[00:00:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kate:<\/strong> Hello, and welcome to Called to Queer, where we hold space for the queer Mormon women, genderqueer and intersex experiences. I’m Kate and my pronouns are she\/they.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> And I’m Colette my pronouns are she\/her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Today, we’re going to be talking about marriage and purity culture, and it’s just going to be Colette and I. Hopefully it’s going to be an exciting topic for many of you. But before we jump into that, we want to start off by seeing what brought us queer joy this week. So Colette, what brought you queer joy this week?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I had someone invite me to their wedding this summer, their queer wedding. And I’m just so excited. I’ve seen this person grow a lot in, come into accepting their queerness more over the past year. And I’m just so excited to be there, to celebrate with her and her wife this summer. Meant a lot that she’d want me [00:01:00] there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> That’s so exciting. So I’ve only been to one queer wedding and it’s like, it made me tear up. I didn’t really know either of the people, but it’s just such an emotional, exciting thing. So I’m excited for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I’m excited for me too. Just queer love. Makes me happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> What about you? What brought you queer joy this week?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> So this week I presented at the Ovidius University in Constanta, Romania. We were, we did it online and the University of Bucharest, which is the main university in and in the capital of Romania was also invited and some local high school students, there were about a hundred people that came. And I was talking about how the history of same-sex marriage in the United States and how same-sex marriage has been the fight since 1991 [00:02:00] has heavily involved the Mormon church. And so I was explaining that history. Ultimately you find out that Mormons are heavily influencing Russian politics against LGBTQ people. And. Well, we ended in 2018 with the 2018 Romanian referendum. That also Mormons are involved in trying, they were trying to get the constitution changed in Romania to say that marriage is between a man and a woman. And I was showing how the, the backing of the Mormon church for that in Romania, it was only about 40 minutes, but there were an hour and a half of questions afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was very exciting. Many affirming questions, actually only affirming questions. It felt like I was doing something worthwhile for Romanian LGBTQ folks, which is something that I haven’t really been able [00:03:00] to figure out how to do yet. There were nonbinary folks there who had a lot of questions about how will we can make Romania safer for nonbinary folks because Romanian language doesn’t allow for the same nonbinary language that English does. And so we talked a little bit about that, so it was just a really exciting and cool experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> That’s awesome. I definitely want to hear more about this presentation in the future, but I love that it was just so affirming to you, because that could be a pretty combative space. I can imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah. I was so nervous. In fact, they’re sending me messages at the beginning. They were like don’t be nervous. We’re all friends here, but I it’s a topic if you don’t know in Romania last year. A law was under consideration to say that we, you can’t talk about gender at all in any school setting. And so that didn’t pass, but I was concerned that that was going to be an issue, but it was not, it [00:04:00] was exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well, awesome. Thank you for sharing that. So I’m really interested in talking about this with our different backgrounds. Me as a therapist, you as a historian there’s definitely different areas of expertise, but also some overlap. I’m curious with your idea of as a, as a historian, talking about the idea of marriage, like where did that come from and how has that evolved? Tell us about this arc that you’ve been able to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah. I, what I would like to do is be able to give this overarching arc of marriage, particularly for Mormons. And then hopefully you can add to that what you see from purity culture and as a sex therapist and your views and how this plays out now. So hopefully we can, we can make that transition. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the history of marriage is long and complicated and not linear. And it [00:05:00] means very different things in different places. What is this? What is a union? It’s not just a marriage. What is a union between two people or two or more people? Throughout the world, this is much more complicated I think then we give it credit for. We think of marriage as just this very black and white straightforward thing. And it’s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One way that it’s not is that we have to divorce a religious ceremony from a civil ceremony and what marriage is in terms of a civil union, meaning it’s completely a political contract, legal contract between two people. There are other places in the world where this legality of unions does not exist, but in our framework as Euro-American centric ideas about marriage are [00:06:00] very are, are absolutely structured on a form of legality. So if you don’t know, Mormons outside the United States oftentimes have to have a civil marriage and then have a sealing ceremony. And for many of these people, they have to travel a long distance to a temple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you have a civil ceremony and it could be weeks, months, years before you could ever be sealed. And for some of those people, they continue celibacy until they can have the, the sealing, which I think for, at least for me, I grew up in Utah. You grew up in California. I don’t know if this concept is like different to you, but it was very different for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well in one thing, kind of going along with that, I thought it was really interesting because you’re right in America, the religious ceremony [00:07:00] sealing can be a civil ceremony. And so it wasn’t until the last few years that it was even allowed American couples, if they chose to get married civilly first, they had to wait a year before they could get sealed. Whereas in other countries where they are separated, that you, the sealing isn’t legal ceremony, recognized as a legal marriage ceremony, you can immediately go get sealed as soon as you deal with the civil. So I thought it was interesting that within the last few years, the church removed that requirement of having to wait that you can in America now choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know people who have gotten married civilly, generally, it seems to be if there’s a lot of family who can’t attend the temple for some reason or another. And then they can immediately that day, the next day, within a couple of days, go and get sealed whereas that used to not normally be the case. Kind of a side note, but could go [00:08:00] back, you know, continuing on what you were saying<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, no, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> The United States, they’re the same now, but in other places they’ve been separated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am curious to kind of see how much longer, if it will ever change in the United States, that the sealing isn’t recognized as a legal wedding a legal marriage ceremony and become more separate like other countries. For now, it can be the same, just really interesting to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, I agree. It is really, it’s fascinating. And thank you for bringing up that point about this being changed recently, that was a huge change and it dramatically changed people’s lives and the way that they experienced this really important, sacred to them experience that now they can involve their parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My dad, his parents weren’t at their temple sealing they aren’t, they weren’t what we consider active members. And that has been really, that was really hard for him and for my mom to not have them. So I think this is an [00:09:00] important point to bring up. So thank you for doing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. So what is marriage then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So again, I want to emphasize, this is our concept about marriage and it being ultra legal is very Eurocentric, very Ameri-centric. It’s not the same in indigenous communities. It’s not the same in many African communities, this is, this is the ultra legality of it is, is very European.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does that, what is the purpose of a marriage historically? Even up until a hundred years ago, the purpose you literally changed your last name. You changed your last name from your father’s name to as if you’re a woman or a person assigned female at birth, you changed your last name from your father’s name to your husband’s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women cannot own property, they cannot be in charge of their own [00:10:00] financial means and such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I’m talking about the legality here, I’m talking about, and the difference between a civil marriage and a religious marriage and why we need to make those distinctions when I’m talking about is the legal framework under which somebody has access to their own body autonomy. Right? Body autonomy, meaning that’s my body. I have agency over my own body and another entity isn’t exercising that agency on top of my body. So this is different from enslavement within the Americas. Because enslavement people do not have access to be able to be in charge of their own bodies. There’s much less body autonomy than in say a [00:11:00] marriage between a man and a woman, particularly in the 19th century. However, women in marriages [I want to say women, but I think what I mean, or is really wives] wives do not have the same sort of access to body autonomy that their husbands do. And that is built within the legal framework of the institution of the government, which is the United States. A very Euro-centric America-centric framework for how we envision the legal parameters of the state. So, for instance, men can put their wives into mental institutions during the, up until I think 1920, I think. And the man has a say, the husband has a, a larger say over the woman’s body and what happens to it and [00:12:00] where she’s institutionalized and how her body is fed, clothed and housed more than a woman does for her own body. Right? So that’s built into the legal framework. So when you get married and you have this contract really between a husband and the woman, a wife’s father, you have this contract. I will take her under my care and under my care, I will also be in charge of her body autonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we