My Spoonie Sisters
Welcome to My Spoonie Sisters! If you're wondering what a "Spoonie" is, it’s a term lovingly embraced by those living with chronic illnesses, based on the Spoon Theory. It’s all about managing our limited energy (or “spoons”) while navigating life’s challenges.
Each week, join us to hear from your "Spoonie Sisters" host, co-hosts, and our inspiring special guests as we share real-life stories, tips, and encouragement. Whether you're here to learn, connect, or feel less alone, you’ll find a supportive space filled with understanding, laughter, and strength. Let’s journey through chronic illness together!
Tune in and join the sisterhood!
All guests featured or mentioned in this podcast will be listed for your convenience. Don't forget to rate and subscribe to My Spoonie Sisters and follow @MySpoonieSisters on Instagram for updates on new episodes and more. If you have a story to share or want to be featured on My Spoonie Sisters, please email MySpoonieSisters@gmail.com. We eagerly look forward to speaking and hearing from all our Spoonies!
Disclaimer: While we are not doctors or healthcare Practitioners, we want to assure you that this podcast is a credible source of information. It's based on our guests' personal experiences and the strategies we've found effective for ourselves. However, everyone's body is unique, and what works for one person may not work for another. If you have any health-related questions, it's always best to consult your Primary Doctor or Rheumatologist.
Remember, our goal at My Spoonie Sisters is to connect people and provide them with the support and tools they need to live better lives.
My Spoonie Sisters
Taboo Talk: Sex, Mormonism
Chronic illness impacts every aspect of our lives, including the bedroom. In this refreshingly candid conversation, we break down the walls of shame and silence surrounding sexuality when living with chronic conditions.
Ali returns from her mountain cabin retreat to share how her diagnosis completely changed her relationship with intimacy—once a proudly sexual person who even won a Thunder Down Under fake orgasm contest (with her mother cheering her on!), years of severe symptoms and medication side effects left her disinterested in physical connection. Only after prioritizing rest and health did she reconnect with that part of herself – a journey many Spoonies can relate to.
The discussion expands into how religious upbringings compound these challenges. From Catholic households to Mormon traditions, many of us received messages of fear and shame rather than education about our bodies. Jen's mother joins the conversation, offering fascinating insights into Mormon temple practices, including special garments with symbolic markings and secret names women aren't allowed to speak. Her powerful story of liberation – shouting her temple name from a mountaintop – demonstrates how breaking free from restrictive beliefs can be part of our healing journey.
Personal stories range from embarrassing (smuggling a vibrator through Middle Eastern customs) to deeply concerning (the lack of comprehensive sex education in today's schools). We examine how gender expectations shaped our understanding of roles within relationships and how breaking these generational patterns through open, honest conversations can create healthier foundations for our children.
Whether you're struggling with reclaiming your sexuality through chronic illness or want to better understand how illness impacts intimacy, this episode offers validation, laughter, and a reminder that your experiences deserve to be acknowledged without shame. Join us for this profoundly human conversation about one of the most natural yet seldom-discussed aspects of the Spoonie experience.
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Hello and welcome back to my Spoonie Sisters Podcast. It is your co-host, allie. I have been MIA for the past couple episodes and, baby, I am back, ready to chat and ready to spice things up a little bit, but I have missed you guys so much to our listeners and to our other hosts. I have missed y'all. I have been on a little retreat, if you will say. I have been in a cabin in the woods, in the mountains, trying to take a break from social media and screens and, baby, it has helped heal me a little bit not fully because, baby, that doesn't exist in our Spoonie life. It has been nice, but I miss you and we are here with another random Spoonie sister chat and we are so excited, I am very excited about today's topic.
Speaker 1:Well, today's topic is starting off strong, with a little bit of spice, but then we'll get into the most random things. I'm sure we were just sitting here chatting about sex. Yes, something that is different for all of us, especially us Spoonies, the way we experience it, the way that we forget about it because of pain. Somebody was just saying about how their diagnosis got them actually more spicy. For me it was the opposite. When I got really ill. I completely ignored all things about sex. And now let me tell you something. I love sex. I think it's amazing. I hate that it is a forbidden topic. I hate that it's taboo. I think it makes us women very powerful and can be seen in such a beautiful light. But the way that we were all brought up like everybody I'm sure here, all of us co-hosts it was probably taboo. I've never had a friend that say, growing up it wasn't a taboo subject, and for me it was too. I grew up in a very religious Catholic family and so sex was not talked about at all. I mean, I had the chat, but even then I was like please, mom, no, no. But so I was a very sexual being. I was very proud of it, to the point where I would post pictures on Instagram and my toys would be in the back. That was what I was going to say. And my friend commented and was like Allie, your toy is on your bed in the back. And I'm like listen, that's fine. So sexual that when my mom found my box of toys, didn't even question me and just put it in my bedside drawer. I was like where's that box? As we're unpacking, she goes, don't worry, put it in your bedside drawer. Also coming from the girl who, at the age of 21, went to Vegas with her said mom and three best friends and won a fake orgasm competition on stage with the Thunder Down Under strippers. I beat three bridesmaids and won that competition and my mom was there and you know what she did. She turned to my friends and said she's going to win this. And I won it. I am proud Look at Andy's face. I am proud of the sexual person that I am.
