Friday, May 8, 2009
Life On Appropriating Weird Mormon Social Practices for Homosexual Ends
Posted by David Schmader on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:41 PM
As I've written previously, my better half is a former Mormon, growing up in a large Mormon family that was intricately involved with the Mormon church.
As you probably know, Mormons are forbidden from doing a lot of fun things, including drinking alcoholic or even caffeinated beverages, watching unwholesome films (anything above PG, essentially), and engaging in premarital sex. As you can imagine, this leaves Mormons with a ton of time to fill with wholesome activities, like family game nights and six-hour church services and weird social rituals I'd never heard of until Jake told me about them.
For instance: Pudding Pictionary, which is like regular Pictionary except it's played with chocolate pudding, spread on a tabletop, with players drawing pictures in the pudding with their noses. (How engaging in faux scat is more wholesome than watching a PG-13 movie is beyond me, but that's Mormons for you.)
Then there's the "foot of your father" game, wherein a large group of Mormon fathers and daughters gather in an auditorium, where the dads take off their shoes, roll up their pants cuffs, and place themselves behind the stage curtain, which is raised only far enough to expose their bare feet. Then, daughters must attempt to identify their fathers by their feet. Actually, this sounds kind of hilarious and fun, but as with Pudding Pictionary, the line between the wholesome and the fetishistic is thin.
Finally, there are candy-bar letters, wherein high-schoolers communicate—to ask each other to prom, for instance—via a "letter" composed in part of candy bars, the names of which function as words in the text. Candy-bar letters do double Mormon duty, protracting the "wholesome" aspects of dating (the inviting and accepting, both of which are done via time-consuming candy-bar letter) and allowing Mormons to indulge in the one earthly drug they allow themselves: sugar.
For the past two weeks, Jake's been working in San Francisco, and in a fit of missing him, I wrote him a goddamn candy-bar letter. (See subject line.)
Here's page one.
Here's page two. (This is Diane.)
Page three is lightly pornographic and private. (But I can report that it featured a Mr. Goodbar, a brownie, and three dark-chocolate Hershey's kisses.)
Thank you, Mormons.
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That being said, I think I'm in love with Diane.
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I would never go back and they are so full of shit.
However, I did learn how to budget, how to spend my time constructively, and I avoided the Drugs-And Alcohol-Are-Cool mentality that has sunk so many people. I loved family time then and I genuinely miss it --- and I am into my fifties.....
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Thanks for sharing the info about candy-bar letters, and more to the point - thanks for showing that art of writing letters of affection isn't dead.
That is one of the sweetest things I've read in a long time (and I'm not talking about the sugar content) - hopefully Jake will be back soon and making you (and Diane) very happy.
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But since we're not Mormon, that was more good, clean Midwestern fun than good, clean Mormon fun...
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As a former mormon I can say we totally did the candy letters. Never did the pudding thing, but the foot thing seems to be jogging a memory. But then again I was only mormon til 13, so maybe the pudding thing is reserved for older people?
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...Also, Diane is AWESOME.
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http://www.chocolatebar.com/index.asp
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For all the C. Hill drunks, tons of people do not dringk much. And even more don't smoke. Did the Mormons have a grasp on something a long time ago and tht has recently been confirmed.
Coffee, every Mormon home I have even been in does coffee.
David, I think your guy comes from the cultist Mormons - like the Jes with the curls in from of their ears and who MUST wear beards and dress in black .... hmmm (tons of them in Israel and NYC)
by: Nephi Apostate
As a kid, the best jokes at Family Home Night were myriad apostle jokes.
And we went to Utah State and U of U, not BYU ... lots of home fashioned berry and fruit wine, great stuff ... and fresh ground coffee.
The women were very strong and very equal to the men in families, not loaded with feminist rhetoric, but, clearly not slaves or under any male thumb. In my family, my mom gave the kids blessings all the time, not my dad. The respect for women was total, far more than any other place I have ever lived.
Sex ed. was very good and frank as well. No big virgin ignorance. Very sexual touching, then called petting, had a large role - but - once serious, fucking was OK.
Yes, families were big. Sort of like Catholics of the era, with better food, education and home spun pioneer stuff - of course - recent interesting Utah history.
Viva la difference ....
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I envy your liberal faux-mormon upbringing, Nephi apostate, but don't act like it was the norm in that goofy religion.
Am I the only one curious about the contents of that third page? Apparently so...
We would reenact the part where Joseph Smith by counterfeiting money, raping 14-year-old girls then trying to kill the Missouri governor, but those activities are a bit repulsive and illegal.
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