Defenders of Mormon temple garments tell the press that the magical underwear is not weird or strange, but that it is like the traditional religious clothing worn by other religions.

What they don't mention is that other church members will check to see if you are wearing your underwear and judge you if you aren't.

I told my TBM spouse that Saturdays would be my garment free days. She isn't very happy about it. Doesn't matter that I wear them the rest of he week or that it is sweltering hot. Because I don't wear the right type of underwear, suddenly our relationship is in jeopardy. She lifts up my shirt, asking, "Are you not wearing any garments?".

Can any "non-Mormons" relate to this. Imagine, "honey, I'm concerned you're not wearing the Victoria Secret underwear" or "your're wearing boxers instead of briefs?"

It is one thing if it is the spouse checking things out. Why the heck is it anyone else's business.

It is somehow ingrained in the culture. Years ago, while my mind was still trapped inside TSCC (though my body remains trapped therein) I recall actually looking for garment lines. It got so bad that at one point I confused "wife beater" lines, forgive the language, for the eternal smile garments and thought the wearer must be Mormon.

Underwear...a true indicator of your level of righteousness.

Underwear...you must give us your temple reccomend to buy it or your membership number showing you were endowed.

Most members don't know this, but they keep track of the underwear you buy from them.

Again, what other church makes you pay ten percent of your income to participate in its holy rites, makes you promise during those holy rites to wear only underwear made by the chuch for the rest of your life, tells you how to step I to your underwear, tells you how to store your underwear, tracks your underwear purchases, asks you if you have been wearing your underwear day or night, tells you how to get rid of your underwear, and encourages a culture of people checking out the underwear of others?

But in reality they are obvious to other garment-wearing mormons, and there's a whole culture of garment-checking.

I've formally resigned, so my wife knows exactly where I stand. I keep a flask of brandy in the house that I rarely drink, just to stake my claim to adult discretion in my OWN home. Garments represent the cultishness of the church. It's like the billion-year contract in scientology, a stupid pretended obligation to make you feel committed.

it means you haven't sinned? If you take them off, maybe you will?

My ex (gay--if you didn't already know that)--when I asked him before we were married if he ever had an qualms about his casual sexual encounters when he got to the garments when undressing. Never batted an eye. All his gay friends from high school who have always cheated on their wives were at our wedding--in their garments in the temple.

She's obviously living in the state of fear she has been taught to live in (I lived in it, too).

I personally think the best thing you can do is call them on it--like amos2 said. You have adult discretion in your own home.

If this were to happen outside the Church - if some woman told her friend that her husband pulled up her shirt to see if she had the "right" bra on, the husband would immediately be cited as a control freak - likely emotionally abusive.
The reaction probably wouldn't be quite as extreme if it were a woman doing it to a man, but she would still definitely be labelled as a controlling nag.
Yet, amongst members, that level of control is ok and the reason why it's okay is because if a Bishop can ask you that question, then why can't your spouse....And I disagree with all of it!

Wow you must still be in the closet. My mother does this to me. Everytime I see her she rubs my shoulders to feel for garments. Very invasive and paranoid behavior!

If ANYONE does the garment feel up on me, I hope they won't miss their hand very much.

A while back, a woman on the Babycenter board posted how funny it was that her elementary age daughter had gone to school, noticed her new teacher had garment lines and reported back to her mom that her new teacher must be a good person because she was wearing garments. I wish I had posted back that the way to illustrate to her child how wrong this attitude was as follows:

Can you imagine if people only thought you were good when you were wearing your Cinderella underwear? If your friends only wanted to play with you unless you had on some sort of Disney brand underwear and they would look under your skirt to check and see if you were wearing the kind of princess panties that only good people wore? Do you realize how weird people would think that was?

Seriously though, if your kid went around the playground checking the other little girls' underwear and refusing to play with the kids who didn't wear Disney princess underwear, the school psychologist would have that kid in for analysis and testing faster than you could say "Fruit of the Loom."

I took my charges to a free marionette show. A woman in a cap sleeve shirt and jean capris sat next to me and I just *knew* she was a Mo. Then I looked around and realized there were several mothers wearing jean capris and cap sleeves with the tell-tale scoop underneath the shirt. Meanwhile, I was sitting there in a sundress with no bra, tats showing. I was hot in the black sundress. It would be insufferable to be wearing several layers in this desert heat.

Only a cult would make people suffer more in the heat of the summer by requiring magic undies.

Just for a hoot.... Druids do

but they prefer the least amount possible and will compliment you on it or lack thereof. Just my experience

Every Member a Janitor Wrote:
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> Can any "non-Mormons" relate to this.

In a word, no.

Today, purely by accident, I was dressed very nearly to Mormon standards. I had on long shorts that came to just above the knee, and a polo shirt. I remember thinking, I could easily wear the bottom half of the garments under these shorts, but I'd probably have to roll them up a bit. I bet lots of Mormon women do that. The top would be no problem.

Then I considered what it would be like to have an extra layer under my cool, comfortable clothes on such a warm June day. Naaaaa!

Who in their right mind would voluntarily do that? ;-)

In my experience a nevermo boyfriend might possibly critique your underwear. In that case you tell him to get out the credit card and take you to Victoria's Secret. Problem solved! Two happy people exit the store.

