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Mormon Garments: Sacred and Secret
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints requires that adult members wear garments under their clothes day and night. Though a central practice, the wearing of garments exists behind a wall of silence, as Church authorities and LDS culture discourage discussion of such a sacred matter.
Nancy Ross, Jessica Finnigan, and Larissa Kanno Kindred draw on a survey of over 4,500 Church members and their own backgrounds to explore the multifaceted meanings and experiences of Mormon garments. As the authors show, garments also function as a tool of social control that shapes behavior and reinforces conformity around sexuality. The diverse lived experiences of Latter-day Saints reveal how belief and gender intersect with feelings of secrecy, shame, and obedience while creating complexities for LDS members as they navigate questions of faith, identity, and agency. In addition, the authors call for greater understanding of the people grappling with tensions between personal customs and religious expectation.
Insightful and rich with detail, Mormon Garments sheds light on an intimate practice in the lives of Latter-day Saints.
Nancy Ross, Jessica Finnigan, and Larissa Kanno Kindred draw on a survey of over 4,500 Church members and their own backgrounds to explore the multifaceted meanings and experiences of Mormon garments. As the authors show, garments also function as a tool of social control that shapes behavior and reinforces conformity around sexuality. The diverse lived experiences of Latter-day Saints reveal how belief and gender intersect with feelings of secrecy, shame, and obedience while creating complexities for LDS members as they navigate questions of faith, identity, and agency. In addition, the authors call for greater understanding of the people grappling with tensions between personal customs and religious expectation.
Insightful and rich with detail, Mormon Garments sheds light on an intimate practice in the lives of Latter-day Saints.
216 pages, Paperback
Published February 24, 2026
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May 10, 2026
A client of mine brought this to me unprompted (after having many conversations about the church and garments) and asked me to read it. It was very interesting and informative. Here are my thoughts.
Writing: I felt like the quality of writing was not high, this was essentially a collegiate level research project and each chapter read like an essay (intro, arguments, evidence, conclusion). I found many typos which always makes me question the reliability or qualifications of the author. While the information presented through the writing was interesting, the writing itself was dry. I also felt like for a research paper there were definite times where the authors added in their opinions. Of course they shared their experiences but I feel like in interpreting some of the survey data there was some bias.
Content: Basically these formerly active LDS women created a survey that they gathered about 4500 responses to from a variety of members of the church. The survey asked questions about their feelings about garments, their interpretations of garments, how they wear them, among other questions about their experiences in the church. The whole argument of these women writing the book is that the church created garments purposely to control its members, specifically focusing on controlling sexual activity both inside and outside of marriage. They frequently compare the garment to Michel Foucault's panopticon. I don’t agree that this was done purposely by the church, but they do a great job demonstrating the effect of garments on members of the church no matter what the intent was. Intent does not equal impact! The impact of garments on many members (not all) has been shame, body image issues, fear or surveillance, and essentially control over their bodies. It was fascinating to hear other people’s experiences and validating at times, though some of the experiences from the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s are clearly out of date and have been terminated in policy. For example, it was cited multiple times throughout the book that newly endowed members of the church were instructed to only take off their garments for showering, swimming, and sex. There were detailed accounts of members being asked in recommend interviews to report about when during sexual encounters with their spouse they took their garments off and put them back on. I think these traditions have gone mostly extinct as leaders are now asked to stick very strictly to the temple recommend questions, and in the temple we give very minimal instruction about how to wear the garments. But these practices still caused harms for generations of members.
An interesting tidbit of information: the first time that sleeveless garments were suggested as an alteration to the garments to the first presidency was in the 1930's. Wow!
Something else that was extremely shocking to me was how many survey respondents shared that their garments severely impacted their sex lives with their spouse. Whether from pressure from leaders of from their spouse to wear the garments a certain way.
All in all, this was an interesting read, and worth 180 pages of my time. In particular because I've studied systems and how they lend power and control to groups of people in different societies or cultures.
