn't like the never ending list of things that you should be doing. The rules, the regulations.

John Dehlin [00:42:32] Okay, Any other theories about that?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:42:36] Yeah, I think just the pervasiveness of Mormon culture Where it is already a high demand religion, it just makes everything else high demand. And I think Mormonism is so black and white as well. I mean, I think it bleeds over from the rest of the doctrine where it says this is the only right way to get to heaven.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:42:57] I think at least, at least for me, and I noticed this showing up in some of both yours and Julie's comments that when people are told, you know, there's only one way to make it to heaven, there's only one way to live right, then it's hard to have nuance in, in any area of life. And so if you're thinking this is what is beautiful, that is, then there is only one way to be beautiful. And I think we'll talk a little bit more about Utah Mormon women homogeny later on, but I think that's applicable as well where, you know, it's hard to have any. It's hard to love your imperfections physically if, if everything else in your life, there's only one right way to do it.

John Dehlin [00:43:39] Okay. Yeah, I guess if the stakes and even more Mormon heaven has several levels. There's like lower, middle and high and

Alyssa Witbeck [00:43:46] then high and then high and then high.

John Dehlin [00:43:48] Yeah. And then the celestial kingdom has three levels in it. So once you get all these levels, maybe that implies a striving mentality versus just your in or out.

Julie Hanks [00:43:58] And it's hierarchical. It's not. If everything's hierarchical, then you have to keep climbing and doing and being.

John Dehlin [00:44:09] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:44:09] And earning. And I guess we're going to talk about that later. Yeah. But John, can I point out, I think we kind of skipped over but the, the term religious saliency.

John Dehlin [00:44:20] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:44:21] So that is. Was fascinating to me that it was. If you had more money, you're more likely to have plastic surgery, but higher religious saliency. So the more that your religion impacts your daily decisions, sense of self, worldview, the more likely women were to get plastic surgery.

John Dehlin [00:44:42] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:44:43] And that seems counterintuitive, but it's, I mean, it goes along with kind of what we're talking about here that maybe we're, you know, women are misinterpreting or, or not misinterpreting, but they're the teachings. Right. Like, yeah, somehow God wants me to look perfect in addition to be perfect.

John Dehlin [00:45:09] Yeah. That's wild. Thank you. Let's go ahead and share a quote or a comment from a viewer listener. Gregory Turnbow, thanks for the super chat. He writes Mormons are experts at minimizing while driving perfection, in my opinion, in Mormonism. I Feel like we over generalize perfection. Thank you for sharing that Gregory and we welcome all of your comments. Really quickly, is it worth mentioning dating and beauty standards and beauty perfectionism, particularly within a Mormon context. Like how was byu?

Beauty Standards and Dating Culture in Mormon Communities

Alyssa Witbeck [00:45:54] That's why I started laughing.

John Dehlin [00:45:58] What's that like?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:45:59] Okay, well just since we're on the topic of plastic surgery. I was dating someone when I was at byu. This was largely on the time I had an eating disorder and maybe this plays into it a little bit.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:46:10] I am petite, small chested person and my boyfriend who was very Mormon and who we actually maybe I won't say that I don't want to out him as a person, but he was really respected at BYU as LDS person, high in the church leadership as much as a single man could be rankings. Anyway, he had mentioned many times that what if you just like did more push ups, like maybe like your boobs would grow and like maybe if you've like moved your arms out wider because that would be really good for your pecs. And like this definitely gave me a complex but like did I get a breast augmentation?

Alyssa Witbeck [00:46:53] No, but like the, the conversation was still the same of like even though I can't touch your boobs and, and we're not having sex and we're just dating and, and everything is like above the belt as far as, you know, not doing anything that would be considered unchaste by Mormon standards. He's asking me to do more push ups so that I can get bigger boobs for.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:47:19] I don't know, just because he would like that I guess. And, and I think it's also important to think about how I was like kind of surprised but also not shocked. And you know, men commenting on different parts of my appearance, both positive and negative, was not unusual by this point. And so it wasn't what like it didn't feel like this crazy one off comment from this wild man that was so out of the norm of, of the BYU Mormon man experience.

John Dehlin [00:47:49] Thank you, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that's great. The audience is stunned by that story. Celeste, how about your dating experiences? Anything you want to share there? Beauty standards and dating.

Celeste Davis [00:48:03] My experience at byu, I can't say that it was that different from my dating experience. In Texas in high school, I think all men liked women that were pretty. I feel like I felt that pressure from all men. I don't know if I felt a distinct pressure from Mormon men in that way, but I do think the Time article that we're going to get to will tie into this really nicely. Which is, like, the numbers. The pressure to be married is. Is tied in. I don't know if I have a personal story off the bat, but.

John Dehlin [00:48:27] Okay.

Julie Hanks [00:48:29] There's also the jokes that male missionaries say, like, the more worn out your shoes are, the hotter your wife. There's a lot of, like, sayings about hot wives and how hard you work, how righteous you are. And so there's kind of a mythology around women as prize for males. Righteousness, like attractive women as the prize.

John Dehlin [00:48:52] Kind of a Mormon trophy wife kind of thing.

Celeste Davis [00:48:55] Yeah, that's a great point, Julie. And what you never hear. I've heard that, and I heard that a lot on my mission and byu, that for the. For the elders, the more. The harder you worked as a missionary, the hotter your wife would be. But if you flip that and reverse it, it's bizarre. Like, for women, they're saying that the hotter you are, the more righteous your husband will be, which is crazy. And of course, we have all these complexes about our beauty because righteousness is the most important thing. Right. And so that's directly tied, giving us this conflict.

Julie Hanks [00:49:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:26] And. And by the way, who's deciding how hot the woman is and what the right level of hotness as a reward for the right level of righteousness. That is a calculus. That's an algorithm I'm struggling with. God must be a genius.

Julie Hanks [00:49:44] It's just consensus, Right? Like, what everybody agrees is beautiful.

John Dehlin [00:49:49] And I just mean theological. The idea that. That God's like, she's a nine. He was ap.

Julie Hanks [00:49:57] They get them together. That's true.

John Dehlin [00:50:00] What kind of God is doing that anyway? Okay, let's go to. All right, so I think we're on to the study. The Forbes study. Is that right? Is that next? And I think, Celeste, you asked us to maybe include this. Do you want to talk a little bit about the Forbes magazine study?

Celeste Davis [00:50:21] Yeah, it's actually Time magazine.

John Dehlin [00:50:23] Is it Time? Okay.

Celeste Davis [00:50:24] Yeah, yeah. So this is.

John Dehlin [00:50:26] Oh, sorry.

Celeste Davis [00:50:27] Oh, this is not the thing. This is.

John Dehlin [00:50:29] Okay. This is different. Okay, go ahead. Okay. I'll just read this. Sorry. It says, In 2007, Forbes magazine named Salt Lake City one of the vainest cities in America. Now, that's a while ago, but vain. That's interesting reactions, because, again, humility is taught, is important. Submissiveness and eschewing worldliness. The Book of Mormon's full of messages about costly apparel and pride. So what do y' all think about this idea of Salt Lake City being tagged the vainest city? Is that vibe with you or not? And again, isn't Draper and Sandy and Provo worse than Salt Lake by Mormon standards?

Julie Hanks [00:51:14] Well, I think it's Salt Lake, probably broader. Right. But it. You would think, based on the teachings in the Book of Mormon about costly apparel and, you know, puffed up and tinkling, whatever jewelry. But in my experience, live. Having lived in Utah for a few decades now, it is like the. The beauty industry is hot. You. You go. I go back east to visit my son and his family, and it's such a stark contrast. I'm like, where are all the nails and the lashes and the Botox and the lip, big lips? So you go elsewhere. And it's very apparent that it's a focus here.

John Dehlin [00:52:06] Interesting.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:52:07] Yeah. And I think it comes back to the pink elephant thing that you mentioned earlier, John, how we're told not to think about something, and that just makes us think about it constantly. And so, I mean, I always remember thinking about that with. With modesty. You know, if you're told to really pay attention to where your skirt is hitting, if it's hitting your knee or just above your knee or just below your knee, it makes me look at my legs a lot more and a lot more critically than if I'm just getting dressed. And so I think that when we're told so much to be

Alyssa Witbeck [00:52:38] humble and have humility and be Christlike, but we're also really paranoid about making sure that everything's tucked and prim and making sure nobody's seeing anything, it just makes us focusing on our bodies so much more, and I think ends up having kind of the backfire effect a little bit unintentionally for many women.