talk about consent, we’re going to be talking about: does a person a woman generally, or person assigned female at birth, do they have body autonomy? Do they have access to the ability to say no? Well, the historical trajectory says. They haven’t. For a very long time, they did not have access to their [00:13:00] own body autonomy and we’re living with those legacies even today. As we talk about sexual assault and those sorts of things, we’re talking about: what, what sorts of things do women have and what don’t they have access to because of these legal frameworks of who was in charge of not just their bodies but also property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Yeah, I think it was as recently as like the seventies women had to have their husbands on any credit applications. Like they couldn’t apply for credit on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, it was the seventies and I want to hold space for the significance of that. My parents were alive in the 1970s. Marriage has changed dramatically in the past 50 years. So. I think that we need to recognize this larger historical trajectory of marriage and what it has meant historically, in order to be able to [00:14:00] talk about same -sex marriage, because if we think that marriage has just been the same for millennia as Elder Oaks says, it hasn’t. It’s incredibly different. So 1970s, women can’t even apply for credit their own line of credit. And if you think about it, women are at extreme risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If they get divorced as well, if you can’t be in charge of your own finances, you have are you, and you can apply for your own line of credit. You have significant limitations if you get divorced. So this legality of a marriage and the way that property is exchanged in marriage, I think is a really crucial concept for us to wrap our heads around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s mainly like the the gist of what I want to, to preface all of this with, that we really have to deconstruct [00:15:00] our ideas about marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> And I’m curious and I don’t know if you want to go here or not, but looking at it from a non-Euro centric, Amera-centric view, what was marriage? Is that too broad of a question and not where we’re going?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Well, it’s a broad question, but I want to answer it with specific instances. There are lots of communities where the way that you have unions and the way that you set up families, this is not just like a contract between two people in other places. This is also a whole family network. Which is what polygamy was for Mormons, by the way, too. Like this is a whole kinship network. In those communities some of them were, and are matriarchal. Some of them, some of these unions take place between people who are of the same sex. And that’s for it’s vying for power, right? All of this has to do with who has power and when and how you exercise it. Right? Even in the [00:16:00] American context who has power, well, it’s a patriarchy. Men have power and they have power over women in this very legal sense. Another instance that’s really interesting is Hawaii. So. I don’t think it’s any accident that the legislation for same-sex marriage, starts really in Hawaii because Hawaii is the last state to be colonized that became a state, right? We can still talk about Puerto Rico as being the last place that’s colonized. Um, But isn’t, doesn’t have statehood yet, but in terms of statehood<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> in 1959,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> that’s what I<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> August, 1959. Alaska was January, 1959<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Perfect. Thank you so much for looking that up. So that’s again, not very many years ago, right? Four years before my parents were born, they’re probably going to kill me for exposing their age, but that’s a generation ago that Hawaii became a state and native Hawaiians have a concept of same [00:17:00] sex unions and they have a concept of multiple genders as well, not a binary gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So yeah, there are these communities that think of unions, not necessarily marriage, but a union between people and the creation of families very, very differently than Europeans and Americans do. And then those European and American ideas are then forced on to these people, like in Hawaii or like across the entire United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> interesting. Okay. So that was a bit of a side note, but continue your thoughts. I mean, I’m very intrigued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> So it’s a new concept to also fall in love with somebody. Right? So within Mormonism we have these kind of arranged marriages among the upper classes of Mormonism. When we’re talking about polygamy, [00:18:00] especially, we’re talking about whose father was giving who away to who, as a plural wife,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> That I had never thought of polygamy in terms of arranged marriages and I’m the kind of sitting with that and it’s making me uncomfortable. That’s really interesting. Thank you for bringing that up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> But as we, as we think about polygamy doing that, we have to recognize the whole 19th century is like that this is an upper-class phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Fair. Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Rich folks are going to be because their property it’s all tied up with property. You don’t want your property going away or going to the quote unquote, wrong place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when we’re talking about these arranged marriages, it’s that where’s our property going. We need these two people to get married so our property and these families stay connected. That’s a 19th century phenomenon across all the United States. So then what happens when we start to [00:19:00] develop this concept of marrying for love?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don’t think that you can really. I think it happens. Like we all have read Pride and Prejudice. We understand that there is a sense of arranged marriage and there is a sense of love marriage at the same time. But when does the concept of, “You get married because you fall in love with somebody” enter in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would make the argument. It doesn’t happen till after women’s suffrage. So you don’t get- in the United States- you don’t really get this until the 1920s, for white folks, by the way, this is a very white experience as well. Because white people own property at much greater rates than Folks of Color around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s suffrage is a big moment for that. Now women, once they begin to get certain rights, they can, they have more choices in terms of who they marry and how they expose their bodies to people, all [00:20:00] sorts of things. So, I think that’s where your work enters in as well, because what happens before that is people are just married. It’s just what you do. And you just have sex because you’re supposed to procreate and it’s not…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> You’ve got to keep popping out babies because so many of them die in childbirth or in their younger years. So many don’t survive to adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, so sex, I think, and intimacy are viewed in a much different way. Women are taken advantage of in much different ways early on in the 20th century than later on in the 20th century, not to say obviously sexual assault is still a really huge problem, but now we can talk about it differently than we could in at the beginning before, you know, marital rape was even a thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marital rape, I think is also the 1970s. You don’t get a law legislating, marital [00:21:00] rape until the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah. So it’s a new concept for, for us to be thinking about how love marriage, falling in love with somebody. It’s not exchanging property and names from your father to a husband. And now that causes a crisis for marriage in the United States, at least, because when people can fall in love with whoever they fall in love with, it’s going to turn out. Oh, actually we’re in love with very different kinds of people than we were instructed that we could fall in love with before. That’s not to say that same sex coupling didn’t exist before, say, the 1970s or early on in the century, that’s absolutely not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s just that now we’re entering into a phase where we can talk about it in terms of marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Keep going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I want to talk about what it means to fall in love, [00:22:00] especially as women and especially as people who were assigned female at birth, who their whole lives were told you don’t have sexuality. And also you’re going to be part of an eternal marriage at some point, and never really, at least in my experience, you can tell me if you’ve had a different experience, the concept of love doesn’t really enter into it all that much. This is why we have like three month engagements and then we just get married. It’s not just about let’s have sex. It’s we’ve never had the conversation of what it means to fall in love with somebody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> That’s really interesting. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms before. Yeah. I think one reason I joined the practice I did is I really wanted to get more specific training in sex therapy because let’s be real Mormons are so screwed up with sex. You know, someone comes into my office and they’re like, “Oh yeah, sexuality. It’s fine. I’m good. Sex life is great.” I’m like, “Are you sure?” Like [00:23:00] that’s… I’m not, I’m not used to that. Because what happens when you are raised female and told you are not a sexual person, turn off all sexuality, do not have any sexual desires, feelings, whatever, until you’re married to your husband. And then your sexuality is his. Like, it’s not your own, that causes issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then you add any queerness to that. And that’s why I really am loving doing what I’m doing is I’m able to help in this area that’s kind of taboo in a lot of ways. I mean talk about purity culture. Yes. Raised Mormon is purity culture, but being in America’s purity culture. The fact that we have abstinence -only education and that we don’t talk about sex; it’s just whispered in locker room conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Yeah, porn is out there and easy to find, but it’s still not talked about or viewed. You know, how do you use porn responsibly? What’s ethical porn? Like we don’t have those conversations. So you have the [00:24:00] double purity culture of being raised in America, in a purity culture, in a religion that’s a purity culture, and really I’m amazed if anyone comes out normal. And then I, you know, My experience is being raised female and being told you’re not a sexual person. You’re not a sexual person, but men, people who are raised as men, same thing, except the, what they’re given is the idea of control your sexuality, control your sexuality, control your sexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah. Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Neither of those messages are really healthy. Like how do we have a healthy perspective on sex and sexuality and being a sexual person? I think it can lead to some really interesting conversations and sitting with stuff with yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, for real. So I would like to go back to being assigned female at birth and being raised within Mormonism within American culture, as you say, this double purity [00:25:00] culture and what happens when women or people who are assigned female at birth enter into marriages at 19. You know? This is common to enter into a marriage at 19, and then just to find out there’s all sorts of stuff that’s going on with your sexuality that you never thought about before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I’ve listened to several podcasts with Dr. Julie Hanks and Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife and other therapists who have talked about they have a lot of clients who are assigned female at birth, who come in to talk to them about being asexual. They really believe themselves to be asexual when they’ve never had to confront that issue before. And what they find out is through therapy is they’re not actually asexual. There’s something else going on, but not to erase the experience of asexual folks. Absolutely. That is a real experience, but what I’m hearing is it’s common for, [00:26:00] for people who are assigned female at birth to come in and say, I’m asexual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well, and I even experienced that some myself, because I had shoved it so down. I actually remember making out with a girl I was dating and I told her at one point, I’m like, oh yeah, I think I asexual. And then as we were making out, she kind of like, oh, asexual, huh? And I’m like, oh, maybe not. You know, just it’s so shoved down and I’m not supposed to be a sexual being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And again, not erasing asexuality, but I’ve talked to Natasha about this who owns the practice I work at. And she has the same thing. She’s like, statistically, we think asexuality is 1 to 2% of the population. So when 40% of the women that come into my office say, they’re asexual, there’s a mismatch. Something’s going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course, some of those people may be asexual, but generally it’s exploring, are you actually sexual and just afraid you’ve cut off that side of yourself because you’ve been told for so long you’re not supposed to be a [00:27:00] sexual person. Sexuality is bad. You are only supposed to turn on the switch to have sex with your husband and then off. And you just, aren’t a sexual person. You’re not supposed to enjoy having sex. It’s to meet his needs. You know, very just cis-gender penis in vagina focused intercourse. And sex can be so much more broad than that. That’s one thing I talked to clients about a lot is what is sex to you? You know, when do you feel sexy? How do you turn yourself on? And some of those questions are even a lot for them being like, what do you mean? I can turn myself on? That’s a thing? Like, I’m supposed to be able to do that? What? And I think it can lead to some really interesting and rich conversations of, yeah. Are you a sexual being? Are you allowing yourself, do you want to be a sexual being?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love talking about this stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> No, I love talking about it too. And I love listening to you talk about it. I have quite a few questions for you. But first I wanted to go back to this [00:28:00] concept of asexuality because some we’ve both introduced ourselves and neither of us have really, I don’t think, talked about demisexuality and what that means and what that means to the both of us. Do you think that you can give us kind of some background on that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Yeah. So Demi sexuality is a form of gray sexuality. That’s kind of a scale with asexuality on one side. But the way I described demisexual and how it shows for me is, I don’t experience sexual attraction until there’s an emotional connection. So I can recognize when someone’s physically, aesthetically pleasing. I’ve never been one to have celebrity crushes though. People talk about the idea of, oh, who’s your celebrity crush? Who would you make out with, or have sex with if you could have whatever. And I’m like, why? Like that… I don’t know any of them. I have no sexual attraction to them. I don’t want to make out with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They can be very beautiful and I have no desire. But my sexual attraction to someone [00:29:00] increases as I develop an emotional connection. And that’s when I start, you know, having more of a sexual desire, I have more of a responsive sexual desire. So that’s kind of how I describe my sexuality in Demi sexuality. would you describe yours different?