Speaker 1:But when I got sick now, I got diagnosed at the age of 15 with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, but I went into remission for six years after that because I had surgery. When I got sick again at the age of 21, I was unable to walk. I was starting methotrexate, which is not a fun drug to start. I was sick, I was nauseous.
Speaker 1:I would say 10 years after that I was not in the mood ever. I was tired, I was nauseous. I was not in the mood ever. I was tired, I was nauseous. I was overworked as well, so that it plays into it, but I was not in the mood for sex. Poor Travis, I was just not. I was just too tired, and it wasn't until I quit my jobs and got enough sleep and really started to focus on my health and read smutty books that I get it back. So yeah, I was the opposite, and I know if you guys don't want to talk about it, you don't have to, but I was wondering how you guys felt dealing with your chronic illness and keeping things spicy in the bedroom.
Speaker 3:Like you, it was very taboo.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Which is interesting because of course I was raised Mormon but we stopped going to church when I was 12. So it was interesting to watch that shift. When I was in high school, my mom would go to the sex shop. When I got married, she bought me a toy. Your mom did. It was a glow-in-the-dark toy.
Speaker 1:I don't have one. I need one now.
Speaker 3:And it was because she said that every woman needs one.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that, especially in her generation. Like that's not. Yeah, maybe it was because they were Mormon. I love sex stores. A part of why I'm so sexual and spiritual about it is could be because I grew up in Saudi Arabia, where clearly there are no sex stores and no talk of sex and you can't even show skin. So it's probably a little bit as to why I'm so open, because I grew up in such a place that women couldn't even work or drive. I think that has to do with it as well.
Speaker 1:I did bring a sex toy into the country and I did get caught that way. Luckily I was in the country next door, so I was in Bahrain, which is where we would fly into. I was going to be in Italy. I was going to be in Italy for six months studying abroad, and I was single. So I had to bring a little something with me and I brought a little toy. Luckily it was not in the shape of a you know what. That would make it obvious. It was in like kind of like a crescent moon shape. And, yeah, the guy who found it in my luggage because they check your luggage before you leave the airport, not like here. He took it out and he was like what is this? I was like I had to think on the spot. I was like I had to think on the spot. I was like, okay, my ass took it from his hand, turned it on, put it on my shoulder and said it's a shoulder massager.
Speaker 1:I'm standing in an airport. This man is dressed in a uniform, an army uniform, in Bahrain, in a Middle Eastern country. I'm standing there with a sex toy on my shoulder vibrating. I'm with a straight face, saying it is a shoulder massager, sir. He looks at me, he goes, put it away. He closes up my bag. I leave, he lets me go.
Speaker 1:My mom is waiting for me outside, smiles. She's like you're here, let's go get Krispy Kremes, because it's the only Krispy Kreme place in the country. It's at the airport and she's excited and jazzed. It's our tradition. We always get Krispy Kremes. I grab her hand, I drag her out of the airport.
Speaker 1:I'm like mom, now is not the time to get Krispy Kremes, we need to get in the car and leave. She's like what? Why is your face so red? I'm like I just pulled out my sex toy and turned it on for the guard. We need to leave back.
Speaker 1:Did I bring it to Italy? I don't even know. I think I was so mortified I don't think I brought it with me. It stayed in Saudi. The fact that I got through it was that's how I didn't dare bring it back to the Bahraini airport. I was mortified, I didn't. It stayed in Saudi, it threw it away. This was something else happened. My mom had guests over and it was in the bedside drawer and I had to tell her Mom, you're going to have to move that because they were staying in my room. I'm like, oh shit, this, it's always there. And so, yeah, she had to move it.
Speaker 1:In Saudi, the guys go through your trash, not like the dirty trash, but other trash. I'm sitting in the kitchen watching them and I'm like this toy is. It's cursed. The toy's cursed. They threw it back in the trash. They didn't know what it was. But my mom is like, allie, you, no, you cannot bring those into the. I never did again, but yeah, so it could be. Living in Saudi Arabia is the reason I am so sexual. It is taboo to talk about, but that's why I love talking about it so much, because I follow many people online who talk about it. I even follow a woman who's like in fitness who. Have you guys seen her? Where she teaches you comfortable positions to have sex in and like ways to do it that won't hurt your knees? I'm obsessed with her. I will share it with you guys. She's amazing. I think she's in Atlanta, which makes me sad that when I lived there I never went to one of her courses. But yeah, it's so important I have not seen her, but why haven't you sent her to us?
Speaker 1:I post her all the time I am on a social media break but I will go find her and post her. But I love her sessions. She does all the ways to do it without hurting your knees and stuff, andy, yes, so here's the thing.
Speaker 2:Andy has entered the chat. Oh, here's the thing. I am over here baffled, I'm not even gonna lie to you, I'm over here baffled, and if people could see me in real life, I think I kicked my chin like six times because my mouth has been wide open. Pause, nothing naughty. My mouth has been on the floor. To which part All of it.
Speaker 2:All of it, the me at 21 winning the prize of the thunder down under the mama there my mom saying I'm gonna win jenny at the, at the at the toy store with mom with her mom, yeah there is no way. There is no way. My mama, my grandm, none of my aunts, I don't recall even having the conversation about what parts went where we were touching fronts. Yeah, we didn't even have the touch fronts, or don't let the tips touch, kind of conversation it was. I guess you're going to find out. We don't talk about those things.
