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These thought were pulled from the SDB vs. addiction thread. Roadrunner wrote:Young Men Manual Come Follow Me – Topics about chastity:
Why is chastity important?
What are church standards regarding dating?
How can I resist pornography?
Why should I treat my body like a temple? (chastity mentioned, no WofW).
How does worthiness affect priesthood power? (chastity mentioned, no WofW).
Topics about Word of Wisdom:
Why does the Lord want me to be healthy?
Young Women Manual Come Follow Me – Topics about chastity:
Why is Chastity important?
What are church standards regarding dating?
How do I guard my virtue?Topics about Word of Wisdom:
Why does the Lord want me to be healthy?
I looked at these manuals. I was interested that the manual for YW has the topic about guarding virtue. This topic corresponds to the YM lesson about resisting pornography. I was glad to see that virtue did not seem to equate to virginity. On the other hand it was expanded to include all actions of a YW that might to relate to a sexual nature. How she dresses. How she talks and thinks. How she acts on social media.
This is not entirely foreign to how the words are defined outside Mormonism. My Webster’s dictionary has as a second definition for Virtue – “Chastity, esp. of a girl or woman.”
In 2008-9 Virtue was added to the young women values. “Virtue (gold): I will prepare to enter the temple and remain pure and worthy. My thoughts and actions will be based on high moral standards (see Proverbs 31:10).” I’m not sure that this addition was strictly necessary as the topic is covered generally under Integrity. “Integrity (purple): I will have the moral courage to make my actions consistent with my knowledge of right and wrong (see Job 27:5).” Also, I believe that the supporting scripture virtue scripture, Proverbs 31:10, is taken out of context. In reading the subsequent verses they seem to be talking about virtue in the more general sense, as in excellence or capability or the quality of having many virtues. Other bible translations render the word “virtuous” in this passage as noble, capable, excellent, diligent, with a strong character, of valor, valiant, or worthy.
Explanations for why “virtue” was added can be found here:
https://www.lds.org/youth/article/cherish-virtue?lang=eng Sister Dalton also answered an interview question that might address the “Why Now”
Quote:When the value of Virtue was added to the Young Women theme and to Personal Progress, it was, I believe, inspired for our day. I think it was not a part of the theme from the beginning because there needed to be this spotlight put on the importance of chastity and virtue.
So perhaps the church leaders feel that they are emphasizing chastity/virtue/modesty in reaction to the changing condition of the world where these things have fallen out of favor.
In general I just wish that. 1) We could apply the use of virtue equally to men and women. Men need to stay sexually clean. Why do we not refer to these sexually clean young men as virtuous? 2) That we could change the context in which we use virtue. Rather than talk about “guarding virtue” as though someone is going to take it from us I would rather talk about “growing or developing virtue.” 3) I would really love to talk about virtue in the more general sense – as in to have many virtues or favorable qualities … IOW “patience is a virtue.” If we want to talk about chastity then we can just say chastity.
Roy wrote:… IOW “patience is a virtue.”
You mean like “you should wait until you are married to have sex?
I think virtue is just a few letters difference from virgin. Makes it easy to link the two.
The more history I read it seems like once the church dropped polygamy and started trying to be more mainstream American, we were actually fully in synch with the American culture. During the 60’s the sexual revolution made the brethren do a “what the hell is going on? We MUST put a stop to this” and paralleled the religious reaction to the free love movement. As the American culture has calmed down a bit (but still quite different than pre-60’s in what is the acceptable norm), but the LDS church keeps ratcheting it up more and more over time – only to be outdone the last decade plus on the anti-pornography campaign. That is my $0.02 (and not worth that much due to inflation).
Roy wrote:In general I just wish that. 1)
We could apply the use of virtue equally to men and women. Men need to stay sexually clean. Why do we not refer to these sexually clean young men as virtuous? 2) That we could change the context in which we use virtue. Rather than talk about “guarding virtue” as though someone is going to take it from us I would rather talk about “growing or developing virtue.”3) I would really love to talk about virtue in the more general sense – as in to have many virtues or favorable qualities… IOW “patience is a virtue.” If we want to talk about chastity then we can just say chastity.
Roy, I just want to say how much Ilovethis. I think the Church misses a huge opportunity by constantly thinking of life as a set of things we need to be afraid of instead of the possibilities before us when we choose the life of a Disciple. As I’ve always said, my wife and I only have had sex with each other and I’m a proponent of that; if a person chooses that path, it is rewarding. I say nothing about other paths that people choose that they are happy about, only that I’m glad how it worked out for us and I wouldn’t change a thing. +1! I love the description Roy gave too. Mostly I just think the way we talk about virtue is harmful. I’d also like to see us talk about consent as part of virtue. The way it is talked about we have some very weird assumptions about how both boys and girls think. Boys are always a glance at a Victoria’s Secret ad away from being uncontrolled perverts. Girls are sexless goalies who have to prevent penetration at all costs in the unending battle against the pervy boys. How about treating them both as agents who have their own sexual thoughts and feelings and who need to develop and mature before they act on them. Quote:How about treating them both as agents who have their own sexual thoughts and feelings and who need to develop and mature before they act on them.
I’d love a unisex set of values for YM and YW in preparation for identical temple covenants.
Ann wrote:Quote:How about treating them both as agents who have their own sexual thoughts and feelings and who need to develop and mature before they act on them.
I’d love a unisex set of values for YM and YW in preparation for identical temple covenants.
That would help break apart some of the stereotype teaching found in the manuals.The root meaning of “virtue” is strength. Proverbs 31:10 is quoted in isoltaion, which completely RUINS the description of virtue in the 21 verses that follow.
I simply wish we would teach the type of all-encompassing strength (and independence / inter-dependence) described in that chapter.
Virtue .. Yeah.. Let’s talk that into the ground some more in YW. (Sigh). I remember lessons in primary that talked about how important it was not to swear. The definition of swearing was to use the Lord’s name in vain. At the time, I didn’t have a clue what that meant, and no one ever really defined it for me. I just eventually figured it out.
Virtue .. I had lots of lessons on virtue and lots of lessons on the importance of limiting how I dated. There were lessons on how important it was for my future husband to be my “first”. I don’t remember any lessons about how important it was for my future husband to save himself for me.
At church, I managed to get through 6 years of YW without a single lesson on mastrubation. It wasn’t something my parents discussed either. I didn’t know it was something that the church had a policy against. And porn? They talked about pictures but no one ever discussed the types of books I was not supposed to read — other than I needed to read “edifying” books. I never had a single church interview in which anyone asked if I ever touched myself — although the thought of some skeezy guy asking teenage girls THAT just weirds me out.
There are huge areas that don’t get discussed in YW. They just pass out another journal and assume all is well.
As an LDS woman, the equivalent is the story of the 10 virgins. I am tired of it. It is used too frequently. The story is never told about 10 young women, it is always told as if the words WISE, FOOLISH, and VIRGIN is capitalized each time they are spoken. I cannot think of a frequently used scripture story that describes any group of men as sexually inexperienced or foolish or unprepared.
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