There has been a lot of discussion in the All Enlisted FB group in the past few days about LDS garments, whether you love them or hate them.   There was also a great deal of debate about whether the bra is to be worn under or over e garments. Oddly enough, some of the ladies wear sexy bras and panties next to the body and the garments over the top. That seem awfully bizarre to me.  I was taught that garments go next to the skin except during your period or when nursing.  Apparently, that policy has changed, along with everything else about Mormon doctrine. 

I was looking into the issue further and ran across the following comment on another board. 

<<<I could never stand to wear it over and felt bad that I wore it under. After about 20 years I finally asked my Bishop what the rule was and he said it didn't matter one way or the other and if it was more comfortable to wear it under that it was fine.   If your Bishop says differently, you just have to ask around until you find one that agrees :-)>>>

Haha, drive thru bishops. Find one who will give you the answer you like. Twits! How about just pitching the garments and walking away?

In all of this research, I am getting increasingly pissed off that old men in suits think they have any business telling women how to wear their underwear. I can just imagine those ancient perverts sitting around a table talking about bras and panties, then deciding how and when women can wear them. Disgusting!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2013 07:38AM by Susan I/S.

So true. When my wife and I got our garmies for the first time all I could think of was how unattractive they were. How the spontaneity and excitement in the bedroom would all but disappear. Maybe its just me, but I felt the men's were really well made and comfortable, while the women's looked terrible.

I can't wait till I age! I'm gonna get me a suit and dictate how women should live like it's going outta style!
</sarcasm>

Seriously, TSCC needs to wisen up. This is why I'm convinced that there are Top 15 GAs who are self deluded. If all 15 were on board with the gig, they would totally sit down and have this discussion:
"What small/easy things can we change so that people hate us less, and members don't want to ditch."

Garments is WAY up there. Why? Because they've already changed them a bunch. So change them again. Instead of actually making your own sub-par quality undies, make some new creepy Priesthood Panty Ordinance.

So members buy whatever the hell underwear they want, they magic marker a compass & square (maybe some notch for navel & knee just on the panties/briefs themselves), and then the Father/HT/Bishop blesses the pile of panties to be consecrated as garments.

Ta-da, everyone is happy. TSCC still gets to be creepy and have their weird panty fetish, the members get to wear underwear that doesn't suck, and the rest of the world still gets to make fun of them, but not so much that converts worry about having to change their underwear habits completely.

Great idea! They can sell holy markers instead!

While this is a great idea in theory, the premise breaks down when you realize what garments actually are for. They aren't for comfort or to be "weird." They aren't because of a fetish. Garments are a measure of control and control is what keeps the unwashed Mormon masses in line and paying tithing.

Threatening and controlling someone's sex organs is always going to be one of the better ways to exert a measure of control over someone.

True, but is it better to have less control over millions or more control over thousands?

Forcing them to magic marker their underwear, and go out of their way to bless new underwear still retains enough control to be creepily involved in the details of their members lives (especially if it is an ordinance that can't be done by the father alone), but it would be oodles and gobs better than what they do now.

Obviously it makes more sense to have less control over millions, but making sense is not one of the 15's strong suits.

of the wife bringing in the shopping bag of
underwear for the BP to bless!

A pile of thongs in various colors. When the BP says, these seem a little too big for you...?
She answers, "Oh this isn't my bag of underwear...it's my husbands!"
Then she could put forth her own bag of beauties for him to bless and try to get out of his mind ..... that couple and what they wear under their clothes!

Ha ha! I love this! Mental pictures are too funny! :)

I have had a snappy comeback ready if anyone had the nerve to ask me if I was wearing garments. It goes like this:

TBM: Are you wearing your garments?

Me: I'll answer your question if you promise to answer a question for me.

