Mormon Singles Wards: Why We Deserve to Be Treated Like Children

A few months ago, I read the blog post The Infantilisation of Young Single Adults. In a nutshell, this discusses why the author feels Mormon singles are being stunted emotionally by the social opportunities offered them in their respective wards. Many of the things described in this post reminded me of my own singles ward experiences. I have been to singles activities where we played Duck-Duck-Goose (hadn't played that since second grade), crab-soccer (why is it never regular soccer?), and four men on a couch (it's actually pretty fun when you're feeling silly; otherwise it's best reserved for high school kids). But I didn't realize these were common throughout the Church.

While reading the post, I clicked a link to the Activities section of the Church Handbook, and I wondered if the approach of Church Auxiliary leaders towards single members has something to do with this issue. Seriously, based on Church guidelines, my 26 year-old cousin, who was barely a deacon when I left for my mission, is now qualified to chaperone me at Church dances simply because he has already found that special someone with whom to spend eternity. That just isn't right. And some of the other policies and practices by their very existence suggest a mistrust of our judgment. In Boston, our campouts are planned quite extensively, and while we're certainly not required to participate in the service activity, relays, or ward skit, what exactly is the motive behind scheduling all three throughout an entire Saturday?

To articulate the connection here, I should profess my belief in the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep believing someone will behave a certain way, they eventually will. In this context, if you keep treating someone like a child, they'll start acting like a child--hence the juvenile activities. But while such policies regarding Mormon singles activities may in fact be patronizing us as well as stunting us emotionally, I'm not sure how many of us are in a position to suggest that we deserve better. Do we really?

For starters, people are cliquish. Whether it's age, looks, clothing, or wealth, when we notice differences, we become just like Dr Seuss's Sneetches. Mormons are no different, throwing invite-only parties where the coolness factor is an issue, repeatedly passing the ball or frisbee to the more athletic types at activities even when the less athletic type are clearly open, and subtly walking away from conversation circles when someone we don't care for has just joined the circle.

Next, we don't know how to interact with the opposite sex, thus suggesting why we're still single in the first place. I currently attend the mid-singles ward in Boston, and while I know several people in that ward who simply haven't found the right one, there are others who make it painfully obvious why it's taking them so long to get married. From blowing each other off for dates instead of just saying we're not interested, to awkwardly avoiding each other following a date, to simply ignoring each other in non-dating social contexts unless we are romantically interested, we act like children around each other.

While I'm at it, I might as well throw in the communication deficit. We don't know how to be straightforward with each other, making promises we know we can't keep and then avoiding one-on-one situations with them while hoping they'll practice some decorum by not bringing it up in public settings. If by chance they do get us alone, we make excuses for why we haven't followed through. And then there are those of us who actually get upset with each other for not detecting these signals. Heaven forbid we should give each other the benefit of the doubt by assuming that our excuses really are sincere.

So what does all of this have to do with the nature of our singles activities? At face value, nothing at all. It would be kind of strange to punish flakiness by planning a blanket fort FHE, but does the full tithe payer deserve the blessings upon which it is predicated if he doesn't keep the Sabbath Day holy? Whatever our Auxiliary leaders' motives are for regulating our activities the way they do, we should ask ourselves whether we truly deserve the trust and reliance we are asking for based on other, seemingly unrelated behavior.

You want to play regular soccer at the next FHE? Are you willing to teach some of the finer points to those who have less experience with the game--as opposed to taking advantage of said inexperience when they end up on the other team? I'm pretty sure that's one reason we play crab soccer instead--because nobody is good at crab soccer. You want to do a hiking activity up in the mountains instead of building forts at the church? Will you do your part to make sure everybody that wants to go--not just those people you click with--has a way of getting there? And if you really want to avoid those dreaded speed-dating activities, maybe you should try dating on your own--you know, the kind that you arrange in person or over the phone (not group hangouts that you arrange via text), during which you act genuinely interested in getting to know the other person, and after which you are able to interact without worrying that the other person wants to marry you.