John Dehlin [00:52:58] Interesting. Celeste, you don't live in Utah, but you did go to byu. Thoughts on Salt Lake in the Venice City?

Celeste Davis [00:53:05] Yeah, I think it goes into, like, the. There are these reasons why we shouldn't be vain, Right. Like, if there's this. There's a spoken like, don't be vain and scriptures and commandments like Julie mentioned. But then there's this other wave of vanity that goes against it, which is very interesting. And I think it goes to show that, like, these unspoken pressures, which I think we have to pull in, the pressure to be married, the pressure to be responsible for men's sexuality, to be sexually attracted, not just to get married, but for the rest of your life. So those kind of unspoken pressures outweighing maybe the spoken teaching to not be vain.

John Dehlin [00:53:46] I. I know that, like Dallas and Houston, you know, because I'm. I've lived in both. They. They can both have some pretty high Beauty standards as well.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:53:56] If.

John Dehlin [00:53:57] And you live in Tacoma.

Julie Hanks [00:53:59] What.

John Dehlin [00:53:59] What's your. Celeste, what's your perception of kind of regional comparisons in this regard to the extent that you have observations about it?

Celeste Davis [00:54:08] Yeah, that's an interesting question. Well, I kind of alluded to before that this. This paradox did flummox me as my entire Mormon existence, because I don't know, I grew up in Allen, Texas, and I don't remember a ton about. I remember getting the message that I should be Little House on the Prairie, that I should be home. And I thought the stereotype of the Mormon woman was no makeup, homeschooled, very comely. Like, not worldly. That's what I thought our stereotype was. And actually, it really surprised me when I was a lifeguard in Texas and my boss asked me once, he was like, can I ask you a question?

Celeste Davis [00:54:46] He was like, why are all Mormon women. Why are all Mormon girls so hot, so weird? Every single one I meet. And that really confused me and took me back because I thought the stereotype was homeschooling bumpkin. And I was like, that's what people think of Mormon women and Mormon girls. Like, I had no idea. That was really confusing to.

Alyssa Witbeck [00:55:05] To me.

Celeste Davis [00:55:05] And so then I moved to Utah, and seeing that this was, like, not in conflict with a lot of Mormon women was confusing to me because I felt like I needed to repent when I was worldly, when I was vain, and when I cared about my clothes and when I cared about my looks. And when I went on a mission, I was like, should I even bring my makeup? Like, I. I, like, purposely packed very ugly clothes so that I would, like, turn a new leaf and, like, not be vain and not be worldly because I judged myself and I would run repent for being so worldly.

Celeste Davis [00:55:34] And then I got on a mission. I really regretted that being so ugly all the time. And my first sisters meeting at the Sunday at the ntc, they outright were like, wear your makeup and do your hair. And I was like, what? Weird. I thought that they were gonna say, don't do that. Like, don't think about yourself. Don't think about your appearance on your mission. So it was always confusing to me. But I definitely did notice a difference in Utah and in my Utah wards, I had married words in Provo and in Salt Lake. Definitely more of an emphasis on. On looks in those words. I would say, yeah, Celeste, I think

John Dehlin [00:56:07] you're the first person to say fugly on. So congratulations. Yeah, that's a great word. Fugly. Okay, let's Show a couple billboards from Utah. Here's one that says it's got a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. There's construction going on right now in the Salt Lake Temple. And the billboard reads, God's remodeling his temple. Isn't it time to remodel yours? And then the name of the plastic surgery company. Is this real or is this a joke or parody? Satire. Do y' all know?

Julie Hanks [00:56:45] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:56:45] Have y' all noticed billboards, Plastic surgery

Julie Hanks [00:56:48] billboards joke about it when they come and visit. Like all the cosmetic related billboards along the i15 corridor. It's unique.

John Dehlin [00:56:57] I've seen for men too. Lots of kind of reshape your body through post cosmetic surgery for men as well. Okay, here's another one. It says diamonds were. This is. It's got the Wasatch French mountain range in the background. And it says diamonds were a girl's best friend. Then Botox came along and then it's got the name of the. The company. Yeah. And then of course, our own Heather Gay from Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. She's got her own facility.

Julie Hanks [00:57:34] I just, I just saw it.

John Dehlin [00:57:35] Love Lab. Love Laser Lab or beauty? Laser Lab.

Julie Hanks [00:57:38] And Laser. Yeah, Life is short. By the lips.

John Dehlin [00:57:41] Yeah, by the lips.

Julie Hanks [00:57:42] I just saw that driving here.

John Dehlin [00:57:44] This, this show, the Mormon Stories today is brought to you by

Julie Hanks [00:57:49] giving her a plug.

John Dehlin [00:57:50] Yeah, by the lips. I've. Shirt by the lips or something like that. Yeah. So, I mean there, there's a lot of advertising for that. Okay, so now we're to the Time magazine article. And Celeste, this is the one that you want us to invoke, right?

Comparing Mormon and Orthodox Jewish Beauty Pressures

Celeste Davis [00:58:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:07] Okay. Do you want to set it up or should we just dive into it?

Celeste Davis [00:58:10] Yeah, let's. Well, let's dive in. I'll read some of the quotes.

John Dehlin [00:58:13] Okay, here we go.

Celeste Davis [00:58:15] Yeah. So this was published in 2016 in Time magazine. It's kind of a summary of a book called Datanomics. But the title of this article is what Two Religions Tell Us about the Modern Dating Crisis. And it notes that there's been a sharp spike in cosmetic surgery among two the women of two different religious traditions, one of them being Mormon women, the other one being orthodox Jewish women. And why is this when they kind of preach the opposite? And what the whole article kind of boils it down to is dating demographics.

Celeste Davis [00:58:51] So, yeah, let's go to the next slide. I'll just read the stuff in red. So it says the LDS Church actually has one of the most lopsided gender ratios of any religion in the United States. Next slide. So quoting this says both of these socially conservative communities are suffering from marriage crises that are testing not only their face, but their social norms as well. Quote, you have no idea how big a problem this is, end quote. Said Tristan your Hunt, founder of the Mormon Matchmaker, a Salt Lake City dating agency. Hunt, a 35 year old who only recently got married herself, told me she has three times more single women than single men in her matchmating database.

Celeste Davis [00:59:35] And then it says, the lopsided numbers encourage Mormon men to hold out for the perfect wife. I call it the paradox of choice. For men, there are so many choices that choices are not made. The dream for the Mormon man is to get married and have six kids. As he ages, his dream never changes. But when you're a 37 year old woman, you've already aged out of that dream.

Celeste Davis [00:59:57] And then this, I think, is the crux here. So. So it's citing another study. It says psychologists Marcia Gutentag and Paul Secord argued in Too Many Women, the pioneering book on lopsided gender ratios, that women are more likely to be treated as sex objects whenever men are scarce. That is precisely what Mormon women now experience.

Celeste Davis [01:00:18] I think that's really important, so I'll read it again. Women are more likely to be treated as sex objects whenever men are scarce. So then it goes on to say women's bodies are up for debate. Wheelwright complained Mormon men have become much more demanding about women's looks, which in turn has made women obsessed with standing out from competition. One consequence, a culture of plastic surgery has taken root among Mormon women.

Celeste Davis [01:00:42] And then these are just some more receipts and proof here of just how prevalent plastic surgery is.4 plastic surgeons for every 100,000 people, which is 2.5 times the national average.

John Dehlin [01:00:56] And Salt Lake city, back in 2007, this is.

Celeste Davis [01:00:59] Yeah, that was in 2007. Salt Lake City residents also spend inordinate sums on beauty products. 2.2 million in 2006 on hair coloring and 6.9 million on cosmetics and skin care, compared to Oklahoma City, which spent only 172,000 594,000, respectively, with a larger population. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] Yeah. Okay, so Celeste, tell us, tell us some takeaways from, from that article for you.

