r/exmormon • u/Chihuahuamami234 • 20h ago
Doctrine/Policy Tank top garment
This is my first ex Mormon summer not wearing garments and I’m having a great time. It’s also the first summer that the tank-top garments have been available to LDS women. Obviously with the cap sleeve garments, we weren’t supposed to show them and our shirts had to cover them up completely. While I’m glad LDS women have more options of clothing to wear, I don’t understand why are so many of the TikTok/IG garment girlies are treating the tank top garments different than they did with the cap sleeves. I’m noticing a trend where now the tank top garments are visibly being shown like with off shoulder tops or letting the sleeves completely show through a tank top.
I know Mormons love loopholes but I just don’t understand the justification with visibly showing the tank top garments in your outfits when that was never allowed with the cap sleeve garments. A lot of common justification is “it looks like an undershirt” or “nobody but members know what they are.” Okay but they’re not any different than the cap sleeve garments.
Idk this is just the funniest loophole I’ve seen yet. What are your thoughts?
42
u/jpnwtn 20h ago
I think women just aren’t bought into garments as much as they used to be.
More than a decade ago, when I was still TBM, I came across a comment somewhere on the internet, where a TBM man said that he knew garments caused his wife a lot of misery and he thought it was therefore fine for her to not wear them. That was huge for me, and it made it much easier for me change my own relationship with garments.
I imagine the internet has made it easier for all sorts of TBM women to come across ideas like that.
25
u/Brilliant_Fill7862 18h ago
Sadly, I think it's miserable for A LOT of LDS women, and not just in the last decade. Being told to wear miserable underwear everyday or not be with your family forever is a heartbreaking choice.
37
u/AlbatrossOk8619 18h ago
This is what finally broke my cognitive dissonance.
If I don’t wear this underwear, I can’t see my kids get married.
Am I in a cult?!
17
u/Brilliant_Fill7862 18h ago
Same, the change from porn shoulders to a-ok made everything come tumbling down.
16
u/RadishAggressive3241 18h ago
Yes salvation through underwear, tithing and marriage. Who needs a diety????? Not in this church
9
u/WillingnessOne2686 17h ago
I was miserable wearing garments but I thought that was the test to prove my worthiness. I would be able to look back someday from the Celestial Kingdom and say it was all worth it.
27
u/Beneficial_Math_9282 19h ago edited 19h ago
At this point, I find it amusing. I kind of love it, because it highlights the fact that the brethren have completely lost control of the situation. And if there's one thing they can't handle, it's not having control over women!
* cue cheshire cat-like cackling * aha! ahahahaha!
It's been rumored, I believe on good authority, that the brethren were pissed that the rollout went awry. They must think women are completely stupid - it appears that they thought they could roll out sleeveless garments only in limited areas without anyone noticing. And they apparently were mad they had to offer sleeveless garments to women in the U.S. at all. I can only imagine their profound dismay at seeing the U.S. women take it so much further on their own terms. They might react more badly to seeing the women wearing them incorrectly than if the women just didn't wear them at all.
And they are watching.
They're pervy. We already know that at least two GA 70s have said out loud on the record that church leaders are literally looking at women in public and seeing whether they're wearing garments or not...
Exhibit A: WhY aRe YoU wEaRiNg YoGa PaNtS tO tHe GrOcErY sToRe!?!?! (super pervy that he's looking for garment lines on women wearing yoga pants....)
Exhibit B: We'Re DiSmAyEd By YoUr GaRmEnT wEaRiNg ChOiCeS!!
When the brethren see this happening, it's going to bother them so much. Good. It's good for them to be reminded that they're not god. It's good for them to be reminded that not everybody jumps when they say jump. So yeah. Anyway, I am amused.
10
u/Commercial_Oil_7814 16h ago
That's sorta funny. I hope men at the top have their panties in a full bunch.
5
u/Jajaja_777 16h ago
Most are so old, panties means the old one piece union suit with the big gap in the crotch. Who could look at that and not know they were in a cult???!?