I am a nevermo and the idea of garments sounds ridiculous. I had never heard of them until I met my inactive Mormom husband. I was shocked by the idea. I am also from Texas and so they would be so hot to wear in the summer...no way in Hell!

at night. He had trouble sleeping and they bothered him. (I didn't know he was a closet apostate at the time, and he wasn't going to lose sleep to wear garments for a religion he didn't even believe in).

Did it concern me? Absolutely.

Did I think I could require my husband to wear them? Absolutely NOT.

There is a boundary problem here. I don't care how concerned a wife is about obedience. She should never cross the boundary from wife to become a mother or nag to her husband. I think you need to draw a line in the sand here. Tell her you will be responsible for choosing your own underwear, and reassure her that you'll still be faithful and true even without the holy undergarments to remind you.

This is so sad that your worth is based on whether or not you wear a cheap pair of strange underwear.

But, I understand this because I have people all the time feel me out or look at me closely to see if I am conforming.

I love to wear thin shirts that obviously show I am not wearing garments.

No, I don't get garments at all. Unless the goal is to put everyone in a pissy mood I don't see the point of being incredibly uncomfortable in hot or especially humid weather. I could barely stand wearing long underwear in -40F in a midwestern winter.

In my family underwear in general is only measured in terms or sexy or not, or functional or not. And no one gives two hoots what people are actually wearing at any given time.

I used to get the shoulder rub from my Mormon roommates and other Mormons out in public, and it took me a while to realize exactly what they were doing. I swore to myself the next time it happens, I'm gonna' elbow the person in the face as hard as I can and yell, "Stop touching me!"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2012 10:00PM by happyexmormon.

After sex my ex-wife would jab me in the back of my neck constantly until I put my garments back on. Surely I wouldn't want to fall asleep naked accidently. Maybe if my wife weren't that controlling we could still be married?

On a related note, there is a reverse power play for garments: if I wanted to express dissent, all I had to do is not wear garments where other Mormons might detect me. Or attend Church wearing a checked shirt. My wife would go berserk! What will the other sisters twitter about in Relief Society?

Btw, I'll sleep nude tonight and every night.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2012 10:29PM by idleswell.

The most interesting garment moment I had was at girls camp.

It was 90º with 100% humidity. It wasn't much better at night. There was no place to swim or cool off.

The stake YW leader who is the most TBM person i've ever known, went in the tent and ditched the garments. She said she didn't think even God would ask that of us. It defied all common sense, and she was going to use her common sense.

The entire garment wearing leaders and counselors followed suit.

Myself, I didn't even bring any. No way was I going to wear long underwear in that kind of heat. With NO showers and no place to swim. It was hell on earth.

I had brought a bunch of black garbage bags. Like duct tape, I never go camping without them. I gave each one of my girls one and we filled them with about 3 gallons of cold water and climbed in. That was the only relief, and cleaning we had for 3 days. On day 4 I loaded up my girls ( with bish's permission) and took them to my house for showers, and air conditioning. Blessed relief. We all bore our testimony's to the truthfulness of air conditioning.

Worrying about what kind of underwear ur spouse has on is not a marriage its an extension of control by the church. The church is the foundation for your family and marriage by design so that if thier words of disapproval don't work they can rely on your spouse parents and siblings to aid in keeping u in line. It's disgraceful. The church is purposely in the business of manufacturing families for the sake of their own gain. They're scum.

- the comments about boundaries are dead-on. Definate that Mormonism insists on conformance-compliance, to the Extreme.

-the Sikhs aslo promise to wear some holy underwear; I'm not aware of markings on it however.

-Sleeping nude with Ur spouse/S.O. adds to a level of intimacy that's not otherwise duplicated/otherwise available. Why Mo Leaders wish to prevent that is COMPLETELY BEYOND ME.

As long as the rank-and-file don't see the wierd mormon stuff for what it is, GAs have No Incentive to back off. It no wierd stuff... What's left? Who's gonna pony up 10% and 'agree' to be annually interigated about it just to attend a Mainline church?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2012 01:08AM by guynoirprivateeye.

Why are you only going halfway with this? You are just asking to make it confrontational. Tell her you no longer believe in the church, and will not be wearing garments. Tell her you do not wish to discuss it with priesthood leaders. Share with her why you feel the way you do, then tell her you still love her, and that your feelings for her and the church are two separate things. Let her know that you are not betraying her, because you no longer believe in temple power, and that you believe you two will be together forever regardless of the opinions of a bunch of old men in Salt Lake City.

My boyfriend, who always wears a dress shirt and tie to work and who could easily pass for a recently returned missionary, works in a location outside the Jello Belt with a lot of older Mormons.

A few of the LDS men have come up and put their hands on his shoulders, in the way that bishops often do the garment feel-up for other priesthood members. It's thoroughly weird that this behavior is so ingrained that they actually do it with non-LDS men.

Tyson

Just the morning, I pulled back my 4-YEAR-OLDS pajama bottoms to check to see if his underwear (Bob the Builder Briefs) were CLEAN...I'm just sayin'

He's 4! I did NOT check my other kids and they're under 10...point taken?

Some other religions have religiously required articles of clothing, but the only 'religion' (and I'm using the term loosely) that specifies your underwear and obsesses over that specific underwear, is the Mormon 'religion'. That's not to say, conservatives in other religions are irked about underwear choices (especially women's)...but no other 'church' or 'religion' specifies your underwear in the same way the Mormon church does. TBMs do not understand that at all. They do not know just how disturbing it is that underwear, a private thing, is a 'public' thing within the Mormon community/culture/religion. They refuse to see that having a religion specify your underwear is cult-like.