Celeste Davis [01:01:26] Well, I did think that part of the article that outlines the Orthodox Jews was a very, very interesting parallel because their situation is a lot more stark than ours in terms specifically of like, teaching, don't be vain and don't be worldly. Like, they walk that walk much more than Mormons do in terms of, like, they're not. They're not even trying to be, like, mainstream culturally in terms of what they wear and what they look like, like beauty standards, wise makeup, clothing, hair, all of that.

Celeste Davis [01:01:56] And yet they are experiencing the exact same thing. There are thousands of unwed Hasidic Jewish women in crisis because according to their doctrine, same as ours, in order to get to heaven, you must be married. And so these women are in crisis, and there's a huge uptick in anorexia and eating disorders as well as plastic surgeries. And in that culture, very interestingly, they have, like, a matchmaking system with the mothers and the sons and the daughters, like, matching each other. The parents basically play matchmaker and receive resumes, and the sons are just flooded nonstop. So their fax machines going off all the time with all of these women and the women's just waiting by their phone.

Celeste Davis [01:02:44] Like, the mothers of the girls are just like, please, please, please. And even like both, both of the mothers are pressuring the girls to get plastic surgery and to do their makeup and to just stand out because it's so important in that culture to be married. And so very interestingly, like, the author makes parallels to Mormonism, how crucial it is in our doctrine to be married and how fierce the competition can be. Like Alyssa's story at byu, do your push ups to, like, augment your breasts, like, crazy stuff like that. Because there's so much pressure to be married and because of this numbers game where the men get to be very, very choosy.

John Dehlin [01:03:20] Yeah. And tell me if y' all have heard this. I've heard. I was talking to a very successful woman in her 20s, I believe, software developer, lives in Manhattan. There's like. And she was telling me about Upper west side is where the, the Mormon, the faithful Mormons tend to live. The Upper west side of Manhattan. Bunch of Mormons, like a hot Mormon dating scene. And she said the ratio of faithful Mormon women to men is super high to the point where men would just like, date whoever they wanted, drop whoever they wanted, pick and choose, have lots of relationships simultaneously. She said it led to a really unhealthy and a toxic culture. And I've heard very similar things about the faithful Mormon dating culture in Utah

Julie Hanks [01:04:11] in terms of proportions, especially in older women and men.

Celeste Davis [01:04:16] Yes, right.

Julie Hanks [01:04:17] Because there tend to be more faithful women than men as they get older, but then the men can also choose from younger women. And so there are just a lot of older women who have no prospects or very few.

John Dehlin [01:04:35] Yeah, that just sounds like it leads to trouble. Yeah, that's hard. That's great, Celeste. Thanks for sharing that important factor. So let's just say what is the. The Mormon Church has a lot of policies, a lot of do's and don'ts. Julie, let's ask you this. What is the LDS Church's view on plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes? And we have a slide on it.

The Church's Official Stance and Leader Statements on Appearance

Julie Hanks [01:05:01] Yeah. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has no official position on cosmetic plastic surgery in general.

John Dehlin [01:05:09] Okay. Now, is that surprising? What do y'.

Julie Hanks [01:05:11] All.

John Dehlin [01:05:11] You want to weigh in?

Julie Hanks [01:05:14] It's just interesting that there have been policies or suggestions for other ways to alter your body, but not for plastic surgery.

John Dehlin [01:05:23] Such as.

Julie Hanks [01:05:24] Such as, like, piercings, tattoos, those specifically. Or like, extremes in hairstyle that's even been mentioned or too tight, you know, clothing. So it's just interesting. Like, we're not going to weigh in on this. Yeah, it's fascinating, Alyssa.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:05:45] I mean, on the one hand, it's like, okay, I'm glad they're not taking. I'm glad they're bowing out a little bit. But, I mean, I think a lot of people are trying to philosophy, why. Why is it that they are okay with plastic surgery, but they're not okay with tattoos and piercings? And I think there's. I don't know, I think there's something about how tattoos and piercings are.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:06:08] I'm wondering if the Mormon perspective is that's. That's changing your look, that's making you look less natural. But, you know, you don't have to tell people about getting breast augmentation or a nose job or something. You can make that seem natural. So it's. I think a lot of so many elements, I think, of Mormon culture are of. Of secrecy and of keeping things kind of hidden and under the radar and where tattoos and piercings are visible representations. And a lot of plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery can be more subtle or I wonder if that plays a factor.

Julie Hanks [01:06:44] Yeah. I think tattoos and piercings are counterculture or are perceived by older people as being a statement, like, against the mainstream. But plastic cosmetic surgery is seen as being part of the mainstream.

John Dehlin [01:07:04] Interesting.

Julie Hanks [01:07:05] Part of, like, American beauty standards.

John Dehlin [01:07:09] Interesting. Celeste, do you have theories on why Mormon church leaders don't prohibit plastic surgery? Any theories? I've got one.

Celeste Davis [01:07:18] It is an interesting omission since they police, like so much else about women's lives. But I think Alyssa and Julie nailed it on the head. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:29] All right. I have a theory. You want to hear it?

Celeste Davis [01:07:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:32] It's men making the rules and the men want. I mean, the women.

Julie Hanks [01:07:37] You.

John Dehlin [01:07:37] You could say the. The women went, this isn't always true, it turns out. And we'll see this. But you could say that for some women, they're trying to reach certain beauty standards to be attractive to men. And if the cosmetic surgery is making women more attractive to men, why wouldn't men want lots of plastic surgery?

Alyssa Witbeck [01:07:57] It's great.

John Dehlin [01:07:58] Patriarchy 101. What do you think?

Alyssa Witbeck [01:08:00] Yeah. And, I mean, I think what the. The first comment about the double earrings and the tattoos from Hinckley. His. His main statement was that they were ugly. And. And then, you know, it kind of became more important and more culturally relevant from there. But originally it was just an. An old man saying that he stylistically didn't like the way tattoos and piercings looked. But I don't think he necessarily had an issue with how really big boobs look to. So might not be a bad idea.

John Dehlin [01:08:33] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:08:33] Something that's interesting. I've had tattooed eyeliner, but I don't have a tattoo. Right. But. But it's for beauty, so it's okay. It's not. It's not to, like, make a. Make a statement. It's to enhance my beauty. So it's kind of. Kind of interesting.

John Dehlin [01:08:52] You like my theory, Celeste?

Celeste Davis [01:08:54] I do, actually. Men benefit, of course.

John Dehlin [01:08:59] Why did it take a man to come up with that one? At least I'm trying to be introspective. Okay, well, let's see what Jeffrey R. Holland has to say about beauty standards. I'm trying to remember. I think this was actually. This is a Mormon apostle, one of the most senior apostles in the church right now. I think he's acting president of the quorum of the 12, if I'm not mistaken. Let's see what he has to say about beauty. Standards

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [01:09:23] are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything. The pitch is, if your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular. That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood.

Video Clip 1 [01:09:50] In too many cases, too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional. To say nothing of superficial standard. As one Hollywood actress is reported to have said recently, we have become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth.

Video Clip 1 [01:10:11] I am saddened, she said, by the way. Women mutilate themselves in search of that, including young women. I see them pulling this and tucking that. It is like a slippery slope. You can't get off of it. It is Insane what society is doing to women in terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical. This is more than social insanity. It is spiritually destructive. And it accounts for much of the unhappiness that women, including young women, face in the modern world.

Video Clip 1 [01:10:52] And if adults are preoccupied with appearance tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled, those pressures and anxieties will soon certainly seep through to children. At some point, the problem becomes what the Book of Mormon called vain imagination.

Video Clip 1 [01:11:14] And in secular society, both vanity and imagination run wild. One would truly need a great and spacious makeup kit. To compete with beauty as portrayed in media all around us. Yet at the end of the day, there would still be those in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers, as Lehi said, because however much one tries in the world of glamour and fashion, it will never be enough.

John Dehlin [01:11:51] Okay, Julie, I saw a facial reaction there. Do you want to go first thoughts on that?

