Not pictured – Tresa and Paul
Paul and I go way back. Back to our college days at BYU when we both lived in brick apartments off 9 East. Back then we called him Pablo as a term of endearment, and everyone loved him. He was so popular that when we held a jokey “Mr. 91st Ward” pageant (guess who’s idea that one was) there was actually anti-Pablo backlash that prevented him from winning his rightful crown. He was so beloved he had already won everything else.
Part of why I loved him (and love him still) is because he was a very very rare specimen in my experience with Mormon males. A man who could have sincere friendships with women. Not the Chris Rock “women we haven’t […] Yet” kind of friends, but honest to goodness, enjoy their company, include them in their lives, see them as real people, friends.
As a woman who enjoys her male friendships, it’s always been a source of sorrow that this is a thing so hard to find in Mormon circles. I still remember the sadness I felt when the first birthday after I got married, one. ONE. of my many guy friends actually showed up to my party. (It wasn’t Pablo, but he wasn’t in town by then.) These guys that I spent so much time with and thought of as my buddies, turned out to only be thinking of me as a “woman we haven’t […] yet.” Since it was BYU, the blank to be filled in there was most likely “NCMO,” but still. Once I was married I no longer had anything to offer them.
This comes up often when we talk about increasing women’s participation at church. When discussing why women can’t be executive secretaries or ward clerks or membership clerks or Sunday School presidents or whatever other purely bureaucratic calling that is responsible for zero ordinances and yet still somehow requires the priesthood, someone eventually brings up the fear that if women and men were working so closely together, behind closed doors, all alone, it would only be a matter of time before covenants were broken and people there to serve God and the members of their ward would be caught up in a sweaty embrace of torn pantyhose and polyester suit coats.
This is the same reason why missionaries can’t even enter the home of a woman without a man there. Or why single sisters have to have elderly men as their home teachers. Because otherwise it would be “asking for trouble.”
The people who articulate this argument appeal to human nature, and realism, and biological imperatives, and whatever other apologia they can come up with to keep things as they are. They shrug their shoulders about our fallen state and pretend that they hate it as much as anyone. But of course, it’s all nonsense. And we should know better.
What a sad irony that the secular world is better at lifting us up passed our natural men and women than the church is on this issue. While people still have affairs, just as they always have and always will, nobody seems to think that this is a reason to keep men and women separate in the workforce. Men and women spend great amounts of time together in fields as diverse as law enforcement, academia, and entertainment, and manage to do it without inevitably falling in to bed together. Why? Because sexual harassment laws exist. Because men and women in the workforce are taught to see each other as peers and equals first. Because they know they are there to do a job.
The job of the church is to lead people to Christ. And Christ was no respecter of persons. Christ was more than capable of having sincere friendships with women. So if we’re going to do His work, we have to stop enabling the natural man we should be trying to overcome – not apologize for him and make it safe for him to function in society. We should be appealing to our higher natures. We should be training men to stop seeing women as objects of lust – whether it’s lust they are caving into or protecting themselves from doesn’t matter one bit – and training women they have more to offer than their affection.
By perpetuating these policies, we’re not treating infidelity as the aberration. We’re treating it as the expectation. Which a people dedicated to being disciples of Christ should be committed to rising far beyond.
Tresa Edmunds
Tresa Edmunds blogs at feministmormonhousewives.org as Reese Dixon. ReeseDixon.com as herself, and everywhere else as a mouthy broad.
All posts by Tresa Edmunds
THIS. I have always had better male friends than female friends and it’s painful when those friendships are interrupted by culture or jealousy. (Except my relationship with YOU, Sister Dixon. It is eternal!)
I wonder what would have happened if Dallin Oaks had been Kristen McMain’s home teacher and Russell Nelson Wendy Watson’s. oh the possibilities! Yes, single women should be visited by elderly men, because, surely, they’d never be interested in each other.
Tresa.
My wife and I have had this very discussion several times and I have had this discussion with my wonderful bishop on at least one occasion. It’s weird that these Mormon “rules of engagment” get thrown out the window when the female is behind a closed door with the bishop. I trust my bishop with my wife. He is a good, good man.
So ya, why not Ward Clerks, etc? Besides, our Clerks usually have the door open anyways. I agree with you it is a symptom of how we tend to objectify women as a means to an end – baby-making. And Mormons love making us some babies.
