by Lizza Jacobs
This gorgeous drawing was a wedding gift from a BYU art professor. Jared and I met during his show and he very generously and graciously told us to choose our favorite as a gift when he heard we were getting hitched. I immediately remembered this because it’s breathtaking, graceful and intimate without being abrasive or exposed.
The human body is one of nature’s most glorious designs. It’s very easy to distinguish between nudity and sexuality – a feat that seems impossible for the church I was raised in.
I wouldn’t feel compelled to say anything, except some very Mormon folks stayed in our home over the weekend and we came home to this. 
I am confused.
If they thought the drawing offensive (we have other “offensive” art in the house – like swearing and blasphemy- that remained untouched) why not just cover it with a sheet of paper? Why does she need clothes?
Maybe they left it as a gentle warning that our house was exposing their children to “pornography” or maybe they just forgot to uncover it before they left?
Regardless, anyone raised Mormon knows how unholy the church’s teachings on sexuality are.
It’s honestly exhausting to discuss the depth and density of this rabbit hole. A small recap includes zero masturbation before and after marriage, twice annual “worthiness interviews” starting at age 12 where a middle-aged untrained man feels entitled to every sordid detail of a developing teen’s thoughts and activities, zero queer sex, zero queer marriage, fornication is the second worse sin – next to murder, and case after case of the church protecting known sexual predators and ignoring the trauma of victims.
I laughed when I saw what they did. And then I was sad and angry.
This purity culture of religion is absolute bullsh** and it needs to end. I am so tired of the normalization of objectifying female flesh. I am so tired of a culture that trains little boys that a woman’s body has power to lure them to follow Satan. I am so tired of the constant shaming of sexuality and the abhorrence of nudity.
I am just so done with people thinking nudity is inherently sexual. There is so much about the body that is to be celebrated. I love turning on my senses and dropping down into the present moment, relishing in the movement of my limbs, savoring my food, staring at beauty until it changes me, hugging tight and long, laughing until I cry, swimming naked in lakes and rivers and marveling at the power of surrendering to raw nature, listening to how the breeze caresses the leaves and makes them shiver with delight. Waiting until I lost weight or had more money or my kids were older was nothing but a waste. And yes if you have a lover, I highly recommend worshiping the chalice of their soul with your own flesh and pondering on the transcendent bliss of shared pleasure.
LIVE. You’re alive and one day you won’t be and none of us knows when that day will come. It’s a tragedy to hide from joy because we were too busy shrinking from our own mammalian skin.
Lizza has spent her adult life reclaiming all the stories that hijacked her personal sovereignty from the men who thought themselves so important as to micromanage strangers in god’s name. Ironically, their demands that she dissolve her life into motherhood was their ultimate demise since through birthing her babies at home she met The Divine Mother, who gave her the keys to unlock the generational chains of conditional love.
10 Responses
Lizza – your message makes my heart sing! Please keep speaking your truth – it empowers us all. Those micromanaging men have no authority over you and their rules suck all the joy out of living. You are so right: “It’s a tragedy to hide from joy because we were too busy shrinking from our own mammalian skin.” Thank you for shining your light.
My first though when I looked at the picture of the “clothed” nude was that had to have been done by a woman. What man would design, color, and cut out a set of clothing like that to place over a painting? Clearly, that was the work of a woman. I’m not disagreeing with your feelings about micromanaging men, just adding that it’s not just men who perpetuate our sexuality culture.
Oh AMEN!!
And skinny dipping is the BEST THING EVER!! We have to liberate ourselves from this narrow and myopic view of nudity. Lets celebrate life and all the goodness it brings. And my teenage daughters to celebrate their beautiful, tight, young and healthy bodies and NOT hide them or be ashamed in any way!!
A million times YES!!!
The church has so many issues that need to be resolved around modesty and sexuality. And though I’m not sure if the author’s intent was to blast the culture of purity alone, in my view our issues are both cultural AND doctrinal in nature. Cultural in that many features of our purity obsession are shared with evangelical or other conservative Christian faiths. But also doctrinal in that we have a particular fetishization of purity stemming from our history with polygamy (where sex is a tool of male status, treating women as commodities). Yes, there are core aspects of our doctrine that affirm sexuality (i.e., eternal increase, part of what makes us like God), but our doctrine is not uniformly sex positive by any stretch of the imagination.
In the spirit of showing the “many ways to Mormon” that are out there, I want to raise others’ awareness about LDS based groups that embrace non-sexual nudity:
1) The LDS Skinny Dippers forum is an online gathering place for LDS nudists (often “naturist” is the preferred label): http://www.ldssdf.org
2) While not specifically LDS, there’s a Wasatch Naturists group based out of Salt Lake City ( http://www.wasatchnaturists.com) that includes many LDS folks and holds frequent (family friendly!) events like swims in the area where clothing is optional
3) Also, podcast listeners may want to search out the Naturist Living Show, where they just had a recent episode about what it’s like to participate in nudist activities as a Mormon.
I love this. The art is beautiful. Bodies are beautiful. Your words are beautiful. Thank you for sharing
I’m stunned that someone thought they could do this to a piece of art in another person’s home. I mean, WTF?
That was my first thought too! The art is valuable, but there is also a related value to the frame that could be impacted. I hope that the children connected to them will not think that all art is open to editing!
I experienced something similar when I was at BYU over 20 years ago. My roommate had been a model for art classes there, and one of the students gave her a beautiful drawing that she had modeled for. She wore a bikini for the modeling sessions, but the drawing just looked like a nude woman from the back looking over her shoulder. It was quite lovely, and my roommate had it framed and hung it in our living room. When the girls next door came over for socializing or church visits, they would turn the picture around. I thought that was really weird and inappropriate. It’s sad that our church has led so many of us to believe that our bodies are pornographic.
The artwork is beautiful. I too, am appalled that someone would think it appropriate to modify the art in someone’s home. I would definitely not make the home available again and would explain why.
What a lovely figure drawing. I am sorry that your guests were so rude.