Julie Hanks [01:11:58] Yeah, this. My reaction was because it's so shaming and blaming of women that talk. Yeah, you're being so vain. You're be. I mean, it's. What's left out is the male female dynamic. And it seems like it's, you know, women don't get caught up in the vain things of the world, but not an acknowledgement of the cultural, patriarchal aspects of. Of all of this. Right. So it's like, come on, don't. Don't buy that stuff. Women. But it's so much bigger than that. And so I imagine hearing that. And, you know, if you've had cosmetic surgery going like, oh, I've. I'm in that great and spacious building now. Oh, no. You know, it just. It feels more blaming and shaming to women than looking at the systemic problems within the church culture.

John Dehlin [01:12:58] Powerful. Celeste, what were your reactions to that?

Celeste Davis [01:13:01] I mean, a couple of complaints.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:13:04] Couple. But it's.

Celeste Davis [01:13:06] First off, it's rich that he was talking about the immense pressure put on teenagers because the church is, like, immensely pressuring for teenagers. But I was just thinking, like, women can't win, and there's so much pressure on the minutiae of a woman's life in the church, starting from when she's so young and definitely involving how she looks and, like, measuring inches of sleeve caps and, like, collars and skirts above the knee and measuring this and that and, you know, and also, like, oh, but be. Be attractive and attract a husband and don't give yourself up to laziness or never caring about your looks. Oh, but don't care too much. Oh, but don't get surgery, you loser. Oh, but have sex with your husband whenever he wants it and be always available to him. But don't get surgery. What are you, selfish, vain, like, it's just so much.

John Dehlin [01:14:03] All right. Thank you for that, Celeste. Alyssa, your reaction is to Elder Holland?

Alyssa Witbeck [01:14:08] Yeah, I mean, I think for. For a moment, I was thinking. I'm. I'm glad that he's commenting on. On the pressures. And then it just seemed like it began to go a little bit downhill when it. When it came, became so shamey without any sort of recognizing. Yeah. The influences or why this is so impactful for Mormon women especially. And I think I probably. With what clip I think is next on the slides, it just shows just how confusing it is to be a Mormon.

Julie Hanks [01:14:37] Just.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:14:37] There's just so much information we're getting all the time. And when these leaders we have so much trust in and we're told that they're speaking for God, and we can't just take everything they say with a grain of salt. I think it makes it really complicated to know how to exist and how to look and what behavior is okay and what behavior is not okay, because there are a lot of contradictions. And I think it just makes it. They supposedly don't have an official statement on plastic surgery, and then they'll say things like this, and they'll say other things about how important it is to look. And I just feel like it's overwhelming and just too much stimulation.

John Dehlin [01:15:10] Let's play that clip. It was put later in the slides, but just since you mentioned it, I think it really does fit well here. This is M. Russell Ballard, recently passed away, but he was a very senior apostle when he gave this talk. And we can call this a little bit of mixed messages, maybe.

Guest [01:15:32] You know,

John Dehlin [01:15:35] every time we look at you, we. I know. You're just waiting for me to talk about marriage, aren't you? I would not want to disappoint you. I just simply say to you, brethren, wake up, Open your eyes and look around a little. You beautiful girls. Don't wander around looking like men. Put on a little lipstick now and then and look a little charming. It's that simple. I don't know why we make this whole process so hard. That simple, Alyssa?

Celeste Davis [01:16:46] Yeah.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:16:46] I mean, I think, of course, it's the obvious, which is just ew. But I think also we're looking back at that video. For those that couldn't see, there's some youth or young single adults in the background. And you can just see how. How uncomfortable many of the women were that were on the stand, and the. The couple of men that were on the stand were kind of laughing about it. And I also think that. I mean, yes, that's a small sample. There's, like, three people in the video. But I do think that's indicative of this larger cultural association with these types of talks where Emerson Ballard can make a joke about it and say, oh, yeah, talk about marriage. Put a little lipstick on. And it can be said.

John Dehlin [01:17:28] It's that simple.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:17:28] It's that simple.

John Dehlin [01:17:29] Well, what's wrong with that?

Alyssa Witbeck [01:17:31] It's a problem because the pressure this is putting on women is really, really immense. And I think we can't reiterate enough how much pain there is for many women about. About beauty standards and how it's not just a simple thing like a little bit of lipstick. It's not even just a decision to get cosmetic surgery. It's something that has impacted women and girls from a very young age. It's something that leads to so many, you know, really severe eating disorders and mental health and. And it's not. And the pressures for marriage and for family and this perfectionism, like, it just. There's so many layers and so many factors of pressure on women around how we look and around how men are perceiving us.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:18:10] And to be so flippant and trite about it, I think just. It doesn't land at all. And I think it completely diminishes how sensitive and humiliating this is for women, especially YSA women. And, yeah, it's just terrible.

John Dehlin [01:18:29] Julie, I want to say whatever you want to say, but I would love for any of you to share the dark side of these beauty standards to contrast the sort of. It's just as simple as putting on some lipstick. But. But.

Julie Hanks [01:18:43] Okay, well, what are the.

John Dehlin [01:18:44] What, like, what is he glossing over? The dark side of what he's minimizing in terms of the pain caused by things like look pretty.

Julie Hanks [01:18:54] What comes to my mind is in his talk, men are the agents and women are the objects, the beautiful objects. So men get to shoot. Like, men wake up, choose one of these beautiful objects. And so it's in this subtle way, it's objectifying women, which.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:19:17] Who he refers to as girls.

Julie Hanks [01:19:19] Girl. Yeah, girls, which. They're all women. If it's a young adult. Young, single adult, which is another way of. Of being diminishing. Right? It's like, oh, girls, you know, come on, just put a little lipstick on. I mean, the number of women I've seen in my practice who have struggled with eating disorders, body image, who are suicidal because no one wants to marry them and they're 25 who aren't able to have children because of, you know, there's just so much pressure. And this just adds piles on to all of the other pressure to get married, look a certain way, find a husband, and it just minimizes it.

John Dehlin [01:20:06] It's glib and demeaning. Right. And objectifying all at once.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:20:12] Plus pretty impressive for a 1 minute, 1 minute talk to hit all those check marks.

John Dehlin [01:20:18] It's a lot of it, Celeste.

Celeste Davis [01:20:21] Yeah, big amen to what Julian Alyssa just said. And just, it's like no woman in this world today, like needs to be told, just be pretty. Like no woman can escape the pressure to be attractive. It is so woven in currently and historically back centuries because power was kept from. Our only power for centuries has been the ability to track, to attract a man. We couldn't get our own home until 1970. We couldn't have our own mortgage, couldn't have our own bank account, couldn't have our own credit card till 1974, like recently, you know, our ability to attract a man has very much like is linked to our ability to feed ourselves and financially have food and money.

Celeste Davis [01:21:10] And so it's so woven into just the air we breathe. No woman needs to be told this, especially by an apostle, which people take apostles words literally, like whether by my mouth or the mouth of my servants. It is the same like it like he's speaking as God.

Guest [01:21:28] Right.

Celeste Davis [01:21:28] So we have so much pressure already whether you're Mormon, whether you're not, whether wherever you're living, you are not going to be immune from this pressure. We don't need it added upon. No.

John Dehlin [01:21:41] Yeah. Thank you, Celeste. I, you know, when I was first hearing Holland's talk, my Mormon male brain was going good for him. He's actually on, he's finally on the right side of something like, oh, we have an apostle actually saying something good that, you know, taking, trying to take away the pressure of perfectionism. That's how I was hearing the talk at first until I looked in your eyes and saw you were kind of getting sick in your stomachs. But like does, does. I guess I have two parts of the question. Part one is, does he get credit for trying to amp down those standards and that pressure Because I didn't hear any of that. Like, yeah, that's awesome that he's doing that. And it's because I don't get it. So any thoughts on that? Like why aren't we going? Way to go, Elder Holland. At least for the first part, for

Julie Hanks [01:22:36] me, it's because it's a man telling women what to do, not to do, how to feel, how not to feel. And that just gets really tiring.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:22:53] Yeah. I think similarly, I mean, I am glad that there's a tiny bit of acknowledgment that there's a lot of pressure and that it doesn't necessarily like that everybody's okay, but it kind of falls short, I think, with. With what Julie is saying and the way that he keeps going. I think it takes away some of the credibility of trying to be a positive statement.