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I actually remember. This conversation has reminded me of a story. So I had been out as a lesbian, I don’t know, maybe even a year… for a while anyway. And I was with a bunch of grad students. We were in this, in the grad room in California, just chit chatting. We’re talking about people that we may have had crushes on. And I’m speaking with a lesbian couple that’s in my cohort with me and I was like, no, no, like, no I don’t. And finally, one of my lesbian friends said to me, Kate, [00:30:00] obviously it’s because you’re Demi. We’ve known for a long time. You’re Demi. And I was like, what? I, first of all, never heard of that. I didn’t know what they were talking about. I had to call them back later cause I was too embarrassed to say in the moment that I didn’t know what that meant. So I had to call them later and say, what are you talking about? And they said, yeah, you don’t just fall in love with anybody. And I was actually super offended by that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was like, I’ve worked really hard for my lesbian identity. I know that I love women. This is like, I’m very proud. I’ve worked very hard to be proud of this part of myself. I have had celebrity crushes. I have had all of that other stuff. I don’t know how much of it is like your clients’ suppressed sexuality. But I do know that I have a very, very intense attraction to people that I have an emotional connection to. that it can develop my sexual attraction can [00:31:00] develop after knowing them and becoming very emotionally attached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so it’s not a lack of sexuality as much as it is that the emotional connection sparks a lot of sexual attraction for me. And it’s, that’s brought me a lot of pain in my life, actually. It’s, it’s been very difficult to navigate and manage. And now that I have a label for it, that’s really helpful for me because now I can say I’m going to put up the boundaries before I fall in love with somebody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now I can identify as lesbian and I can identify as Demi and know my own boundaries and limitations before I, I get to that point. So it’s actually really helpful for me to know that about myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Awesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I know for a fact there are going to be listeners who have entered into marriages and entered into heterosexual marriages in the [00:32:00] temple. They got married, say at 19 or 20 or young and got married after three months. I know there are going to be listeners that say, “I found out that I’m queer.” First of all, I want to say that we offer support. This is supposed to be a community for you. We understand that difficulty that you must be going through and we want to offer the affirmation that that is real and it happens and it’s not just you. this is a phenomenon that both Colette and I see across the board, this is one of the reasons that I was so passionate about wanting to start this project. And it was the first conversation Colette and I had about it. Do you have something to add about that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well, Yeah, just echoing what you said. It’s really common. And honestly, I could see this having happened to me, if I hadn’t fallen in love with a roommate. like I totally could have seen this happening [00:33:00] to me that I got married to a guy and then realized later when I fell in love with a female friend that I realized, oh, I’m not straight. And I see it happen. I’ve seen it happen with some of my friends, with some clients. So just know you aren’t alone. That it’s happened to many people who were raised as women to not realize their sexuality until after they’re married to men. And my theory behind that is the idea that you’re raised to tell yourself and to feel you’re not a sexual being. So you shut down this side of yourself, even though having a sex drive, being a sexual person is a part of being human. You know, babies masturbate in the womb. Like, you are a sexual person, but you are often socialized to turn off that side of you to cut off and separate that part from you. And then suddenly when you are married to a man in the temple, you’re supposed to flip a switch, and things are supposed to be great. And you’re supposed to have a great sex life and produce all the babies. [00:34:00] That isn’t realistic for everybody. Or when they do flip the switch and start figuring out their sexuality and leaning into being a sexual person, they realize this doesn’t quite feel right. I’m not sure what’s going on. Some people is just like, oh yeah, sex is fine. Or like, I’ll do it. For others just feeling something’s off. But then somehow one way or another, whether it’s by falling in love with a friend, getting involved in the queer community, just coming to realizations of, oh, my sexuality feels weird with my husband because I’m not straight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. And this is a different experience from people who were raised or assigned male at birth. The people people who were assigned male at birth are told, as you said earlier, that you do have sexuality, you’re supposed to cut it off, which is also repressive, also harmful to those people who were assigned male at birth. [00:35:00] But when you’re conditioned to acknowledge that you have sexuality, it’s a very different experience when you go to get married. Gay men often know that they’re gay before they enter into a marriage. This is a very different phenomenon between people who are assigned a certain gender at birth. We do want to give validation to that experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we also want to, I’m hoping that this episode acknowledges that this has a long history of saying that women or people who were assigned female at birth, want from a marriage or need from a marriage has constantly been undermined. That you can’t have financial access. You can’t have