class: middle background-color: #272822 <h1 style="color:white; text-align:center">"Who Wants Twenty Controlling Women in Their Lives Anyway?"</h1> <h2 style="color:white; text-align:center">Polygamy, Gender Essentialism, and Masculinity on a Conservative LDS Forum</h2> <h3 style="color:white">Levi Sands, University of Iowa</h3> <h3 style="color:white">Amy Chapman, Arizona State University</h3> <h3 style="color:white">Spencer P. Greenhalgh, University of Kentucky</h3> <p style="color:white">slides: <a href='https://spencergreenhalgh.com/_mssa_2025_ldsff' style='color: rgb(249, 38, 114)'>https://spencergreenhalgh.com/_mssa_2025_LDSFF.html</a></p> ??? Good morning, everyone! My name is Spencer Greenhalgh, and I'm the third author on this particular presentation, but we didn't want to make Levi have to present twice in a row, and Amy wasn't able to be here, so I'll be presenting our work on polygamy, gender essentialism, and masculinity on a conservative LDS online forum. We've given the presentation this lovely title about "twenty controlling women," which is an actual quote from our data and should give you a good idea of what you're in for over the next few minutes. --- background-color: gray class: center, middle # background ??? We want to begin with a little bit of context about ambiguities in Mormon history and theology. --- class: center, middle # "One sometimes hears in Mormon sermons or lessons the reassuring testimony that the church has 'always been the same' since it was founded by Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith[.]" Mauss, A. L. (1994). *The angel and the beehive: The Mormon struggle with assimilation*. University of Illinois Press. (p. 61) ??? So, for example, Mauss observed in 1994 that Mormons advance a narrative of unchanging consistency in the LDS church that is tied to narratives about divine origins. As Mauss immediately notes, this narrative is really untenable, but one of its purposes is presumably to avoid any kind of ambiguity. A nice, neat historical narrative helps keep things obvious and straightforward. --- class: center, middle # "policy" vs. "doctrine" vs. "folklore" Harris, M. L. (2024). *Second-class saints: Black Mormons and the struggle for racial equality*. Oxford University Press. ??? However, sometimes historical change is undeniable, such as in the case of the temple and priesthood ban within the LDS church. When historical consistency can't be established, this creates theological ambiguities such as between what is temporary church policy; what is eternal, authoritative doctrine; and what is mistaken folklore. --- class: center, middle # "faithful, lifelong LDS cannot always pin down where doctrine ends and culture begins" Avance, R. (2025). *Mediated Mormons: Shifting religious identities in the digital age*. The University of Utah Press. ??? One of the assumptions that we bring to this study is that there are certain ambiguities that Latter-day Saint leaders have chosen not to or not been able to reduce to a clearcut narrative of consistency—and that this leaves everyday Mormons in a position of trying to resolve those ambiguities themselves. --- background-color: gray class: center, middle # study context: the LDS Freedom Forum ??? One site in which those resolution efforts takes place is the LDS Freedom Forum, a freewheeling online message board with a conservative/libertarian bent. Levi will be giving a more thorough overview of this forum at the Platformed Mormonism session this afternoon at 2:50, where he will be describing the full breadth of this site. For the purposes of this project, we're specifically focused on forum participants' discussions about polygamy. Because polygamy is a controversial subject, with clear historical change in terms of practice and theology, there are plenty of potential ambiguities for everyday Mormons to wrestle with. How participants in the Freedom Forum choose to wrestle with these ambiguities strikes us as potentially more interesting than a more liberal or mixed online space because we might expect more political—and potentially more religious—homogeneity among these participants. --- class: center, middle # 3 threads # 602 posts # 2,372 paragraphs ??? This project is focused on 3 polygamy-focused threads within the forum. Those threads collectively include 602 posts, and for the purposes of analysis, we broke them up into over 2,000 paragraphs. --- class: center, middle # iterative process of inductive coding ??? By picking those threads we thought we were narrowing our data down, but it's still been a long, iterative journey of qualitative coding, so our findings today are still preliminary as we continue to make sense of these data. --- class: center, middle # was polygamy "real"? ??? Most of the discussion in these threads centers around the question of was polygamy "real"? We use the term "real" here to imperfectly mean two things that are both under discussion: First, did Joseph Smith Jr. or Brigham Young introduce polygamy, which will not really come up in the data we present today, and is/was polygamy a theologically valid Latter-day Saint practice or was it the result of, as one forum participant put it, "the horniness of some men." There is a lot that gets invoked in those discussions: history, scripture, other Latter-day Saint teachings, but today... --- class: center, middle # today's focus: gender! ??? ... we want to focus on how gender is invoked as part of these debates on the LDS Freedom Forum. --- background-color: gray class: center, middle # findings ??? As we dive into these examples, I'm going to be taking for granted familiarity with Mormon theology, which means that I'm not going to explain certain things that might need explaining for those who don't share that familiarity. Please don't hesitate to let me know when something seems particularly... eccentric, and we can pause to get into the details. I am also going to fly through the slides so that I leave plenty of time for questions, so if there's a passage from our data that you need more time on, let me