John Dehlin [01:23:17] Because it's not men's job, really, to have opinions about this.

Julie Hanks [01:23:21] Right, right. And it's not men's job to preach from the pulpit about women's appearance. Just that whole thing isn't. Is wrong. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:34] Yeah.

Celeste Davis [01:23:36] And the tone with which he was talking was so belittling and even, like the word he used, the word selfish, that it was selfish to get tucked and remodeled in every way possible. And it's like, oh, especially that word selfish has just been beaten over the head of Mormon women. It is every Mormon woman's greatest fear to be selfish. We must be selfless. So especially like that. His tone and that word and the whole thing just felt like, so dismissive and judgmental. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:07] Especially when we realized men created, really, men created these standards that women are feeling pressure to attain.

Julie Hanks [01:24:16] Right. And there was an acknowledgment of that. And. And that's. It's like, women, solve this problem for yourselves and don't buy into this, even though we're feeding into the problem in the first place.

John Dehlin [01:24:30] Created it.

Julie Hanks [01:24:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:31] The authors of it and the perpetuators of it, really. So just a side question. And Julie, you know, you're known as someone who's still attending church and still is a person of faith on some level. Well, I'm curious, like, why didn't this talk send a ripple through Utah and through Mormon women in general, and make Utah and Mormon women the least likely to engage in plastic surgery and. Or cosmetic surgery? Especially because Mormons consider their apostles, Elder Holland, to be prophets, seers and revelators and special witnesses of Christ. Why didn't Mormon women, quote, get the memo? I'm confused.

Why Church Messaging on Beauty Falls Short

Julie Hanks [01:25:14] Really? That's a really good question. I think it speaks to the power of all the unspoken cultural dynamics that are at play that. That we've been talking about and we'll continue to talk about in this episode that Those are more powerful than his words.

John Dehlin [01:25:32] That's saying a lot. Because we. We don't. Mormons tend to pay attention to what their apostles say.

Julie Hanks [01:25:38] Yes. Yeah, but I think that just speaks to the power of the dynamics that we're talking about, the bigger context. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:46] It would make an entire people kind of ignore what. And we're all, as progressive Mormons or ex Mormons, we're always begging apostles to, like, like, you know, apologize for the priesthood ban in General conference. You know, we're always wanting that priesthood or that. That general conference acknowledgment over the pulpit, because that means a lot. But in this case, apparently, it doesn't really mean a lot. Right. It means pretty much nothing.

Julie Hanks [01:26:14] People are more. Five times the national average, more concerned about, you know, being attractive so their husband doesn't have an affair and look at porn, or they're more concerned about having social capital, or they're like. Those are more pressing than. Than, you know, what. What he's saying one time in a conference.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:26:37] Yeah. I think if this was a repeated conversation, then, Then. Then it probably would lower the rates of. Of surgical procedures. But him saying that once and then

John Dehlin [01:26:47] it's like 19 years ago, I think.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:26:49] Yeah. And what Ballard was saying, he only made the lipstick comment that one time. But.

John Dehlin [01:26:53] And it wasn't a general conference. It was like two.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:26:55] Yeah, yeah, but the. The idea of. Of women looking good is something that is so pervasive everywhere, and it's. And marriage is talked about constantly. And I think that this also just kind of plays into how maintenance levels for women, for beauty are continually increasing. You know, the idea that men don't have to wear makeup to be considered looking hygienic, but women do. And it seems like that is continually. The. The standards for women are continually increasing just on a maintenance level to look clean at all. You know, nails are becoming increasingly popular. Lashes are becoming increasingly popular. Botox is becoming increasingly popular. The bar is just always raising.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:27:36] And I think it's really hard to listen to one kind of shamey talk and have that internalized in the same way that. Just a pressure cooker of. If you're not participating in these things, then not only are you, like, not attractive, but people are even, like, looking at it as a hygiene thing almost. Not necessarily with plastic surgery, but with other levels of women's maintenance expectations. I think it's. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:07] Celeste, anything you wanted to add to that particular question about why. Why Mormons didn't get the message?

Celeste Davis [01:28:15] No, I think they nailed it.

John Dehlin [01:28:17] Okay, let's Go ahead and jump. Julie, you put together some slides about what's going on in Utah with some stats that you pull together. Yeah, if it's all right, let's jump to those.

Julie Hanks [01:28:28] Yeah, that's great.

John Dehlin [01:28:29] And have you talked through kind of some of the data that you found?

Julie Hanks [01:28:33] Yeah, so there's some really interesting statistics that the research shows. Can you pull up that slide there? Yeah. So people in Utah marry on average three years earlier than their US Counterparts. There's a lower average age of first birth and one of the highest fertility rates in the U.S. so using a personal example, I got married at 20, had a baby at 21, had a second baby at 24, almost 25. None of my high school friends from LA were even married. So I have the body of a 25 year old that has two given birth and breastfed two kids.

John Dehlin [01:29:18] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:29:18] And they've, they still have there, you know, bodies that have not gone through that. And so I think this, these stats really show like, or help explain what's going on in Utah, that women's bodies are changing faster and earlier and more drastically than their counterparts in other, in other states. Then can you go to the next slide?

John Dehlin [01:29:47] Absolutely.

Julie Hanks [01:29:51] Utah has one of the highest breastfeeding rates, the largest average household. Also cultural homogeneity. So 87.6% of the population identifies as white and 57 are Mormon, which is the highest state with the highest population of one religion and homogeneity. There's, there are things that happen in societies that are homogeneous that don't happen in other societies. There's, there's more competition. In this one research study called it Social Contagion Can Happen. So it's like, you know, comparing and wanting to, you know, keep up with the Joneses. So I think these stats really help explain some of why the rates of plastic surgery are, are so high.

John Dehlin [01:30:46] Okay, so let me just make sure I understand what you're saying. So you're saying Mormon women get married younger, start having kids younger, have more kids younger, and then in addition, their breast, they have higher breastfeeding rates. And for those of us who are dumb, tell us what implications that has for the body, breastfeeding, everything, all that.

Julie Hanks [01:31:10] Oh, well, your skin is expanded and then retracts and sags. You lose breast tissue. A lot of women, their muscles separate in their stomach and so they have, they, you know, have separation and their core is not as strong. They have saggy skin, stretch marks. So depending on the woman, it, you know, it varies. But a lot of people also weight gain Weight. A weight gain and loss.

John Dehlin [01:31:37] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:31:37] Or just gain. So childbirth and breastfeeding change a woman's body. And then you add to that the focus on motherhood and being a wife and the. Is more important than a career or education. So what do women have that's theirs? Right.

John Dehlin [01:32:01] And like their law career? Of course.

Julie Hanks [01:32:04] Right, right. Well, if you're, if you're the current General Relief Society president.

John Dehlin [01:32:09] But that's new.

Julie Hanks [01:32:10] But that's totally new. Yeah. So. And I've heard women say this. I want. Like it Mommy makeover is a reward for going through all that suffering. Right. Like I, I got married young, I had a bunch of kids I like. Now I want to do something for me. Because they may not have been developing other parts of themselves because they've been growing a large family at a very young age.

John Dehlin [01:32:39] But you're also kind of saying their body has been brutalized, right?

Julie Hanks [01:32:43] Yeah. Compared to other people their age, they may not look as good in a swimsuit or may have more stretch marks or saggy skin.

John Dehlin [01:32:55] And can I just add, so much of the feedback we saw, it wasn't about how men perceived them. It was about how they felt about themselves.

Julie Hanks [01:33:04] But those are tied. You cannot separate those in a patriarchal society, because how we see ourselves is based on the male gaze, even though I may not be aware of it. Right. So it's. And in the next. I think it's the next slide we can go to that.

John Dehlin [01:33:26] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:33:27] The impact of patriarchy. So physically attractive women have more power in their household. So if you do not have economic power, if you do not have the education that gives you power, attractiveness can give you power in a marriage relationship where you may not have as much power as your spouse. And then you add the patriarchal, the preside, men preside, those kind of teachings. Physically attractive people just in general, are well received socially. So there's the social capital. If you're attractive, they get better jobs,

John Dehlin [01:34:09] they get liked more, they have more friends.