"As our personal questions transformed into research questions, we realized that our project was about more than our underwear. Instead, garments were a window into the internal power dynamics of Mormon communities, where social power is available to men and women through their belief but in complex ways." (pg. 6)
"Despite embracing Christian messages of caring for the needy, having a low socioeconomic status is highly stigmatized in church culture, specifically in areas of the United States with a high concentration of members like Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. Sermons given in local congregations, as well as in larger general meetings, commonly tell stories of receiving financial blessings as a reward for faith and obedience. Promotions, new jobs, and better pay were often cited as symbols of God's favor." (pg. 8)
"Wearing garments produces meanings, feelings, and behaviors in the bodies of those who wear them and garments are a reflection of institutional power over those bodies and the church's desire to assimilate into the American religious landscape. (pg. 16)
"Mormon belief has three identifiable parts: intellectual content, expected emotions, and embodied practices." (pg. 17)
Quoting Angelina Grimke's husband (Quaker): "He worried that associating particular elements of dress with religious ideas and values "could render women slaves" to these restrictions. This wariness of assigning too much meaning to clothing reflected an understanding of its power to shape behavior. Embedding religious ideas into items of clothing would give religious groups an easy way to monitor and control bodies." (pg. 24)
Defining conforming and nonconforming beliefs: "Conforming believers - those who fully accept church teachings....Nonconforming believers - those who question aspects of church teaching" (pg. 49)
On conforming belief and nonconforming belief: "These two different belief types shaped my worldview in different ways. Conforming belief offered existential comfort in a chaotic world and the reward of feeling closeness to God. I was invested in making choices that aligned with the values my church taught, which I believed would obligate God to smooth the path ahead and reserve a space for me in the best places of the afterlife. Nonconforming belief brought me a different view. Where conforming belief helped me to feel safety and security in my choices, nonconforming belief revealed to me all of the social and existential pressures I experienced in making those conforming choices. Nonconforming belief did not bring with it the same feelings of safety but instead brought clarity of the church as a system, a new freedom of choice, and an invitation to hold the complexity of other people's choices in a different way. These contrasting lenses of belief have brought me to a deeper awareness of the forces that shape not only faith but also identity." (pg. 48)
"The use of literalness and symbolism together reflect the conflation and confusion of the two ... Garments become less of a symbol of the idea of holiness and instead transform into an article of clothing that sanctifies the body that wears them. Many survey participants from all four gender-belief groups talk about the symbolism of garments in a way that evokes literalism." (pg. 60)
Quoting a respondent: "garments symbolize a commitment I have made, althought right now, I don't necessarily see them as being part of a commitment to God, but perhaps more part of my commitment to being a practicing Mormon. I think they are an important part of how I would like to practice my faith (or at least, I think I would like them to be an important part of my religious practice), but I also recognize that personal meaning can only come from me - and therefore I think wearing garments should be (and would benefit from being) a personal decision between me and God, and less of a cultural expectation." (pg. 67)
Quoting a respondent: "garments are a reminder of a power greater than me. While I have my doubts of there even being a God I see the value of believing in a greater power. It helps me to stay humble and encourages belief in a value system that comes from a wiser source." (pg. 69)
Quoting a respondent: "Garments are not magical, they won't protect me from anything. They are a symbol of a choice I've made in my life. While I'm mostly agnostic in my belief in God, I enjoy the Mormon community and social structure (most days), and the garment for me is a symbol of Christ's teachings that I do find good." (pg. 69)
Quoting a respondent: "I don't know if God is terribly concerned with us wearing them 24/7, but since that's what I covenanted to do, I don't mind." (pg. 69)
"Many nonconforming women understood garments as an outward symbol of conforming to Mormon norms and not reflective of one's relationship to God. One nonconforming woman (race unidentified) wrote, "To me, I guess they are a way to show that I am living the principles of the gospel, but not erally as a reminder to myself, but as an outward symbol to others (you can totally see a G line through most any clothes)." (pg. 71)
"For nonconforming women discussing the meaning of garments, the loss of trust that they described is often directed at the LDS Church instead of at God. This separation of God and church is common among nonconforming men and women." (pg. 73)
Discussing issues around pregnancy, periods, and nursing associated with garments and the secrecy/silence around these topics: "Talking about [garment issues] in a group opened up the idea that these problems were not just mine but that they were systemic." (pg. 78)
