Introduction

So, this is my first blog post. Not exactly sure what to put on this one, but I have plenty ideas for future posts. I think the main reason why I made this blog is that I want to join the ranks of LDS apologists, feminists, liberals, etc. and see if there's anyone out there who agrees with my theories and ideas. Or I just feel like whining over the unfair aspects of my life and the world. Probably a little of both. Do I have legitimate reason to address these issues, or am I just being a whiny, rebellious teen who thinks too much? I don't know. I'll let that be for you to decide. But what interests me the most is the mentality of some of the members of the church, especially the ones with the black-and-white thinking. Everything is black and white with absolutely no gray. It is either right or wrong. Obeying or sinning. What they don't realize is that you're just as much of a hypocrite if you're following the letter of the law but destroying the spirit of the law in doing so.

Many members of the church assume there are straightforward and clear guidelines for EVERYTHING. But that's not true. These "guidelines" were assumed to be written in stone by the Church leaders, but really they just began as unwritten cultural rules that became so widespread that now everyone just assumes that they're church doctrine. For example: "[...]Young women should avoid short shorts and short skirts" ( pg. 7, For the Strength of Youth 2011 edition). How many times in my life have I heard the "if your dress or skirt is 2 inches above the knee, it's too short" or even "your knees have to be covered"? I don't remember there being an official church publication telling us the exact length our dresses or skirts have to be (now, I may be wrong here, so feel free to correct me), so I'm assuming this is a cultural thing that, again, has become so widespread that it has began to be accepted as an official standard of appropriate dress. And what about cultural shaming that can be very common in LDS families and communities? And the unhealthy messages of human sexuality that can be accidentally-or-not-so-accidentally sent to the children and youth of the church, again partially leading back to the whole "modesty" idea.

Okay, I have to stop myself before I go off on the whole "modesty" tangent, and how it's doing the opposite of the desired effect of preventing sexualization (is that even a word?) of the females of the church by their clothing choices, and how it's being taught in Young Women's and Primary in an extremely unhealthy way, how our self-worth and access to the Spirit is not dependent on whether we wear a shirt with sleeves or not, etc. But trust me, I'm going to have a lot more on that later. I've done probably waaay too much research on this topic. Hopefully I'll be able to drag myself away from this topic to maybe focus on other topics :)

Another interesting reason I like to address is the judgmentality (that's a word, right?) of church members. Oh man, this probably isn't sounding good to those of you reading this. I'm not trying to say that a lot of the members of the church are judging people outrightly by their lifestyle, clothing, personal choices, etc. but that it's much more subtle, almost in a way of not judging at all, but it's still there. Is this making any sense? I have a problem of just kind of rambling like this, because the idea sounds perfectly right in my head, but I can't seem to get it out in words the right way.

I've read a lot of very interesting and thought-provoking articles from other blogs, which I'd like to post, but since I'm new to this whole blogging thing I'm not sure about copyright and author citation and all that stuff *sigh*. For now I'll probably just post links to them, because since I have no idea what I'm doing I figure that's the best way not to get sued or something like that. I'd better get to sorting out this website, so over and out.
-Kelsey