Julie Hanks [01:34:11] Exactly. They're seen as more more successful. And then cosmetic surgery, A scholar, Kathy Davis in this one study said cosmetic surgery belongs to a broad regime of technologies, practices and discourses which define the female body as deficient and in need of constant transformation. Then you think about the 80. I think it's 86% of. Of plastic surgeons are male.

John Dehlin [01:34:44] Okay.

Julie Hanks [01:34:45] Is that 80, 81, 81%. And then 90% of cosmetic surgery patients are female. So can you imagine a group of female surgeons doing penile implants all day? Like it. Or pectoral implants And I know that happens, but that the exception, like, it. You go, what? That's a whole industry.

John Dehlin [01:35:08] What if there were a massive industry of female plastic surgeons doing penile enlargement?

Julie Hanks [01:35:17] Feels weird, right?

John Dehlin [01:35:18] Like, if that were in reverse. But guess what? That doesn't exist. Right.

Julie Hanks [01:35:22] And so. So that's. Those are kind of some of the patriarchal themes. Right. Women are taught from a young age that something is deficient about them and that they need to please men in order to survive, literally for, you know, thousands and thousands of years. And so plays into all of this cosmetic surgery, if you're told you're not good enough the way you are. And plus, we have male plastic surgeons who need to support their families. They have to create a need. If there wasn't already a need.

John Dehlin [01:36:03] Got to create.

Julie Hanks [01:36:03] They have to put the billboards on i15.

John Dehlin [01:36:05] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:36:06] Because they're supporting their families like, they're doing their. What's. What's asked of them.

John Dehlin [01:36:12] Let me pause. Alyson, Celeste, do either of you have comments on those stats that Julie put forward?

Celeste Davis [01:36:19] Yeah, I mean, justice for these women getting the surgeries. I love those slides because, like, it makes perfect sense why they're getting them. Like, you do have social capital. You are respected more. You get better jobs, you're more well liked, you're more trusted, you're more easy, like, to get friends and fit in. And just there's the, like, benefits to being attractive are basically endless. So there's very good reason that these women would choose to do that. And so it, like, sometimes, you know, like, with Elder Holland's condescension of, like, you selfish pigs, why would you do this? It's like, it makes perfect sense. Our society has been set up to reward women for being attractive in so many realms, in so many ways throughout the entire course of your life.

Celeste Davis [01:37:07] So, yeah, justice for them. And it made me think, too, when. When Julie was talking about, you know, like, their attractiveness as a means to power. Like, that's very real. And I think each of us comes into this world and we want to be respected and we want to be thought highly of, and we want that kind of recognition. And in a capitalistic society, a lot of success typically would come from your job, your education. But since a lot of that is kept from Mormon women socially and just culturally, kind of historically, we've been encouraged not to do that and to stay at home with kids, which in our culture is not very respected as a career, it makes perfect sense that we would seek respect elsewhere.

Celeste Davis [01:37:55] And attractive women are More respected. And you have that. It is a way to gain that social capital and confidence. So it, it all makes sense.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:38:06] Yeah. I just wanted to point out too, what you were mentioning earlier, Julie, about how homogeny is such an important value in Utah and for Utah culture, which I think stems back to Mormon culture, as far as black and white thinking, as far as there's one right way to do things that just leads to we have a very, very strong in group and a very strong out group. And being part of the in group includes, you know, the way that you look. And trends end up being so much stronger here than in other places. And every semester with my students, I do we have like a quick unit on cultural analysis.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:38:37] And one of the in class activities that we do is we just recognize what are the values of our university, what are the values to build social capital, like within our peers. And in Utah, the students that I've taught, it's really easy whether students are participating in the particular trends or not. It's really, really easy for students to recognize. Like the last time I did this, Stanley Cups were becoming really popular and everybody knew whether they had one or not. Stanley cup, that's the cool cup. The blonde hair is the cool thing. Everyone talks about the Utah curl as a very particular way that Utah women curl their hair.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:39:09] And there's just a few very specific things. And that's how, that's what is valued in Utah, especially among like college age students, like women in their 20s. That's how you are cool is to like, follow the steps. There's a very particular way to fit in. And when I was teaching at the University of Montana and I did the same activity, the students had a lot harder time even identifying what was trendy and what was cool. And I said, like, what is it that like makes build social capital? What is it that college students here find cool? And the only thing that the students in multiple classes could come up with is it's cool to stand out, it's cool to be different.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:39:49] That's how they were building their social capital. And so everybody having like the same water bottle did not build someone's social capital in the same way that it does in Utah. There, that would be like much more embarrassing. And like, they like being different and they like having everything a little bit separate. And so I think that kind of plays a part too in everybody kind of following in in the same trends. Like I've even noticed it in myself. Like, I see a lot of people talking about Botox and I think, oh, like I want to fit in. I don't want to be the only person that's like, I have fomo. I don't want to be the only person that looks my age in 10 years and everybody else looks younger and.

Celeste Davis [01:40:27] Yeah.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:40:27] And I think that is particularly relevant with what we value.

John Dehlin [01:40:31] I remember feeling really like, I remember when BOTOX first came out and I thought, oh, that's going to be rare that people inject like poisonous what, Cow, whatever. And, but, but just in the past few years, like, yeah, women in, in their 20s, early 30s. And I'm not, again, no shade at all. I would have never guessed that, that, that it would come to, to those ages. But it's clearly, again, a function of this dynamic.

Julie Hanks [01:40:58] Yeah. And a lot of people are making a lot of money by sending the message that women need to change their appearance. I mean, yeah, a lot of money is being made.

John Dehlin [01:41:09] Yeah, that's true.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:41:09] And I also want to say too, that I think just kind of like with, with the increasing prevalence I think of these things, in some ways I'm glad that people are being more open about it, about getting these procedures done, trying to eliminate the shame. It seems like we have moved a little bit as a culture from beauty standards being seen as genetic or being seen as like, you don't have to try, like you're just suddenly perfect and thin with big breasts and perfect lips and no wrinkles.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:41:42] And now it seems like the, the standards are moving more into a class discrepancy where if you can afford it, then you're able to be beautiful, then you can do all of these things. So I'm not sure if that's necessarily better or worse, but it does seem like that's kind of the way that we're pull. Like how we're able to rank each other is less on genetics and more on, on wealth. And if you're able to participate in, in the trends.

Polygamy, Scripture, and Pressure on Women's Bodies

John Dehlin [01:42:07] Now, Julie, you teased out even a scripture from Doctrine and Covenants, which you. This is Mormon scripture that you felt was applicable. Let's go ahead and jump to that.

Julie Hanks [01:42:14] Yeah, so this kind of goes back to the early days of the church. DNC132. And it's talking about polygamy. Right. If a man espoused a virgin and desire to espouse another, and the first gave her consent, if he espoused the second, and they are virgins and have vowed to no other man, then he is justified. He cannot commit adultery, for they are given unto him, for he cannot commit adultery. And if he have 10 virgins unto him. By this law he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him and are given to him. And again, they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth. So in this law scripture, women are talked about as objects, like, you know, cattle or something. Like they're not people. They are objects given to man for man to. To be breeders.

John Dehlin [01:43:07] And in Mormon, it's Jesus talking in the Doctrine and Covenants in Mormonism.

Celeste Davis [01:43:11] Right, right.

Julie Hanks [01:43:12] And this is still in Latter Day Saint scripture. And so there, there's this history with polygamy of women not being full people, not having agency and being property and being, you know, selected and given to men. And I just think that's kind of the foundation of.

John Dehlin [01:43:35] Wow.

Julie Hanks [01:43:35] Of some of what we're talking about.

John Dehlin [01:43:38] I heard I have a friend that always used to say, like, pennies, pennies to a nickel or, you know, pennies to a dime. Women are in Mormonism with the polygamy culture, and we still believe in polygamy and Mormonism in 2024. We're just not necessarily practicing it. But the, the implication of polygamy is women are worth a fraction of what a man's worth. There's no way to get around that. So, Julie, you, you actually. So. So the next slide is an article from Exponent 2.

Julie Hanks [01:44:10] Yeah, so I thought this was really interesting. If you'll show this visual. So this is a picture of recent General Relief Society young women and primary presidents.

