Turning a Unicorn into a Bat
January 27, 2018 1:57 PM   Subscribe

Josh and Lolly Weed announce the end of their marriage and "sincerely apologize to every member of the LGBTQIA community."

We discussed Josh and Lolly previously here.
posted by great_radio (81 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
I was going to post this! I think their statement is beautifully written and deserves to be read in full. I have been following their story since 2012 and I think they are truly honest, compassionate people learning from life. I'm am glad to see that both of them finally realized they deserve more.
posted by bearette at 2:10 PM on January 27, 2018 [11 favorites]


This sweet family has been on my mind. Lots of hope that life for them both will be rich and fulfilling and not such an enormous struggle to be a human being getting their most basic needs met. Also - very excited to hear about new adventures and feelings they may experience.. I’m truly looking forward to their worlds opening up. Most of all - I’m grateful they both now have hope.
posted by Sassyfras at 2:11 PM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm am glad to see that both of them finally realized they deserve more.

I am happy for improving outcomes. I continue to be saddened at the years of pain caused by religious devotion.
posted by Revvy at 2:22 PM on January 27, 2018 [23 favorites]


Heads up for readers: there's frank talk about suicide and suicidal ideation in this (very good) essay.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:34 PM on January 27, 2018 [14 favorites]


Oh, wow, don't read the comments on the article.
posted by blnkfrnk at 2:35 PM on January 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


This made me cry.

In my own struggles with the faith tradition I was born in and my sexual orientation, I chose a very different path--I stopped being a Christian at 16 years old because I couldn't stomach the lie that I was wrong because of who I was, who I was drawn to share love with.

I feel deeply grateful to Josh and Lolly Weed for being willing to be so honest, brave, and vulnerable, to admit in such a public way how incorrect they were. Like the post says, all of us humans are capable of such epic errors.

I, personally, could not and cannot stand to stay within the church I was raised in--not just because of my orientation but because, fundamentally, it didn't make sense to me--and besides, being a feminist witch is like 1000% more fun. But I think it's powerful and helpful for folks like the Weeds to stay and to speak their truth and to fight for justice and change and truth and love from within those communities and institutions.

And their vision of a homestead with a broader, non-traditional family is honestly beautiful and inspiring to me and, in a profound way, queer.
posted by overglow at 2:42 PM on January 27, 2018 [26 favorites]


Well now I feel like a chump for being so generous five years ago. "He seems very self aware and honest. I hope he has a happy life with his family; what he's doing is difficult." At least I got the last part right.
posted by Nelson at 2:43 PM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Well now I feel like a chump for being so generous five years ago.

How could you have seen through the situation when Josh himself couldn't? We are always, hopefully, growing in self-awareness. Never regret generosity that is honestly given.
posted by Thella at 2:47 PM on January 27, 2018 [60 favorites]


How were you a chump? You gave someone whose story you didn't fully know the room to figure it out themselves. That's usually a good call.

Some of my more conservative family members really liked this story when it first came out and I wondered if it was because it gave some of them a model for how to be gay and maintain their faith that the same time. I wonder how they're take this ...
posted by bunderful at 2:54 PM on January 27, 2018 [12 favorites]


No, definitely not chumplike. That was very kind of you.

They seem like very sweet people who are sorry for the pain they caused others by offering their own lives as a model. I do hope they have a happy, connected family life in the future.

Still -- what a waste of life. All this ratiocination, all this pain, all these years, and for what? Not even a Diet Coke in the afternoons.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:03 PM on January 27, 2018 [11 favorites]


Oh, wow, don't read the comments on the article.

I dunno: I think it’s good to remember that some people around you still live their lives based on hate, fear, and ignorance. Helps keep a sense of the landscape.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:14 PM on January 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


It looks like the server has been overloaded. Is there another link?
posted by steady-state strawberry at 3:27 PM on January 27, 2018


Okay, plenty of the comments are terrible, but they're kind of a hilarious brand of terrible. Like this, re: how is a same-sex marriage "pointless" because of lack of biological children if a straight couple's marriage isn't deemed similarly pointless.

Pointless no but trying to fix plumbing on a house with all male parts is impossible so it’s just common sense.
Or even electrical work try to get all female parts and see how far you get with wiring a house.

Think about that


So, yeah. Think about that, queer people. Apparently their new strategy is to get rid of us by actual brain liquification.
posted by Sequence at 3:34 PM on January 27, 2018 [16 favorites]


I read most of this, it was a beautiful reflective essay analyzing religious influences and current place in life.

I remember this struggle in my own life so so vividly, and he articulated his thoughts super well.

It is very brave for him to be so public with this, and I appreciate his honesty and reflection on his impact on the lgbtqia community.
posted by AlexiaSky at 3:52 PM on January 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


I was thinking about sharing this here, but I didn't. One thing that put me off was noticing how there was a lot of...not so great comments from religious folks (so, I have seen discussions on the believing LDS subreddits, the Christianity subreddit, and the nonbelieving exmormon subreddit. The most critical comments were from the believing LDS and Christian subreddits.)

Like, even with a post that clearly discusses the issues and lays out the problem, I've still seen several people who think that divorce just isn't acceptable. I've even seen a few accounts from folks who are also in mixed orientation marriage who feel like Josh was "selfish" or that he "gave up".
posted by subversiveasset at 4:13 PM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Their about page isn't loading for me, can someone provide some context? Oh the previously!
posted by JauntyFedora at 4:14 PM on January 27, 2018


Archive.org didn't have it, but when I asked it to archive the page, was somehow able to grab it.
posted by aniola at 4:21 PM on January 27, 2018


I read this the other day and was struck by two things — first, the description of what denial is like, which was as realistic as any I've seen; and second, the fact that he came out of that denial through a process that involved (definitely-not-liberal) Christianity.

I hope this isn't taken as flame-bait, since I promise all I'm doing is talking abut my own life and my own experience. (More disclaimers: I know that by and large Christianity as an institution is oppressive to people like me — and much more badly oppressive to people less privileged than me; I know that any good done by a religious practice could in principle have been done by a secular practice, and that conversely there are plenty of things science can do that religion can't; I know that religion is irrational. I know. I know.) But okay: I transitioned and became a Christian at around the same time, and though I wouldn't dream of imposing a "this is part of god's plan for you" narrative on anyone else's life, it sure as shit feels to me like it fits mine. And this
Guys, I can’t tell you how difficult it is to look into an abyss you were told was evil and filled with lava and poisonous snakes your whole life, only to be told later by God, “you know that pit you have been drawn to and taught to hate your whole life? Well, I’m gonna need you to jump into it. Without a parachute. Into pitch black. I promise you won’t get hurt. I promise to catch you. I promise to help you fly.” It is absolutely terrifying. It is putting my faith to the test in ways I have never imagined.
...yeah, that's a little bit like how it was for me.

