Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/74465/

The person “damaged goods” says that she has had a lot of really, really negative experiences with priesthood holders, some who had stewardship over her and some who did not. Evidently these experiences are serious enough that she is still striving to forgive these people. She says that she has had a lot of adverse effects from these negative experiences. So far she has found only one priesthood holder (possibly she means of a suitable dating age) to disprove her negative expectations. She says that everyone tells her that her expectations are too high and unrealistic.

I’m having a hard time understanding this. So I’m wondering what percentage of priesthood holders, in your personal experience, treat women poorly?

And what constitutes a really, really negative experience? Yesterday I got an email (sent to millions of people, I suppose) from Dr. Laura saying “When I first started dating, my dad would hand me a dime (the cost of a pay phone call in those days) and tell me that if the boy didn't hold the door open for me, I was to call him immediately and he would come get me.” I doubt that today if a guy didn’t hold the door open for you that you would say you had a really negative experience. Obviously if you are raped or nearly beaten to death you have had a really, really negative experience. What I’m wondering is what is the least serious thing that a priesthood holder has done to you or someone you know that you would still call “a really, really negative experience.”

Where do we draw the line between “normal, rational, not over-the-top things” and the kind of serious, hard to forgive, emotionally damaging experiences that “damaged goods” has had?

I know of at least 2 women who were in relationships with "priesthood holders" who where emotionally abusive and manipulative. The guys blamed them for "giving up on them" after they broke it off (both dated for a year +). One of them was involved with another girl online while they were still dating, the other would buy expensive gifts and make sure the girl knew they were REALLY expensive. I'm sure there was a lot more than just these incidents going on, but I am going off of what has been told to me as a close friend. I would consider these to both be negative experiences with priesthood holders.

I am sure there are more similar to this since I don't have that many close friends willing to confide in me about their negative relationship experiences.

Yeah, that question confused me too. Because if everyone's telling her her standards are impossibly high, then maybe they really are. I wish she had been more specific about what her qualifications are. There's only one or two guys I know that I think are actually bad people. And the priesthood--is she just using that as a way of saying all men, or maybe just men she'd be willing to date, or what? Anyway, that's rough that she thinks there's literally only one man that's a possibility for her that she's met so far, but gosh, I sure hope that's not true.

Yeah, I also got the sense that maybe "priesthood holders" was a way of referring to men in general (at least the men she would consider dating). I've certainly known some priesthood holders who treat women negatively. I've also known men who aren't priesthood holders who treat women negatively, and there are women who treat their partners (male and female) negatively and men who treat male partners negatively as well. Maybe she expects more of men who hold the priesthood than she does of other men. If I had to guess, then I would imagine that the rate of negative behavior towards women from priesthood-holding men is probably similar to what it is for men in general (ie some of them treat women negatively, but certainly not the majority), because priesthood holders are human and having the priesthood doesn't make someone immune to being a jerk. I'm not denying her experience, but I think that she has really had some bad luck if she has had this many really bad experiences with priesthood holders.

Well, considering that "the priesthood" is just a synecdoche for "post-pubescent male" in the culture, I'm gonna say that the problem here is the entrenched sexism. It's a useful thought exercise whether a woman can hope to have a healthy relationship where a man has "stewardship" or "presides" over her. (My conclusion: no, no, it is not.)

To me it sounds like she was sexually abused, given her problems trusting guys and in having hope for future relationships.

Whistler wrote:To me it sounds like she was sexually abused, given her problems trusting guys and in having hope for future relationships.

:-(

Woah.

For the record, I don't think LDS guys are jerks. In fact, I'd put their level of jerkery at much lower than the general male population. I do think there are mega problems with the priesthood qua institution, but I think most Mormon dudes are just trying to get along in life like the rest of us.

sadly, sexual abuse is a lot more common than most people think. And she called herself "damaged goods"--kind of a big indication there? I think she would really benefit from therapy.

Whistler wrote:sadly, sexual abuse is a lot more common than most people think. And she called herself "damaged goods"--kind of a big indication there? I think she would really benefit from therapy.

:-( I don't know, the damaged good rhetoric is pretty prevalent in the Church. I would say she has likely had, at minimum, bad experiences with her sexuality. And yes, this is a pretty cut and dried case where she needs someone to talk through this.

vorpal blade wrote:Where do we draw the line between “normal, rational, not over-the-top things” and the kind of serious, hard to forgive, emotionally damaging experiences that “damaged goods” has had?

The line is the same as it would be for men in general, I would just expect "priesthood holders" to work harder to treat women appropriately, as they have committed to do. I say look for a "wielder of the priesthood", not just a "holder of the priesthood".

Whistler wrote:To me it sounds like she was sexually abused, given her problems trusting guys and in having hope for future relationships.

That's what I thought of at first, but in reading over her question many times it seems that she is saying that it is not just one man, but many men. Perhaps it was just one man who sexually abused her, and after that her expectation was that every man would treat her poorly, until she found a single man who proved that not all men are bad.

However, if she had been sexually abused and her expectation was that every man would sexually abuse her it is hard to explain why everyone would say "just get over it," "[her] expectations are too high and unrealistic." Surely there would be some who would say that she has been criminally abused and justice needs to punish this man or men.