Speaker 1:I guess you're going to find out.
Speaker 2:So, like kudos, you knowudos to the, the empowerment and the freedom that comes with talking about it. I didn't realize how uncomfortable moment of transparency guys, I didn't realize how uncomfortable I actually was going to be sitting in this conversation, but also how empowering it is to see that the outside perception of this being so taboo, it's really not everybody's company for real. At some point in time somebody's gonna touch fronts like we're gonna go let, we're gonna be belly button the belly button at some point in time, that's you know, we're gonna be belly button the belly button. And I think where we were, my generation might have had a hiccup is that we didn't have the conversation in any capacity.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so for me, I made sure that I started having the conversation with my daughter as soon as her body started changing, because we need to identify these parts. They're not the pocketbook, it's not your cookie jar. If they touch you, they touch you. I want to know why, I want to know where, and you need to know it's not okay if you don't feel safe with it. But it was teaching her all the things that I wish I would have had the conversation when I was younger.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of questions when I finally decided that I was ready to start touching fronts and that was later than the average person in most of the time. But when I decided that it was time for me to start being active, I had a whole lot of questions and it was rooted in fear, because that is literally how I was raised that touch and fronts ended up being with my person that you go on to be with for double digit decades and whatnot you know. But there was so much fear associated with if I make this decision to give my body or I'm not supposed to talk about it, what if it gets out of people's will give you the scarlet letter.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the scarlet letter for the thing that is natural. It's natural If we're here to procreate. If we go all the way back to like for me biblically it was, you're not supposed to do this, okay, you're not supposed to do it, got it. But if we go back to the root of it and our bodies were meant to procreate, then the conversation of this is your body and how it works. And if this is happening and you don't feel safe, then they actually need to know what that looks like, that it is a natural thing, and there's also people out there that do unnatural things using the natural experience that can victimize you. But I had no idea how uncomfortable this conversation was going to make it. Like I am not, but not a bad, uncomfortable, just like a wow.
Speaker 1:You're aware you're like wow, so yeah that's kind of where I'm at Like I, we did not discuss it.
Speaker 4:I had brothers, so I was the only girl. I was almost raised as an only child because of our age differences. I had sister-in-laws. My first sister-in-law came in the marriage when I was four, but sex even then with them was a taboo conversation. Sister-in-law, because I gained a little weight in high school, thought I was having sex. So since that, like, I really struggled with not wanting because, oh, you mean I have, I'm gonna gain weight, like now. Of course that's not how that happens, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:I was told that my hips were gonna spread.
Speaker 4:Yes, so I'm saying yeah, so it just, and I'm like, so I put on some weight, I am sexually active. So then I just did not want to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the fear, the fear of like Also. That's not like you don't want that to be, even if you were being sexually active.
Speaker 4:It doesn't need to be shout to the rooftops because I've never heard of this before and nobody and no, and like my family, I did not discuss who my first was, when my first was like nothing. It was not discussed. I got my first toy for a wedding gift, a bridal. It was my bachelorette party. Do you know where it went? In the trash. I will be honest, 100 honest. It went in the trash because I did not know what to do with it and none of my girlfriends. We didn't talk.
Speaker 3:No, over here like about to cry no, no, no, no, she's laughing, she's laughing. Can I use this interlude to tell you something? Who is this?
Speaker 1:My mother. I am in love. Can I say what your mom just said? Sure, Her mom said what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom and Jenny was like talking about toys and she goes. They should be organized by texture and hashtag batteries.
Speaker 4:Yes, I am dying that she hashtagged the batteries.
Speaker 3:Yes, the part you might not see is I said we're talking about SEX and I don't know why I spelled it out.
Speaker 4:Because that's how we're raised.
Speaker 3:I said I should bite you in.
Speaker 3:I love this, I love this, but the other thing that I sent to you. I looked up sex in the Bible. This is 1 Corinthians 7. Now, concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for man not to have sexual relations with a woman. Okay, interesting. But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband. I'm pretty sure my husband's taken that verse and sent it to me many times. Just that verse, that one verse.
Speaker 1:Just saying Conjugal rights Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time. Flee from sexual immortality.
Speaker 3:Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexual and so yes so we're raised not to talk about it, but it is still in the bible and it does tell you to do it.
Speaker 4:But it also says the woman deserves it as well. It's not just for the man and so we do it. We just don't talk about it Exactly, but I think there's some groups where women have to do it because the man wants it. It's not about her. Yeah, it's not about her enjoyment, I don't you know. But I also think in some relationship I mean, I've had friends that their husbands did things they didn't like, but they felt forced, they had to. You know what I?
Speaker 3:mean kalisi. Yeah, in game of thrones when she first got married.
Speaker 1:She didn't know, and she, uh, basically, was bent over, and here you take it, yeah and lenea your friends that you know just did it right. If they were raised with mothers who or fathers, I don't know I would be more comfortable with a mother talking about what is and isn't correct. That's also another reason I want to nip this in the bud with it being taboo, Because if you had these open conversations with your mother, you would know that that is not okay and that is not what you need to do, Exactly Like how Andy sang talking about it with her daughter. That's amazing, Like we none of us really well, maybe Jenny, but as much as I love my mom and I love that she's like powerful about, you know, being sexual nowadays like we didn't have that conversation as a kid, you know. So, yeah, that makes me sad. I wish that they had those conversations.
