It sounds creepy. I can't believe my grandmother (who has never hugged, and does not like to be touched) puts up with this. Her original endowment would have been in '66, when it was even creepier.

Has anyone reading this actually left in the middle of it?

Do tell.

If no on left because of temple nudity, did anyone at least consider leaving? Or did anyone feel shocked or humiliated?

Any what about dead dunkings, was anyone embarrassed over the nudity or other personal intrutions of that ritual?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2010 11:15AM by Cheryl.

Did I miss something?

At one times and possibly currently at some sites (?) girls had to strip and show themselves to elderly matrons before putting on the temple dunking suits. When I went as a kid, the old lady said that she had to be sure we weren't wearing panties or bras which might have colored threads in the tags or gray-colored elastic in the bands. Anything not sparkling white would nullify the rite and mean that some deserving spirit would be stuck in limbo for eternity.

Once the suit was wet, it became trasparent for all to see the details beneath it. The girls went first while boys and officiators oogled them. This was made wors by WIDE peek-a-boo leg openings which flapped up around the waist of thinner girls if the baptizer wasn't careful.

After the dunking ordeal, girls had to strip off the suit and put it in a bucket before the old lady would give out a handtowel for the girl to hold to walk down a long hall to the dressing room.

It might not seem traumatizing to some, but to some of the sheltered mormon twelve year olds were humiliated since it was the first time they were forced to strip for no good purpose in front of non-medical strangers.

After that time the morg divised longer heavier suits and some temples provided white undergarments for the girls. This was bad too because the thick bluky cloth became water logged and weighty.

I'm with lump. I did the dead dunking and missed out on the nudity part.

It didn't bother me, but a friend of mine was so traumatized by it that he actually lost his belief in it and stopped going. It was interesting because a year later they stopped the naked touching part of it.

I cried during my washing and anointing. I felt so violated and dirty. Emotionally and psychologically it put me back into my childhood when I was touched (molested) by people who should not have been touching me the way they were touching me.

The temple workers thought I was crying because I felt "the spirit" and told my mom I was "a special spirit" because it was just so moving.

Why didn't I leave: I would lose everything.
I would not be able to marry my husband the next day. Which means he would not be marrying me at all. All my family, and his, were there - waiting for me to take out my endowments with them. Worse, I would lose my family FOREVER - my two year old son would not be sealed to me.
Lastly, how could I leave when the ritual put me back in the place where I have to hold still and allow people to touch my body in places they shouldn't?

I just went through the motions the rest of the day. I'm sure I would have left the Church eventually had I not been hustled off to the MTC less than two weeks later. The bishop and my parents scheduled this thing right up to the date I was to leave on my mission so I wouldn't have any time to think about it. Apparently this is standard procedure in the Mormon church.

I went through the temple in 1993. I was so pissed. The old lady doing the touching asked if she had done anything to offend me. I was very cold and just said, "NO". If I could go back, I would say, "Uhh, Yeah! You just felt me up. I don't even know your name and that makes me feel like a whore".

Now they have 'cleaned up the temple rituals' (I love using that phrase with tbm's). No more naked touching or throat slashing (I missed that one by a few years). The church is trying to take the 'weird' out of the temple. I believe that they want the person going through the temple to be humiliated and confused a little bit (not too much though). It's just like fraternity boys that initiate members in humiliating ways... it makes them more committed. The mormon church is a cult.

they pretty much have you by the short hairs as far as leaving in the middle of any of it. I mean, it would be like leaving your spouse-to-be at the alter!

I didn't do anything besides baptisms and that didn't bother me. We had to strip down and shower together in PE starting in 7th grade so I was used to it. That bothered me at first but I got over it after a few days.I was more self conscious than overly modest.I was more developed than most of the girls in junior high. I was never raised to hide my body and my family was rather casual about nudity,Also the dressing rooms at he local swimming pool left very little room for false modesty I do remember seeing the boys in the wet jumpsuits and feeling guilty that I liked what I saw though. I don't think the washings and annnointings would have shocked me, but I would have thought the whole temple ritual was wierd.

