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Apologists often compare garments to a nun's habit or a yarmulke or a priestly collar, only worn under the clothing. Sure, that's fine. Lots of religions have some sort of holy item of clothing (though not usually as totemic in the modern West as Mormon garments seem to be). But here's why everyone else thinks garments ("sacred underwear") are ridiculous. By making your cloth into a pair of underwear, you're exposing it to the things that really would defile it.

What if you were to take a yarmulke and rub it all over your genitals, your butt, and (if you're a woman) your breasts? Wouldn't that defile it? What if you were to do that to the veil in the temple? Feces, semen and menstrual blood are all "unclean" per Jewish law. Contact with them would render you unclean as a Jew and you'd need to undergo a purification ritual. Garments shouldn't touch the floor, but they're exposed to urine stains, skid marks, semen and menstrual blood as a manner of normal usage. Those of us who served missions in Latin America also exposed our garments to full-on projectile diarrhea, at least once. It's a bad joke. That's why everyone laughs at your holy underwear, faithful Mormons.

I sense some body hate in your post, Buff. I mean, really, you think rubbing up on breasts is defiling? Be real. You don't.

Secret parts are awesome.

The garments are ridiculous because they are hideous and stupid. They originated as men's long underwear, for chrissakes. Women wearing men's long underwear year round...that is what is ridiculous. The lady bits deserve better than that.

They'd probably not be so hideous if they came in black or red as alternate colors.

just me wrote:I sense some body hate in your post, Buff. I mean, really, you think rubbing up on breasts is defiling? Be real. You don't.

Secret parts are awesome.

The garments are ridiculous because they are hideous and stupid. They originated as men's long underwear, for chrissakes. Women wearing men's long underwear year round...that is what is ridiculous. The lady bits deserve better than that.

Well, personally I think contact with lady bits is sanctifying, rather than defiling, but I'm just giving the Biblical perspective.

And yes, they look like men's underwear. They don't look too ridiculous on men - a little long in the shorts is all. On women it's a trainwreck, no matter how beautiful the woman.

sock puppet wrote:They'd probably not be so hideous if they came in black or red as alternate colors.

french lace!

The ladies bottoms are effing bloomers. BLOOMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I'm not sure I agree with the OP. I certainly hadn't previously associated garment mockery with the idea that the Gs would be exposed to thinks that the Bible said would defile them. It's not a bad idea. But I think the real reason the Gs are so widely ridiculed is the notion that they are magic.

Magic underwear? Really?

Internet Mormons will complain that people just don't understand that the "shield and protection" believers are promised their garments will function as is purely symbolic or metaphorical. But the Internet Mos really can't dispute that pretty much all previous generations of Mormons took that protection as a literal promise, not a metaphorical one. For Heaven's sake, the Marriott at the top of the Marriott hotel chain even claimed the garments saved his life in a boating accident on national TV.

As unlikely as magical items seem to be to most folks (though some folks seem to believe the cross, or a crucifix, has some power from God too), that likelihood seems to diminish as the item goes from some adornment or jewelry item to an item designed to keep one's environment from being exposed to the secretions and excretions of one's genitals. I don't think it takes too much imagination to understand why.

Maybe I'll wear Gs tomorrow to celebrate this thread. Thanks for the idea!

zeezrom wrote:Maybe I'll wear Gs tomorrow to celebrate this thread. Thanks for the idea!

It's times like these I wish we had emoticons.

Were JSJr and Hyrum Smith wearing garments in the Carthage Jail?

sock puppet wrote:Were JSJr and Hyrum Smith wearing garments in the Carthage Jail?

Legend says Joseph Smith wasn't.