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Relationships

Posted by xJane on April 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am · 19 Comments

First, go read this. Then come back for the study questions below:

Zenaida discusses the Mormon social prohibition of not being alone with a married man. I presume from some of the things she said in this post that she is not married. So: would it be different if she were married? If he were not? John sent this to me & wanted my input. My input was I thought she was Muslim. Besides one particular sister, the only time I’ve run into this level of anxiety about being around the opposite sex is with my Muslim ex-coworker (who really would have rathered not even shaking hands with men). I don’t remember my (Catholic) parents ever instilling this level of (I really think it’s unhealthy) social paranoia in me: I knew, of course that sex (whatever that might have been, I was hazy on that until well into college) was not something I should ever do, but hanging out with people was fine. I do have a few stories I’d like to share:

  • I visited my sister (the one noted above) one summer. My boyfriend of the time (now my husband) spent his summer in another state, and we discussed his coming to visit. I assumed that he would stay with us: my sister had two bedrooms and a couch. I really saw nothing wrong with this arrangement. She told me that, of course, he would stay in a hotel, since having a man stay in the home of a single woman would cause scandal. I was flabbergasted. Scandal? Who cares what the neighbors think? As long as you’re not sinning, why worry?
  • In college, a classmate of my roommate indicated to her that he and his roommate go along so unwell that he didn’t feel welcome in his own room. She invited him to spend as much time in ours as he wanted. So, he ended up essentially moving in: he had a sleeping bag and a little area that (although he didn’t have a keycard) was always his. We would study together, drink together, stay up late arguing philosophy together, and watch movies together. He was like our third roommate. None of us ever considered a romantic relationship with the other. He was just a very good friend in need of a (proverbial) couch to crash upon.
    In fact, one evening, he and I were talking & I got tired, so I changed for bed & climbed up into it (lofted dorm beds=treehouse!). A few minutes later, he paused & asked if I’d just changed…in front of him. Yes, after thinking about it, indeed I had. Just as I would have in front of my roommate (most women know the trick of bra-removal without shirt-removal). Neither of us had noticed it at the time, and both of us thought it was awesome that this was so clearly a platonic relationship
  • I recently saw a guy who I’d not seen in about 12 years. I would love to catch up with him, see how he’s doing, what brought him to LA, &c. Since in high school we hung out at a pub, my first instinct was to invite him out for a pint.
  • I have a very good friend in a current coworker. We work together; we text; we email; we drink together; we go out to lunch together; when we don’t have shifts together, we leave cryptic notes for each other (he wrote, “Hi xJane” in the dirt of the Genius Room work-bench, which I didn’t notice for three days; I turned his Text Expander prefs into a quote from a favorite movie); and we enthuse irrationally about a particular television show currently in production and even more irrationally (and enthusiastically) about a particular television show that is no longer in production. Both of us are in solid relationships and would never dream of doing anything that would hurt our SOs. But it is indeed possible that, to outside observers this may seem “improper”. But none of it is anything that we tone down in the presence of our SOs, both of whom have met each of us.

    • How do each of these situations change when any of the involved characters are married (or otherwise solidly attached) or gay? They should not at all.

    Certainly growing up in Europe (CL will no doubt support me on this) gave me a different perspective on being around people of the opposite sex. But at the end of the day, if the husband of a married woman doesn’t want her having friends of the opposite sex, he has some trust issues. This goes for the wife of a married man, and the father of an unmarried daughter. All just underscore the paternalistic notion that she is not the author of her own destiny, that women are an occasion of sin, and that men are animals with no self control.

    Thoughts? Stories? Complaints?

    Tags: Dialog · Feminism · Gender · Getting over Religion · Sexuality

    19 responses so far ↓

    • 1 amelia // Apr 26, 2008 at 11:33 am

      i really enjoyed reading this, xJane. and i couldn’t agree with you more that these kinds of dynamics should not change when we’re married (etc.). maybe the time given to other friendships shifts when you enter a serious relationship or get married simply because priorities have shifted. but the dynamic shouldn’t.

      i had my own run-in over “scandal” with family members a few years ago when i decided to room with a man. i didn’t know him, but people i trusted knew and liked and recommended him as a good person. the apartment was perfect. he and i got along. and i needed a place to live that was not my parents house. my parents were not pleased (that is an understatement). i’ve never heard my dad use such a near-scary dogmatic tone of voice before. and their primary objection (other than it just being inconceivable to them that a single man and woman should live together under any circumstances) was what other people think. and all i can do is say so what? i don’t care what they think. they shouldn’t spend so much time speculating about possible salacious goings-on that are none of their business.