"while the church exerts strong pressure on its members to conform within a very narrow range of well-defined behaviors and perspectives, there is an unexpected plurality and dynamism in the way believers practice Mormonism. Often, secrecy and silence hide this plurality from church members and outsiders, making the experience of Mormonism appear more unified than it really is." (pg. 81)
"Joseph Smith's personal, lived experiences of God determined many elements of LDS teaching that are still embraced today. The foundational assumption in this belief-forming process is that a particular action will always create the same result. What worked for Joseph Smith, with all of his identities and nineteenth-century context, will work for all people in all places. The LDS Church expects, then, that the doctrines it teaches will be absorbed by its members." (pg. 82)
Quoting a respondent: "I don't like the guilt I feel when I do not wear them because I feel like our sense of obedience and righteousness should not be tied up in clothing. I think it should be reflected in what we say and do and how we treat others." (pg. 103)
Quoting a male respondent: "Garments are a teaching tool. I just wish they were made with more modern fabrics and shortened to be more practical. It's the marks that are important, not the boundaries caused by the length. The new modesty rage about being covered at temple length all the time, even children, is a classic Mormons-going-overboard movement. They are suppressing nudity instead of sexuality, which hurts body image." (pg. 119)
Quoting a respondent: "They do not work for me in my life, my belief in their ability to protect, while real for some, I do not feel overshadows my need to feel comfortable, in charge of how I cover my own body, in charge of who gets input on very personal matters like what kind of underwear I should wear while menstruating, exercising, sleeping or even having sex. These are not questions that should be for cultural consumption or public input, and whatever modesty is gained in covering up your garments is almost certainly immediately lost by incessantly talking about things as private as your own underwear." (pg. 128)
"While there are clear social costs to not wearing garments, understood in all gender-belief groups, the costs of wearing garments is often hidden to different gender-belief groups due to issues of secrecy, shame, and control. The less social power an individual holds in the LDS Church, the more likely that individual has to bear hidden costs, which often produce feelings of isolation, shame, and loss of autonomy." (pg. 162)
The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship
Tona Hangen, "Lived Experience" in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism
Writing: I felt like the quality of writing was not high, this was essentially a collegiate level research project and each chapter read like an essay (intro, arguments, evidence, conclusion). I found many typos which always makes me question the reliability or qualifications of the author. While the information presented through the writing was interesting, the writing itself was dry. I also felt like for a research paper there were definite times where the authors added in their opinions. Of course they shared their experiences but I feel like in interpreting some of the survey data there was some bias.
Content: Basically these formerly active LDS women created a survey that they gathered about 4500 responses to from a variety of members of the church. The survey asked questions about their feelings about garments, their interpretations of garments, how they wear them, among other questions about their experiences in the church. The whole argument of these women writing the book is that the church created garments purposely to control its members, specifically focusing on controlling sexual activity both inside and outside of marriage. They frequently compare the garment to Michel Foucault's panopticon. I don’t agree that this was done purposely by the church, but they do a great job demonstrating the effect of garments on members of the church no matter what the intent was. Intent does not equal impact! The impact of garments on many members (not all) has been shame, body image issues, fear or surveillance, and essentially control over their bodies. It was fascinating to hear other people’s experiences and validating at times, though some of the experiences from the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s are clearly out of date and have been terminated in policy. For example, it was cited multiple times throughout the book that newly endowed members of the church were instructed to only take off their garments for showering, swimming, and sex. There were detailed accounts of members being asked in recommend interviews to report about when during sexual encounters with their spouse they took their garments off and put them back on. I think these traditions have gone mostly extinct as leaders are now asked to stick very strictly to the temple recommend questions, and in the temple we give very minimal instruction about how to wear the garments. But these practices still caused harms for generations of members.
An interesting tidbit of information: the first time that sleeveless garments were suggested as an alteration to the garments to the first presidency was in the 1930's. Wow!
Something else that was extremely shocking to me was how many survey respondents shared that their garments severely impacted their sex lives with their spouse. Whether from pressure from leaders of from their spouse to wear the garments a certain way.
All in all, this was an interesting read, and worth 180 pages of my time. In particular because I've studied systems and how they lend power and control to groups of people in different societies or cultures.