property, you can’t have all of these things. There’s a long historical trajectory of this, that now it persists in these sorts of marriages to say, you need to stay [00:36:00] with your husband because you’ve been married in the temple and you have children and you’re ruining your children if you do these sorts of things. So there are these instances as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if you fall into that, recognize that this has a long history beyond you and a long history of the patriarchy, before you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> It all comes down to the patriarchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> It does all come down to the patriarchy. But yeah, no, there’s a long legacy of, of marriage not meaning much for women. It means much more for men in terms of what you get from that union, from that contract. And, and it persists and I’m, I am so sorry to those folks who are told that when you find out you’re queer, after you’re married and you build up the courage to leave [00:37:00] or you build up the courage to even just come out to yourself or to anybody else that, that then you’re treated as a pariah. This happens. In fact, I, I don’t often hear a story like this, where those people aren’t treated that way. And I want to offer space. This should be a space for you to come and know and seek out Colette, maybe, in particular as a therapist. Um,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Or other Other queer celebratory therapists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yep. Exactly. So I just want to acknowledge that this is a phenomenon that it’s not you, and it’s not a mistake. You’re not a mistake. This is, this is happening across the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there anything else about purity culture or your story that you want to talk about in terms of what you’ve already been thinking about the past few weeks?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I think overall, just the idea of like how much sooner could [00:38:00] I have realized my sexuality, if I hadn’t been socialized: oh, I am female, which means I will marry a guy. And that is the goal in life. And I must make sure that I am preparing for that in every way. And going on dates with guys and making sure I look good for the male gaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gaze as in G-A-Z-E not G-A-Y-S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Thanks for that clarification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Just checking. They sound the same. Like would I have realized sooner? Like how could I have known if I hadn’t fallen in love with my roommate at age 20… How old was I? 24, 25. Even then, even then! I thought I was still straight. Like, yeah, it’s just this fluke. Yeah. Straight people totally fall for their female roommates all the time. What? It wasn’t until I was 28, 20, [00:39:00] yeah. 28 ish that I was like, oh, maybe, maybe I am gay. How much sooner could I have realized? How much of a different trajectory could my life have been if I had realized sooner? I’m not complaining. Like I’m very happy with where I am and where I’ve ended up, but it does, you know, I do mourn sometimes for the loss of the possibilities I could have had if I had realized my sexuality sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. And I think that maybe they’ll be listeners who are parents and who will now recognize, I hope that now recognize talking to your kids about sexuality early on and not just abstinence only as the only sex education that they’re ever going to get, that they should really be exploring their sexuality. Because coming out as straight is also really important, knowing like kissing somebody, kissing we’re talking, not, not breaking the law of chastity or whatever, we’re talking [00:40:00] about kissing somebody and knowing that that person, that you’re attracted to that person and being like, oh yeah, I’m straight. I’m going to come out as straight. That is an important moment. Every person should be able to recognize their sexuality. And we haven’t had that opportunity for very long, since 2015 in the United States to think about the link between recognizing and knowing your sexuality and being able to enter into that marriage union, where you get to share financial benefits with one another, you get to enter into a legal contract with one another. This is very new phenomenon, but your children and all the kids that we know should be able to explore that and make that right decision for them. Not, I’m not suggesting everybody needs to go out and have sex. I’m suggesting that you just recognize and understand your own sexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> And just going along with that, I think [00:41:00] we, being in a purity culture, do shy away from those conversations, but remember having Good sex ed isn’t just talking about sex. It’s about you know, saying things like sometimes girls like girls and sometimes boys like boys, sometimes boys marry boys. Sometimes girls marry girls. Sometimes people don’t really identify as a boy or a girl, like having little conversations like that with your children to realize growing up in a heteronormative, cis-gender, binary society, having these sorts of conversations as part of having inclusive sex, positive sex ed, as well as having those sorts of conversations about gender, sexuality. About, you know, not shaming children for touching their bodies because it feels good. Right? Not making them fear their genitals because they’re dirty. You’re not supposed to touch that or like that, or look at that. These are all potentially small [00:42:00] changes, even