On the other hand, how do we balance that with what we see with our American culture at large, where just hanging out and never committing to a serious relationship is almost becoming a pervasive problem? Seriously, some guys just hang out all the time, have not gumption to improve themselves and thus are in a perpetual state of teenage-hood. I don’t know. I think I’m just free-thinking now and should probably shut up.
Regarding the missionaries. There are nefarious persons that would and do take advantage of our young missionaries. I have seen it first hand and not infrequenlty on my mission. And there are missionaries that will take advantage of the trust that a parent has with the missionaries. We have personal experience with this in our family. I actually think that policy is a good one. But maybe the problem is a problem of expectations within our Mormon culture and our American culture at large. I mean, who can resist a young man in a white shirt and tie or a young women in a knee length skirt? Right?
So do we discipline the missionaries who can’t keep their zippers closed or offend all single women?
I think it is a silly rule, especially since I lived with a single old lady on my mission. I could shower naked in her house but couldn’t dine at her table in a wool suit?
Still, I think I see where the policy is coming from: I suppose it boils down to the fact that when we send home a fallen elder, we may lose generations. When we tick off women with our hasidic preventative measures, we probably don’t.
[sarcasm alert] Generations are weeping right now in heaven because I can’t invite the Elders to eat at my house. No doubt.
😉
Being abandoned by my male friends after getting married was a huge heartbreak for me, too. 🙁
Teresa! Well said! You’ve articulated something that has been on my mind for the past 20 years, since my divorce. You think teenage girls are a “threat to the a young men’s honor”? Try being a grown, divorced woman . . . I have stories to tell.
I’ve been a working professional all that time and I wholeheartedly agree with you here about the church vs the “world.” (Due respect to Mike’s viewpoint.)
I’ve been alternately horrified and accepting of the fact that I cannot have the missionaries in my home for dinner without a male present in my home. (Unmarried mom of three and grandma of two, that I am.) Last time I signed up, I delivered a gift card for a local restaurant. and they seemed happy, so no harm done.) But, seriously. Please.
Looking to the secular world for guidance on how an ideal man – woman relationship should be conducted seems disingenuous at the least. A society where going on a date, much less having a boy/girlfriend is generally assumed to include a sexual relatiionship and getting married without living together is regarded as the wise thing to do. I think the current rate of people admitting to having had extramarital sexual relationships is around 50%.
If you think the church is overly restrictive look to the extremes the BSA goes to to protect the youth from possible predators—backgrounds checks, mandatory training, zero one on one contact between adult leaders and the boys.
On my mission, as mission secretary, I once had to drive one of the most outstanding missionaries in the mission to his flight home after being seduced and excommunicated. Bishops, stake presidents, apostles have fallen. Rape is usually committed by family members or acquaintances.
The Savior told us to leave our parents and become one with a spouse. There SHOULD be a change in the nature of our friendships. Not abandonment but different. Is not Jerilyn my friend? If I was passing through town we might have lunch together in a public place, but not alone at her home. Our friendship is a very public FB one. The principle of “avoiding the appearance of evil” especially applies as regarding the example we set for our children. (On 2nd thought, no lunch with Jerilyn. She might have a Santa Claus fetish.)
Larry, you know I have a thing for bearded older men.
Very well said-thank you!
On my mission we taught a lady with the windows wide open so all the neighbors could see us. She had a young son there too. One of the neighbors started talking to the husband (all lies, don’t know what the neighbor was saying). So her husband beat her.
We found out on the day we were being transfered out. So, there are good reasons. As much as I don’t like rules sometimes they are good for the rare times that they protect people.
Sorry to say but my experience and that of everyone I’ve properly discussed the matter with has taught me that close, intimate friendships between a man and a women without sex rearing it’s ugly head is pretty much impossible. I’m not saying the deed happens, but at some stage one friend will show or at least feel interest towards the other.
Every friendship I’ve ever had with a girl that I wasn’t romantically keen on and involved spending one-on-one time ended up with the girl expressing romantic interest. Every. Single. One.
The facts as I see them are that for a person of one sex to want to spend considerable time with a person of another sex, there’s something going on there.
Note that I’m not talking about friendly acquaintances, I’m talking about close friendship. In theory it would be nice, but it just doesn’t work.
This is interesting in light of the above discussion: