Giving A Name to the Sacred
by Eden
A few months ago, I stood in a used bookshop for about twenty minutes, with Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues in my hands. I am both a feminist and an actress, and I was drawn in. As a Latter-day Saint, I was wary. What if this was…inappropriate? What if my home teachers saw it on our bookshelf? What if it just made me feel worse about my vagina?
I kept the book in my basket, browsing among other books, and occasionally stopping to lean against a wall, and flip through Eve Ensler’s book. And after those twenty minutes, I bought it. Why?
Because for the first time in my life, I felt like someone was brave enough to talk about this confusing, sacred, terrifying, foreign, central part of me. Someone had the courage to talk about the confusion and the sacredness. To treat my vagina with respect for its universe-shattering power, and to be honest about how terrifying those metal duck-lips at the gyno’s are.
So Eve Ensler is blunt. The word “vagina,” and any number of its euphemisms, is scattered forcefully over every page of this work. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Especially Latter-day Saints. Seriously. Next time you’re in an interview with your bishop, use the word “vagina.” Just see what happens.
But Eve Ensler’s honesty (and my dare to use the word “vagina” in front of your bishop) gets to the heart of an enormous problem within the Church: We don’t know how to talk about our bodies.
In general, I think most of the human race has a troubled relationship with their bodies. But within the Church, there’s a confusing mix of messages that we try to cobble our understanding together from.
Your body is a temple.
But cover your body, because boys will think dirty thoughts.
Don’t have sex and hum a hymn if you have sexual feelings. Until you’re married. Then have a lot of sex.
Lingerie is dirty. Unless you’re at a bachelorette party.
Talking about sex is bad.
“Vagina” and “penis” are dirty words.
God created your body.
Your body will be tainted forever if you have sex before you’re married.
It’s no wonder we’re confused.
While the doctrine of the Gospel is pretty clear, it makes most people uncomfortable. And because we’re uncomfortable, we teach things in a round-about way, or skip over things altogether, and eventually, the doctrine doesn’t quite line up with the culture of the Church, and the culture is all we know.
But between Eve Ensler’s work, my own journey, and a lot of prayer, a few things are clearing up for me, and I’d like to share them here.
First of all, God made your clitoris. Did you hear me? God made your clitoris. Say this out loud to yourself. Say it a few times.
It will be difficult to say. We never hear the word “clitoris” outside of the realm of porn or perhaps the doctor’s office. But God created your body. And that includes your clitoris. And your clitoris has no other purpose but to provide sexual pleasure. It has 8,000 nerve endings…more than your fingers, your tongue, your lips, and more than TWICE the number in the human penis. And God made it. God wants you to feel sexual pleasure, and He made your clitoris.
Second of all, your body is beautiful, simply because it was made by God. Another contributor to this blog talked beautifully about this principle in the article “Your Body In A New Light.” To add my hearty amen, I’m gonna get all “Allen Ginsburg” on you here, but listen. Listen! Your cellulite is beautiful. Your cankles are beautiful. Your pubic hair is beautiful. Your vagina is beautiful. Your belly button is beautiful. Your body is one of the most complex and efficient machines in the known universe.
Third, the way you treat your body, and what you do with it (or what has been done to it), isn’t a measure of your value in the eyes of God. We do have stewardship over our bodies, but that stewardship is between you and God. And whether or not you fall short in that stewardship still doesn’t change your value.
So, for example, if you’ve got a tattoo, if you have masturbated, if you have extra piercings, if your stomach shows when you lift up your arms in that one shirt…you’re still a child of God. If you don’t shower every day, if you’ve been raped, if you had sexual relationships before marriage of your own free will and choice, you are still a child of God. Some of the things on this list do need to be repented of, but the last step of the repentance process is to let it go, and remember your worth as a daughter of the divine creator of the universe. That object lesson from Young Women’s, when they hammer a nail into a piece of wood? And they say it’s like sexual sin, and then they say God can take out the nail but not fill the hole? It’s not true. The Atonement is far far bigger than that. Big enough to heal you COMPLETELY. No matter what you and your vagina and your cellulite and your fat cells have gone through, you can be whole.
Finally, nobody but you and God have a right to tell you how you should feel about your body. NOBODY. Not the prophet, not Relief Society leaders, not Young Women leaders, not your parents, not your friends, not your siblings, not your husband, not your neighbors, not strangers at the grocery store, not magazine editors, not your in-laws, not your bishop, not all those people on Pinterest/Blogger/Instagram/Tumblr/Facebook, not TV writers.
I’m not saying you should ignore Church leaders. Their mantles are sacred ones, and God does direct the Church in the Latter-days through His servants. But those servants are also mortal men and women. Anything they might say about your body should be taken with a grain of salt until you’ve run it by your Heavenly Father.
And I recognize the irony of my own position here. I’m telling you how to feel about your body. But I’m also telling you to not take my word for it. Ask God. Ignore all the cultural things you’ve been taught. Kneel in prayer tonight and ask Heavenly Father to help you come to peace with your flesh and blood. With your cellulite. With your clitoris.
Since that day in the bookstore, I’ve read The Vagina Monologues half a dozen times. It was a strange catalyst perhaps, but it was a jumping off point for me. I was consumed with a longing to find peace with my own vagina, and all of its associated demons. I began to pray that I could remember and understand that my past is my past, that my body truly is a temple, and that every single part of it is filled with a sacredness so powerful that words can’t do it justice. I’ve got a ways to go on this journey yet, but I invite you, with warmth and hope, to join me.