I dunno. Faith definitely helped me get my shit together as an out queer person with an actually-fulfilling life, and I hope it keeps helping this guy too, and I'm glad stories like this are getting told in a way that's realer and messier than either "I'm queer and religion ruined my life; end of story" or "I'm queer and religion fixed my life; end of story."
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:24 PM on January 27, 2018 [51 favorites]


Archive link (the site is mostly up but flaky).

I feel like a chump because at the time, five years ago, a lot of folks were saying "lol what this guy is doing makes no sense and he's in denial". I tried to find something more complicated here. But turns out, yup, what the guy was doing made no sense and he was in denial.

Also feel like a chump because back then I was trying to be more patient and understanding with LDS and its homophobia. Boy does that feel dumb to me now. I still have a strong affection for the wholesome Americanness of the Mormon Church. But their patriarchal bullshit is toxic and terrible. Josh and Lolly and their children are victims of it.

I still respect the painful sincerity of the writing and Josh's attempts to find some unconventional way of life. Can't help but think there was a simpler way though. Starts with freeing yourself from homophobia, both external and internal. (See also a tangentially related AskMe today.)
posted by Nelson at 4:25 PM on January 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


I don't want to be all "oh sweet summer children" but I do have a lot of sympathy for people who were raised to not date and marry young because

And then, the realization hit me: a homestead is 160 acres! It is not a house, per se, but a property where families can live together, side by side. “Oh my gosh, it said homestead, Loll. Maybe we don’t have to live apart! Maybe we don’t have to break our family up…. ever, and just add future partners to it when the time comes!” The thought was so powerful, so sweet, so right. “I cannot imagine my life without you,” I said. She hugged me as we wept in relief, and said, “Neither can I.”

most of the rest of us did this breakup in our 20s and know that this seems like a fantastic idea that god delivered directly into your head today, but you'll be writing your "we're selling the homestead" blog post in another 5 years or significantly less.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:48 PM on January 27, 2018 [68 favorites]


"Josh was a bat trying to be a good bird." What a powerful moment of understanding.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:51 PM on January 27, 2018 [14 favorites]


I knew nothing about these people or anything before this post, but reading that blog post sort of broke my heart.
posted by hippybear at 4:58 PM on January 27, 2018 [11 favorites]


It kills me, in addition to the whole thing, how many stories about things going wrong boil down to women identifying the problem first and being ignored and/or dismissed.
posted by bleep at 5:34 PM on January 27, 2018 [26 favorites]


FWIW I grew up LDS and the long list of mutually contradictory and self-loathing-inducing bits of advice Josh received from his LDS religious leaders (all male, not coincidentally) is 100% right on the nose:
1. My sexual orientation wasn’t real
2. My sexual orientation was evil
3. My sexual orientation was an abomination
etc
When I was attending Brigham Young University back in the 80s, one semester I had as roommates two recently returned LDS missionaries who had known each other for many years. One, an engineering major, was a stereotypical straight-laced Mormon.

The other was gay and--I soon learned--engaged to be married to a gay woman who was also a returned missionary. The two had met while on their missions together.

So that led to some really, really interesting discussions over the course of the semester.

Roommate A, the engineer, was convinced that the End Times were very, very near but that before they could arrive the Church would be purged, leaving a much smaller but completely pure army of Bruce R. McConkie clones as its only remaining members. He made it quite clear that people like Roommate B and me would be given the pointy end of the boot at that time. In the meanwhile, they were putting up with us only in the (probably vain) hope that we would change.

Conversations with Roommate B revolved around what it was like to be gay, how he knew he was gay, and what it was like to be a believing Mormon and gay--all eye opening topics for me as I had never previously given them much thought.

But most of all, we talked about his impending marriage: Why were they doing it? How did they both really feel about it? And just exactly how was it going to work, practically?

It became very clear that both he and his fiance were viewing their marriage much the way Josh did his: They did actually like each other as good friends. They had no romantic or sexual attraction to each other at all. But both of them saw it as a way to meet the expectations of the Church and the community while having a good partnership if not exactly a true marriage. And it was a way to have some kind of a family in a culture where marriage is very highly valued and where adults who are not married are treated as second class in quite a lot of ways.

And--they couldn't see any other way out of the dilemma their Church and community put before them. As true believers, they couldn't envision themselves either living authentic gay lives (which, as Josh writes, entails either renouncing your faith or waiting around for them to kick you out of it) or staying within the LDS Church as eternally celibate singles.

Long story short, by the end of the semester, Roommate B and his fiance were un-engaged.

It's been over 30 years now and I have completely lost track of both of my former roommates. I have often wondered how life turned out for both of them.
posted by flug at 5:40 PM on January 27, 2018 [27 favorites]


Even non-Mormon, I'm "of a certain age" and I've known at least 3 gay men who were living with their wives "in an understanding" who had kids, and another probably dozen who were divorced but still very involved with their wives and family because the relationship was strong even while the sexuality was not binding.

Sadly across the decades something like 6 of these men have taken their own lives.

I almost lived this/that life. My own background was leading me into a life in the ministry even while I was realizing my attraction to men. I didn't end up on that path but...

I hope Josh and Lolly and their children find peace at the end of all of this.
posted by hippybear at 6:02 PM on January 27, 2018 [17 favorites]


This is beautifully written and I'm very happy for them and encouraged at how far they've come, but man. They still seem so incredibly sheltered and naive to me. I just cannot picture this guy as a therapist, helping other people to deal with life and the world.

They remind me so much of the secondary-level kids in the Baptist parochial school I attended. I remember being 7 years old and thinking, "These kids are totally not prepared for the real world."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:24 PM on January 27, 2018 [22 favorites]


This practice is blessedly dying out in the mormon church (replaced with "be alone and ostracized from all communities forever because you'll get your salvation in heaven" which is, obviously fucking awful). I didn't realize how much worry I was holding for this family until I read this. I am forever glad I never told my bishop about being queer and instead got the hell out of there. The way that religion destroys children, and how that destruction moves to their adulthoods, is unforgivable.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 6:24 PM on January 27, 2018 [18 favorites]


As a Queer Christian I'm very moved by this story and I hope the Weeds find support and love in their community. There are more of us than anyone realizes.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 7:13 PM on January 27, 2018 [9 favorites]


How could you have seen through the situation when Josh himself couldn't?

Reading the comments on the previous thread, it seems a lot of people were able to cut through to what Josh was able to see five years later.
posted by Revvy at 7:57 PM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


But I checked out that thread, and I was disappointed in my comments. I was quick and snarky at the expense of people who had terrible demons inflicted on them, demons I personally was never given to deal with, and were trying to please these demons in the sweetest and most positive way they could. I wasn't wrong, but I was mean for no reason; life is mean enough.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:06 PM on January 27, 2018 [39 favorites]


"Life is mean enough" is a lesson that everyone should hear and learn. Thanks, CE, for your realization. That means more than you relalize.
posted by hippybear at 8:09 PM on January 27, 2018 [25 favorites]


It kills me to see so much effort, good faith, self-sacrifice, endurance wasted on trying to reconcile the insane demands of vicious old men with the reality of one's heart and experience. Imagine what useful work this couple could have done in the last ten years or so if they had not been spending their lives struggling with this.

Confessing your error and repenting like this has to be one of the scariest and most painful things you can possibly do.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 PM on January 27, 2018 [16 favorites]


I am so angry on behalf of his wife. Not at HIM (...well, mostly not at him), but at an LDS religion/culture that so consistently devalues and diminishes its women that having a husband openly say he’s not physically attracted to her, or ANY women, isn’t an immediate dealbreaker.
posted by floweringjudas at 10:01 PM on January 27, 2018 [23 favorites]


They remind me so much of the secondary-level kids in the Baptist parochial school I attended. I remember being 7 years old and thinking, "These kids are totally not prepared for the real world."

I've always had a certain sadness when the 18 or 19 year old kids doing their missionary service after a lifetime of being raised in an insular church and a religious boot camp want to be called "elder." (Yes, I know the biblical reason for this.) I just remember myself at that age and think, "oh, you have so much to learn about this world."
posted by Candleman at 11:21 PM on January 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


14. My sexual orientation was my own fault (for, as stated in The Miracle of Forgiveness written by the Mormon prophet, Spencer W. Kimball: “Many have been misinformed that they are powerless in the matter, not responsible for the tendency, and that ‘God made them that way.’ This is as untrue as any of the diabolical lies Satan has concocted. It is blasphemy. Man is born in the image of God. Does the pervert think God to be ‘that way?’”

I hope President Kimball has been cast into Outer Darkness and stays there until the end of the universe.

And I hope God gave him the finger right before He did it.
posted by elsietheeel at 2:58 AM on January 28, 2018 [8 favorites]


This is a tough post to read. It is articulate and insightful and yet I still think it is missing something, even for everything they say that seems good.

The good: recognition of the wrong that homophobia, particularly institutional homophobia, does to gay people and their families. One of my cousins (child of a mixed orientation marriage that ended in a somewhat acrimonious divorce) once said that it would have been better if her parents had not gotten married, with an unsaid implication about what that would mean for her own existence. No one should ever have to feel that way, either.

The bad: although he included an A in LGBTQIA, I don’t think the post is very asexual-friendly. There are so many ways to be in the world, and no, not all of them involve romantic attachment. This quote in particular bothered me:

The one thing we have learned in the last five years is that no one should be asked to live a life without romantic attachment. All this talk of “love” is actually talk of the basic human need for attachment. It is inhumane. We need it, or at least we need the hope of being able to find it eventually, in order to be healthy.

No one should be asked to live without attachment, but some people are asexual and/or aromantic, and that’s okay too.
posted by nat at 5:08 AM on January 28, 2018 [10 favorites]


Man is born in the image of God. Does the pervert think God to be ‘that way?’

Does Mormon doctrine believe that God is heterosexual? Who does God have sex with?
posted by clawsoon at 5:33 AM on January 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


whomever he wants :/
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:00 AM on January 28, 2018


Yes, Mormon doctrine teaches there is (at least one) Heavenly Mother in addition to a Heavenly Father, and that they have bodies. They have "spirit children" though, not just physical children (Jesus is their only physical son), and those spirit children are all humans on Earth.

The highest level of heaven according to Mormon doctrine is becoming just like one's Heavenly Parents, being resurrected in an immortal body, and eternally married to (at least one) spouse with whom you procreate spiritually in order to populate your own planet that you create. Even though I'm straight, I've never wanted kids, so I can personally say that it's pretty awful when growing up Mormon if the highest heaven sounds to you like your personal hell.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 6:00 AM on January 28, 2018 [15 favorites]


I feel so sorry for them both. They did their best with such low expectations of what a happy marriage should look like, so low that merely being liked and treated with respect felt beautiful and special.

I wish their efforts to convince themselves hadn’t led to them trying to convince others that mixed-orientation marriages are a great idea. But then if they hadn’t tried to help other LGBTQA people, they might never have learned enough to understand their own mistake, and just continued to be miserable until one or the other felt that suicide was the only way out. So I guess now I just hope they put as much effort into reforming the LDS church as they did into trying to conform to it.
posted by harriet vane at 6:02 AM on January 28, 2018 [5 favorites]


Correcting myself on Mormon doctrine: Jesus is the only human to be God's physical son as well as spiritual son, but God had sex with Mary of course. Brigham Young was the clearest on this point in terms of it being literal physical sex, and some others try to finesse that point by guessing that the Holy Ghost may have like gathered a chain of God's DNA and magically fertilized an egg, but the literalness of the procreation is always there somehow.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 6:05 AM on January 28, 2018 [6 favorites]


The Miracle of Forgiveness is one of those documents that is responsible for so much pain and awfulness. Other passages from the book include:
“Your virtue is worth more than your life . . . preserve your virtue even if you lose your lives.
...
Also far-reaching is the effect of the loss of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in a forced contact such as rape or incest, the injured one is greatly outraged. If she has not cooperated and contributed to the foul deed, she is of course in a more favorable position. There is no condemnation where there is no voluntary participation. It is better to die in defending one’s virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.”
These are some of the last words I read before my first suicide attempt at about age 10 or 11.