John Dehlin [01:44:22] So top Mormon leaders.

Julie Hanks [01:44:24] Top Mormon leaders. And so this is powerful because these are the few images of women that women and men see worldwide. Worldwide.

John Dehlin [01:44:34] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:44:35] And there is definitely a look. Right.

John Dehlin [01:44:39] Do you want to. For the listeners, do you want to describe the look?

Julie Hanks [01:44:42] Yes. Blonde, short, well kept hair, bright color suit.

John Dehlin [01:44:49] Are they pastel colors?

Julie Hanks [01:44:50] No, they're like power. More power colors, I think. Smooth skin, primarily blue eyes. It looks like to me. It's hard to tell from. From the screen I'm looking on.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:45:04] They're all white.

Julie Hanks [01:45:05] They're all. Oh, yeah, well, that's. Yeah, of course, of course that, yeah, they're all white.

John Dehlin [01:45:11] Duh.

Julie Hanks [01:45:13] And there's just a look. And so if these are.

John Dehlin [01:45:17] It's almost in the part has to be on the left side of their. I guess there's one.

Julie Hanks [01:45:20] They must have the same stylus at the top of this building. But. And yeah, they're beautiful. So this is not to say anything negative about them, but there's definitely a look of the women that are being held up as the pinnacle of female leaders in the church.

John Dehlin [01:45:38] Is it okay to say thin?

Julie Hanks [01:45:40] It's okay to say thin.

John Dehlin [01:45:42] I mean, does that fit?

Julie Hanks [01:45:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:45:45] Yeah. No plus size women leaders there.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:45:49] Right, right.

Julie Hanks [01:45:49] And no women of color. I mean, there are women of color in the presidencies, but the presidents. These are the presidents. And I think it's a really powerful visual and we often don't think that the female leaders are setting beauty standards, but if those are the only women you see, there's definitely a standard.

John Dehlin [01:46:12] Let's go to the next slide and just describe that as well.

Julie Hanks [01:46:15] Yes. So these are the current female LDS presidencies. And while there's a little bit more diversity, there's, you know, some with dark hair, some. There are some women of color, but they're still where.

John Dehlin [01:46:31] Oh, wait, I'm not seeing. But I mean, you can't tell.

Julie Hanks [01:46:35] Yeah, yeah, there, there are a couple that are, there's one that's Asian and one that's Latina.

John Dehlin [01:46:41] It's subtle. I'm going to say it's subtle, but

Julie Hanks [01:46:43] there's still, there's a look. And so I just thought that was powerful to see the images that are being broadcast around the world to other Latter Day Saints. In terms of who the ideal women are.

John Dehlin [01:46:58] Is it, is it fair to say there's a Mormon woman look that like even non Mormons could notice? Do you think?

Julie Hanks [01:47:05] Oh yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:07] A Californian or a New Yorker would come to Utah and say, whoa, there's a look.

Julie Hanks [01:47:12] I remember somebody coming to, excuse me, a wedding shower or baby shower that I had in California and someone. So it was a bunch of women that I grew up with that were my young women leaders and someone came to the door and I can't remember as a delivery person, but they comment like, oh my gosh, this is a room full of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. There's, you know, they're glowing and so it was funny that they were able to say like, oh, this is a beautiful group of women and they look different than the rest of the people in la. And they were all white too. That's a huge part of it.

John Dehlin [01:47:57] Well, times, times starting to wind down and, and we're not gonna be able to get to all the slides. But I do think it was really powerful to see the affirming messages that so many women wrote in about in terms of being very happy that they, that they had breast reduction or cosmetic surgery or plastic surgery. And just to show some of them, many women, Mormon women engaged in breast reduction and they considered that to be life changing in A positive way. There were a lot of comments about like back problems or being exhausted or being able to exercise or clothes fitting. And so many women said breast reduction was life changing in that regard.

Post-Childbirth Body Image and Cosmetic Surgery Motivations

John Dehlin [01:48:48] A lot about, I was really moved by this about after having kids, their clothes not fitting or bras not fitting or just not feeling good about having the body that they felt comfortable in. And so, so many women said having breast implants to just restore them, not to something that that wasn't them, but just restoring them to how they were before they started having kids and breastfeeding. So many women just said, best decision ever made.

John Dehlin [01:49:20] So glad I did it. As, as with the tummy tucks or the mommy makeovers where women just felt like they kind of got their, their body back a little bit. And so many of them said they did it for themselves. Again, you made the point that how do you tease out for themselves versus for men?

Julie Hanks [01:49:39] I always, I say if, if you were the only person on the work in the world, except for a plastic surgeon, would you do that liposuction or would you. So breast reduction? They probably would because it's a back issue or, you know, but really, like, we can never take ourselves out of our context, so. Well, I mean, and this is not to diminish their experience at all, but I think we have to take into account all of the things we've been talking about.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:50:10] Right.

Julie Hanks [01:50:10] Well, of course you're going to feel better because you have your social capital back or of course you feel better because, you know, you look more aligned with what other 30 year olds look like who haven't had six kids.

John Dehlin [01:50:23] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:50:23] You know, so, I mean, I think it's awesome and I'm, and I think we needed to keep all of the other things in mind as we, as we talk about it.

John Dehlin [01:50:33] Yeah. Because as I was reading those accounts,

Julie Hanks [01:50:35] I'm like, this is inspiring, right?

John Dehlin [01:50:39] For cosmetic or plastic surgery.

Julie Hanks [01:50:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:50:41] Alyssa, I'm curious what your reactions were to those narratives.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:50:44] No, similar, I mean, it is, it is just really complicated. I think just the entire industry and expectations on women's bodies. And I also am, I think it's important to be able to recognize the messages, both implicit and explicit, about what make women valuable and what give women worth while simultaneously being happy that women are able to.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:51:07] Are in a time where they can make decisions and they're able to go through with what makes them feel good. And I'm really happy for everybody that is able to make these decisions and make them feel good, while also recognizing that, like it didn't just exist in a vacuum, and that doesn't give it any more or less value or make it more or less moral or important or meaningful. It's just like kind of like what Julie was saying a minute ago about if you were living in a world with just a plastic surgeon, I think it's also living in a world with just a plastic surgeon and also somehow erasing decades of conditioning and memory to. To kind of give those beauty standards anyway.

John Dehlin [01:51:46] Yeah. Celeste, any thoughts on. On those narratives about positive aspects of. Of surgery?

Celeste Davis [01:51:53] Yeah, I mean, I'll say it again. Justice for these Mormon women getting cosmetic surgery. Like, wouldn't it be great if maybe we could start completely over, just like Eliza was saying, start from scratch. Erase centuries of conditioning where women's power was connected to. To being attractive, and erase the $9 billion beauty industry and the intense beauty shame and expectations and pressure and start over and not have women need to spend 30 minutes on their hair and makeup every day for work just to be professional when men get to just roll out of bed. If we could erase all of that, great. And maybe that would be great. But the truth is, we don't live in that world. We live in this world. And in this world, there are real benefits to being attractive. So I can blame no one for taking advantage of that or for wanting to be confident. Like, makes sense.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:52:41] Oh, the other thing I wanted to mention on. On this is that there were several comments about how cosmetic surgery can be a form of gender affirming care. And I think it's really important to recognize that if. If that is a way for a person to feel more affirmed in their gender. Like, we can't really criticize that.

John Dehlin [01:53:00] There was a comment that JC wrote Utah Mormon Republican legislators passed anti trans laws and LDS Church just worsened trans policies. So trans people struggle to change bodies and find acceptance. But okay, for cisgender women. Please discuss. And we're actually going to have an entire episode on the church's new, some would say horrific policy changes around transgender Mormons and the prohibition or the punishment for gender affirming surgeries.

Julie Hanks [01:53:34] And my guess is the same people who supported those laws banning transgender, you know, gender affirming care are. Are getting plastic surgery.

John Dehlin [01:53:46] And when it's supporting it.

Julie Hanks [01:53:48] Yeah, yeah. And. And it's. Women have said, like, oh, I feel more feminine with, with larger breasts. Or, you know, it's like, what about the transgender people who want to feel more feminine? And. And Utah's laws. Yeah, it's just.