Speaker 4:And my. There was no having this conversation with my mom. My mom was in her late 40s when I was born and what I learned was from that sex ed class in fourth, fifth grade where you learn about your period. But my daughter knows I did teach my daughter.
Speaker 2:What baffled me is that the women in our lives knew right and obviously there was proof because they had kids right but we never had the conversation about whether or not they felt safe in doing it, whether or not they were ready to do it, what that looked like. We didn't talk about whether or not it was going to hurt and what to expect if it did hurt and how to care for yourself afterwards and all of the things. We didn't have those conversations. And those conversations are important because a lot does happen to your body. When you give yourself for the first time, there's a lot of change that happens.
Speaker 2:But if no one ever has the conversation, you will go into something that's very natural and the after effect of the something natural you immediately panic and think that there is a medical emergency or you start to question you over something that's very natural. I think that the conversation should be had more, even if it's in kid doses, in small, micro doses. The conversation needs to be had with the young lady more and by women, so that they are not believing anything they hear from the person that wants to put something in their hole, so they know that their bodies are made for some pretty phenomenal things and will respond in some really alarming ways. If you're not particular about the sausage you let in your factory, it literally can end horribly and what that looks like for you as the female, how that presents and why you should be inspecting the things that you decide that you want to ingest, in whatever capacity you want to ingest it, but understanding what that looks like from all aspects outside of just the fear angle, the fear and the angle you know.
Speaker 1:think about how awful things have happened because of them, instilling fear into us about sex, when it could have been the other way around. Think of, like, all the things that have happened. Think about the women who have never had an orgasm by their husband because they don't even know what that is, or that they don't know that sex can feel good. Think about like. All teenagers are rebellious. I'm rebellious. That's why I had sex. I'm rebellious. I didn't know anything about it. They want to do rebellious things and if they're not educated on it, they're going to figure it out for themselves. Teenagers are going to be doing it, no matter what and, if you consent, like in, just talk about how it shouldn't be feared and no matter what age you are doing it. Obviously kids shouldn't be doing it. We could just talk to them and just be open about it and just think of how things would have been different.
Speaker 3:It wasn't until I was in my early 20s when I got married that we talked about it.
Speaker 3:I wish that we would have talked about it when I was younger because, like we're saying, we need to have these conversations. I annoy and disgust my daughter all the time, but that's because I want her to have the information. I want her to feel comfortable and I want her to know that she can come to me with questions without me saying this is what I do. She doesn't need to know about what we do in the bedroom, but what I want her to know is that she can ask me all the questions if there's something that comes up.
Speaker 1:Give them the resources right there are so many resources and books and to let them know it's okay to you know, explore their sexuality as long as they're being safe, and consent in all of the things. I don't know what sex education in school is like in the US. I only did it in Saudi and it was such BS.
Speaker 4:They don't have it anymore. They don't have it. My kids did not have it. Now I will say my son.
Speaker 2:They don't have it anymore.
Speaker 4:No, my son has.
Speaker 2:They don't have sex in or home in.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what? No? We used to no.
Speaker 2:Nope, they don't have it anymore.
Speaker 4:Jj and his middle school. They talked about it. Where Amanda went, they didn't because it was a K-8 traditional school.
Speaker 2:And now they separate them and they talk to the girls specifically about periods and pregnancy, and then they talk to the boys.
Speaker 4:But they don't even do that anymore.
Speaker 2:They don't do it anymore At all. You get the period talk fifth grade.
Speaker 3:Period talk, starting in like fourth or fifth grade, and they did it every year after that. Sixth grade, yeah, but then in high school in our health class they did talk about sex but it was mostly about STDs and mostly there was a lot of laughing and making fun and jokes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting that it's not happening.
Speaker 4:Health classes my husband used to the company he worked for in Kansas. They used to have a health section. It's like that. They talked about different health issues, but it was how to take your blood pressure. What's the blood pressure mean? It was those type of typical clinical health things. If you wanted to go into healthcare as a job, that was it. I don't think there's any school in Arizona that has a class like that. If there is, it's not where my kids go to school or went to school at, but it's very sad.
Speaker 3:Do any of you know if they still do this? Where I grew up, if a girl got pregnant, she actually got removed from being in a regular school with us and at first I thought it was because like an embarrassment thing, but what I later found out is it's a whole separate building that has child care for after they give birth and everything they don't do that anymore bummer, because they teach a lot of stuff okay now you go to an alternative school for real, for real, not attached to the school.
Speaker 2:I've never heard this. And and now they don't even do that. You just pregnant in school and then that's the way it is here. You can go virtual after you have the baby. You can go virtual so you can finish. But they're not providing daycare. They're not sending you to alternative schools anymore. They're like oh, you're having a baby, cool, your classmates, not y'all in the same class. So you're having a baby and you in chemistry, so come to class, bring a. You got a morning sickness bag, bring that with you. But come to chemistry.
Speaker 4:OK Dang, yeah, they here. They've had girls at the high school when I worked at the high school that were pregnant and they would go to an alternative. It wasn't alternative school, it was just online. It was all the same classes but they were able to go online. It was out of the other district office was their main, but that way they could stay in school and then, when they were ready, they could come right back, transition right back in, but they were at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, feel like they did that to take them out of the population, so other people wouldn't think that it was normal or okay, or they would catch it.
Speaker 2:Right, and I don't think that that was great for their mindset or their education, because if they were trying to continue their education, guess what A lot of the schools weren't online then, okay, and so you were still going to brick and mortar campuses. You didn't actually teach them the life skill of now. This thing has happened. It's not a mistake. This life is created and your balance now looks different. And so how do we teach you to juggle? How do we help you find balance? Because forever, this is always a factor.
Speaker 2:Now, instead, we put you somewhere, let you deal with that and go, come back and graduate, but still not give you any balance. We isolated you instead of giving you a community, and the isolation starts young, when you started having sex when you were young. Don't talk to them, they're loose, they're doing all things. The isolation starts there, and then if a life is created while you're out here being perceived fast or loose or making bad decisions, then it's oh, you made your bed, now lay in it, so we isolate you round two, and then we go. They didn't want any better, but they did, and nobody talked.
Speaker 4:We had a girl at a high school I worked at before we moved from Kansas that was transferred from the Catholic private school very expensive and she got kicked out of the Catholic school because she was pregnant. And she got kicked out of the Catholic school because she was pregnant and she had to come to the public school. To me that felt like scarlet letter. She needs her faith more than anything and you just pushed her out. That bothered me. Now. I did remember Amanda took like a health class for CNA or something at high school and they had to carry babies around for like a weekend. But I don't even know that teacher left. I don't even know if they still even do it now because of that teacher. These are a whole, whole baby. I had a. I had a robot baby. Yes, crying, screaming. I had a robot baby. Oh, yeah, that baby cried.
Speaker 2:My baby had colic. The baby went to the bathroom. You had a key to turn it off. The teacher programmed it for you and every day that program for me changed. It was like you had a nice calm baby over the night and then she, when you would come back, she'd check over your baby, make sure that you did all the things. They would look at the log. You had a certain amount of time to soothe your baby and figure out what those cries look like. It sounded, the cry sounded different and you had to go through the series of things until the baby stopped crying because they had programmed what the cries mean. You carried around a diaper bag, all the things a car seat.
Speaker 4:It had a. Ours had a little car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't an egg. Yeah, we had a car seat, we had the baby baby, we had the diaper bag, the whole nine. It's the reason why I wasn't a teen mom, literally. And then I had to carry a gym bag in my book bag and all the things that we had to do that for an entire month. Yeah, oh, see theirs was like a weekend.
Speaker 4:No, they went to the football game on Friday night. They were taking that baby to the football game unless they had a babysitter for it.
Speaker 2:It was off and on for a month. We went through what it was like to be three. They gave us a husband. We had a husband. We had to go through budgets. We went grocery shopping, we planned life on it. You decided this is what you wanted to do. If you and your fake spouse was beefing who had the baby. We went through who got the baby this weekend? But they made sure that both parents had, if we, because we're not technically married, both parents had alternate weekends and we switched. And then during the day, during class, we right next to us and, as they wanted to see that we could interact, that we could figure out this decision. If, in the right now moment, we decided we didn't want to be together, no more, but this baby existed, they stopped doing that.
Speaker 3:Wow, we just had a bag of sugar. I know that the babies came later and the robots came later, but we just had the bag of sugar and they weighed your sugar at the end to see how well you were taking care of that bag of sugar.
Speaker 2:Guys, we have been graced by a beautiful faith.
Speaker 4:I love us Guys, we have been graced by a beautiful faith. We have a new guest. I'm so excited.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the party. So this is my mother. This is Avis.
Speaker 1:Everyone here is so excited to meet you, Mom. We've heard great things.
Speaker 3:This is good.
Speaker 1:I'm thankful.
Speaker 5:Yes, you walked in on us having a conversation around sex and why it's such a taboo subject I'm thankful taboo and how we think it would be a better place if the conversation was open and we discussed it without fear. My mother did not discuss it, neither did my dad, but they were very affectionate around this.
Speaker 3:But some of the stuff that grandma taught you was really, really weird. Yeah, but that didn't have anything to do with sex. True, she taught you some weird things about tampons and shaving. She taught you some weird things about tampons and shaving.
Speaker 5:Shaving was a taboo.
Speaker 3:She gave you sandpaper.
Speaker 5:mom To shave my legs, yes.
Speaker 2:Wait what, wait what. How does mom do that?
Speaker 3:My mom's mom was not kind, let's put it that way. Okay, mom, you tell Wait sandpaper.
Speaker 2:Okay, can we just pause at the sandpaper part, because I'm okay. So I have some follow-up questions. Hi, mom, I have follow-up questions. Is that what? What was the point for you where you said I need to change this? No, I mean, what was the point for you what? What was your, your, your, your youth moment that said, when I have a daughter, I want to make sure I talk to her about these things. What was that moment for you?
Speaker 5:I don't think I actually had a moment where I thought I would have a daughter, but at the moment, about using a sandpaper on my legs, it's like nobody should have to do this. And that was my.
Speaker 2:That was my only rebellion yeah, I wasn't allowed to shave because I was six foot. Because I would, I would be welcoming advances from older. What am I shaving for? Nobody's supposed to be that close to me. They shouldn't be touching me. They should be able to see that I have body, hair, all those things.
Speaker 5:And so, wow, sandpaper is wild yeah, I only did one leg and and I you it was starting to bleed and I just thought, well, this just isn't, I'm not going to do it. So I went and got dad's razor and finished shaving my leg.