I can't say whether that will persuade our Auxiliary leaders to treat us differently, while the policy on chaperoning activities may be more of an attempt to help us avoid temptation during such a tenuous stage in our lives. I do know, however, that if we want a leg to stand on when asking to be treated like adults--no matter the context--we need to start acting like adults.

The Swimsuit Video: Why It Doesn't Solve the Problem

Today I watched the swimsuit video that has gone viral over the past couple of weeks. During this ten-minute presentation, actress and designer Jessica Rey promotes her line of modest swimwear by discussing the evolution of the swimsuit, while she also touches on a study done at Princeton on the effects of less clothing on people's thought processes. Specifically, the study showed that women in bikinis cause men to objectify them and develop attitudes of hostility and superiority towards them. For the record but not to digress, there were flaws in this study, as observed in a friend's blog post titled Whosoever Looketh On A Woman. But besides that, Rey is basically positioning her swimsuits as a way for women to allow men to control their thoughts while looking at them.

Interestingly enough, the tagline for Rey's swimsuits is, "Who says it has to be itsy bitsy?" I find the selling point and tagline incompatible with each other. The tagline accurately establishes Rey's pursuit of female empowerment as her reason for giving women a more modest option. I admire this pursuit, as we live in a society that constantly tells women less is more and that everything about them is only secondary to their appearance, especially when it comes to pleasing men. The tagline suggests we shouldn't worry about how others think we should dress. The selling point, however, contradicts that sentiment by implying that women should dress more modestly so as to control what men think of them. So Rey is replacing one method of pleasing men with another. While the two methods are opposite, the objective is the same, and it's a very dangerous objective that we have been trying heavily to eradicate in the recent years.

My friend's blog post rejects the idea of modifying your attire for the sake of other people's self-control (or lack thereof), in favor of wearing what makes you feel comfortable and not allowing the judgements of others to override your own free will. In this post, my friend makes the following statement:

Though it is indeed objectifying to teach a woman that her value lies in wearing fewer clothes and showing off her body so as to turn on the boys around her, it is also objectifying to teach a woman that her value lies in wearing more clothes and covering up her body so as to keep the thoughts of the boys around her pure.

Most of the 240 commenters agreed with this sentiment, but a good portion of them found my friend's approach to be selfish and immature. They saw it as a perpetuation of the "me first" attitude where we should be able to do what we want regardless of how it affects other people. It's as if they stopped reading once they had read the phrase "Wear what you want" and dissected that. The rest of that same sentence urges women to act, dress, and live in a way that makes them happy and allows them to do good in the world, not to live for others. How could anyone argue with that?

Don't get me wrong, I am in favor of modesty and chastity. But I am also in favor of determining for yourself what is modest and chaste. Some guidelines are black and white, of course, but all too often, we make up our own guidelines and try to enforce them on others. Some of the commenters who criticized my friend's post reminded her that while we all have the freedom to make our own choices, those choices have consequences. They said that if you make poor choices, you can't expect someone not to judge you. Yes, that is true, but 1)We should be allowed to accept the consequences of our actions, and 2)There is a difference between judging someone for their choices and persecuting them for those choices as well as trying to force them to change.

When I meet a woman, I do have the right to judge her. I have the right to judge whether she is the type of person I would want to date and eventually marry. I have the right to judge her intelligence and outer beauty. I even have the right to judge her attire as a measure of her moral standards and values in comparison to my own. But once I'm done judging this woman as a potentially positive or negative influence on my life, I have no more rights. I certainly don't have the right to treat her as an object because I have chosen not to control the impure thoughts that have entered into my mind. With that in mind, the only reason this woman should want to dress according to my judgements would be because one of her purposes in life is to please Matt Andersen. After all, our actions in life should be geared towards our own purpose, not someone else's. If you want to please men by wearing a bikini or help them control their thoughts by not wearing a bikini, go ahead. But don't let others tell you that either one of those should be your purpose.

I have enough faith in humanity that most of us know which of our choices set reasonable vs. unreasonable expectations for the reactions of others. But we can't base every decision on what others might think, especially when those thoughts are often not uncontrollable. People just choose not to control them. If we continuously choose our behavior based on what others think, we eventually stop living. That is what I got out of my friend's blog post.