So I've always wondered about the following incident: After a stake Christmas concert, a Mormon friend (whose family I'd known since childhood) offered me a ride home. She offered me the front seat, but her father, who was driving, made a point of asking her to sit in the front seat. She, as I, seemed confused as to why this was necessary but I don't remember any explanation given.
There are other similar incidents involving this no sitting in the front seat with a married, opposite sex member. Seemed to be some sort of unspoken rule among members.Never could figure out the reason. Anyone ever experienced this or know what the deal was? Always thought it was weird!
A bishop explained it to me once. The church used to "trust" men and women to perform service assignments together until they realized so many were falling into adultery or improper sexual relations. The church adopted a rule as a consequence that men and women not be alone together even in a car and avoid close physical contact even in a car. (Bishops and RS presidents for example don't travel alone together to visit members.)
Apparently, once you're baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, the urge to give or receive blow jobs from random fellow members is much more powerful than before baptism. Go figure.
LOL! I figured this was the answer (having to do with temple-endowed members and the risk of "temptation". But I was confused that people would feel this way about someone they'd known for years. Thanks everyone for the replies! I'd never seen anything posted about this on RfM.
The real reason is to avoid sexual harassment and similar lawsuits by women placed in situations where they are alone with men due to church assignments. It's the same reason employers implement firm policies regarding carousing on business trips. There's a fear that liability will find a way to trickle up.
Additionally, affairs that start are church are bad for tithing revenue. Members might start wondering about the discernment that went into picking a bishop, stake president or EQP who screws other guys' wives.
J. Chan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The real reason is to avoid sexual harassment and > similar lawsuits by women placed in situations > where they are alone with men due to church > assignments. It's the same reason employers > implement firm policies regarding carousing on > business trips. There's a fear that liability will > find a way to trickle up. > > Additionally, affairs that start are church are > bad for tithing revenue. Members might start > wondering about the discernment that went into > picking a bishop, stake president or EQP who > screws other guys' wives.
no one needs to be a lawyer to come to that conclusion. You are both singing the same song, expect you are viewing it from the 'lawyer' liability point of view, and Christina is pointing out the end result. The end result is this: Sexual contact.
By the way, I have gone on numerous business trips for my company on cars with both men and women, and I have never read in the policy manual anything about me having to sit in the back seat if a man was driving (or vice versa). They do book separate hotel rooms, obviously. But driving? Give me a break.
They do this stupid thing for appearances sake, as always, it is always about looking good, not really being good.
There doesn't need to be any sexual contact for an allegation of impropriety to be made. Even 12(b)(6) motions are expensive.
In a normal work environment, men and women have to work together. It can't, and shouldn't, be avoided. In the LDS church, it isn't necessary. Why take on the extra risk?
Were the prospects for sexual contact any lower back when the church didn't have the policy? No. If anything, they may have been higher prior to the rise of sexual harassment litigation and in the pre-HIV/AIDS era. This isn't about sexual contact. It isn't about breaking up families. It isn't because the church cares about people. It's not even about outdated sexual mores or the prevailing notion in Mormon culture that all people are, at their core, insatiable sluts. It's about a red-eyed house counsel sitting down with whoever makes the policy at the COB and starting the conversation off with, "I think we may be exposed . . .."
Sexual harassment is defined specifically with respect to work and educational settings; it's a civil rights issue. Someone making unwelcome sexual comments or advances in a home, or on the street, can't be sued for sexual harassment. It's also not a criminal charge. You can't be arrested for it.
What MIGHT apply to a situation like this is a charge of criminal sexual misconduct, depending on what actually happened.
pointing out the absurdities of some of the "rules." Satan is apparently all powerful and wishes to be in cars with Mormons where he can tempt people with naughty thoughts and actions! LOL
He asked me if I were driving and it was raining and I saw his wife walking home would I stop and pick her up? I said yes.... wrong answer he replied.
The appearance of evil was as bad as being evil or some bullshit like that. I was informed that I should go to his home and tell someone to go pick her up. Guy was the most giant A-hole tbm'r I ever saw. BTW In case you were wondering his wife was a hag.
so they end up wrong, so the set up artist can be right, what a jerk!
In utah a man was abducted, his abductors made him strip naked, (AND HE WAS NOT EVEN IN THE LDS TEMPLE) later he got away and ended up along a major road way trying to get someone to stop & help him get away. He was totally desperate and trying to get a ride. of course most people just flew by, but a woman & her daughter had the presence of mind to correctly read the situation and come to his aid. Someone back me up, this is not an urban legend.
