Yeah, I didn’t say the church didn’t damage men, just that the damage is a bit different. Men are shamed MORE for what they do and think. Women are more just shamed for not being men. Oh, it isn’t said like that, but women get shamed and constantly told by implication that they are not as good as men are. So, men are dumped on more for what they do, more guilt, less “you are inherently inferior.”Hagoth wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:17 amI'm sorry about the length of this response, I know I've said most of this stuff before, , but it' a message that people need to hear.alas wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 10:19 am I don’t think most men have any concept of what church is really like for girls and women. They experience a very different church. They don’t get chewed gum, mangled flowers, smashed cake lessons, that strongly imply that even if you were forced into sex, you are still damaged beyond repair and even God doesn’t want you. They don’t get lessons on chastity or temple marriage or honor you mean big brother because HE has priesthood while you never will at YW while the boys have fun playing basketball. They get to go camping for the week you get to stay home canning peaches because a big family has to be fed, and their camping is paid for by the ward while your girls camp comes out of the babysitting money you need for school lunch and shoes.
Everything you say is true, Alas, but I don't think it's as wonderful for all of the boys as it sounds. Better than for girls in many ways, absolutely, especially if you're the right kind of guy who can shrug off the constant barrage of shaming and somehow convince yourself that you are living up to the myth of being one of the generals in the War in Heaven, and all of the other priesthood BS they feed you. Some kids, when they are told they have more power in their little finger than the Pope has in his entire being feel nothing but overwhelming inadequacy. I had the power to do anything as long as I remained 100% pure in thought and deed at all times, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do the magic trick to heal someone or even bring them back from the dead if necessary, and their death and suffering would be because of my unworthiness*. Yes, they actually teach you that. If I broke the sacrament bread unworthily (which included pretty much everything a teenage boy might think or do) I polluted my entire ward and damaged their salvation. Sensitive, thoughtful boys take that sh*t seriously. They think they will never be worthy of a Daughter of God, because they know they will never live up to priesthood expectations. It is absolutely crushing for some kids, and it paints every aspect of your life with self-loathing.
The LDS church can be a wonderful ego parade for boys and men who are easily convinced of their superiority, and who have a desire to rule over their wives and play spiritual alpha dog over their neighbors, but it can be a nonstop meat grinder for others.
One General Priesthood talk that really messed me up was by Vaughn J. Featherstone, my future mission president. He tells the story of a father whose child died and he brought her back to life with a priesthood blessing, which was possible only because he was 100% pure and constantly filled with the spirit. Featherstone said that if that father had been guilty of masturbation in the past his child would have died, and it would have been his fault. Of course, now I know that story is not true, but at the time it became a hammer constantly whacking me on the head for the next few decades. This idea came up in elders quorum once and I raised my hand and said, "what do you you do when you are asked to heal someone with a blessing but you don't feel as worthy as you think you should be?" I was pounced on pretty viscously and told that there is no excuse for not being 100% worthy 100% of the time, that even thinking in those terms was shirking my priesthood duty. How could I know that the Elders Quorum president who said that was on the verge of a nasty divorce because his wife caught him looking at porn and couldn't tolerate having a man in her home who was not worthy of her.
So people ask you to give blessings. You do. They don't get better. You know it should have worked if you had been a sufficiently worthy and faithful priesthood holder.
See, they also teach the girls that message, along with the licked cupcake garbage. Men are not only expected by the church to be perfect, they are expected by potential future spouses to be perfect. What? you saw a Playboy magazine when you were 13? You smoked a cigarette when you were 12? God forbid you didn't serve a mission or came home early. What worthy woman would touch you with a 10-foot pole? Of course, all of this only exists in a fantasy world, and only if you believe it. But many do.
So the boys and men who take the priesthood crap the most seriously are often the ones who are most damaged by it.
So, the girls grow up with big inferiority cases and the boys grow up with tons of guilt and shame over being normal.
While the perfectionist harm is tied to priesthood for men, they are not alone in being told they need to be perfect. It may not be life or death for a loved one for a girl, but it is “nobody will love you if you are not perfect.”
And while men get tons of guilt for so much as thinking a sexual thought, women get their sexuality denied. We don’t get the lectures for thinking dirty thoughts, because good girls never have any desire for sex. So, then when we do think dirty thoughts, we wonder what is the matter with us, because we just are not supposed to have those thoughts. It is similar with porn. The guys get tons of guilt for liking to look at girls, let alone porn. But it is never mentioned as a problem girls could possibly have. So, when a girl looks at porn or looks at a guy playing basketball without his shirt, and thinks dirty thoughts, she feels like something is wrong with her because she is doing what only guys are ever tempted with. It is kind of crazy making.
So, when I talk about women’s experience and how most men have no clue what it is like, that is just saying that the experiences are different, not that one is good and the other is bad. I think the church damages everyone with terrible emotional abuse. But it damages people in different ways.
