So, you know, this blog has that stuff about Mormon culture and all up on the masthead, but I don’t usually write much about it. This probably has to do with a certain snobbishness on my part. I left Utah at seventeen and haven’t really looked back, so I usually think Mormon culture isn’t. Then again, I’m not much of a culture person myself, or at least not the culture of the 21st century. Nevertheless, something has impinged on my cultural awareness, something about BYU from site called “The Frisky.” I suppose I will link to it below, at least until my homies find it offensive or it causes that sort of unusual spam that must be stopped before the kiddies read this blog.
Are you wondering how I found this item? Well, I was following a link to a story about a Valentine’s Day live-action bondage scenario in a grocery store parking lot that ended up in a nine-car police chase while I was getting my hair done last night. I am sure that all the ladies understand and the gentlemen would still be confused, even if I explained it, so I won’t.
Anyway, consider yourself warned by this: If you are either a prude or likely to be offended by my amusement over strange BYU happenings, read no farther…
Yeah, I didn’t think that warning was really going to dissuade anyone…
So here’s the deal. Someone at BYU, presumably a male although it would be interesting to read it as if it had been written by a female, wrote the following letter to a BYU co-ed:
You may want to consider that what you’re wearing has a negative effect on men (and women) around you. Many people come to this university because they feel safe, morally as well as physically, here. They expect others to abide by the Honor Code that we all agreed on. Please consider your commitment to the Honor Code, (which you agreed to) when dressing each day. Thank you.
Safe? Safe? Dude, unless she’s a lonely 300 pound skank on steroids, which she is not, you’re perfectly safe! I think the real issue here might be that you’re feeling too safe. Or that you’ve been safe for entirely too long. Or that she’s not safe while you’re around.
Etcetera. How often do you think women write letters like this to guys at BYU? How often do you think that guys write each other on these matters. Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.
I will have to leave it up to BCC to deal with the idea that sartorial standards are part of someone’s honor code when they have time. I do not feel that I can do justice to the idea, myself.
However, let us consider the possibility that this is a fake. The fact of the matter is, if it were purported to have come from my alma mater, we’d know it was a fake. That we are wondering if it might be for real tells us something highly cultural right there. Not good, but highly cultural, anyway.
Now a short note to church leadership regarding this: ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME? This is what we’re paying for? The only reason I ever have trouble writing that ol’ tithing check is when I accidentally think about BYU.
And for my homies who claim BYU: May I offer you a short, sensitive, discrete ROFLMFO? (That second “f” is for “fanny,” okay? This is a G-rated blog. Most of the time. Except sometimes.)
Anyway, just to tie all this into the wider cultural scene: the author of that letter strikes me as a likely Rick Santorum voter. Prolly wears sweater vests, too.
Later,
Mogs
Dang. I hit “post” and then slide on over into the MoArch to see if the rest of the world is still there and I find out that:
1) the rest of the world is still there
2) BCC hit it yesterday.
Oh well.
Mogs
Well, I think you did it better than BCC.
I think it is a hoax. Not because I do not think it would happen at BYU, but because the handwriting does not look like that of a guy.
It doesn’t need to happen at BYU. It happens over the pulpit in General Conference. Dammit.
And in the Friend magazine for LITTLE GIRLS.
And in the Friend magazine for LITTLE GIRLS.
Really? Give us a link, I beg! Not because I don’t believe but because I’m genuinely interested in how this is playing out and I don’t have access to the Friend.
Thanks,
Mogs
Kristine,
But we are too chicken to challenge it when it happens in General Conference. We could and should shread every session. But we need to be careful, right. So we pick on the idiotic cases. It too often reminds me of email forwards about supposed lectures that econ profs have given about socialism.
I have read the manuals they use in YW. When Geneva turns 12, we will be spending hours each Sunday afternoon deconstructing them. Hell, I am not sure if I will send her…
http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/lds-magazines/friend-june-2011/2011-06-19-hannahs-new-dress-eng.pdf
I am so glad that our church magazines rearly leave the wrapping they get mailed in.
http://www.lds.org/friend/2011/06/hannahs-new-dress?lang=eng&query=dress (Don’t miss the girl’s age–she is FOUR!!!! Also, clearly, her grandmother is a wicked influence.)
http://www.lds.org/friend/2010/05/modest-at-any-age?lang=eng&query=modest
http://www.lds.org/friend/2010/05/modesty-checklist?lang=eng&query=modest
http://www.lds.org/friend/2009/11/trying-to-be-like-jesus/being-modest?lang=eng&query=modest
http://www.lds.org/friend/2010/10/trying-to-be-like-jesus/a-modest-costume?lang=eng&query=modest
http://www.lds.org/friend/2012/02/friends-by-mail/understanding-modesty?lang=eng&query=modest
links in the mod queue
You can find all copies of the friend on the lds.org website. I have no idea what link was referred to, however.
Also helpful: Ziff’s rundown of the rhetorical stats: http://zelophehadsdaughters.com/2011/07/27/a-modest-bit-of-data/
Good grief. What a sad, strange deal.
I think it is a hoax. Not because I do not think it would happen at BYU, but because the handwriting does not look like that of a guy.
Got your text and been thinking about it on and off all day. Another point that opens up the hoax angle is that it supposedly went down on Valentine’s Day, or so my sources in the beauty parlor seemed to think. That’s rather ironic.
For my part, I do think the handwriting looks like that of a male, albeit someone who needs a penmanship instructor almost as much as he needs a decent father-figure. However, you are right that there’s no one who thinks it’s unlikely to have happened at BYU. My guess is that it happens at all church schools and probably inside religious organizations in secular institutions. The will to control women is too strong for some, I guess.
BTW, I have thought up the perfect personal jihad against this sort of thing…
Mogs
“lonely 300 pound skank on steroids” ROFL! Then there is the gravitational attraction. But seriously, this would be great material for a lesson on judging.
Bradley — you hit a great thought about how the entire way this has been used for anti-BYU rants would make a great lesson on judging.
Thanks for the focal point to the entire conversation.
I think this modesty thing is more of an American midwest being terrified of more and more Church members being Africans, Europeans and Asians, who haven’t been taught to be ashamed of their bodies.
Plus, come again? If the guy seems to be having trouble controlling himself around a girl he thinks looks hot (let’s face it, to a sex-starved young man any female skin looks hot), who’s the one that is not safe?
I understand that we try to get young women (and men) used to “garment-standard” dress so that it’s not too much of a shock…