TBM: OK

Me: No, I'm not. I don't believe in your church so the dreadful underwear was one of the first things I got rid of. Now, here is my question. You just asked someone who isn't your wife, isn't your daughter, definitely isn't your lover, about the sort of underwear she has on because you believe that God has given you a special right to ask women about their underwear. Is there no part of your brain that is right now screaming "Oh my Gawd, I think I'm in a freakin' cult?"

LOL. Awesome!

+1

That's hilarious, CA girl!

Adding to the like pile! Awesome!

Haha, that's great!

I was taught in the temple in 1965 that garmies went NEXT to the skin with nothing in between except for periods and nursing. Finally sometime in the early 80's I had had enough of my boobs slipping out of their holsters due to the garmies in the middle and began wearing my bra under. My early teen daughter saw one morning as I was getting dressed and read me the riot act. --- as only a self-righteous teenage girl can do -- I told her that as soon as Heavenly Father starts wearing a bra he can tell me how to wear mine.

My sister always said that the person who created woman is NOT the same person who designed garments.

Love that! I keep picturing God from the temple movies wearing a bra. Hahahahahaha!!

"the person who created woman is NOT the same person who designed garments."

Love that! So true!

What pisses me off is I did try to wear them correctly and those around me made sure I wore them correctly. Even in interviews they asked specifically it you wore them as instructed. Which ment the guys could take them off to play basketball and the women were supposed to wear them while exercising. SERIOUSLY!!

Now somehow there is less guilt associated with wearing shorter shorts and skirts and tighter tops. Even though everyone know there is NO way those garments are being worn right.

I know of someone who actually wears their garment top as an undershirt for sleeveless tops because they have pretty lace on them.
I went to a wedding reception and a lady was acting like her garment bottoms were shorts for her short skirt. Her legs were open and I was like oh my gawd are you kidding me. Didn't even try to be discret.


I think Since moving to utah I have seen more backsides of WOMEN where their garments are pulled up to their high waist and their pants are too short at the waist and their shirts are too high. When I first move here I thought about taking pictures and posting a blog. That is how surprised I was. And I'm from California!

It's a close call if I'd rather see someones butt crack or garments hanging out. I joke...

So, again I'm pissed because their seems to be some leniency and less judgment. My wish for all the true believers is that they bring back the garments that cover your whole body, down to your ankles and to your rists. But, from the looks of it, too many people would rebel.

And then again maybe the ones that don't wear their garments correctly are on the fringe and don't really believe anyway. I took my bottoms off long before I had the guts to take the top off.

I guess it could have been worse, I could have been born into a family where I had to wear a burka.?

I had a mission companion who had a man's cotton garment top she wore under her jumpers like other Mormon women wear a tee-shirt under a sleeveless dress. That saved her a layer and she figured if the markings were covered, it was no big deal. This same companion had a pair of the ankle length, thermal garments that she'd wear under thick tights, then she could wear a mini skirt with tights. Again, she figured the garments were on and the important parts were covered so she was good.

My TBM brain would have melted out of my missionary ears if any of my comps had done that. Now I just think it's hilarious (and tacky).

That is so crazy! The extremes some Mormons go to in order to be within the letter of the law is astounding. It reminds me a lot of the orthodox Jewish thinking we encountered in Israel. They are experts at letter of the law reasoning.

They were just for men as a sign they were in the secret polygamy club. Then there was a time when women's Gs were no different from men's. So at least there was eventually some revelation from on high that women were shaped differently. The leaders might not have known this since they never saw their wives naked with the lights on.

The history of garments, as I was reading this morning is part of what got me all pissed off today. Maybe I should forget that I know how to read. I'd be a lot less ticked!

What were you reading? Maybe I want to get all pissed off, too!

> "revelation from on high that women were shaped differently"

Awesomest quote ever! I'm laughing so hard I'm tearing up.

So do men have the issue? Do they have to wear them under boxers/briefs? If not, what reason do they give?

The more modern garments (I was endowed in 2002) came in both boxer and brief style.