What about the appearance of evil in that instance. too bad it wasnt your jack ass stake pres & he could have been left stranded & it would have been just as well! with only the apperance of evil on him.
So another time I was staying with an LDS family (there were problems at home) and Sister TBM informs me that she has to drive her daughters up to BYU. Therefore, I have to go back home because she can't possibly let me continue to room in the other end of her huge house with only her husband and sons at home. Because, you know, I might have just boned them all in her absence! I asked her, "Why? Don't you trust me? I would never do anything." She replied, "I'm sorry. It's church doctrine." I replied, "I've never heard such a thing." Finally she said, "If it was my own sister that needed a place to stay, and I was going to be out of town, I wouldn't allow her to stay either." I was blown away. Totally ridiculous.
This was one of those "rules" that I never thought that deeply about how completely stupid it is, until I started peeling away the layers and then it occurred to me HOW MANY TIMES I had been driven home from babysitting by the husbands--never the wives. I babysat A LOT in my teens and I was NEVER comfortable around men until I was in my 20s and that was the thing I hated most about babysitting is that dreaded ride to and from the babysitting job with some man.
THEN I worked at a large company in Utah. It had a reputation amongst mormons for not being a nice place for mormon girls to work. In fact, one of the big bosses above me had an attitude towards me because I worked there. I worked with ALL MEN and a few secretaries. There was one carpool of men who I used to hitch a ride to my parents' house now and then as I lived in a different city than they did. One of the wives kept confronting me about some lipstick she found in her husband's car and it just had to be mine. I have NEVER and I mean NEVER worn lipstick and all the guys knew it. (He must have been getting it from someone else!!!) Yep--sure I'm going to ride home with 5 guys and do them all.
> it occurred to me HOW MANY TIMES I had been driven > home from babysitting by the husbands--never the > wives. I babysat A LOT in my teens and I was NEVER > comfortable around men until I was in my 20s and > that was the thing I hated most about babysitting > is that dreaded ride to and from the babysitting > job with some man.
I do not agree that a young girl or teenagers girl should be driven home by the husband. The women should be doing this - but most of them believe that to be the man's job. Not that anything will happen, but it could, and in addition, most girls get seriously uncomfortable in that situation. I also babysat for many years, and it was always the man that came to pick me up, and some of them really gave me the creeps.
An adult man, with an adult woman, fine. An adult man or woman with many kids, or teenagers, fine. An adult (practically a stranger) man with a young girl... I hate to say it, but I would not feel comfortable if it was my daughter. I wasn't comfortable when it happened to me, I would not allow that to happen to my children (boy or girl).
we became friends with a couple who moved in the ward the same time we did. They were 10 years younger than us but their oldest child was the same age as our youngest and they were a really nice couple. We even went on vacation with them once and went over to each others' homes for dinner a lot because our husbands had gone to missions next door to each other, so we all liked the same kind of regional food specialties from that area of the south. Anyway, after we'd known each other a couple of years, the husband asked me for some help on a Master's degree thesis (I'm a freelance editor). I went over there and he asked me if I could come back in 15 minutes because his wife wasn't home. That didn't bother me so much at the time. What bothered me was his wife, when I returned, went on and on about how they had decided when they got a temple marriage to watch each other's back and not be in compromising situations where something might happen and avoiding the appearance of evil and pretty much every other Moism you've heard on the subject. I was sitting there thinking "Seriously? I'm here trying to help your DH for free and he's like 10 YEARS younger than me and not at all the sort of man I think is attractive. Seriously?" She should have known me long enough and well enough to know that there was no way ANYTHING was going to happen but I'll bet she didn't let her sisters alone with her DH either so I let it go. But it was only 15 minutes, geez.
What is it about Mormon men that make them think they are so impossible to resist? First, at BYU, where they are so convinced that every girl is after them because they hold the key to a woman's eternal salvation and can give her the gift of motherhood. Then, for the rest of their lives, every woman but their wife should be held at arm's length, to be feared and avoided because she won't be able to keep her hands off him.
I think the real problem is many Mormon men marry the first sexy thing they can, so as not to sin, then as the men grow up, they realize their wife isn't a soul-mate as much as a status symbol. For some men, that's enough, to have a wife that's ornamental. But others (including a scary number of guys I know) are deeply unhappy in their marriages but don't have a real reason do tear up their whole lives because their wives are basically good people. But there is no relationship there - just a "church image" that they are both paying their dues to. Someone who is starving emotionally, with no feeding in sight, can probably realize that he is in a very combustible situation and is overcautious.