John Dehlin [01:54:06] And again, it's men making those Laws, Right. Mostly men.

Julie Hanks [01:54:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:11] Well, to. To kind of wrap it up. This article by Coyne and Barnes is that you pronounce it. They came up with some recommendations and I thought it would be good to end on a positive note and maybe just take turns reading some of these recommendations. So we'll do Julie, Alyssa, Celeste. We'll just take turns. So, Julie, why don't you start with the first one?

Church Recommendations and Closing Reflections

Julie Hanks [01:54:32] Okay. Focus on the doctrines of divine nature and the role of the body in the plan of salvation, the atonement of Jesus Christ and heavenly parents.

John Dehlin [01:54:41] So do you want to give a one sentence explanation of what, what that could mean or why that's useful.

Julie Hanks [01:54:47] Just, I think focusing on the like eternal perspective to say, you know, just kind of your value as a human being and, and the privilege it is to live in a body.

John Dehlin [01:55:01] The heavenly father loves everyone and there

Julie Hanks [01:55:03] is a heavenly mother.

John Dehlin [01:55:05] Yeah, good. Okay, perfect. Okay. Alyssa.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:55:09] Yeah. Just to give a tiny bit more context to what the recommendations were for, you can go back to the slides. I can?

John Dehlin [01:55:14] Yeah.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:55:14] Read what they said. They just said that these recommendations were for individuals, parents, friends and local church leaders that they think could improve body image within the LDS culture, particularly in Utah. So again, this is coming from like very LDS perspective.

John Dehlin [01:55:28] Right. Okay, thank you. That's important.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:55:31] Okay. So their, their second tip was to have open conversations around how church practices, examples, garments, the word of wisdom, modesty, are related to body image, image. And yeah, I think that's super important. Especially we've talked already about modesty, about garments, and especially how garments are not made for women's bodies in mind very well. And I think that can really play a role in, in women having poor body image. And if the church, if. I think if these comments by Holland had just acknowledged that in some way, even just a little bit, saying, you know, like, we understand that this is complicated. We know that these expectations are hard. I think that would just, just have gone a lot better and come. It would have come across with so much more empathy than with dismissiveness.

John Dehlin [01:56:19] Hopefully they're paying attention.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:56:20] Yeah. Hello, Holland.

John Dehlin [01:56:24] All right, Celeste, you want to do number three? Yeah, sorry. Here it is. Okay.

Celeste Davis [01:56:31] Focus on principles when teaching about modesty as opposed to practices.

John Dehlin [01:56:36] Yeah. So what I wonder what that might mean.

Celeste Davis [01:56:38] I think. So you don't get lost in the weeds measuring inches above the knee. Just like state of mind.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:56:44] Maybe.

Celeste Davis [01:56:44] I don't know.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:56:45] And I think the for the Strength of Youth pamphlet, they made some changes recently that I think were in large part really positive, especially for teenagers that are going to be reading this before the. For the strength of the youth. Talked about dress and modesty. Very harshly. Talked about, you know, lines, shoulders, knees, very particular places. And now it has changed to saying, like, go forward, thinking about Christ, trying to view your body as a temple. Try not to, you know, that type of thing. And I think as a general rule, that is so much better for teenagers and women.

John Dehlin [01:57:20] All right, Julia, Number four.

Julie Hanks [01:57:22] Okay. Create a church culture that emphasizes acceptance, love, and warmth.

John Dehlin [01:57:29] Pretty self explicit.

Julie Hanks [01:57:30] Amen.

John Dehlin [01:57:31] All right, Alyssa. 5.

Alyssa Witbeck [01:57:33] Celebrate and encourage diversity.

John Dehlin [01:57:37] Diversity. Diversity of eyebrows, diversity of lips, diversity of foreheads, diversity of everything. Body size. I love it. We're not good that. We got a lot of work to do on that one. Celeste, number six.

Celeste Davis [01:57:51] Focus on attachment to God as a primary way to reduce body image concerns.

John Dehlin [01:57:56] All right. Attachment to God. I guess that's good if you're a believer. And number seven, Julie, you can close this out.

Julie Hanks [01:58:05] I love this one. Teach the real meaning of grace. And we didn't talk about the. The finding about costly grace. In. In the study, the Coin and Barnes study, they came. They said there, the idea of costly grace that you have to earn God's love was associated with higher rates of plastic surgery.

Celeste Davis [01:58:28] Oh.

Julie Hanks [01:58:29] And so I think that I. I just love that phrase, costly grace, like earn. You have to earn your way to heaven. You have to earn God's love. That. That was associated with higher rates of.

John Dehlin [01:58:41] Versus the idea that Jesus just. Jesus died for you. He suffered. And you're good.

Julie Hanks [01:58:45] You have grace. You. Yeah. And so I. I think that that's an important one.

John Dehlin [01:58:50] That's beautiful. Well, this has been an amazing panel. Y' all are just so thoughtful, so graceful, so wise. I'll give you all just a final chance each to just sort of any final point you want to make and plug your stuff. So, Celeste, we'll have you go first.

Celeste Davis [01:59:09] Let's see. Well, I guess final point. We didn't talk about how the church benefits from its women being beautiful, but I think it does. And I think that's why there's only sister missionaries at visitor centers. Anyways.

John Dehlin [01:59:21] And I've heard they call a. Sometimes call a particular type of sister missionary to the temple visitor centers. Is that. Have you heard that, too?

Julie Hanks [01:59:29] I haven't.

Celeste Davis [01:59:29] Definitely. I think that they. Like I said, I think the church benefits optically from having its women be pretty. So I think that's another component. But yeah.

John Dehlin [01:59:38] And. And Celeste, how do people find your. Your stuff again? And the good.

Celeste Davis [01:59:42] I'm at Celeste M. Davis. I'm also a spiritual director. You can book with me and we could talk about faith crisis, faith transition. Celestemdavis.com on Instagram @celestemdavis and substack.com Celeste M. Davis is my substack.

John Dehlin [01:59:57] Thanks for joining us, Celeste. It's always so lovely to have you.

Alyssa Witbeck [02:00:00] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:00:01] All right, Alyssa.

Alyssa Witbeck [02:00:03] Yeah, I guess just as final words, just feeling, you know, empathy and love toward all women in this somewhat tumultuous experience of trying to figure out body image and how to figure out how you look. So love to everybody that's in in the hurdles through that. You can find me on my website, Alyssa Witbeck.com I have my writing linked there to various publications. The one that is most recent is called Freeing Lucy and it was published in Mayday magazine also on TikTok at List Likes Words or on Instagram at Alyssa Witbeck, Beautiful.

John Dehlin [02:00:38] Thank you so much for coming again and for helping us make this happen. Alyssa and Julie, you get the last word. Dr. Oh. Oh.

Julie Hanks [02:00:44] Okay. Well, this has been delightful. So thank you all for, for this discussion. My heart is with Latter Day Saint women, women with an LDS background. And I just be the main character in your lives. You know, you do not your worth is not attached to other relationships. It's like your life is yours. And so whether it involves plastic surgery or not like it, you decide and you have the power to create the life that you want. So you can find me. DrJulieHanks.com, wasatchFamilyTherapy.com RJULieHanks on most social media platforms, ask Dr. Julie Hanks podcast. I also have a monthly group coaching that I have to run to right now and that's women with an LDS background. We talk about a variety of faith issues, emotional health, mental health, relationship issues, and it's one of the highlights of my life.

John Dehlin [02:01:50] Group stuff is so great.

Julie Hanks [02:01:51] I know. I love it.

John Dehlin [02:01:52] All right, well, Julie, we can't thank you enough for coming and coming on Mormon Stories.

Julie Hanks [02:01:56] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [02:01:57] Thanks for what you do in the community.

Julie Hanks [02:01:58] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:01:58] Means a lot to a lot of people. All right, thanks so much for joining us today. Hope this is helpful. Mormon Church, I hope you've got something good from this. We all want the Mormon Church. I think we can all agree we want the Mormon Church to be healthier for women and men and our trans and non binary people, you know, members as well. So I hope this helps Mormon church and the community at large be good to each other, be kind to each other. Let's be more mindful about these things. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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