Guest Post: Michael on the Mythological Monolythic Male

Michael Haycock is a rising senior at Yale, ostensibly graduating in political science but finding out how much he can skew that major toward religious studies. He maintains a personal blog, Not a Tame Lion.

Having seen a comment recommending Kathryn Soper’s article as an excellent example of a discussion of LDS modesty and standards (especially with regards to dress and other topics related to sexuality), I decided to check it out. What I found, while insightful in some ways, was disappointing in many more.

Of course, her subtitle makes it obvious that her focus is speaking about young women, and that she does well, pointing out that sexual desire is not the only instigation for sexual activity, but rather that intimacy, joy, fulfillment–and that ever-so-vague thing “love”–can also work towards fueling interest. While this is important to recognize, I think the things she dismisses show more about her conception of sexuality than her attention to a few nuances–and are symptoms of a perception that colors and damages our cultural, and Mormon, ideas of gender stereotypes, gender relations, and the complex issues of chastity and sexual impropriety.

Pauline reflections

I have been reading Paul’s epistles as entire literary units, rather than half-heartedly plucking a verse or chapter here and there. I have been astounded by each epistle’s thematic coherence and by thematic continuities among the epistles. The epistle to the Hebrews was the first I read in this way.

Reflection 1: I loved the transformation of the high priest’s office into the office of Jesus Christ. As the high priest, Christ replaced stale legalism with a new covenant, one that was not built on the performance of particular rites but upon the “better testament” of Christ’s blood: “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (9:11-12).