Speaker 3:Can I just say I think grandma had cruel ideas of how to mess with people.
Speaker 5:It probably had a lot to do with how she was raised. And that's where breaking generational curses come in. But that doesn't have anything to do with what I know you ladies are talking about today I've got some more follow-up questions.
Speaker 2:Adis, okay, so jen's in the store with you, right? So you're just out running some errands and you was like, hey, let's go make this stop. Did jen ask questions afterwards? I think she's referring to the Silver.
Speaker 1:Fox.
Speaker 2:The Silver Fox. Did she have questions afterwards Like what was that experience? Like I'm trying to know a young Jenny now. Like was she baffled, was her mouth open? Pause, y'all. Not in that kind of way, but like was she like, hey, what is?
Speaker 5:this. Well see, jenny was an adult then, wasn't she? No, no.
Speaker 3:Mom, I was like 14, 15 when I started going with you and I think I just didn't realize what was behind the curtain. I kept a straight face and walked around and read the humorous cards and funny t-shirts.
Speaker 5:You weren't allowed to go back behind the curtain.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Did I ask questions? Not that I recall. Yeah, did I ask questions? Not that I recall, uh, but I wouldn't have ended up at that store to begin with if it wasn't for one of my friends, debbie, that her husband went to and bought her something. Okay, wait a minute, debbie.
Speaker 3:Well, yes, but this is a public platform, so you should, we shouldn't go into I'm not saying I'm not saying last names, I've just yeah, okay, pretty much the whole community is marvin, so yeah but, but.
Speaker 4:But it's your name, is this? But it's part of your story, jen, so using her first name won't say she won't figure it out.
Speaker 3:I'm just in shock over here. Okay, I grew up in a very, very lds community.
Speaker 5:No, she couldn't even. She didn't even go buy groceries on Sunday. And if she did, she opened the garage, pulled in closed the garage before she would take the groceries out of the trunk of her car.
Speaker 2:So the neighbors wouldn't see.
Speaker 5:So the neighbors wouldn't see that she went shopping on Sunday. Was that not something you can do? Correct, unless things have changed. A lot of things have changed in the decades.
Speaker 3:But here's the thing I always thought about this, about the whole not shopping on Sunday. If somebody from church saw you, they're there too, they're there too.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 5:And unless they're living across the street and not at the grocery Good point.
Speaker 3:Good point, yeah, hey, also, I know that I've talked to you guys. You've had a lot of questions about Mormonism, so this is a great time to ask my mom questions about that too.
Speaker 1:What was it? What was being in a Mormon lifestyle? What was the topic around sex then? Was it also feared? Because I grew up Catholic and it was pretty much, like you know, a fear thing. So in the Mormon religion is it also a fear thing, or are they more open about it?
Speaker 5:I joined the Mormon church when I was in high school and started dating somebody that came from a Mormon family, and so I grew up with a family that seemed to have. They weren't I don't. I had a book on sex, so you know, I found it up in the attic, poking around in the attic, garage attic. I would love to read that. Now it's a vintage. It would be a vintage book. You know, my parents were playful and affectionate, but there was definitely a separation. Parents were adults and kids were kids and kids were you go over there and we're going to be over here, you know. So they had an adult life and we pretty well just raised ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, raised yourselves. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, I did too. Free range, kid. Yeah.
Speaker 5:So my ideas about sex? It was, the book was boring to me and so I a friend, she and I were down by a stream and reading it. But I got bored and so she read and I went and played and poked around and, you know, did my kid thing. And it wasn't until dating somebody, my first boyfriend in high school that he wanted to be touchy-feely and it scared me and so he dropped me and then my next boyfriend was the person I married.
Speaker 1:See, that's another thing that we need to be educated on, like I hope he didn't get hurt because he dropped you. You know, like what a disgusting thing to drop somebody for.
Speaker 5:Well, he found somebody else younger. She was in the ninth grade and they got pregnant, so that was my next question.
Speaker 1:Did you know anybody in high school that got pregnant and what happened to those women?
Speaker 5:The ones that did. Back then. People got married when they got pregnant and most of them I think all of them that I went to school with are still together. Wow, even if they were underage, they had to get married. They're still together. Wow, even if they were underage, they had to get married Like 16? Yeah, the only circumstance I've ever known of where somebody didn't get married was a neighbor whose daughter got pregnant and the parents were Mormon and they insisted that she adopt the baby out.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's hard. Insist too, picking up my next question.
Speaker 5:That's great that they're still together, though, yeah, but was abortion talked about, since I didn't have a pregnancy problem to discuss, you know, I don't know how that would have been handled by other people. My husband and his first wife got married because they were pregnant and did one of the parents suggest you had the option and you chose to have the child? Yeah State was this in Washington?
Speaker 3:Stepdad was married to his first wife 12 years and then she left, left the daughter with him. He eventually remarried a woman with a daughter. He helped raise that daughter and when she left because he's got the worst luck ever he actually kept her daughter and finished a good man. I think he's been treated pretty badly by some women in the past, yet he has such a heart for children and love for people that I find it amazing. And the fact that he raised my stepsister, his own stepdaughter I think that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:He sounds like a great man. That's amazing. He is a great man. Let's see. I think that's pretty amazing. He sounds like a great man. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:He is a great man. Let's see, I think we should ask questions about the temple. Oh, our guest. I feel like a lot of this Mormon stuff has to do with sex and stuff too, and there was some weird stuff you told me about the temple.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, it's actually. It's no secret that the temple seraph fashioned after the Masons.
