This chapter is one that I have looked forward to writing. It is a topic that affected so much of my life and brought so much shame and guilt. Not to mention, I personally think it is one of the most dominating and invasive parts of Mormon culture, especially in Utah, and more specifically Utah County where I was raised. Because of the dominating population of Mormons, there is a social peer pressure to keep all the standards perfectly and everyone knew if someone didn't. A large chunk of high school gossip had to do with who was and wasn't keeping these standards.

To begin, I want to lay out a few of these standards and expectations. All of these can be found in a pamphlet published by the Church entitled For the Strength of Youth. It covers 19 different topics that the Church leaders want youth to be conscious of. I remember being encouraged to keep a copy of this pamphlet on my nightstand and read a section every night before going to bed. I don't know that I ever did that, but I definitely took everything in this book very seriously. I will quote excerpts from the pamphlet and then expand. These are all taken directly from the sections entitled Dating and Sexual Purity. There are other topics in the pamphlet that will not be explored in this chapter.

You should not date until you are at least 16 years old. When you begin dating, go with one or more additional couples. Avoid going on frequent dates with the same person. Developing serious relationships too early in life can limit the number of other people you meet and can perhaps lead to immorality.¹

The whole "don't date before your 16" idea was taken very seriously. I remember there was one girl in my high school who had skipped a grade. She was in one of my classes and the teacher always teased her that she couldn't go to homecoming until her Senior year because she would turn 16 just after her Junior year Homecoming. That's how expected it was. Even the teachers promoted and talked about it. Typically everyone assumed that everyone else wasn't going to date until they were 16 and the standard was just expected whether you wanted to follow it or not. If someone made the decision to go to a school dance before their 16th birthday, everyone knew about it. I remember a friend who regularly challenged that thinking. Their argument was that there wasn't something that magically happened at midnight on your 16th birthday that suddenly made you mature enough to date. I remember thinking something like "But the prophet says so!" but in hindsight I am actually very impressed that they would challenge the group think around them at such a young age.

Now, I want to effectively illustrate what was considered dating. Growing up, there were many kids my same age in my ward. It was a fairly even mix of girls and boys. We would hang out together all the time. It usually consisted of us walking around the neighborhood in the middle of the street talking, joking, and laughing. During the summer we'd play night games every night. I'm not sure if it's common to call it "night games" outside the Mormon community, but it consisted of us playing games like capture the flag, kick the can, and sardines after sunset. Almost all of our parents had a strict rule that if there was the same number of boy as there were girls, then it was a group date. Apparently they felt that there was too much risk of us pairing off. So before we were 16, this was forbidden. And even if someone's parents didn't care, it didn't matter because it was enforced by, not only everyone else's parents, but by the community. Often there would be comments from other adults who weren't related to any of us telling us to be careful or pointing out that there were three boys and three girls. One of us would feel guilty enough and go home. I'm completely serious when I say this was a regular occurrence.

Once you actually turn 16, as stated, it is highly discouraged to go on dates alone, or what are often referred to as "single dates". Every date had to be planned with at least one other couple. At school dances, sometimes these groups of couples would exceed 50 people. I'm not joking.

It wasn't rare that kids would want to go on their first date on, or as close as possible, to their 16th birthday. Because my birthday is in the summer, on my sweet 16 I was with my family on a vacation in Nauvoo, Illinois — a city founded by the early Mormon Pioneers before going to Utah. So, naturally, I still found a way to go on a date on my 16th birthday. 2 years earlier, I had met a girl at EFY — Mormon summer camp — that I had kept in contact with who actually lived in the region near Nauvoo. I had a crush on her, so I asked her if she would be my first date on my 16th birthday. Man, I was so Mormon.

Up until writing this, I had actually forgotten that we broke the rule of no single dates that day but I had justified it because we were going to see a movie in the Church's visitors center in Nauvoo. Not just any movie, but the Church's most recent, awe-inspiring movie about the life of Joseph Smith. This movie was powerful. Sure, it leaves out the fact that he practiced polygamy, destroyed a printing press, and many other things they don't you to know about, but as a TBM, I loved this movie it. It was my date's first time seeing the movie and she also enjoyed it. That is how Mormon I was. My first date was on my 16th birthday, with a girl I met at Mormon summer camp, in the Mormon city of Nauvoo, and watching a full-length movie about Joseph Smith.

As far as avoiding "frequent dates with the same person", this one was interesting to see how people interpreted it. Some just didn't care and dated one person exclusively, but would still make efforts to go on group dates. Others would make sure to go on at least one other date with at least one other person before going out with the same person again. This created a very interesting environment. Just like any high school, there was the desire for more serious relationships, but the titles of boyfriend and girlfriend were taboo and hardly ever used. They signified that you were dating someone exclusively, which was against the rules. So it was more common to say that two people "liked each other" or that they were "going out". Some would keep these relational dynamics between a group of trusted friends and typically didn't like to address them. Others were publicly known and if you were to ever go on a date with someone in that type of relationship it was just socially understood that the date was as friends because they really were with someone else. If in this type of relationship, the biggest school dances, such as homecoming and prom, were saved for your significant other, while all the other ones were typically reserved for friends. All of this got very confusing very fast.

I myself consciously decided to go on dates frequently and never to date anyone exclusively. I never had a serious girlfriend until age 21 when I started dating my the woman who is now my wife. In high school, I would go on at least one date a month but often more frequently and I never took the same girl out twice. It was very common for Darrell — from chapter 8 — and I to double together and just go get ice cream or something simple. Once we got a bucket of Laffy Taffys and just read the jokes off of all of them for an hour. That was fun. As you know, I was way into my Mormonism and keeping the standards, so I was typically attracted to girls who were of similar attitudes. Whenever I tried to enter a secret, delicate Mormon relationship like the ones I just explained, the girl usually didn't feel comfortable because of all the rhetoric and pressure related to not dating exclusively. As a TBM, I completely agreed and didn't blame her. So I was never in any sort of meaningful relationship in high school.

The dating world in Utah Mormon culture is definitely strange, embarrassing, and shaming. But what only magnifies it is the Church's teachings and standards around chastity. For the Strength of Youth says this under the category of sexual purity:

Before marriage, do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing. Do not do anything else that arouses sexual feelings. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body.

Avoid situations that invite increased temptation, such as late-night or overnight activities away from home or activities where there is a lack of adult supervision. Do not participate in discussions or any media that arouse sexual feelings. Do not participate in any type of pornography.²

There are lot of things in there that can be very hard for hormonal teenagers to follow and, as demonstrated in chapter 4, the Church takes all of these things extremely seriously. Of all the shame that was brought on me in my life from the Church, this was the topic that brought the most, and I kept these rules. I can't imagine how I would have felt had I not.

In my youth, my bishop would meet with all the boys regularly to talk about chastity. He told us that we couldn't touch a girl anywhere that a bikini would cover, which honestly sounds pretty reason