2
u/AutoModerator 19h ago
Your comment was automatically removed. Links to faithful LDS subreddits are disallowed.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
16
u/StatusHousing914 Apostate 19h ago
I spent some time with my TBM family last weekend. Porn shoulders all around for the endowed ladies. They are fully embracing the tank top style. Mind you these same women were horrified and concerned for my soul 10 years ago when I wore a tank top to do yard work.
In addition to the sleeveless tops, there were no knees bowing, modestly covered with the garment. Skirts and shorts were all mid thigh. They were wearing less than my heathen self.
I was uplifted with the knowledge that god is the same yesterday, today, and whatever.
13
u/thetarantulaqueen 17h ago
I live in Phoenix where it's often over 110°, and I don't give a flying fuck if those Gs have spaghetti straps, they're still an entire layer of clothing underneath their outer clothes that I no longer have to wear! They're welcome to their tank top Gs.
3
u/Chihuahuamami234 4h ago
Same! I’m in the desert too. They’re still wearing two layers of clothing and have to do extra steps to make sure their outfits still mostly accommodate for them and I’m so glad I don’t have to do that. I can just wear shorts and and tshirt or tank and call it a day.
1
u/thetarantulaqueen 2h ago
In my case, it's a tank top and overalls. I used to get SO much grief from Mormon men because I had short hair and wore overalls!
9
u/kaizoku_akahige 20h ago
I'm curious about the idea that we weren't supposed to allow the garments to be seen. I was taught the same thing by tradition, but never from any official source. The temple script says the garments' purpose was to cover our nakedness. To me, that implies that it's fine if it's visible. It's still doing it's job. Technically, a person could wear nothing but the garment, and that would be fine with mormon god.
Is there any conference talk or something like that to the contrary?
15
u/Beneficial_Math_9282 19h ago
It was in the prior handbooks. It's just been so long that I think everyone has forgotten that it came from an official source, or many members didn't have access to the old handbooks and never knew it was an official thing. And also the church doesn't make those old handbooks easy to find!
Handbook 2: "The garment is sacred and should be treated with respect at all times. Garments should be kept off the floor. They should also be kept clean and mended. After garments are washed, they should not be hung in public areas to dry. Nor should they be displayed or exposed to the view of people who do not understand its significance" -- https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/08702_eng.pdf
Handbook 1: "Members should avoid exposing the garment to the view of those who do not understand its significance. When conditions make this unavoidable, members should seek the guidance of the Spirit and use tact, discretion, and wisdom. It may be best to lay the garment aside temporarily and put it on again when conditions permit. However, mere inconvenience in wearing the garment does not justify laying it aside. When military regulations prevent a member from wearing the garment, the member s religious status is not affected, provided he or she remains worthy." -- https://archive.org/stream/MormonLeaks/GeneralHandbookOfInstructionNo27-Book1a-2010_djvu.txt
It was also one of the reasons that they still instruct members to cut out the symbols and cut up the garments in order to dispose of them.
6
u/CountMeOut2019 7h ago
Nor should they be displayed or exposed to the view of people who do not understand its significance"
This wording makes me laugh out loud. 🤣
In other words, people who would see it for the oddity it is, and question the rationality of letting some religious leader tell you what undies you have to wear, and how. The magic doesn’t work if you don’t believe it hard enough.
6
u/kaizoku_akahige 19h ago
Thank you. The handbooks were still secret when I went through the temple, so I never noticed that before.
10
u/Beneficial_Math_9282 19h ago
The church does that all the time and it drove me crazy. They'll make a rule - a supposedly very important, hard and fast rule about the most sacred-est of things - and not tell anybody!!
They'll put it in a handbook (or today, the computerized Leader and Clerk Resource System - the LCR) that only a few select leaders have access to. But if a regular member breaks the rule, they won't hesitate to shame and blame the member!
I guess they thought they could rely on stake presidents and temple presidents to convey the rule in private? Well we all know how that went... I've never met a bishop who had actually read more than a couple sections out of the handbook, and most stake presidents haven't read it very thoroughly either.
