The war of the underwear

From here on I'm going to share the little experiences that I had while I was in the Mormon Church. It took 15 years of my life so there are a lot of funny, sad, happy and just plain weird stories.

Today's story is in the weird category. It has to do with the sacred underwear that Mormons call the garment of the Holy Priesthood or just plain garments.

The LDS Church is the only religion I know of in which the members are required to wear special underwear. Yet not just any Mormon can wear them. You have to meet some basic requirements first. You must be a temple Mormon. Young men 19 years old and going into the mission field or young women getting married qualify. Otherwise you usually have to wait until you are 25 years old or older. Most of the time it depends on your situation but persons under 18 rarely if ever wear garments. Also you must go through a special ceremony inside the temple to get them.

That secret ceremony is briefly outlined here. I've discussed most of it in an ealirer post but after the water and oil washing and annointing you move to another booth and a temple worker puts the garments on you while repeating the following to you:

"Brother Dunn, under proper authority, the Garment placed upon you is now authorized and is to be worn throughout your life. It represents the Garment given to Adam when he was found naked in the Garden of Eden, and is called the Garment of the Holy Priesthood. Inasmuch as you do not defile it, but are true and faithful to your covenants, it will be a shield and a protection to you against the power of the destroyer until you have finished your work on the earth."

You can take the Garment off for sex, bathing and to go to the beach. Otherwise, you must keep it on all the time. I can even recall a church authority fussing at members for leaving the garments off after having sex. "After you finish you must put the Garments back on" he said.

A picture of a man and woman in their garments can be found on this link.

Before I joined Mormonism I thought garments were cool. They had certain types of mesh garments that not only looked cool but were cool in southern summers. But by god did the ever stand out if they came untucked from your clothing. The result was that you always had to make sure that your cloths were tucked in, you couldn't wear shorts and you always hoped that people would not find out about your underwear and make fun of them. Also, you could never throw them on the floor. They had to be put on a towel rack while you were in the shower. They were so very sacred...and in the long run a big pain in the ass.

When I discovered that Mormonism was a hoax, the first thing I did was ditch the garments. It was like tearing down my own personal Berlin Wall! Unfortunately my wife didn't see it that way. I'll never forget the crying jag she went on when she discovered that I had bought myself some normal underwear. She told me that the garments were symbolic of our "eternal temple marriage" (something that I had never heard before).

For the next few years we engaged in the "war of the underwear". She went out of her way to make sure I knew how "ugly" normal underwear was. It got so bad at one point that I actually put the damn things back on. After a while she realized that Satan wasn't going to ride his Harley out of hell and cut my head off for not wearing the Jesus Jammies but only after I went out in public "commando" for a few times. Better some underwear than no underwear at all.

Over the years I came to see garments for what they really were: the chains that bound you to the Mormon Church. Just part of the vast system to control the average member as much as is possible. I do know one thing: I sure don't miss them. Especially when the heat index in 105!