NOM

I found an interesting book about the "Pimp 'n Ho'" culture "Raised in Pimp City" and it is really a downer. Clarence Thomas, Proud Boys, the LDS Church, etc. don't hold a candle to how people are manipulated, extorted, exploited, etc. in this culture. Women are nothing but objects, and pimps are glorified.
Just saying there are worse things than growing up LDS, even if you're LGBT.

Mormonism has a real duality to it. Many good things community, education encouragement, healthy living for the most part. On the other side you have misogamy, lying for the lord, and a host of behavior modification rituals.

All said I would much rather live among mormons than many other groups


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Everybody is different and every context is different.

This is my POV:
While there were some extremely damaging things about growing up LDS for me (purity culture especially), there were a lot of good things. Sense of community. A willingness to be there for one another. I had some really good youth experiences with most of my leaders. I still love studying religion and Christianity although more in a critical analysis context now rather than devotional context. I think with my personality I could have been vulnerable to alcohol or drug addiction and being LDS dampened experimentation with that (albeit in a more fear-based way which isn't totally good either). I had a really positive experience at BYU more or less and had a lot of fun including meeting my future wife there. I think the vast amount of LDS people I was exposed to valued education and learning which was positive. I had a strong connection to my grandparents and our heritage and being LDS is intertwined with that. I even think that the Mormon theology is better in many respects than most other Christian theologies (even though how it is practiced is so messed up). I'm really grateful for the good things it brought me.

The main things that drove me away is the increasingly rigid rule-based culture, the damaging effects of purity culture, patriarchy, and anti-LGBTQ+ issues and literalism with no flexibility for symbolic belief. The church is all or nothing and it makes it very difficult to find the middle pathway.

deacon blues wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:41 am

Women are nothing but objects, and pimps are glorified.

Hmmm.

That sentence sounds a lot like the polygamist foundations of the 1800's religious sect that morphed into the LD$-Inc. Corporation that we all "know and love" today.

Thanks for this post Deacon B.

Sometimes I need to remember that there are worse things out there to put my experience in perspective. It's also helpful to recognize the mixed bag of good and bad that comes with a mormon upbringing, often with the good and bad so mixed together that they can't be separated. The best I can do is understand and accept the experience for what it is.