Like so many customs in Mormonism, garments started out as one thing and have morphed and survived for an entirely different reason.

As I have posted before, Mormonism's engine of power is its control of Women as Carrot.

Today the garment, plus ridiculous modesty codes, keep women feeling unsexy, unfree with a hint of shame. This serves the purpose of the leadership in that a garment-under-bra-n-panties woman looks at herself in the mirror and then at the cover of, oh, any magazine in normal America visible at the checkout stand.

Her next thought is, "I wonder if my husband is lusting after J-Lo. I would be if me in this smelly getup is all I had in bed."

It blooms from there to suspicions of adultery, porn using, stalking his phone, and beggings of bishops for special blessings to ease the anxiety. Their sexlife suffers because an unsexy-feeling woman is not very passionate and needs constant reassurance, which is tiresome for her husband.

In her mind, the woman thinks the golden thought that the First Presidency wants all women thinking,

"Thank God my husband is a faithful Mormon. The Brethren will keep him in line. They are asking him if he is faithful and he can't lie...."

They make us feel we need the church because we can't keep our man without them.

I'd love to hear other views of what purpose you think the garment serves now that the temple secrecy biz is out of the box.


Kathleen Waters

To my mind the reason for the endowment in all of its permutations and the garment are exactly the same.

Early on the revelations said that the Elder held all of the priesthood. Then that was too ordinary and here came the office of High Priest used to make some priesthood holderes more special that others.

Then came the Kirtland endowment in the elders quorum which made them specials.


Then came the Navuoo endowment which set up a specialer class of saint.

Then came the Second anointing, which made the saint most super special.

The garment's purpose, to my mind was to set the endowed apart from the unendowment in such a way as to make them feel special. In my day, the endowed elder stood just a little more important than the unendowed elder. Those of us who had been endowed wore an air of being privy to the mysteries of the house of god and that made us special. Additionally the garment was intended to constantly remind the saint of the covenants and obligations which bound them to the heirarchy of the church.

They serve as a constant reminder that you are mormon, and all of the obligations, duties, and "covenants" that you are bound to.

Outside the Morridor (where I live), you can almost forget that you're a mormon going about your day to day business. Almost, that is. Except in the morning, getting dressed, and at night, changing for bed. And all the times during the day when you're pulling down your t shirt or adjusting something here or there to keep the Gs hidden.

The church says they're a constant reminder of your commitment to Jesus Christ and to the covenants you made. I say they're a constant reminder that you're mormon, therefore, a constant reminder that you'd better not forget to do what you're told.

It is a control mechanism using a "build-up" pattern.

It's the same effect used in sales: Get the target individual nodding his or her head at small things, and then it is far easier to get them to nod at bigger things.

Get them to wear garments and they are far more likely to nod their heads and say yes at bigger things like continuing tithing, giving insane amounts of time, and thinking the way they should.

And leading up to garments was saying a friendly hello, engaging in the "first discussion," agreeing to read during a discussion, agreeing to pray, agreeing to read the BoM, agreeing to attend meetings, agreeing to get baptized, agreeing to accept a modest calling, agreeing to accept a bigger calling, agreeing to pay tithing, agreeing to attend temple prep sessions, agreeing to attend the temple, agreeing to [fill in the blank].

Cult.

anagrammy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In her mind, the woman thinks the golden thought
> that the First Presidency wants all women
> thinking,
>
> "Thank God my husband is a faithful Mormon. The
> Brethren will keep him in line. They are asking
> him if he is faithful and he can't lie...."
>
> They make us feel we need the church because we
> can't keep our man without them.
>
I have heard versions of this from TBM women. Although, of course, it's more in praise of the church for holding men to a higher standard, how they are sure their husbands would cheat if they left the church, if I'm not afraid my husband will have an affair if he doesn't live the gospel standards (assuming of course that if you leave the church you no longer have any standards) and how glad they are Mormon men are better than other men.

What a delusion. My so-called TBM BIL just left a bunch of bruises all over my husband's sister, got kicked out of the house, had a date with another woman the very next day, is trying to manipulate SIL into taking him back anyway, broke a bunch of her stuff to intimidate her, got caught trying to pick up a woman on FB for an affair ... all while attending church, paying tithing, preparing their son for a mission and going to the temple. Maybe delusion isn't a strong enough word.

Fascinating take on the issue. I do not even find the Gerontocracy to be even half as intuitive and clear thinking as you, however.

For me your slant on garments and their usefulness is right on, but I wonder if it isn't more than likely that it's a happy accident for the church leaders to have stumbled onto the garments as control technique. Every story benefits from a bit of dumb luck. And so, it appears the big 15 are fueled by selfishness not cleverness and they have seized on the importance of garments and manner of dress and food consumption because that is all their pea-sized brains have to build on as far as gimmicks to keep the empire going. Imaginative they are not.

The exception to the rule, though, could be Oaks. He is truly evil as far as I'm concerned. I find him to be sadistic. I think he loves having the bag of tricks that includes garments.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2014 03:13PM by blueorchid.

What about the revenue stream? There is only one company that sells them.

Ka-ching. That may be the most important reason.

I would love to know if garment sales are down. My suspicion is that they are and that would be very telling of how things are going.

birchtree Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What about the revenue stream? There is only one
> company that sells them.


Bingo. This is my thought exactly. Require everyone to wear them and sales go up!

After paying all that tithing, instead of getting just those intangible blessings, you get to pay for, and wear, tangible ugly underwear. It's a "look where I've been" and "look what I've done" thing.

It began as a take off the masonic ritual mixed with mythical beliefs and writing about adam and eve (see the book of jasher)

In the practical sense, JS wanted a way to tell those who were in the know about polygamy. It got out that polies were wearing garmies and JS took them off before he went to carthage to get his due. This is the beginning of the myth that they were bullet proof.