but at an LDS religion/culture that so consistently devalues and diminishes its women
I can't even explain how damaging it is to be a girl in the mormon church. I'm not suggesting it's easy for the boys, obviously, it extracts a toll on everyone - but the girls who become women under that structure...it's a wonder any of us make it out alive.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 6:07 AM on January 28, 2018 [25 favorites]


There is no reforming the LDS church on this matter - at least not for a few decades. There was some wiggle room in individual congregations - gay people holding callings (not involving children or real leadership), gay people attending services as couples, etc - and then the hammer was dropped from SLC and that was that. With the most recent prophet dying, the next 4 or so leaders (and their expected counselors) are very, very homophobic and some seem to believe it's their sole mission to keep the church from any leniency on that topic. I believe they know they are actively killing queer kids, and pushing people out of the church, and I think they're glad about that.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 6:12 AM on January 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


Is it just me, or does The Miracle of Forgiveness sound like it's rather lacking in forgiveness?
posted by clawsoon at 6:28 AM on January 28, 2018 [10 favorites]


Was it possible that my sexual orientation was beautiful? That it was beautiful in the same way blue eyes can be beautiful? In the same way the Grand Canyon is majestic and lovely, attracting admirers from around the world? Could it be that my sexual orientation wasn’t a mistake? That it was part of the diversity and variety that brings nuance to our planet and to humanity?

QFT

And:

Guys, I can’t tell you how difficult it is to look into an abyss you were told was evil and filled with lava and poisonous snakes your whole life, only to be told later by God, “you know that pit you have been drawn to and taught to hate your whole life? Well, I’m gonna need you to jump into it. Without a parachute. Into pitch black. I promise you won’t get hurt. I promise to catch you. I promise to help you fly.” It is absolutely terrifying. It is putting my faith to the test in ways I have never imagined.

I was raised Presbyterian. I’m always gonna be a southern Presbyterian. That said Grover helped me a lot too when he realized he was the monster at the end of this book and that it was okay for me to to be the monster at the end of “The Good Book”.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:59 AM on January 28, 2018 [8 favorites]


It has been my experience that many if not most leaders in the Church recognize that The Miracle of Forgiveness (1969) is not real good anymore, and was never an official publication of the Church. When I went through Church Court, my Bishop at the time described it as "a product of a previous age, and punitive in its approach." This from a man who was enthusiastically part of the system.

Informally among Bishops and Stake Presidents, Brad Wilcox's The Continuous Atonement seems to have taken its place as a recommended reading guide for understanding repentance. Again, for people unfamiliar with the Church, also not an official publication, merely a book privately published by a member, with part of the reason being to make money as an author.

Mormon Doctrine, which people who hate the church love to quote, on the other hand has always been deprecated by the Church. Immediately after publication, church leaders stressed again and again (and have continued to do throughout the years) that this is not an official Church book, that many things in it are wrong, and have tried for years to influence the publisher to let the book go out of print. They finally succeeded in 2010. It is well known that Bruce R. McConkie was censured for writing the book, because other (more rational) leaders recognized that it was an incendiary garbage fire of a book that would be seized on by the most virulent and zealous as a reason to act like complete monsters. And it has.

Although personally, McConkie's work did allow me to follow his thought processes to derive a Mormon-acceptable military tattoo. He wrote that a blood-type or identification number in an obscure place was the only tattoo a member should get, so in 1987 when I graduated from the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego that is the exact tattoo I commissioned. I still remember the blood leaking down my back, the hot desert air blowing in through the car windows, and my U2 cassette playing as I drove from the tattoo parlor in Josua Tree to my parent's home in Yucca Valley.

So far it looks like I am the only at-least nominally practicing Mormon who has commented in this thread. I haven't seen The World Famous or other people who offer the view from inside on Metafilter for a while, but that may be because I generally avoid any posts on the Church here for the past few years.

As far as the article itself, it is heartbreaking and there is no way to defend the Church or its teaching in these situations. For years this has been simmering in me, shared only with my wife. How can an organization that has done so much good and taught so eloquently about Christ act in a way that is so manifestly un-Christlike? I have not had a Church calling in several years because of my wife's illness, but I am not sure would accept one now if a call was extended. This internal and external conversation goes on and I am afraid of what its outcome in my life and the lives of others will be.
posted by seasparrow at 7:06 AM on January 28, 2018 [24 favorites]


I really hope that this couple is engaging in non-LDS therapy. I’m worried that their fervent faith in faith is not going to shelter them on this path. Like, you don’t have to jump in the snake pit. There is no snake pit.

It brings to mind, “Physician, heal thyself.” They are clearly taking some part of that to heart but I worry about how their faith will or won’t let them down.
posted by amanda at 7:08 AM on January 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Thanks for your clarifying and helpful comment, seasparrow.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:58 AM on January 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


you'll be writing your "we're selling the homestead" blog post in another 5 years or significantly less.

Yes, I was worried about this point too, also about how hard it will be if they do buy this homestead and then try to date while living with their ex and how much it will limit their dating potential...but also, the homestead isn’t bought yet and may never be.

My heart goes out to these kids though, and I hope they make it alright.
posted by corb at 8:09 AM on January 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Kids being Josh and Lolly, who I know are adults but still just seem like they are just setting out. Their actual kids will be fine.
posted by corb at 8:10 AM on January 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


The bad: although he included an A in LGBTQIA, I don’t think the post is very asexual-friendly. There are so many ways to be in the world, and no, not all of them involve romantic attachment.

For what it's worth, as an asexual person who is cheerfully agnostic about whether I experience romantic attachment at all and whether it's actually possible to properly define it in opposition to other forms of attachment, particularly when you divorce it from exclusivity and sexuality....

...as an asexual person who's been involved in activism within my community for nearly ten years at various levels...

The one thing we have learned in the last five years is that no one should be asked to live a life without romantic attachment. All this talk of “love” is actually talk of the basic human need for attachment. It is inhumane. We need it, or at least we need the hope of being able to find it eventually, in order to be healthy.