know. --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822 <h2 style="color:white; text-align:center">gender essentialism</h2> ??? A lot of the invocations of gender in these conversations are actually invocations of a certain kind of gender essentialism. --- class: center, middle # "You and your wife resurrect and with your celestial, eternal bodies start preparing your first creation. [...] Your wife is thrilled to death cause you know how wives are about the children - want to do whatever is needed for their advantage." ## brlenox #790325_001 ??? For example, this post is part of a complex argument that eternal polygamy and atonement are theologically linked. This meets with some confusion on the part of other participants in the discussion, but this participant elaborates by explaining that any Mother God would certainly allow a Father God to impregnate a mortal woman to bring about a Jesus figure because "you know how wives are about the children," and if redeeming the children from sin and death requires some divine polygamy, that's the way it's going to go. Yet, gender essentialism is not confined to pro-polygamy positions in these threads. --- class: center, middle # "Who wants twenty controlling women in their lives anyway? Lifestyles today are immensely different from 170 years ago. Working women looking for a career, endless wardrobes to fight over, a hundred kids fighting each other, and the list goes on." ## freedomforall #803747_004 ??? Our friend freedomforall gave us the title of our presentation with this post, arguing that women (and kids) are a hassle, so why would any man want polygamy? This post is also interesting for its suggestion that today's wardrobe-loving, career-pursuing women are more of a hassle than women during the late 19th century would have been. --- class: center, middle # "Seems polygamy would be a dream for women, also. Ask most married men if they get enough sex. Probably not. Women aren't that interested. [...] Just think, if there are ten wives to keep a man satisfied, women would only have to have sex every tenth time. Which is about once per year." ## djinwa #851173 ??? Some of this gender essentialism cuts both ways, in that it comments on both women and men. The broader context of this post suggests that it's not a full-throated pro-polygamy argument, but it uses supposed libido differences between men and women to suggest that polygamy could work out for both parties: The man gets enough sex to keep him happy, and women don't have to have sex more than maybe once a year, though I confess that I don't totally follow that math. --- class: center, middle # "I sure wasn't speaking of a harem of men, just a set of extra capable hands around [...] And if you were a woman who had to wait for her husband to get home to do something only he could do just to find it pushed back day after day until the weekend or next weekend, you would understand." ## MMbelieve #852169_001 ??? Or there's post, from MMbelieve, who we'll hear more from shortly. In these threads, MMbelieve makes an argument for polyandry; it's not clear whether this is a genuine argument or whether she's trying to make a rhetorical point about double standards in Mormon polygamy. At any rate, here she's suggesting that there are some home maintenance tasks that only a husband can do, so wouldn't it be handy for a single wife to have multiple husbands? You could finally get that garage cleaned out. --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822 <h2 style="color:white; text-align:center">who gets to speak for women?</h2> ??? Perhaps unsurprisingly, these conversations sometimes lead to disagreements about who gets to speak for women. --- class: center, middle # "Women are not property to be told who and where and what. Just because he sealed her to him doesn't mean he took her choice or agency or opportunity. Which means he may very well have just his one wife." ## MMbelieve #790588_004 ??? So, here we have another post from MMbelieve arguing that "women are not property." Because we're on a conservative LDS forum, I don't know if MMbelieve would identify as a feminist, but in our data, she repeatedly invokes harm done to women to dismiss the possibility of polygamy (or at least polygny) being theologically real. --- class: center, middle # "The polygamy-is-an-eternal-principle defenders get tired of the vehemence - get tired of the personal attacks, and then the anti-polygamy folks start high-fiving each other's 'this can't be true because sexist!' remarks." ## Alaris #871933_004 ??? This post, on the other hand, doesn't explicitly claim authority to speak for women, but in framing things as "polygamy-is-an-eternal-principle" vs. "anti-polygamy", it suggests that polygamy is theologically valid, and as a result, complaints about sexism just can't be valid. This participant's language about "personal attacks" (echoed elsewhere with complaints about emotional language) is also interesting for the way that it uses gendered complaints to dismiss concerns about sexism. --- class: center, middle # "It would be the rare women [sic] who would want to be pregnant for eternity and the rare man who would want millions of pregnant wives for eternity." ## MMbelieve #869448_005 ??? More interesting, though, is when female-identifying accounts situate themselves on different sides of an argument. Here, we have MMbelieve again, arguing that "It would be the rare woman who would want to be pregnant for eternity" and therefore women are not (at least in general) going to be in favor of eternal polygamy. It's also interesting that she describes this situation as less than ideal for men. --- class: center, middle # "I actually loved being pregnant! And I loved giving birth too. So did my husband. (As much as he could)" ## ElizaRSkousen #869450_001 ??? Soon thereafter, though, we get ElizaRSkousen (whose username deserves a whole presentation on its own). She pushes back against both parts of MMbelieve's perspective, saying that pregnancy and childbirth were great for her and for her husband. We can see