Speaker 1:Well, aware of the Masons, had no idea it had to do with Masons either. I'm going to ask my brother this it doesn't.
Speaker 5:But Joseph Smith was a Mason, and so when? So it's the sign of the cross, or like you'll kill yourself if you ever give away your temple name, or whatever you do all of these vows in the temple and you are given, you're given a name that women are given their heavenly names, and you're not allowed to speak of it exactly. If you say your name out loud, you will go to hell. Wait, okay, I got questions.
Speaker 2:What's the point? I got questions, andy, got questions, andy. Andy has so many questions.
Speaker 5:I actually had to emotionally divorce myself from the church. One of the first things I did when I went out on a mountain bike ride is I went out and went up on a mountaintop, put my bike down and shook my fists up in the air and I said my temple name is Margaret and I am not going to hell.
Speaker 1:That is the most powerful moment and I want to make a movie about that. Wow, that is so powerful in such as, like stick it to the man. Like Andy, you can ask your question. I'm over here like yes, yes, Did you wear the?
Speaker 2:what is it called the garments? Yes the garments.
Speaker 5:Yes, and they have symbols on them that are associated with the mason. Are they heavy? They're lightweight, they're like wearing a slip. Except that they're like back in the early 70s. Um, should I talk about the design of them? I mean, they were onesies. They were onesies and they had no buttons or is it never heard of this?
Speaker 1:you wore this under your outfit.
Speaker 2:Go potty you gotta completely get undressed.
Speaker 5:Uh, there's a slip down at the crotch right and right like the body, the body shapers.
Speaker 2:Now Right, you're not body shapers.
Speaker 5:You would just, you know, lift your dress up or whatever, and you know, pull that aside. And do you wear this with every outfit? I've never heard this before. Yes, you always wear it. As a matter of fact, you wear your undergarments, like panties or a bra, over the top of them. Why over the top? Because the garment is supposed to touch your body. Then why are you?
Speaker 2:wearing the undergarments. If you're wearing the garments, why are you wearing underwear If the garments are covering up all the spots?
Speaker 5:why are you wearing underwear? Sometimes, there's times of the month where you want a little more coverage.
Speaker 4:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Valid, valid.
Speaker 1:So during times of the month, are you supposed to wear that and then underwear, because then you would just get that. I guess you could put a pad in it. I have so many questions. Can you? Yeah, can you? I didn't use pads, were you?
Speaker 5:allowed to use tampons yes, okay, some families yeah, allowed, allowed. Some families I mean now there's a family member that I'm aware of that wasn't allowed to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Inside family when I grew up. I grew up in Saudi Arabia and they don't have tampons there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The women are allowed, so we had to bring them in.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what a tampon was until I got well into high school where one of my teammates was like this is how you use it. We did not have the conversation, you weren't supposed to do it, and I was actually told that I would lose my that I would break my hymen using tampons. And so there you go.
Speaker 5:Yeah, families are different. We didn't have any pads in our house and we didn't have any tampons.
Speaker 4:We didn't even know how to use them. I did. My mom didn't even know what to buy. I learned in high school gym.
Speaker 5:Okay, at least you had hopefully some friends you learned from.
Speaker 4:They did. They told me they're like don't insert it this way, Do it this way.
Speaker 2:It's less thankful for good friends that watch your things and because of that is the reason why I started talking and I wish I would have had the conversation. I got my cycle in fourth grade so seriously. I got my cycle in fourth grade so seriously. I got my cycle in fourth grade and nobody talked to me and I literally thought I was dying and getting your cycle early. Understand that it happens in the family. Nobody said so and so got their cycle that early too, and then it happened to my daughter. Right now we gotta have the conversation because if my cycle came early, there's a likelihood yours will come early and and you know what you can get pregnant at Nine when you have a period at nine. But and girls are getting their cycles earlier, but we're not having the conversation and we're shaming them in their curiosity.
Speaker 5:And that's very sad, and that's what happened to me.
Speaker 2:I was shamed in my curiosity. When I had questions it was like I'm afraid to ask these or I'm ashamed to ask these because you may think that I'm loose or proud.
Speaker 5:Told mom well, we had this classroom discussion and mom said good, and at 14,. Then I said well, I, apparently this is the time and she goes. Well, tampons are in the bathroom, go figure it out.
Speaker 3:Goodness, no wonder I was afraid of Grandma Annie.
Speaker 2:So you converted. I got some more Mormon questions, so you converted into Mormonism when you were dating? Yeah, did you have a lot of domestic roles? Were you expected to be heavily domesticated when you converted, like I don't know how to say that in a way that doesn't?
Speaker 5:My mother worked. She worked when we children were young, we had a babysitter, but otherwise the examples that I had in my lifetime growing up I mean by the time I was in junior high she was not working anymore, just full-time mom. And so full-time mom was the role model I had, and especially with the extended Mormon family. Domestic cooking, cleaning, having babies is what the Mormons were about then. And let's say, my first husband and I went back east to his last military station to set up housekeeping for the first time. He went to the PX and did some shopping for us and came home with a broom and a dustpan and it's kind of like boom, it's like duh All of a sudden. It was kind of like I got hit with a baseball and it was like wow, I got to do this the rest of my life. This is it Cleaning laundry. That was just kind of a turning point for me. I was a, a free range kid, just kind of like I played in the hills and I was not a girly girl at all. Was it packaged?