The summer after my first year of college, I moved in with my sister, her husband, and two small children so that I could have a fun summer job and also help with the kids. I was 19, and my sister and her husband were only about 24. My sister worked a swing shift, so in the evenings it would just be me and the rest of the family until my sister got home at midnight. Once the kids went to bed, I'd usually watch The Sopranos on DVD with my brother-in-law. It was a really fun summer, and I got to spend a lot of quality time with my sister and her family.
When my parents mentioned this setup to my TBM aunt, she was really concerned and didn't think this was a good situation for me at all. She asked if they weren't worried about me. I never heard about her comments until a couple years after the fact, and before then it had never occurred to me that there was anything weird about it. He was my *sister's husband*, for hell's sake, and I was an innocent 19-year-old with a steady boyfriend. I don't know, maybe it was weird, but to me it was all perfectly natural.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2010 12:08PM by emadee.
Yes, sexual harassment is probably an additional reason. But I do know the rule has been around longer than sexual harassment has been in public consciousness. I remember as a 15 year old convert in 1979 that I couldn't get a ride to church with men because of this rule.
I did have large breasts though. It was inevitable something would happen. The Holy Ghost can't be every where at once.
And on my mission it applied to members and non members alike so that if a member woman wanted her non member male friend taught the discussions, the non member man could not be alone with the member woman at her house waiting for missionaries to come over to teach him, for example.
I've never heard this as a rule as long as there were others in the car.... HOWEVER, I remember many men who would not drive any woman they weren't related to or married to. It wasn't explained to me as an "appearance of evil" thing, but rather it was explained as a temptation thing... it was better to never open the door to temptation and not go down that road.. draw the line and never cross it... Blah blah blah
When I was HP group leader, we were responsible for single sisters. Some of them were students in their 20's and 30's.
I told the bishop we were glad to help, but sending a couple of 40something guys into a 20somethings home was full of problems.
Bishop said, "Well we'll send three guys instead of two." How is that helpfull? Three big guys crowding into a single womans apartment? How threatened is the woman going to feel?
I was pretty confident that my guys would keep their hands to themselves. What I was worried about is an harrasment accusation pointed at my guys from the woman.That's the way it is these days.
Bishop was outraged at that scenario. It never occurred to him that that could happen.
We finally decide that HT's would take their wife in that situation.
Well I can tell you that after a meeting, after church, during a rainstorm, I asked the Stake President's wife if I could catch a ride so that my wife did not need to drive 20 minutes to come back for me.
I was told "Of course not. I could never do that. Someone might see us together and start a rumor that could hurt my and my husband's reputations"
I did not have the heart to tell her that no one would ever believe that. But in any case it was to avoid the very appearance of evil.
I have to assume that if a male relative was with us and she wore a burka that it would be OK.
Maybe with the history of Joseph and Brigham she might have been right.
My dad would make me go with him hometeaching sometimes when he couldn't get someone to go with him. He usually taught the single women in the ward.
But my favorite example of this is when I had a total hysterectomy. I had the whole shebang, including the big cut, had to "dig" my ovaries and scar tissue out. You get the point. so about 5 days after my then dh had to go back to work, and it suddenly got cold enoug I had to turn on the furnace because I was still pretty messed up and chilled easily.
So it didn't work, and the repairman came and fixed it. well, We have he family room with vents in the ceiling, and in the winter we open them and close them in the summer. I found myself alone wth them closed and I needed to be in the couch, so I called the next-door neighbor, who had been our ht, etc. We weren't active then so much, but his wife said "I'll send him over when he gets home from work".
So an hour later I, bent in half still with pajamas and robe, answer the door, and there he is with his wife and 2 kids too. I was 10 years older, and I guess maybe they thought I would jump his bones because I was so into sex right then, sine I was in such great condition, and he was an asshole. Took him 1 minute to do what I needed, and they never asked if they could do anything else.
Ick. I thought that waspretty damn sad. My bishop in MI would drive a bunch of us home, and sometimes he did end up with just me, but I would always be in the back seats of a minivan. Nthing ever happened.
I think it's actually a mission "rule", but in the general church, I don't think there is such a rule. It may be some peoples' preference to do things that way, or maybe the preference of a certain bishop, but not like it's a general "mormon rule".