    • 2 Jana // Apr 26, 2008 at 11:34 am

      It’s been instilled in me for so many years that hanging out with an MOS is wrong, that when I do so it has the air of a clandestine event. I’m trying to make these types of meetings more commonplace so I don’t have those feelings, but it’s hard to undo many years of conditioning.

    • 3 xJane // Apr 27, 2008 at 10:31 pm

      You know, at the end of the day, trust & communication go a long way. One thing that feel about my relationship with my husband is that we’re more complementary than similar. My coworker (noted above) and I have so much in common, we could well be the same person. Which makes hanging out with him fun, but not very emotionally/spiritually/intellectually stimulating. I often feel that my husband is the yang to my yin: when I’m really angry, he’s the calm water; when I’m cold, he’s my furnace; and I’ve never yet met someone who can balance me like that. Everyone one else tips the scales.

    • 4 John White // Apr 28, 2008 at 8:07 am

      Recently, I rescued one of my married female friends who was stranded in the city I live in. I was on my way from a workout to where she lived, so was happy to pick her up and give her a ride home as long I could sandwich a shower in between.

      “Do you want me to hang out at a restaurant while you shower?”

      I paused. What the heck was she talking about?

      “Don’t be silly. You can use my wireless while I shower and shave.”

      “Um… OK.”

      In retrospect, I realize (and have confirmed) that it was this married-and-single-alone effect.

      And it makes me laugh out loud!

    • 5 Zenaida // Apr 28, 2008 at 8:37 am

      Hi xJane, Thanks for responding to my post. I am single, and no it would not make a difference if the situation were reversed. Even if he were single, there would still be fairly strict limits on “appropriate” social interaction. As amelia pointed out, it is not “proper” to share an apartment. I lived in BYU approved housing for a couple of years, and there are curfews (lightly enforced, but still existant), men are not allowed in the back part of the apartment where the bedrooms are (this made using the bathrooms in the apartment of an MOS a little awkward). Men’s and women’s apartments are completely seperate from each other. This is the kind of atmosphere that fosters the level of anxiety you mentioned. And I’ve heard Mormons compared to Muslims before. : )

    • 6 Elaine // Apr 28, 2008 at 1:55 pm

      I keep trying to compose an intelligent, measured response to this policy of never allowing a man and a woman who are not married to each other to be alone together. And I just can’t do it, because it seems so silly to me.

      All I can think is: what kind of minds do people who come up with such policies have? Are they so subject to their own hormones that they would automatically try to initiate some sort of “inappropriate interaction” any time they were alone with someone of the opposite gender? Because what else would make them think of something like that? If they are that helpless before their own passions, I suspect that they should not be in a position where they get to make rules that others are expected to follow.

      My feeling is that such policies are harmful, in that they send the message that in the end no one is to be trusted, ever. That is not a healthy way of thinking and it has harmful repercussions far beyond relationships between individuals.

    • 7 xJane // Apr 28, 2008 at 3:46 pm

      MOS, it took me a moment to decipher that. I’m kinda with John W on this one. Obviously, taking a shower with a MOS…or just an OS…maybe sometimes an SS… would be kinda weird (although I can also think of situations where it wouldn’t be so much). But in the same house as, while watching TV, surfing the internet or what have you, I see no issue.

      Zenaida, thank you for stopping by :) My college (a liberal Catholic/Jesuite one) also had “strict!” policies about who could be where when. The whole arrangement I described above with my 3rd roommate was way not sanctioned by any one who might have had any power to stop it from happening. Although in what I found to be an entertaining loophole, the student handbook said that members of the opposite sex were not allowed to “sleep” in your room. So, I suppose, as long as no sleeping was going on when you got caught, all was forgiven. I don’t know anyone who go written up for it, or even reprimanded, and I know a lot of it (sleeping, either in the intended manner, as I in my now husband’s room, or the unintended and more innocent manner, as my friend above in my room) was going on.

      I think the cavalier attitude of my peers helped cement what I attribute above to growing up abroad. If you think you shouldn’t be having sex (and lets be honest, this is what worries people), then don’t. If you think that being alone around a member of the opposite sex would make you have sex (or want to, occasion of sin & all that), then fine: don’t put yourself in that kind of a situation. But in general, I think most people can act in a civilized fashion around most other people. And the neighbors be damned.

