Femininity, Attractiveness, and the Cult of Pious Beauty

So in my time, I sometimes listen to occasional piece by Jack the Johnson. One is called "Posters." Some telling lines speaking of many typical girls:

"Looking at herself but wishing she was someone else
Because the body of the doll it don't look like hers at all

So she straps it on, she sucks it in, she throws it up, and gives a grin
Laughing at herself because she knows she ain't that at all

It was said by a University of Minnesota Professor that Brigham Young University is a campus that is "sexually charged." What makes for a campus of this brand? Is it obsession over body image, over dates, over hairstyles? What makes the romantic soul of BYU tick? Do LDS compare favorably with other college age students in terms of how they view themselves...do they have heatlhy attitudes about romance? I do not have answers to these question; however, they do present a begged question: "What does the gospel and the prophets have to say about body image?" Indeed, it is a real issue, and it is hard to simply brush off with a "Well, you just need to know that you're just fine" or that "Boys aren't THAT concerned with your waistline." Unfortunately, few believe such advice, and in the case of the latter, the woeful truth is that some actually are concerned. However, as Elder Packer noted, doctrine understood changes behavior best. Let's plumb the depts...see what we can find on this current social problem.

President Faust has declared that "femininity is not just lipstick, stylish hairdos, and trendy clothes. It is the divine adornment of humanity." President Faust continued, decrying the presence of women boxers and wrestlers in the sports arena. Therefore, to President Faust, femininity seems to rest on making distinctions between the sexes. Is there anything inherently wrong, immoral about women boxing or wrestling? I would suggest that its wrongness comes not in its substance but more as a symbol that walls between the genders are breaking down...the practical outcome of which means that gender roles are blurred.

But I digress...the reality is that females are encouraged on the grassroots level to enhance femininity. While we constantly hear about the need to avoid vanity, there coexists with that teaching a similar drive to get married...indeed, even President David O. McKay noted: "It is not my purpose to discourage efforts to enhance physical beauty. When given by birth, it should be nurtured in childhood, cherished in girlhood, and protected in womanhood. When not inherited, it should be developed and sought after in every legitimate and healthful manner."

Therefore, where is the "golden mean" between the doctrines against vanity and for pious beauty? And more importantly, how can these pro-beauty sentiments be kept in check, lest they spiral into the harmful influences of self-centeredness, elitism and outright brattiness? Some of my female viewers may question whether it is so bad that beautiful people tend to cluster together...after all, should not we associate with those who resemble most our values? We don't actually have to be friendswith those poor souls who are plagued by less-than-attractive features, do we? Of course, you act pleasant enough around them, but we all know that deep in your gut, you're looking around you thinking: "If a cute guy/girl walked in here, I could outflirt any guy/girl in the room..." You know that when another guy/girl might talk about how a guy/girl was flirting with her, you're thinking that the other guy/girl must've been 1) desperate, 2) charitable, or 3) of that school called the "recreational" school of flirting...

Maybe we justify these tendencies by dropping some tripe about how we know our own talents and magnify them. Yeah...just like Washington lobbyists "magnify" their talent for persuasion and Mafia hitmen magnify their talents of marksmanship...

Their must be an element of pious beauty...and one that does not deny the realities of our physical beauty and our gospel. Brethren and sistren, please do opine...President Kimball (and in some ways, the Proclamation) suggests that learning about what it means to be a man/woman is a key element of our lifetime in mortality. Maybe we could have some light shed on it via scriptures, quotes, and especially personal experience.