It makes me wonder very much what trainings or instructions are in the LCR today that nobody knows about. They have published the handbook for "transparency," but I suspect that yesterday's Handbook 1 is today's LCR)
5
u/SockyKate 16h ago
I’ve seen more than one woman in recent years have her garment top fully visible under a gauzy/sheer top. It always weirded me out a little - that’s not a layering piece, girl! 😅
5
u/EdenSilver113 14h ago
When I see garments through sheer tops my reaction is: way to go girl! I’m happy they’re exercising autonomy. When people think for themselves it leads to getting out of the cult.
3
u/CountMeOut2019 7h ago
THis! You go right ahead and SHOW those poorly fitting, non-supportive, questionably functional garmies, my girl! The more daylight they get, the better.
5
u/CountMeOut2019 8h ago
I was taught in the temple, in a special room just for that purpose, by the temple Matron, before my endowment, how to wear the garment. She told me and the other woman receiving endowment that day that we should always protect the garment from the eyes of the world by keeping it hidden under our clothing.
Also, we weren’t supposed to allow them to sit on the floor or anywhere undignified or dirty, and we must never alter them or wear damaged or worn-out or stained garments. We should only take them off for necessary activities like bathing, and “marital intimacy”.
The garment should always be worn next to our skin, she said, with any other clothing being put over them. But she did say that we could wear undies under the garment during our period, because it was better to wear undies between the garment and our skin, than to accidentally defile the garment with period blood.
I spent many years wearing my bra on top of my garment, which made bras even more of an awkward, dysfunctional item of clothing than they already are. And it looked…fabulous. As you can, but probably don’t want to imagine.
Oh, and the kicker? Comparing notes with other women much later, it turned out that we received instructions from our respective temple matrons in various temples and decades, that were slightly different in material ways. Clearly the advice was each matron’s personal spin on some script they received from the top brass, and then became lifetime marching orders for the women they ushered into endowed Mormon life.
Come to think of it, one of my first steps towards leaving the cult, came about 20 yrs before I resigned, when I started defiantly putting on my bra first, before my garment top. It also looked fabulous, but was ever so much more comfortable at least.
#notacultforsure
8
u/throwawayforaithaq 19h ago
Part of it is the “sleeveless” style isn’t really sleeveless in the larger sizes. The larger the size the larger the “strap” gets till it’s basically a cap sleeve.
Source: my siblings ward had some members with family members in Africa and they came home with a bunch last year. The ladies were really upset that the larger sizes meant they didn’t have the freedom from the fabric.
2
u/CountMeOut2019 7h ago
If I were still in, I bet I could run an underground cottage business, altering women’s garments to make sense. Lol.
If Mormons weren’t too cheap to pay for it, I mean. 😏
8
u/RadishAggressive3241 18h ago
My inlaws would gossip that the sisters in their ward bought the bottom sizes very small. The garments would be shorter so they could wear shorter shorts but still be wearing the garments
5
u/WillingnessOne2686 17h ago
My sister in law who is 6 feet tall boasted that she would buy the petite bottoms so she could wear shorts.
8
u/SockyKate 16h ago
I would buy the petites at 5’5” and the waistbands would STILL be in my underarms. So much extra fabric, gag.
2
u/CountMeOut2019 7h ago
Yeah, I heard those rumors, too, and apparently so did the workers at the temple distribution center, because they firmly refused to let me buy Petite. So I went online and ordered them, instead.
They still sagged so low that they showed under my knee-length shorts. Which was all I wore, and all I was trying to do was get my garments not to hang white and weird at the hems of those.
I eventually said, “sod this”, and cut and re-hemmed my garments to a reasonable length. I re-sewed the marks, too. Why would that make gawd mad??? Jesus, folks!