They weren't amazing underwear, but they were fine. So you just wore the garments, no additional underwear (after all, normal boxers aren't about support any way).

The only issue was if you had to wear a jock strap for an activity. But, when you did, you just took off the garments anyway.

I kept 1 pair of normal underwear to wear when I was doing athletics. I was crazy TBM, but I never thought twice about removing my garments to exercise. In my mind I was respecting them by not getting them all sweaty.

I grew up wearing tighty whities. When I had to make the switch to garments I thought I would die. I felt like I had been wrapped in bubblewrap. I hated wearing all the extra fabric. I would look for reasons to not wear g's. Exercise, laundry, you name it.
I still hate them. I can't relate to other guys who talk about how great they think they are.

DW thought they had to be next to the skin until I asked the temple president about it and he said it didn't matter. This was after years....

A large part of the control factor is the feeling the person is somehow naked without the garments because they become so used to them. The result is a feeling of guilt when one doesn't have them on. So far as a cult having power, it is a brilliant method. But it is wrong. TSCC somehow convinces people that Adam was such garments, etc.

I think being naked was a stronger embarrassment back then.

I'm 29, and being naked just isn't a huge deal. I remember hearing my parents or grand parents complain about having to be immodest for a doctors appointment or something, whereas everyone my age and younger seemed to strip without any issues.

I've had a fire alarm go off in my house, and a car crash through my back yard & both times I was naked (once in the shower, once sleeping) & I just grabbed my family and ran outside without clothes. I know that my parents would rather burn alive than running outside naked.

Anywho (I'm straying), my point is that I think nakedness as a form of control (& even as a symbol for Adam & Eve in the temple) is becoming less potent for the church.

Keep in mind that the garment marks were an alternative developed by Emma to being cut with a knife through the garment so that the marks were scars on your body. That's how the Masons did it.

The original thread for the cuts was red, to symbolize blood.

Then the morphing began. The thread was changed to white so it would not be so visible through light clothing. The round collar was removed for the same reason.

And so forth.

If the G15 were smart, they would change to a pendant or a pin with a design which is a combination of all the marks. And make it optional, but a sign of pride and superstitious protection. Like the cross or scapular is to Christians.

Anagrammy

And the collar was symbolic of a yoke. I read about that this morning, thus adding to my being pissed off.

Anagrammy, I know this sounds terrible but I would've honestly preferred having some small marks cut in my skin vs. wearing the garments. I cried almost everyday the first year when I would look at myself in the mirror with those things on. Some people on these boards say that the garments were hard to give up. Mine were the first things to go. I threw them away with glee. No regrets. I wasn't even 100% sure about the church being fake. I knew enough to know that they belonged in the garbage and it made me beyond happy to trash them. I felt like myself for the first time in years.

When I was a tbm my girlfriends and I would all sit around and complain about how bad it sucked keeping everything tucked in and finding clothes to cover the damn things. Even perfectly modest clothes had to be layered within an inch of their lives to cover everything.

When we were trying to decide if it would be easier to just stay in the church even though we knew it was a scam, the one reason I said hell no, was I knew I would have to wear those hideous underwear and it made me so sick to even consider putting them back on. I can't believe I wasted my pre-baby body covering it in layers and being uncomfortable in my own skin. It makes me unspeakably angry.

When I left, I thought I would feel nacked without the garments, or weird, or like I was missing something...
...nope. Instantaneously great.

Rob, yes! Getting rid of them was such a feeling of relief. My favorite part of being an ex-Mormon!

I just shared the links on a new thread.

Strangely, I never had a big issue with them (comfort wise) until I started having serious doubts. Suddenly, they were the most uncomfortable things I'd ever worn and I felt so horribly obligated to put them on every day. I was actually jealous of my 4 year old for being able to pick out her own underwear.

Making the decision to stop wearing g's was the highlight of my summer last year. It was so freeing to be able to properly dress for the hot weather.

as ticked off as this ????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-w0caqMGsw