I had no problems with this post whatsoever. Nor did I have issues with his framing. The quote centered actually takes pains to center the basic human need for attachment without specifying that said attachment must be romantic, and he's completely correct when he says that no one should be asked to live a life without romantic attachment. If romantic attachment doesn't hold any particular draw for you, well, that doesn't mean you can't choose to get your attachment needs met in other forms.
posted by sciatrix at 8:11 AM on January 28, 2018 [19 favorites]


Their actual kids will be fine.

I wouldn't be so sure. As noted by many folks above, growing up as a girl in a patriarchal LDS environment can be a pretty bad experience. Growing up in a family with an oblivious dad who is so self-absorbed and earnestly oblivious is also not great. I mean look I don't know them at all, and kids are resilient. Judging how parents raise their kids is shitty. But they've put all this out in public for us to read and have opinions about. The fact they've got 4 daughters along the ride while dad figures out his bullshit seems problematic. I hope those kids have friends and support outside their family. Ideally not tied to a patriarchal religious structure.
posted by Nelson at 8:17 AM on January 28, 2018 [8 favorites]


The fact they've got 4 daughters along the ride while dad figures out his bullshit seems problematic.

Same thing was said about me my three kids when I came out as trans five years ago. A lot of of people used this line of thinking to be extra shitty to me.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:33 AM on January 28, 2018 [29 favorites]


Yeah I’m a lot less worried about the Weeds’ daughters bearing witness to the human struggles of what has been uncharitably characterized as “dad figur[ing] out his bullshit” than about the toxic soup of white male entitlement the LDS Church steeps their growing minds and lives in.
posted by sutureselves at 8:50 AM on January 28, 2018 [20 favorites]


I know the party line is that The Miracle of Forgiveness isn't taught and was never meant to be doctrine, but that was not my experience with it at all. It was read from the pulpit, it was read in young women's, it was on handouts, it was read to me by multiple bishops when I was repenting for being molested. It was also written by someone who would become prophet (while he was an apostle) and to certain (extra devout? orthodox? extreme?) congregations/families/etc it is absolutely treated like doctrine. It's one of the problems of a church that acts in a top down way for some things, but seems to let other incredibly harmful things (that they fully know about) just keep going on.

Oh, and one of the people who read The Miracle of Forgiveness from the pulpit? One of the men who will likely be the prophet in a few years. It is not as outdated as we'd hope.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 9:48 AM on January 28, 2018 [10 favorites]


I also want to say that I will defend the church on things I think people who have never been Mormon get wrong. I in fact have done that on here in the past. But they deserve every bit of ire on how they treat sexuality in general and LGBTQIA issues in specific, and how long mixed-orientation marriages were the going solution (and how those were often gay man, woman who didn't know until after they were married, set up explicitly by leaders), and - yes even though it was never "official" - for the torture programs at BYU against gay men.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 9:57 AM on January 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today!: it was read to me by multiple bishops when I was repenting for being molested.

Reminds me of an ugly bit of my heritage that I recently learned about: Before refugees from WWII were accepted into some Canadian Mennonite congregations, they had to repent for their "sins" of leading meetings after all the men were killed by Nazis and/or Communists, and for being raped by said Nazis and/or Communists. And of course they repented, because what other support networks did they have?
posted by clawsoon at 10:30 AM on January 28, 2018 [5 favorites]


I'm not personally attending LDS services anymore, but my family of origin is, including extended family that I'm close to as well. And many friends, a whole community of people whom I work very hard to stay in touch with in order to not "throw the baby out with the bathwater" after I stopped accepting the way women and LGBTQ people are routinely treated by the organization. Several of these friends and family who know why I left have told me that things are improving within the church because gay people are no longer being counseled to marry an opposite sex person. They act like it's such an improvement that gay people are now being counseled to remain single, just like the straight people in the church who don't marry in this life. It's so important how this article addresses that it's Not The Same, and that this new supposedly improved remain-single counsel is honestly not any less harmful to a gay person than the old marry-hetero counsel. (Which to be clear was also life threateningly harmful.)
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 11:14 AM on January 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


Their whole story is new to me with this post, but I have a hard time judging Josh and Lolly at all* because I see them first as victims. As young people, they suffered from the massive, unrelenting and psychologically very well-honed indoctrination of the LDS church, and instinctively ran away from it with their best friend. They never chose that, and it takes anyone a lot of work to dig through something like that, especially if the huge extra aspect of being homosexual is included.

I commend their continuing work toward greater self-understanding and awareness, and the wisdom they've earned so far in seeing that what they have learned there is universal, too. I really find it difficult to dislike or judge harshly anyone who writes something like Lolly did:
In the Weed family, no one gets kicked out for being who they are, and everyone is allowed to find the kind of attachment they were made for. Josh. Me. Our children. Hopefully our grandchildren. Everyone is of equal worth, no matter who they were born to love, and they will always, always have a place at our table [....]
*Though I must admit that I find the divorce-but-still-stay-a-family choice to be, as mentioned upthread, really naive (or worse, a symptom that Lolly still struggles with self-worth). I just don't see a scenario where exploring one's romantic/sexual self--especially Josh--while coming home to your four young children every night, to your ex-spouse, is sustainable. The first time somebody's mind is blown by the neuro-narcotic rush and joy of real sexual and romantic attraction, and that giddy high sets in, will likely reveal the terrible incompatibility of sustaining their current choices while discovering essential parts of themselves too-long delayed in knowing. I say that with no judgment toward the Weeds, more like hope that I'm wrong about it, and that if I'm not, that they will face those developments with the same love, compassion and honest communication that they're clearly exceptionally good at.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:42 PM on January 28, 2018 [12 favorites]


see, but, no. They didn't run away from their indoctrination. If anything, they leaned into it. They embraced the time-honored Mormon tradition of a gay man who thought he had no option marrying a woman with little to no self-worth. The only difference is they wrote a blog about it, instead of keeping it a shameful secret for years and years and years until they died. They traded on their story, became show ponies for the Church, and other LGBTQIA LDS members who'd come out and were trying live their truth were physically and mentally harmed because of them.

I dunno. As much as it pains me to admit I'm not, in fact, Captain America, it does not take a superheroic amount of fortitude to recognize when an institution is fundamentally wrong, and is demanding things of you that you absolutely should not do. That it took the Weeds 15 years, 5 of them public, a lot of people spelling out exactly how their actions were harming the LDS LGBT+ community (which already has astronomically high suicide rates), and then finally impotence for them to recognize that their marriage probably wasn't the healthiest option...I'm finding my capacity for sympathy somewhat limited.