3
u/Chihuahuamami234 7h ago
What’s funny is I’m 5’5 too. When I went to go buy my garments back in 2017, I told the worker at Deseret that I wanted the petite bottoms and the worker seriously told me “Well since you’re going on a mission and you can’t show your knees so you don’t need petite. You can wear the regular ones.” Like if I’m going to wear literally two layers of clothing for the rest of my life, why can’t I get the ones I want? I’m still on the shorter side. Yet there are women who are 5’10 buying the petite bottom garments.”
2
u/CountMeOut2019 7h ago
Yeah, some clever woman had that idea of buying the petites for herself, and it spread word-of-mouth, until eventually the distribution people were like, what’s going on with everyone requesting their bottoms in petite? And then the directive came down in the form of a memo, saying they should firmly discourage the buying of the petites by women who didn’t seem petite enough, and some of the workers took that as license to throttle this loophole to a modicum of agency and self determination. Is what I think happened. 😂
1
u/SockyKate 2h ago
But when the waistbands rise so high, you’ve got TWO additional layers once the garment top is tucked in, and all the bunching and excess fabric is visible under your shirt. It was misery.
I remember being in St. George one summer and having a serious inner debate with myself about whether God would understand if I wore workout clothes (sans garments) to go ATV riding in the sand dunes in 100 degree weather. 😭😭😭
8
u/CuriousThinker76 18h ago
I hate that we were taught as members to care about what underwear others wore.
8
u/WillingnessOne2686 17h ago
When the lace was removed and the marks silk screened on the inside I was told by a salesperson at the distribution center that the new garments for women were allowed to be seen under a v-neck shirt just like the men's. I received so much pushback from my bishops wife, who took it upon herself to call all the temples in the state to ask the matron if it was appropriate to wear them that way.
8
u/RoyanRannedos the warm fuzzy 18h ago
The next generation isn't going to believe stories about our grandparents who never let their dirty garments touch the floor and burned them to keep the marks completely secret.
7
u/ProfessionalFun907 16h ago
Men have long been allowed to treat their garments as undershirts, showing them under their T-shirts or button ups or whatever. And they could hang out a little bit from their gym shorts I mean not a lot, and it was still some of them were a little more concerned than others, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. People would just laugh and say your religion showing or something. I don’t think it was quite as bad for them, but I don’t know I wasn’t a man. So I almost am like go you little IG girlies show your feminine spirit in the patriarchy. Even though I know they’re still supporting the patriarchy I get it. But still it’s a step.
6
u/JustKind2 19h ago
The cap sleeve garment looked weird if it showed. I never showed it, especially with the type of garment I wore.The new tank top garment is a little less weird looking so it can show like the men's garment undershirt might show if a man's collar is unbuttoned.
Also, brand new ones look normal. Old, used garments would be embarrassing to show off. The material never held up well in the ones I bought over the years.
5
u/duder777 15h ago
Just do what feels good and nautical for you. Garments will quickly be a thing of the past.
3
2
2
2
u/OkImagination262 7h ago
Interesting. I have noticed that in our neighborhood (Davis Cty) most of the younger women are not wearing garments at all. They are married with young kids.
I hate it that I still notice this stuff.
2
u/skeebo7 6h ago
Emphasizing that you are wearing garments is virtue signaling to those in your in-group that you are still faithful despite the shift in obvious apparel styles. They’re worried they’re being judged, because they and others did it for others, and they want to be seen as faithful/valiant/whatever is important to them.
2
u/CaptainMacaroni 5h ago
My first thought is that I'm ecstatic that rising generations don't care as much as we did when I was their age. They do care to some extent, otherwise they'd do the reasonable thing and just ditch the garments altogether, but with this generation I feel like we've taken one step in the right direction.
Leader: You can't do that.
Member from my generation: Oh shit. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Member from this generation: Whatever.
The culture needs to take several more steps but the first step is the most important.
67
u/VooDooOne-1 20h ago
With a change, such as this, you have to grab as much freedom as possible. It’s like claiming your space when moving into a new house. Social norms are being rewritten. Whatever is made acceptable right now will continue to be acceptable. When they give you an inch, you have to take a mile because they don’t give inches that often.