Whoa. Some kind soul warned me that I'd have to get naked (even with a "shield") or I guarantee you I WOULD have run screaming from the temple. As it was, I nearly did. My PTSD kicked in and I put on that "I'm gonna fight anyone who comes near me" face and LOUDLY stated that, "I DON'T LIKE THIS," while sitting there in that stupid shield.

Gawd. The poor little temple worker lady ... I sat there during the washing and anointing, gripping the stool with what I'm sure could only have been white knuckles, with my eyes clenched shut, thinking NOTHING. Because when you are NAKED and BEING TOUCHED where you AIN'T SUPPOSED TO BE TOUCHED by strangers or anyone else you haven't given adult permission to, thinking NOTHING helps you dissociate (i learned this word in therapy, thank you very much) and NOT FEEL what's happening to you.

Why didn't I run? Why didn't I scream? Because I was a brainwashed cult member, that's why, and I thought if I was "spirtchual" enough, this would all seem OK. What a friggin' crock.

I think my then-TBM husband and I went back to the temple only 3 times, and NEVER for washing and anointings. When someone told me they'd "changed" things so you didn't have to get naked, it was too late. I was already studying my way out.

(Sorry if this seemed like a rant. Brought up a lot of bad stuff. Sometime after that horrific temple experience, my doctor upped my antidepressant dosage by double.)

When we did dead dunking, The matrons asked each us if we were menstrating. If we were we were not worthy enough to dead dunk. They also looked at our underwear for color. They even looked at our hairbands (clear or nothing) Many of us had to take our hair down from pony tails to be worthy.
One matron grabbed a girls hand because she was wearing clear nail polish. She pulled her very harshly to her and then scrubbed the polish off. It wasn't gentle and it scared all of us. No one evey wore makeup, nail polish, to the temple again.

My uncle used to do the naked touching and annointing and seemed to give his charges a thorough and right "going over" taking his time oiling them up !.... we still kid my aunt that if he needed a career today we are sure he'd enjoy being a TSA "groper"at the Airport !

It was the 70's and I wore a brass hairclip with a brass pin which held up a mass of black hair in a twist. One of the matrons stopped me and said that I had to take out my barrette. I asked why and she said it was "distracting to others." Since I was partially nude anyway, her self-righteous attitude set me off and I did a slow motion hair take down ala a porn movie, complete with the head shake and a cascade of curls cascading off shoulders to breasts.

"There," I said, "Is that less distracting?"

I swear to God the old biddy audibly gasped.

It was a fine moment.



Anagrammy

No, but olive oil makes good masturbatory lube, and the bathroom stalls worked out nicely. THANK YOU JEEBUS!

I thought the washing and annointings were HORRIBLE!!!How can
ANYBODY find that spiritual?! As a molestation survivor it was particularly difficult...it did help me wanna get the heck out!
I kept wondering with the groping and then the throat slashing stuff what on earth this had to do with Jesus or being a good person?!

but it didn't bother me either. It seemed kinda mystical, in a pagan way. Of course, I was pretty much in a fog when I went through the temple before my mission. It was just SO not what I expected that I was in sort of a state of shock.

however, I finally determined that I didn't have to go along just because others were doing it!
I was young, self conscious, and shy and those rituals with the open tunics in the 60's didn't create a comfortable experience. Not in the least. I have written posts about that, particularly in my treatise of The Role of Women in Mormonism.

It's one of the rituals I'm grateful to ditch! No more rituals that don't have any real meaning anyhow.
It's total foolishness. Unnecessary.
Whew. I'm so glad I'm done with all of that.
I am longer interested in pleasing a deity with rituals!

I was deeply annoyed by the naked annointing. My first time in the temple was in the MTC, in 1994.

I have always been very prude, and walking aroung the temple with fellow missionaries just wearing some almost transparent white cloth (and with OPENINGS on the sides) was REALLY embarassing. And then being touched all over with oil by some creepy guy, and being dressed by this same guy, was AWFUL.

I absolutely hated it. So I promised myself that I would NEVER go through that again. I went to temple sessions multiple times after that, but I ALWAYS refused to be a proxy in annointing ceremonies. I NEVER did it, even when people insisted. NEVER AGAIN.