in other posts that Eliza's views are a bit more complicated than simply "pro-polygamy", but what's clear here is that she doesn't think that MMbelieve should get to speak for all women in this debate. --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822 <h2 style="color:white; text-align:center">the natalist, quasi-eugenicist approach</h2> ??? One of the most notable patterns in our data centers around a single user whose treatment of gender is marked by troubling concerns related to birthrates and genetics. --- class: center, middle # "Women desire to reach the highest callings of their existence - that is the desire to have children, unless they have been brainwashed contrary to their instincts. And life finds a way. Polygamy allows for a woman to grow spiritually as well as be blessed with children." ## Fiannan #798824_002 ??? So we begin with a very essentialist argument: "Women desire to reach the highest callings of their existence — that is the dsire to have children, unless they have been brainwashed contrary to their instincts." --- class: center, middle # "Why is sperm donation rising in western culture? The laws of supply and demand. Many women, especially those who have high moral standards and a lot of education, wind up un-marriageable. Now think that most intelligence is genetic - not a good thing to be happening in the long-run. Polygamy would be better than having to turn to sperm donation[....]" ## Fiannan #854082_003 ??? In a different post, Fiannan turns to sperm donation (a frequent theme in his posts) to express a concern that highly intelligent Mormon women too often don't have the opportunity to pass their good genes on to the next generation. (It's interesting, though, that in the same breath he mentions both "lots of education" and "most intelligence is genetic", which doesn't seem entirely consistent.) --- class: center, middle # "Nowadays I am sure you know at least a few women who would have made excellent mothers but never found a spiritual man and thus are the end of the line genetically speaking." ## Fiannan #850958_004 ??? Elsewhere, Fiannan argues that polygamy provides an opportunity for genetically superior women to contribute to the next generation when monogamy hasn't provided them that chance. Of course, this invites a question: Why can't each genetically superior women attract a man of her own? --- class: center, middle # "Of course many men are opting out of marriage and that will mushroom once sex robots get really advanced (i.e. Westworld quality). Then what?" ## Fiannan #798840_004 ??? Well, Fiannan argues, men opting out of marriage demonstrates that there are a lot of inferior men out there. Furthermore, in these threads, Fiannan repeatedly stresses the danger that sex robots are going to pose to marriage and reproduction, further diminishing the population of desirable men. --- class: center, middle # "A 'worldly' man is not going to marry three women and look forward to them all being pregnant at the same time, or with PMS, or having issues with their mothers. Men would sacrifice their porn for that fantasy? Give me a break. Only highly spiritual men, or those who really like families, would become polygamists." ## Fiannan, #850950_003 ??? Furthermore, Fiannan argues, these inferior men would not be interested in polygamy, because pregnancy and PMS outweigh any sexual fantasies about multiple partners, so those inferior men are just going to stick to their porn. --- class: center, middle # "If polygamy came back some men and some women would leave but I am pretty confident that those Mormon men with superior genetics would attract plenty of non-member women who would convert and marry them. Worked for islam's conquest of Christianity in the Middle East." ## Fiannan #850977_007 ??? So, while polygamy might drive away some men and women from Mormonism, there would remain genetically superior Mormon men who are not only well suited for polygamy (because they are spiritual enough to put up with PMS) but they would also "attract plenty of non-member women who would convert and marry them," wrapping up his argument with a touch of Islamophobia. --- background-color: gray class: center, middle # conclusion ??? As you can imagine, there's a lot more going on in these data, but time prevents us from digging any deeper. --- class: center, middle # "Gods are Humans. I think their society is a lot more similar to ours than we think." ## ElizaRSkousen #869463_008 ??? I want to conclude, though, with this post from ElizaRSkousen: "Gods are Humans. I think their society is a lot more similar to ours than we think." Besides invoking some of the more peculiar parts of Mormon theology, this post neatly describes what we see as going on here. Official Latter-day Saint teachings on the history and theology of polygamy leave enough ambiguity that many Mormons are left to their own devices to puzzle out what this controversial topic means in the context of their personal faith, and they very often read their lived experience and their own social values—as Eliza is explicitly doing here—into their puzzling out. While this is normal human behavior, and certainly not unique to Mormonism, this pattern is particularly interesting in a religious culture where official church teachings are typically presented as straightforward and clear and in a specific context that is more homogenous (at least politically) than other Mormon spaces on the internet. We are looking forward (mostly) to digging deeper into these data to explore that tension further. --- class: middle background-color: #272822 <h1 style="color:white; text-align:center">Thank you! Looking forward to questions.</h1> <h3 style="color:white">Levi Sands, University of Iowa</h3> <h3 style="color:white">Amy Chapman, Arizona State University</h3> <h3 style="color:white">Spencer P. Greenhalgh, University of Kentucky</h3> <p style="color:white">slides: <a href='https://spencergreenhalgh.com/_mssa_2025_ldsff' style='color: rgb(249, 38, 114)'>https://spencergreenhalgh.com/_mssa_2025_LDSFF.html</a></p> ??? Thank you!