I wish the best for them. I guess. Mostly Lolly and their kids.

I also wish the best for the next 3 generations of LGBT+ Mormon kids whose parents are going to print out that first blog post and use it like a weapon.
posted by floweringjudas at 4:33 PM on January 28, 2018 [20 favorites]


it does not take a superheroic amount of fortitude to recognize when an institution is fundamentally wrong, and is demanding things of you that you absolutely should not do

It's a rather remarkable assertion that there is a moral imperative for two consenting adults not to enter into a mixed-orientation marriage. Misguided? Naive? Likely to lead to failure and great heartbreak? Sure to all three. But morally wrong? Something "you absolutely should not do?" How do we get to that point?

The Weeds are far more responsible for what they may have done with their own story in their private lives (especially in the husband's counseling work) than for what other people decided to do with it. Not only are the actions of other people generally their own responsibility, but it's pretty clear reading both posts that they were hugely naive about the way their story would be weaponized. It was not something they considered an inevitable consequence of talking about their marriage.

I think it can be very hard for people who did not grow up in fundamentalist or highly observant religious communities to understand just how sheltered young people who did can be. Dogma fills in for the lack of experience, and then, well-rooted, battles the assimilation of the experience that does come.
posted by praemunire at 6:24 PM on January 28, 2018 [12 favorites]


I was born under the covenant. I grew up Mormon. I realized I was not straight when I was a sophomore at BYU-Idaho. I’m aware. But somehow I managed to understand despite my naïveté and sheltered upbringing that entering into a marriage where there’s a secret imbalance in the desire felt between two partners isn’t exactly fair. Like, how is there not a moral imperative there to tell such a massive personal truth to the person who’s agreed to share their life with you? When would that particular imbalance be a good thing?

I can appreciate that the Weeds probably didn’t expect that their story would get so much attention. But geez, being a member of the Church doesn’t automatically negate one’s ability to tell when something is intrinsically f*ed up. for what it’s worth, i’m glad they’re getting some peace now.

anyway, i’m not trying to threadsit and tbh i’m sort of mad at all of the headspace the Damn Church has occupied in me YET AGAIN, so I’m gonna go watch some cars race fast and also furiously with my wife.
posted by floweringjudas at 7:46 PM on January 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


Like, how is there not a moral imperative there to tell such a massive personal truth to the person who’s agreed to share their life with you?

I imagine Josh Weed would agree with you, which is why he told Lolly on their first date. Which is all over the articles.

one’s ability to tell when something is intrinsically f*ed up

I would submit that an inability to distinguish between a personal sense that something is "intrinsically f*ed up" and a conviction that that same thing is morally wrong or forbidden is at least 50% of the problem in these situations.
posted by praemunire at 8:45 PM on January 28, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm out of rolling papers so I just rolled a joint out of a page I ripped from my Triple.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:04 AM on January 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


Yeah, put me in the "what a naive boob" department. Notice that he puts his mother's death way first, and his wife's feelings second to last, before his kids. Oh, wait, my wife might have feelings about this! And being completely rejected, physically and emotionally, by the person she loves is not nice! Huh! Not surprising from such a patriarchal culture, I guess. There needs to be way, way more on the internet stories about rejected spouses. There was one a few years ago that was all "rah rah rah even though you're the rejected wife, you should still support him because it took tremendous courage for him to come out of the closet." To which she replied, "I feel like my spouse has been murdered, and I'm being asked to marry the murderer." Sure, be courageous all you want, but there's one person who's not going to rejoice with you in the slightest. It simply doesn't work that way, because women have feelings too.

As for the homestead idea...hmmm, let's see. I'm considering dating a person, but discover that he/she is on a large parcel of land and is constantly running over to the ex's house. I suppose it could work, in the right circumstances, but I wouldn't bet the rent on it.
posted by Melismata at 5:15 AM on January 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


Notice that he puts his mother's death way first, and his wife's feelings second to last, before his kids. Oh, wait, my wife might have feelings about this! And being completely rejected, physically and emotionally, by the person she loves is not nice! Huh! Not surprising from such a patriarchal culture, I guess.

Yeah, this is what jumps out at me too. Lots of sympathy for the man’s struggle. The woman is, as always, an afterthought.

People seem more willing to be polite (if that’s the word) about fundamentalist religion’s misogyny, as opposed to homophobia. I think there’s a very obvious reason for that.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:33 AM on January 29, 2018 [9 favorites]


One of the more damaging things the church did to me was from a very young age they made it clear that my body was a gift for my future husband and a vessel to birth my own little army of Zion. It was never mine. It was always something to be protected or acted upon. As I got a little older the message started being that women don't possess sexual feelings, that sex is something that could feel good and a husband should at least try to make it feel good, but it was a duty, like him bringing home the paycheck. Women's interest in sex was for procreation and for familial harmony, and anything more was maybe getting a little too close to sending the holy ghost away.

It is not surprising to me at all that Josh didn't really prioritize not rejecting her. I have never heard a lesson where a husband was instructed to remember to lay his lady down if it wasn't about kids. I have heard an untold number of stories about the duties of a wife. He might have even convinced himself he was saving her from having to perform that part of her job.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 6:21 AM on January 29, 2018 [14 favorites]


It’s inportant to recognize that this dialog is centered completely on Cis people and remember that these same arguments that may fall into the “misogyny and oppression” category for two Cis people will very quickly fall into “saying things that are potentially extra shitty” when a trans person reads y’alls comments and observations about being not straight/not Cis.

Maybe if somehow we could get better at specifically stating “Cis” in our comments as a way to be extra explicit about the types of people we are critiquing here that would be helpful.

Just my thoughts.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:36 AM on January 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


My comment was never intended to be rubbing it in someone's face. It was intended to be a response to the assholes who say that my feelings aren't important. Sorry that wasn't clear.
posted by Melismata at 8:44 AM on January 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


This particular issue is one with a lot of pain for people all around, including people with religious trauma, queer people of a number of stripes, and people who have to work through the pain of a relationship in which they were--well, not to put too fine a point on it, chosen for their acceptability rather than themselves.