If works to control men too. I got the complete and ultimate garment feel up yesterday while visiting my 93 year old mom in the morridor. She did an initial "casual" probe up the sleeve, couldn't find it, kept going...then this horrified look began to form on her face. Next she actually tried to reach top down from the neck to go for the sure sign (of the nail?). I moved out of reach and fortunately my brother distracted her onto something else because she was just about to go into orbit.

Sarcasm alert: Can't wait for the reunion this weekend. If it comes up, I'm thinking about making an announcement like, "Can we all just keep our underwear to ourselves? Because really, how creepy is it to check each other's underwear?"

I used to put on an undershirt to appease thinking she would be gone soon but I'm just tired of it. Specially given the 99 degree forecast for Saturday. Stupid New England masonic cult underwear.

She sounds like my mom! Mine would pull my top down in the front exposing my bra and cleavage and then get in my face asking me sternly "why aren't you wearing your garments!" Luckily for me it stopped when my nevermo DH and I got married because it was very embarrassing especially when she did it in public.

Now she just makes snide comments about how "bare" so and so is dressed and how unclassy it is to show your arms. She's 82 so I let it go but one of these days I'm going to say something that I know I will regret.

In a nut shell, it became about control of my body for me, personally. I eventually objected!

If a religion can control the women they can control generations.

If you own a person's underwear, you own them? ..and trust me. They still own them even after you buy them, since they can tell you when to wear them and when to take them off (excommunication). Speaking of which, a special thanks to a special friend. One day she says to me, "you don't believe any of that s!@#, why in the hell are you still wearing your garments? I'm taking you underwear shopping today." Gawd, no article of clothing had ever felt so good on my skin as the quality men's briefs I bought from Nordstrom's that day. No more did I have to wear those el heche in Mexico LDS inc rags with the shoddiest workmanship of any underwear on earth. Why can't God make his underwear better than Calvin Klein. It makes no sense.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2014 06:42PM by london.

In religious institutions, if you have control over a persons underwear, you have control over their mind.

There are religious institutions, besides the Morg, that tell you what kind of skivvies to wear? I did not know this.

I suppose global warming is putting quite a dent in the garment sales.

I was always amazed when a mormon would wear long underwear in 100º weather. I don't know how they did it. I couldn't.

I went to a few tropical places on vacations. It would always surprise me to see a mormon in extra long shorts, shirts with sleeves, and long johns underneath. I did notice that they did a lot of sitting around. They weren't as active as other people because they were too over heated with that rubber suit they have on under their clothes.

I was still in when the announcement was made to be sure and wear your G's even when doing yard work. This stupid rule was obviously thought up by someone who didn't do yard work. One of my hobbies is gardening. There was no way I was going to give it up to sit in the house and wear those god awful underwear. That was where I drew the line. Sad to say, I knew mormon women who had large parts of their gardens ripped out and turned into lawn because of the underwear announcement. I hope they go to heaven for that, but I doubt it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2014 06:56PM by madalice.

Its a mental shackle. It's not enough to just be enslaved to the will of god. He needs to have you willingly give your self to him. By giving you the freedom to remove them whenever you want an you choosing to keep them on gives him power over you.

Insightful post, as always Anagrammy. I just figure that the Morg knows that if they can tell you what kind of skivvies to wear, and you'll really do it, then they know you'll do anything they tell you.

If a group can control one's underwear, it's easier to completely control their minds and keep them in longer.

I don't believe any of this was conscious in Joseph Smith's mind (or any of the men who succeeded him).

It takes intelligence and confidence for a man to recognize the innate equality of women and then to be willing to share power and take the time to negotiate solutions which are mutually acceptable.

When they could just have a revelation --and include an angel with a flaming sword to get their way.

The garments were originally to hold the marks which were going to be symbolic rather than cut into the flesh of the women, or Emma wasn't going to have it. The whole purpose of the whole sworn-to-secrecy oaths and so help me god or kill me childish nonsense was to shut up the women Smith was marrying, one after another after another.

As we all know, while canning fruit, women talk.

There were unintended consequences of great irony since the so-special underwear labeled each man who was a polygamist. It made them easy for Mormon haters to identify them--and kill them.

This was the explanation given for why Joseph Smith was not wearing them at the time of his murder. He didn't want to be identified as a polygamist. He had less courage than Gordon B. Hinkley, who on the world stage at last, every missionary's dream, would not admit to being a prophet.


Kathleen Waters

just more "us versus them" bullshit.

Because branding is such a hard sell.

And when they feel the garment line mid-thigh, stop and say, "Why hello elder. Is that an iron rod in your pocket or are you just happy to be home from your mission?"

Garments - a seal of approval.

It completely changed the way I felt about myself when I took them off for good. I no longer had to cover up my body and feel ashamed about the way I looked. Sex life improved immensely!

Garments were part of the secret polygamy cult. Same goes for the whole endowment ceremony, including the crescendo of the rites....drum roll please...celestial/polygamous/new-and-everlasting-covenant marriage.

Many people don't realize that the real reason "celestial marriages" are held behind closed doors today and only attended by others that have been through the endowment, is because originally, the whole rite was to initiate you into the secret polygamy club.

Garments specifically, served as reminder to keep polygamy secret. If you had them and wore them, you were part of Joseph's inner sanctum, a hush-hush/in-group polygamy/priesthood dynasty. Rather than reveal anything about polygamy you would "suffer, my life, to be taken."

Garments, the initiatory, the endowment, and celestial marriage are all inextricably tied to polygamy.

No wonder it makes me sick to see my wife in her garments.