      Incidentally, as a married woman, when we need to have work done on our apartment, I usually end up letting in two (not sure of their marital status…does it matter?) men to fix it. I let them do their thing, and then they leave. I know judo & where I keep knives, so I’m not concerned about them trying anything. I also just kinda trust that they’re human and not animals. (I did once answer the door in my robe because I’d not yet woken up further than that.)

    • 8 Jonathan Blake // Apr 29, 2008 at 5:25 am

      I agree with you in general, though I think there is a line to be drawn at some point.

    • 9 Elise // May 4, 2008 at 7:51 pm

      This is interesting to me because I was raised in a very conservative Mormon household, but I can’t think of a single time in which I was taught (indirectly or directly) that I shouldn’t be alone with a married man.

      In fact, I remember quite a few experiences that seem to teach that it is ok. Starting with my first bishop’s interview – I was seven years old and about ready to be baptized – I was alone in an office with a married man. At seven it was a very casual thing, by the time I was 12 and 13 and 14, I was alone with a married man who was asking me very invasive and private questions about my sexuality, whether I knew what the word masturbation meant or not, and how much time I spent thinking about members of the opposite sex.

      Also, I remember a couple of times when my ride home from girls’ camp (2-3 hours) was with a married man (a member of the bishopbric or stake presidency). Granted, there was at least 2-3 other girls in the car, but still, 3-4 sixteen year olds and a married man isn’t all that different.

      I also remember friends whose older brothers had gotten married. They’d be around when I was around, and I imagine there were many times when I was alone in a room with them for a few minutes, and I never thought twice about it. I’m pretty sure I had crushes on just about all of them, but the fact that they were married didn’t cross my mind so much because it was so innocent. I was young.

      Then again, I would never have dreamed of getting an apartment as a single adult and having a man in the other room. I empathize with Amelia because when I try to predict what my parents reaction would be, I picture World War 3 in my imagination!

      Maybe it is because I did not marry myself in the church, but I never felt these anxieties toward married men.

      Jana, you are welcome to have dinner with Ryan sometime – just the two of you!!! Only because you aren’t German, though. If you were German, I wouldn’t be able to trust that it would be totally platonic…. *sigh*, Ryan and his love affair with the motherland…. :-)

    • 10 xJane // May 5, 2008 at 6:59 am

      lol! could I have dinner alone with Ryan…even though I’m only culturally German? ;)

    • 11 Elise // May 5, 2008 at 2:16 pm

      Hmmm……I suppose so…..but only if you limit yourself to speaking in Engligh!!! And no Gluhwein! :-)

    • 12 xJane // May 5, 2008 at 4:00 pm

      meh, too much work. I’ll just have to have you both over for Glühwein!

    • 13 Jana // May 5, 2008 at 5:20 pm

      Wow, first I shower with John White and now I’m having dinner with Elise’s spouse. This is getting good….

      And actually, Elise, I _am_ German–but it’s been a few generations (you might remember that my maiden name is German). I suppose I could whip up a batch of rotkohl and see if that gets me anywhere with Ryan :)

    • 14 Ryan // May 5, 2008 at 7:08 pm

      Yum, I love cooked rotkohl Jana! How about Friday night at 8:00? …

    • 15 Rich // May 6, 2008 at 5:43 am

      Darf Ich auch kommen?

    • 16 John White // May 6, 2008 at 11:50 am

      Let’s be fair, our mythical shower involved both of us sitting in patio chairs. Not sexy. Except for the patio chair fetishists.

    • 17 xJane // May 6, 2008 at 5:29 pm

      of which I am one

    • 18 Jana // May 6, 2008 at 5:33 pm

      John White: the image of both of us in our slip-slidey shower patio chairs is just too much. Man I’m so glad that I didn’t just eat….

      Ryan and xJane: I totally think we should have a German spouses night….

    • 19 Joe // May 9, 2008 at 1:24 pm

      I live in a community where many of my neighbors are also Mormon (not Utah). And I can’t even have a normal conversation with many of the women. They all act fairly aloof and uninterested (it’s not me, since non-Mormon women have no issues with me). My wife, on the other hand, has no problem talking with their husbands. It’s that YW brainwashing…

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