There should be spaces for each of these groups of people to release their pain, focus on that pain, and work through their trauma without having to also hold the trauma of other interrelated people. However, those spaces need to be clearly marked, because a huge part of working through that trauma involves expressing frustration with other people who are themselves hurting, and whose experiences are tied tightly to other hurting people who have done absolutely nothing wrong, but who have experienced the same pressures pushing them to do similar things. Sometimes, pain isn't easy to lay at the feet of anyone who is responsible for it.

It's wise, then, to be aware that here on Metafilter in a public space, we can't drop the emotional labor of thinking about other people's trauma as we work through our own, because people with their own wounds are sitting and listening. And that sucks, because that is a heavy, heavy burden to hold, and for some people and some conversations it's impossible to juggle your own pain and the awareness of the pain of others at once, so that your explosions of frustration with that pain are directed only at people who are genuinely responsible. That's an extra cognitive load that not everyone can always manage at once.

Just... a note. If people want to get into that idea further, I can open a MeTa--this is a general issue with Metafilter, not a specific issue to this thread or any one person. But it's good to be aware of, especially on topics that deal with so many people who have spent so much time hurting.
posted by sciatrix at 9:30 AM on January 29, 2018 [18 favorites]


I had assumed the subtext on his mother's death - whether he knows this already and isn't quite willing to say it explicitly, or will figure it out eventually - was actually "there is no fucking way on this planet or any other that I was going to come out until my mother died so I had to wait for that first."

I have known lots of people who made similar decisions about all kinds of Not What Mother Expected personal circumstances, and also similar subconscious decisions of which they were not really aware until sometimes decades after that event finally occurred. It certainly should not go in the handbook as a recommendation, but I also get why it's a decision some people make.

And to that end: Like, how is there not a moral imperative there to tell such a massive personal truth to the person who’s agreed to share their life with you?

I wish we had more empathy for people not knowing everything all at once. I won't even attribute it to youth so much as "you only know what you know, and sometimes a whole bunch of stuff you think you know but dang do you not know." There's no way for two barely-adults to know what it means, what the scale is, what the truths actually are, even to be all the defaults in the culture in which you are raised. Even people of the same compatible faith are going to find the expression/experience of their faith isn't the same as the other person's and does not change in the same way as the other person's over time, and there is no way to teach that in a way that is meaningful except by experience. A lot of things are like that, it's the engine that drives multiple self-help and productivity industries.

They did try to communicate from early on, from as much as either of them knew how to do so, and I don't think their naivety can be solely attributed to their conservative religion. Some, yeah, but two Tumblr kids who know the names of all the genders including the secret ones still, at 20, don't have a lot of context for talking about what a long life full of yet-unknown variables and experiences would actually mean. Most people who don't have a ton of life experience don't know what sickness vs health really means, or what being good/bad with money means, or not/wanting kids, or wanting to live in the city or country, not to mention the repercussions of deep hard shit a lot of people have already experienced at that age (or will, in the future) and how those things unspool over years and decades. It is a tenacious human brainglitch that we believe that everything will be as it is right now, forever.

Lots of people have had experiences either exactly like the Weeds or on a similar arc - at first you didn't really understand a thing about yourself/the world and later you understood better and shit, you based everything on the original assumption and then oh fuck now it's even later and you understand even more and it keeps not stopping and you can't anticipate where to put the pin in your plans. Doing it in public is unfortunate as hell and also a real common risk in the social media age, but that's about the only new thing about it. People have been waking up to realize they were so wrong since about the time thinking was invented and nobody's fixed it yet.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:18 AM on January 29, 2018 [10 favorites]


Countess Elena: “But I checked out that thread, and I was disappointed in my comments. I was quick and snarky at the expense of people who had terrible demons inflicted on them, demons I personally was never given to deal with, and were trying to please these demons in the sweetest and most positive way they could. I wasn't wrong, but I was mean for no reason; life is mean enough.”

For what it's worth, I don't think you were mean. You said that the article would hurt gay people. That was true. In their follow-up, Josh and Lolly agreed, which is why they cast it partially as an apology. This is a tough thing, because on the one hand these kids certainly are trying to find their own way, and they can't necessarily be blamed given that they were pushed into marriage and this whole culture so young; and on the other hand, the initial article actually hurt people, and (as Josh says now) the church is killing LGBTQIA people, and mistakes like this one have real and serious consequences.

And even if you had been mean or snarky... In the end, I feel like it's a nice thing to be able to forgive Josh and Lolly for the difficulty they had going through this. But I have at least one gay friend who would spit and swear if I mentioned them to him – a gay friend who grew up in a situation in Wyoming that was not so incredibly different – and... well, I'm not going to begrudge him the anger he might feel at Josh and Lolly even now. Forgiveness isn't a duty any gay person owes to any religious person who has made life hard for LGBTQIA people... even if the situation is complicated by the fact that that religious person is themselves gay.
posted by koeselitz at 10:30 AM on January 29, 2018 [7 favorites]


My heart goes out to this couple that clearly love each other deeply and have tried so hard to make things work.

I keep coming back to Lolly's emphasis on romantic love...

We realized the thing that so many people had tried to tell us: that we didn’t have romantic attachment. That romantic attachment was essential to a functioning marriage. And that it was something that we never had and, hauntingly, that we never would.

Romantic attachment. It’s one of the main purposes of life!

Platonic love is simply not enough, no matter how much we hoped it was. God designed us to need and want romantic attachment.


Firstly, I'm curious to know exactly what she means by the term "romantic" in this context. She has many elements in her relationship with him that I feel we might ascribe to romance: her husband wanted and committed to spend the rest of her life with her, was deeply emotionally and physically intimate with her...

I feel like the ingredient they're (both) really missing is his sexual desire for her. But in many long term relationships desire fades but enduring (and arguably romantic, if a definition is allowed beyond sexual desire, which I would argue there is - as the asexual community recognizes) love can remain.

I often feel it's a shame that society has become fixated on romantic love as the ideal for marriage. Is it really so terrible to have a marriage which provides intimacy, companionship and love, but not specifically in a manner prescribed and held up as The Ultimate (i.e. Romantic-with-a-capital-R) by society? Do only those who are aromantic get a "pass," and all the others who have relationships like this are lacking/inadequate, even if they find them fulfilling?