Then I thought that the problem may be that her expectations really are too high or misguided. Perhaps she feels that a priesthood leader who had stewardship over her forgot her birthday, which she considered a really, really negative experience. Perhaps she expected that if anyone dated her then they would not date another person, which is not universally acknowledged as a standard of good behavior. Too bad we don't really know what she considers really, really negative experiences.

you're right; she didn't specify, but she didn't need to. She was asking how she can still have faith that there are still good guys out there, and the answer is that she can. Even if her standard was something ridiculous like "he must always remember my birthday!" there are a few guys out there who will do that, y'know? She also says that she's worried about settling for an abusive relationship, and most of the time when people use the word "abusive" it's not about plain forgetfulness (although neglect is a type of abuse I guess). My instinct is usually to assume people aren't being stupid and unreasonable unless they prove otherwise, but your scenario is possible.

True. But depending on what it is, I don't know that I'd tell her it's worth it to shun any guy who doesn't measure up in the hopes of running into a rare one who does. Maybe she wants a guy who 1. always does his home teaching, 2. asks permission before he kisses her, 3. wears a white shirt for every prayer, 4. consumes no media on Sunday, and 5. addresses her as "my sacred lily" before continuing with whatever he had to say. I know that's a silly bunch of things, but finding a bunch of qualifications in one person is unlikely, and the fact that every male but one fails turns on a little red flag in my mind. If she had given more details, my advice could have either been "yeah, that's totally reasonable, hold on and he'll come along" or "I don't know, maybe some of your dealbreakers aren't quite as vital as all that, and maybe you should consider giving a few up."

And also, I wonder if she's communicating her expectations. I've had friends who had expectations for guys that weren't too unreasonable, but they expected the guys to just instinctively know those things were important to her, and they didn't.

Of course, this is all moot, since I'm not a writer. Just curious about how much is her bad luck in men, and how much is our different taste in men.

Her use of Caps Lock, her insistence on a personal mission for herself, her use of "priesthood holders" every time in place of "men" ... In my opinion, these histrionics show that she has been deeply damaged by religion, and does not see the world in an accurate or healthy way.

use of caps lock = damaged by religion?!

Marduk wrote:use of caps lock = damaged by religion?!

Damaged by something. She seems very immature.

You all make really good points. She may well have been deeply damaged by something or someone. The fact that she was worried about marrying into an abusive relationship is a big indicator that she has been abused in the past. And I tend to agree with Uffish Thought as well.

Here is what I currently think and why it really bothers me for the broader implications. It appears she had a very bad, negative and abusive relationship with a priesthood holder. This has poisoned her mind so that she expects all priesthood holders to act in the same bad way. She has taken this to the extreme so that every guy (or maybe just priesthood holders, as this was the original source of the problem) is guilty until proven innocent. Only one guy has been able to prove her wrong, as she says.

Now, I see this a lot in relationships, and it is very destructive. If a person is convinced that you have evil intentions, that sinister motives lie behind everything you do or say it is very hard to convince them otherwise. Almost all the time when I am accused of bad behavior it is because of what someone thought was in my mind when I did or didn’t say something or do something. What would have been interpreted as an innocent mistake or careless comment becomes something really big and ugly because it is assumed to come from a wicked intent. My divorced office mate backs me up on this. His ex was always making a mountain out of a mole hill. The problem is that once you start to look for faults in another even the most benign things look really, really bad. This might be an example of confirmation bias. “Damaged goods” might find a guy that proves he is not like what she expects to find in men, but after the honeymoon is over and something he says or does hurts her, everything else he does or says might well be interpreted as a really, really negative thing.

I see this in politics. All you need to do is convince people that the other side has greedy, selfish, mean-spirited, or evil intentions and then it is easy to convince them that all the other side does is bad.

I see this in those that get offended and leave the Church. If “damaged goods” expects every priesthood leader to treat women poorly then everything they say or do will be seen through this distorted lens. Many years ago I was the ward clerk and I had an assistant ward clerk who did clerk work during Sunday school. I was asked to remind him that it would set a better example for the members if he attended Sunday school instead of doing clerk work. So I told him during Sunday school while he was doing clerk work, “I could do my clerk work during Sunday school, but I feel it is more important to be with my family during this time, and I think the same is also true for you.” He got upset and walked out the door.

I had no idea what I had said to upset him, but decided I needed to visit him in his home and find out what I needed to apologize for. The problem was that he was in his thirties or early forties, was very sensitive about the fact that he was still single, and he interpreted my remarks to mean that he was remiss for not getting married and having a family. I apologized and he came back to church. I’ve seen others get their feelings hurt for what seemed to me to be trivial things, but were very negative for them. I’ve learned that if it is important to someone it is important to me. The problem is that if you have a sore spot, or you expect priesthood leaders to be insensitive or mean-spirited to you on your pet peeve, you probably won’t last long in the Church.

And your marriage probably won’t last long unless you learn to forgive and put behind you injuries that very well were not intended or are just part of living as imperfect human beings.