alas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:09 am
Actually the larger culture taught that sex was only for making babies (especially for women) and if you did it just because you enjoyed it, you were committing sin. Look at the Catholics. This idea is where the whole notion of birth control being sinful came from. Birth control was enabling people to enjoy sex without the resulting pregnancy. And so, explain why, if the sexual repression came from polygamy, that Catholics are still worse than Mormons on the sexual repression business and birth control.
I wasn't commenting on the Catholics at all, nor was I addressing the idea of birth control. My point is there was immense damage done by polygamy to THE WOMAN who were forced to live it on pain of damnation. That damage created a culture of abuse and neglect. The title of the book is in Sacred Loneliness. The women were lonely for what? Companionship, affection, maybe even some attention?
Its my contention that many of these women internally came to detest polygamy. If they didn't, then why would they have to "steel themselves" against needing their husband? And why would they treat their husband like any other guest?
From those initial accounts, its pretty clear there wasn't a lot of "romance" happening in these relationships.
Now, if you take that idea a little further--say suppose there were children from the chance sexual encounters they did have. Would those children be immune to what they saw from the relationships between their father and their mother? Would they not be privy to the "dear guest" relationship, as opposed to a thriving romance? And would those ideas NOT infiltrate those children's notion of the place of romance and sex IN a relationship?
alas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:09 am
Especially for women, enjoying sex is sinful. “It makes women more interested and they are likely to have an affair.” Just look at female genital mutilation for what sexual repression looks like. It is women that society has always wanted to repress, and it is out of fear that if women enjoy sex, they are going to turn into wanton lustful ho’s. It is MENS fear that their children will not really be their children that causes sexual repression.
I don't disagree with you on this, but I also don't know its applicability with early pre and post Nauvoo culture. I do believe there is a slant society has taken, making women the "gate keepers" of male sexulaity, and the LDS church MOST DEFINITELY has moved into that space--or at least did when I was growing up.
alas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:09 am
It has nothing to do with polygamy and everything to do with controlling women. The only thing they have in common is that polygamy is about controlling women.
I disagree about this. Let me explain.
You are completely discounting the pressure put on MEN to control themselves. David O. McKay said that "women are the queen of their own body"...and went on to say that men do NOT have the right to demand sex. Furthermore, a most damaging series of statements were said by Joseph Fielding Smith that, in the context of birth control, explained that the primary [and only] purpose of sex was having children, and if you were NOT going to have sex for children, complete abstinence was THE ONLY OPTION. Anything short of this was "serious transgression".
That pressure wasn't leveled at only women--it affected men. You see, I felt that pressure growing up. I didn't feel like sexuality was about controlling women; I felt keenly a sense of pressure that the church was working VERY hard to control MY SEXUALITY--that of a man. I was asked about masterbating, I was asked about porn use, I was told that I wasn't "a man" unless I could control myself,...etc.
So, when you say "it has nothing to do with polygamy and everything to do with controlling women"....ouch. That statement just negated all the pain I felt as a man ALSO having my sexuality controlled, and being hurt by it.
alas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:09 am
So, I was thinking that your theory doesn’t hold water.......except for the idea that many of the polygamous wives ended up hating men because they were so badly treated.
I'm not sure you got my thesis.
My question is: "Because polygamy caused damaged in those made to follow it, many women focused exclusively on their children's well-being, while themselves nursing and dealing with their own deep emotional damaged. Polygamy not only isolated woman emotionally, it was also fueled by sexual appetite of the men involved. If this is the case, is it possible that the women attempted to counter-balance what they saw as a vice in their husband by teaching their children a much more controlled and restricted perspective on the role of sexuality in marriage, in hopes to prevent their children, including their sons, from perpetrating the damage being done to themselves in their current situation?"
A lot of the really restrive sexual rhetoric came from men like Josep Fielding Smith, Harold B.Lee and Spencer Kimball. Kimball is on record as saying that sex for pleasure is ONLY from Satan. It completely negates the idea of sex for enjoyment, BETWEEN 2 married people.
All of these men CAME RIGHT OUT of polygamous families.
I don't want to cloud the issue with whether the Catholics did this or that, or what anything else may have happened. I am interested in just looking at this idea.
alas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:09 am
And women tend to internalize their hatred and end up hating themselves as well as men.
I don't know this. But if this is true, and was something that happened because of polygamy, its just another testament to the horrible destructive practice it was. Its heartbreaking to know how much pain and now even coverup there has been about this whole horrible polygamous time.
alas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:09 am
So, did the mothers of the guys you mentioned remarry after the death of the polygamist, or did they raise their sons as widows. Either way...Men raised by mothers who dote on them, but hate adult men end up with a confused identity. They KNOW their mother hated men, and they grow up to become a man. And that leads to a screwed up dude. Which may very well manifest in sexual repression.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I AM TRYING TO LEARN AND UNDERSTAND.
Alas....with you saying this, I'm not sure we are all that far afield.
alas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:09 am
So, let’s just say it is more complicated than just your theory.
I agree. It probably IS WAY MORE complicated. But I have to start somewhere. I'm curious. I personally think that polygamy influenced those three men {JFS, HBL, SWK} and the rhetoric they spouted off that was sexually repressive. I don't know if polygamy did or didn't influence them,....but I know for sure they wove sexual repression into their theology.
Alas,...can you suggest another Thesis idea? I'm totally open on this topic. I'm chasing this out of curiosity. I'm also pissed inside, because some of that sexually repressive rhetoric hurt me, from a man's prespective, and it also REALLY messed up my marriage, contributing to years of pain. I suppose some of that pain fuels this current rend of curiosity, but there it is.
Keep the email coming. Don't hold back!...and I mean that. I can TOTALLY handle opposing positions. To me, I don't call it arguing,...I personally call it learning. (Can't change my position unless I can hear AND UNDERSTAND a different position to start with.)