Don't get me wrong; everyone deserves to be desired, and ideally for as much/long as they want in life. And I can absolutely appreciate that, having never having really experienced it, they are both aching to have that need met. I wish them all the best in their journey. I just think it's interesting that the close, caring relationship they have now is where I feel like many of us might be happy to end up in older years if/when sexual desire fades to the background.
posted by dendritejungle at 10:56 AM on January 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


Well, leaving aside that she may be uncomfortable with the words "sexual attraction" and is using "romantic" as a stand-in for love+the hots....I think the main problem in their relationship is not necessarily that he doesn't have the hots for her, it's that he has the hots for some other kind of person. Not another woman but another man. And, in fact, he has the reverse hots for her, a revulsion. It's one thing to find your physical and emotional needs for closeness and intimacy met by another person and to feel whole and fulfilled by the relationship that you have. It's totally another for your loving touch to feel foreign and unwanted by your partner. And that happens all the time in loving relationships, too. If one partner has trauma, current or unresolved. If one partner has harmed the other intentionally or not. If one partner's libido has exited stage left from where it used to be. And it's really hard and derails many relationships.
posted by amanda at 11:24 AM on January 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


I came to this thread late, because I spent last weekend at an RPG convention, in other words, I spent a few days pretending to be someone that I wasn't. But it was all voluntary, and I wasn't encouraged by my society or my religion to believe that I could literally become someone that I wasn't, or even a reasonable facsimile thereof, regardless of the enthusiasm that I put into the role. I did once belong to a religion that similarly does not give LGBT people (or women) the same rights as men within their faith, and I've also entered into a marriage for not entirely the right reasons, with a certain number of illusions that in the fullness of time were dispelled. I've also come to realize and confront some illusions about myself in the course of my recovery from alcohol addiction.

This is by way of saying that, while I don't really disagree with what I said about Josh Weed in the previous thread, I have more sympathy for him now. I would also note that forgiving isn't the same thing as forgetting.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:37 PM on January 29, 2018


I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today!: One of the more damaging things the church did to me was from a very young age they made it clear that my body was a gift for my future husband and a vessel to birth my own little army of Zion. It was never mine. It was always something to be protected or acted upon. As I got a little older the message started being that women don't possess sexual feelings

I've been gradually realizing the flip side of those teachings for men: If a woman can never truly enjoy sex, then sex is always something that she's doing under obligation or coercion. According to that view of the world, women can never give full, enthusiastic consent; thus, as a man, you are always, to a greater or lesser degree, forcing yourself on a woman any time you have sex. The message, when it's taken to its extreme, is that all sex is rape, and some rapes - the ones that happen within the bonds of heterosexual marriage - are okay. Needless to say, that's fucked up, and if you're a man with a desire to not do harm to the people you love, it'll fuck you up.
posted by clawsoon at 2:41 PM on January 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


This is further reinforced by the licked cupcake/chewed gum/destroyed gift/battered rose lessons. Girls are told their bodies are like these objects and once disturbed could never be brought back to whole. Makes sense to tell boys the same thing, right? Well they do - they tell boys that girls bodies are these objects and disturbing them is ruining another man's gift. This doesn't even get into how boys are harmed around the topic of masturbation (and how boys and girls being questioned aggressively and intrusively behind closed doors with only the bishop is a whole other level of fucking kids up).

So then to be queer on top of it? When one of the 12 apostles is still saying shit like "There are no gay mormons"? It's honestly a wonder the suicide problem isn't worse.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 3:23 PM on January 29, 2018 [10 favorites]


I think I am really uncomfortable with the comment train of "but why are romantic relationships so important, anyway?" right here. Outside of ace-spectrum communities and bi/pan communities, where split-model attraction is common enough and popular enough to have a following, most people lump the sexual into the romantic as an essential component of the thing they need and want and envision. There's certainly no reason that you have to be ace and/or aromantic to wind up in a happy, committed relationship with someone else who is also happy to be here.

I am... hoo boy, I am super uncomfortable taking that discussion and applying it to non-asexual queer people, please and thank you. There's enough pressure to keep queer relationships sexless and as normative as possible irrespective of what the people being discussed actually want that I do not see Lolly and Josh as trailblazers of new forms of attachment and family formation here. If they manage to pull off this homestead thing successfully and convince other adults to buy into their existing family unit, I'll consider it then--but that's a much more delicate thing than I think either of them realizes at this point.

Look, I just said that my relationship can be conceptualized as friendship or romantic equally easily. I know a number of people in similar relationships who question whether they're even capable of the concept of a romantic attachment or what that thing even means.

And I don't think that my relationship, in which everyone went in with eyes wide open and a comfortable affirmation that this is the kind of relationship we both wanted, not a "less than" or an acceptable second-best, is anything like Josh and Lolly's marriage in part because no one here is repressing. It's bothering me to see my community come up this way, because I don't think we're relevant here: neither Josh nor Lolly is asexual (by their own respective admission!) and the reasons for their marriage boil down pretty unambiguously to heteronormative pressure from the LDS.

I don't want my relationship of choice to be compared to a relationship of coercion like that. Insofar as I want to talk about ace and aromantic discussions about normalizing romantic relationships and different models for human attachment, I want to talk about it very, very far away from pressuring non-asexual queer people to tuck their sexualities away in favor of a squeaky-clean, acceptably patriarchal heterosexuality. Which is how Josh and Lolly got here.

Let's not forget that.
posted by sciatrix at 5:56 PM on January 29, 2018 [8 favorites]


This is further reinforced by the licked cupcake/chewed gum/destroyed gift/battered rose lessons. Girls are told their bodies are like these objects and once disturbed could never be brought back to whole.

Wow, that's really fucking disturbing. Telling someone that their body is basically something to be consumed.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:34 PM on January 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


wow interesting comments on his post on The Weed where people are saying he didn't engage in ex-gay therapy despite that being what he was up to at least in 2012.

i am irritated but not surprised that he's not being real about that. i hope all the best for him and his family. i don't like this guy and i don't think he made good choices and i hate all the fucking straight people that were like "hell yeah you two fuck your lives up to stay in the game" but that's p much life background noise so w/e, play on
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 11:26 AM on January 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


This killed me:
[S]ingle Mormons go to bed every night pleading with the Lord that they will fall in love with someone tomorrow; gay Mormons go to bed every night pleading with the Lord that they will never fall in love with someone.
Thank you, God, for your healing gift of religion.

Burn it all down.
posted by uberchet at 6:55 AM on February 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


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