though they maybe, feel really, really big because maybe you didn’t have these conversations with your parents, but I think this, these sort of things, and openness will make it easier for people in the future to realize their sexuality earlier and not be so scared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I talked to a lot of people who come into my office and they’re like, I’m just scared of sex and being a sexual person. It’s like, ah it shouldn’t be. And then, yeah, it’s just, shouldn’t be a scary thing. You know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Absolutely. It shouldn’t be a scary thing. And another point that I was thinking of while you were talking. So for everybody listening, we can, we can think about our bodies. And if you are a Latter-day Saint, you believe in Latter-day Saint theology. And if you don’t believe in Latter-day Saint theology, all people are welcome here. But if you do, I think it’s potentially helpful to think about and read [00:43:00] scriptures that over and over and over again, state the importance of the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Mormons, for Latter-day Saints, the importance of this life is to receive a body and to be cutting yourself off from such an intricate part of who you are and what your body means is to me not divinely inspired to me from what I’m reading in the scriptures. That seems to be, to go against what scriptures say, be in touch with your body. You don’t have to, you don’t necessarily have to be going out and kissing a bunch of guys or whatever. you just need to be in touch with what your body is feeling and experiencing and noticing when you’re attracted to somebody and what that feels like and where you’re feeling it. All of those things about the body are super crucial and important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I love those great, great, more concrete [00:44:00] things that can be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I also want to talk about, since you brought up sex ed. Sex and talking to your kids about sex. Another important part of this and thinking about the importance of body is consent. If we’re not talking about sex with kids, if we’re not talking about sex with ourselves or understanding sex for ourselves and our own bodies, we are leaving ourselves very open and our children very open to not understanding consent and to an epidemic of sexual assault and not just by strangers on the street. I think many people, especially Mormons, still have this concept that rape is about somebody coming up to you on the street. No, what’s happening in where people trust somebody else. And they think that that other person has more control over their own sexuality than they do, and that leads to really big consent [00:45:00] problems. And I think we’ll probably end up talking about this later on, but.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> It’s such a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, we’ll end up having lots of conversations about consent, but I think this is like a good introduction point when we were talking about sex ed and the importance of talking about consent and your body and having control over your body. And when to say no and being able to say no and recognizing that if something doesn’t feel good, you get to say no,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well, and even there are super simple ways to teach consent to kids even. Of when you are going over to a family’s house and instead of forcing them to give everyone a hug, if they don’t want to. Saying, Hey, look, it’s uncle so-and-so. Do you want to give him a hug? Or would you give him a high five? Or do you just want to wave from here? You know, and not forcing them to do stuff with their bodies that they don’t want to do. And people are like, oh, well that you’re, oversexualizing. No, you’re teaching them consent and to listen to their [00:46:00] bodies and what they want to do and not being afraid to be like, It looks like she doesn’t want to give you a hug. That’s okay. Don’t shame people, especially little kids into doing stuff with their bodies that they don’t feel comfortable doing because that’s part of learning to listen to their bodies. And if you are teaching them to override that, that is not good for consent and potentially figuring out sexuality or other things about themselves later on. And that’s part of feeding into people pleasing and not listening to your own needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Absolutely. And that ultimately leads to these other larger, much larger issues of that have to do with marriage and such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Definitely. So I feel like we’ve talked about a lot of random stuff. Is there anything else you want to talk about in this conversation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I feel like there’s a trajectory. It made it, there was, there were connections, but yeah, no, I’m, I feel like, I feel like this is, we can sum up this episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> [00:47:00] All right. All right. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you joining us today. Please feel free to follow, rate and review. If you want to contact us, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram @CalledToQueer. See you next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [00:00:00] Kate: Hello, and welcome to Called to Queer, where we hold space for the queer Mormon women, genderqueer and intersex experiences. I’m Kate and my pronouns are she\/they. Colette: And I’m Colette my pronouns are she\/her. 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