Speaker 2:for you in the way that. So for me it was always bundled in a way of you have to be the Proverbs woman, but they never finished reading the rest of what that meant and how you were supposed to serve the man of the house and all those things. But it also continues to say and they're supposed to do the same for you, but the part of the verse being the proverb wife, they always hung up on the you're supposed to cater to your spouse but left out the part where it's supposed to be mutual respect. That's how it was packaged for me. So I was expected the examples that I got growing up and me getting married and doing all the things I was expected to do. What my grandma did and that was bring them their plate and ask them if they're hungry and put the stuff on there and then wait for them to say that they needed something else and to be readily available when they said they needed something.
Speaker 2:While doing laundry and rearing kids and all of those things, I didn't realize how deeply seated or rooted that was for me until I had a daughter and she started dating. I'm like, wait a minute, he can fix his own plate. It's literally it's okay to ask hey, I'm up, you want me to fix your plate? And they're like sure, because I was already doing it. But I started to look around how I was raised and the males in my life were sitting waiting for their plate, Not like oh, you are already up, Can you grab this for me? It was the expectation that I came here and I sat at 6 pm and there's not a plate in front of me. You hadn't brought it yet. That's how I was raised. That was my example of how to be a wife, how to be a good wife and how to be a good mother, and I'm glad that that is not the thing that I continue to roll out, because that's weird.
Speaker 5:You know, on my first marriage, the men of the families, they got up. It was usually like potluck style when we had big family dinners and they served their own, they got their own plates, but after that it was like men went to watch football on TV and the women all went to the kitchen to clean and the kids went outside. Yeah same.
Speaker 3:So I have a question yes, and it goes back to the garments side yeah, same. So I have a question yes, and it goes back to the garments.
Speaker 5:What did the symbols stand for? I don't remember. I'd actually have to go look it up on the Masons, but it has to do with truth, maybe faithfulness. And then the ones on the knees, I can't remember, one on each chest and one on the belly button. That was for, I think, health, and then the one on the knees were I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't remember, did the men wear them as well? Yes, okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, good, good, and basically, to my understanding, if your garments were showing, then you were not dressing appropriately.
Speaker 5:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And then, over the decades, the garments evolved because women started having more active lifestyles. So all of a sudden the garments started getting shorter so that women could wear capri pants. The cap sleeves went to, I think, no cap, and then they went to two-piece with an actual crotch in them. So now you had, you know, top and bottom.
Speaker 3:Made for easy access right. Well, that was the old one.
Speaker 5:Well, you were supposed to. I mean, it got. If you were to back in the early decades, you were only supposed to take them off when you took baths, so did you have to wear them under swimming suits?
Speaker 1:No, Probably weren't wearing swimming suits.
Speaker 2:Wait, what did the swimming suits look like? Because I've seen some Mormon groups that have on swimsuits that look like culottes and they're like full suits but they're not like form fitting and their necks are covered but they're still in the water. It's like giant palazzo swimsuits.
Speaker 5:I think at one point in time I bought a swimsuit a one piece and that seemed to be a great turn on because that was the closest thing to a negligee I would have ever put on. Wow. You got some totic.
Speaker 3:You had lots of silky silky pajamas though you might not have had like negligees, but you had lots of like silky, satiny pajamas. I remember folding them when folding laundry. I mean, granted they were like shirts and pants, but still they were like all silky.
Speaker 5:Yeah, those were nice.
Speaker 3:That was the closest to sexy our household was.
Speaker 5:Yeah, until I evolved sexually.
Speaker 3:So do you remember back then chronic illness conversations happening within the church and how was that dealt with? Or was it friend, none, I mean?
Speaker 1:I wonder, why though?
Speaker 3:because I remember my aunt being diagnosed with ms, but I didn't know what it was at the time or understand how serious it was, and I don't remember there ever being real conversations about it other than just my aunt had MF.
Speaker 5:Yeah, when we came back from the last duty station for the military and settled in the hometown and started going to a church there Mormon and the ladies you know, the men go out home teaching the ladies who go out visiting teaching to the ladies of the church I was assigned a woman that had met MS. But the gals just said go visit her, and that's all. They said I've never done this before. And then they said she has MS. I didn't know what MS was, I didn't know that she was bedridden. It was kind of like I just don't think there was much enough education on it then. And if there was education on it, it certainly wasn't the women who were educated.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think that also to go with that, you know babies dying that wasn't a conversation that we had either. I remember hearing about some of these people losing children or whatever, hearing that their babies had passed in their sleep and hearing this happening what I felt was a lot as I was growing up, but never a conversation of why or anything like that.
Speaker 5:So it's almost like we just didn't talk about health in general, or am I wrong? No, there wasn't conversations, just was not. When your dad got cancer, jenny, I really didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Another conversation and I'll bring my mom and we can all discuss. I love this. Okay, we're going to plan.
Speaker 3:I love this okay, we're gonna plan this out. We are gonna plan this out. All right, ladies, until next time, don't forget your spoon.