I kept the book in my basket, browsing among other books, and occasionally stopping to lean against a wall, and flip through Eve Ensler’s book. And after those twenty minutes, I bought it. Why?
Because for the first time in my life, I felt like someone was brave enough to talk about this confusing, sacred, terrifying, foreign, central part of me. Someone had the courage to talk about the confusion and the sacredness. To treat my vagina with respect for its universe-shattering power, and to be honest about how terrifying those metal duck-lips at the gyno’s are.
So Eve Ensler is blunt. The word “vagina,” and any number of its euphemisms, is scattered forcefully over every page of this work. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Especially Latter-day Saints. Seriously. Next time you’re in an interview with your bishop, use the word “vagina.” Just see what happens.
But Eve Ensler’s honesty (and my dare to use the word “vagina” in front of your bishop) gets to the heart of an enormous problem within the Church: We don’t know how to talk about our bodies.
In general, I think most of the human race has a troubled relationship with their bodies. But within the Church, there’s a confusing mix of messages that we try to cobble our understanding together from.
Your body is a temple.
But cover your body, because boys will think dirty thoughts.
Don’t have sex and hum a hymn if you have sexual feelings. Until you’re married. Then have a lot of sex.
Lingerie is dirty. Unless you’re at a bachelorette party.
Talking about sex is bad.
“Vagina” and “penis” are dirty words.
God created your body.
Your body will be tainted forever if you have sex before you’re married.
It’s no wonder we’re confused.
While the doctrine of the Gospel is pretty clear, it makes most people uncomfortable. And because we’re uncomfortable, we teach things in a round-about way, or skip over things altogether, and eventually, the doctrine doesn’t quite line up with the culture of the Church, and the culture is all we know.
But between Eve Ensler’s work, my own journey, and a lot of prayer, a few things are clearing up for me, and I’d like to share them here.
First of all, God made your clitoris. Did you hear me? God made your clitoris. Say this out loud to yourself. Say it a few times.
It will be difficult to say. We never hear the word “clitoris” outside of the realm of porn or perhaps the doctor’s office. But God created your body. And that includes your clitoris. And your clitoris has no other purpose but to provide sexual pleasure. It has 8,000 nerve endings…more than your fingers, your tongue, your lips, and more than TWICE the number in the human penis. And God made it. God wants you to feel sexual pleasure, and He made your clitoris.
Second of all, your body is beautiful, simply because it was made by God. Another contributor to this blog talked beautifully about this principle in the article “Your Body In A New Light.” To add my hearty amen, I’m gonna get all “Allen Ginsburg” on you here, but listen. Listen! Your cellulite is beautiful. Your cankles are beautiful. Your pubic hair is beautiful. Your vagina is beautiful. Your belly button is beautiful. Your body is one of the most complex and efficient machines in the known universe.
Third, the way you treat your body, and what you do with it (or what has been done to it), isn’t a measure of your value in the eyes of God. We do have stewardship over our bodies, but that stewardship is between you and God. And whether or not you fall short in that stewardship still doesn’t change your value.
So, for example, if you’ve got a tattoo, if you have masturbated, if you have extra piercings, if your stomach shows when you lift up your arms in that one shirt…you’re still a child of God. If you don’t shower every day, if you’ve been raped, if you had sexual relationships before marriage of your own free will and choice, you are still a child of God. Some of the things on this list do need to be repented of, but the last step of the repentance process is to let it go, and remember your worth as a daughter of the divine creator of the universe. That object lesson from Young Women’s, when they hammer a nail into a piece of wood? And they say it’s like sexual sin, and then they say God can take out the nail but not fill the hole? It’s not true. The Atonement is far far bigger than that. Big enough to heal you COMPLETELY. No matter what you and your vagina and your cellulite and your fat cells have gone through, you can be whole.
Finally, nobody but you and God have a right to tell you how you should feel about your body. NOBODY. Not the prophet, not Relief Society leaders, not Young Women leaders, not your parents, not your friends, not your siblings, not your husband, not your neighbors, not strangers at the grocery store, not magazine editors, not your in-laws, not your bishop, not all those people on Pinterest/Blogger/Instagram/Tumblr/Facebook, not TV writers.
I’m not saying you should ignore Church leaders. Their mantles are sacred ones, and God does direct the Church in the Latter-days through His servants. But those servants are also mortal men and women. Anything they might say about your body should be taken with a grain of salt until you’ve run it by your Heavenly Father.
And I recognize the irony of my own position here. I’m telling you how to feel about your body. But I’m also telling you to not take my word for it. Ask God. Ignore all the cultural things you’ve been taught. Kneel in prayer tonight and ask Heavenly Father to help you come to peace with your flesh and blood. With your cellulite. With your clitoris.
Since that day in the bookstore, I’ve read The Vagina Monologues half a dozen times. It was a strange catalyst perhaps, but it was a jumping off point for me. I was consumed with a longing to find peace with my own vagina, and all of its associated demons. I began to pray that I could remember and understand that my past is my past, that my body truly is a temple, and that every single part of it is filled with a sacredness so powerful that words can’t do it justice. I’ve got a ways to go on this journey yet, but I invite you, with warmth and hope, to join me.
Please be respectful and kind in the comments--we want to keep Eternal Intimacy a safe space! Disrespectful or unkind comments will be deleted.
The comment box will ask for your name, but you are welcome to simply put "anonymous."
The comment box will ask for your name, but you are welcome to simply put "anonymous."