"As our personal questions transformed into research questions, we realized that our project was about more than our underwear. Instead, garments were a window into the internal power dynamics of Mormon communities, where social power is available to men and women through their belief but in complex ways." (pg. 6)
"Despite embracing Christian messages of caring for the needy, having a low socioeconomic status is highly stigmatized in church culture, specifically in areas of the United States with a high concentration of members like Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. Sermons given in local congregations, as well as in larger general meetings, commonly tell stories of receiving financial blessings as a reward for faith and obedience. Promotions, new jobs, and better pay were often cited as symbols of God's favor." (pg. 8)
"Wearing garments produces meanings, feelings, and behaviors in the bodies of those who wear them and garments are a reflection of institutional power over those bodies and the church's desire to assimilate into the American religious landscape. (pg. 16)
"Mormon belief has three identifiable parts: intellectual content, expected emotions, and embodied practices." (pg. 17)
Quoting Angelina Grimke's husband (Quaker): "He worried that associating particular elements of dress with religious ideas and values "could render women slaves" to these restrictions. This wariness of assigning too much meaning to clothing reflected an understanding of its power to shape behavior. Embedding religious ideas into items of clothing would give religious groups an easy way to monitor and control bodies." (pg. 24)
Defining conforming and nonconforming beliefs: "Conforming believers - those who fully accept church teachings....Nonconforming believers - those who question aspects of church teaching" (pg. 49)
On conforming belief and nonconforming belief: "These two different belief types shaped my worldview in different ways. Conforming belief offered existential comfort in a chaotic world and the reward of feeling closeness to God. I was invested in making choices that aligned with the values my church taught, which I believed would obligate God to smooth the path ahead and reserve a space for me in the best places of the afterlife. Nonconforming belief brought me a different view. Where conforming belief helped me to feel safety and security in my choices, nonconforming belief revealed to me all of the social and existential pressures I experienced in making those conforming choices. Nonconforming belief did not bring with it the same feelings of safety but instead brought clarity of the church as a system, a new freedom of choice, and an invitation to hold the complexity of other people's choices in a different way. These contrasting lenses of belief have brought me to a deeper awareness of the forces that shape not only faith but also identity." (pg. 48)
"The use of literalness and symbolism together reflect the conflation and confusion of the two ... Garments become less of a symbol of the idea of holiness and instead transform into an article of clothing that sanctifies the body that wears them. Many survey participants from all four gender-belief groups talk about the symbolism of garments in a way that evokes literalism." (pg. 60)
Quoting a respondent: "garments symbolize a commitment I have made, althought right now, I don't necessarily see them as being part of a commitment to God, but perhaps more part of my commitment to being a practicing Mormon. I think they are an important part of how I would like to practice my faith (or at least, I think I would like them to be an important part of my religious practice), but I also recognize that personal meaning can only come from me - and therefore I think wearing garments should be (and would benefit from being) a personal decision between me and God, and less of a cultural expectation." (pg. 67)
Quoting a respondent: "garments are a reminder of a power greater than me. While I have my doubts of there even being a God I see the value of believing in a greater power. It helps me to stay humble and encourages belief in a value system that comes from a wiser source." (pg. 69)
Quoting a respondent: "Garments are not magical, they won't protect me from anything. They are a symbol of a choice I've made in my life. While I'm mostly agnostic in my belief in God, I enjoy the Mormon community and social structure (most days), and the garment for me is a symbol of Christ's teachings that I do find good." (pg. 69)
Quoting a respondent: "I don't know if God is terribly concerned with us wearing them 24/7, but since that's what I covenanted to do, I don't mind." (pg. 69)
"Many nonconforming women understood garments as an outward symbol of conforming to Mormon norms and not reflective of one's relationship to God. One nonconforming woman (race unidentified) wrote, "To me, I guess they are a way to show that I am living the principles of the gospel, but not erally as a reminder to myself, but as an outward symbol to others (you can totally see a G line through most any clothes)." (pg. 71)
"For nonconforming women discussing the meaning of garments, the loss of trust that they described is often directed at the LDS Church instead of at God. This separation of God and church is common among nonconforming men and women." (pg. 73)
Discussing issues around pregnancy, periods, and nursing associated with garments and the secrecy/silence around these topics: "Talking about [garment issues] in a group opened up the idea that these problems were not just mine but that they were systemic." (pg. 78)
"while the church exerts strong pressure on its members to conform within a very narrow range of well-defined behaviors and perspectives, there is an unexpected plurality and dynamism in the way believers practice Mormonism. Often, secrecy and silence hide this plurality from church members and outsiders, making the experience of Mormonism appear more unified than it really is." (pg. 81)
"Joseph Smith's personal, lived experiences of God determined many elements of LDS teaching that are still embraced today. The foundational assumption in this belief-forming process is that a particular action will always create the same result. What worked for Joseph Smith, with all of his identities and nineteenth-century context, will work for all people in all places. The LDS Church expects, then, that the doctrines it teaches will be absorbed by its members." (pg. 82)
Quoting a respondent: "I don't like the guilt I feel when I do not wear them because I feel like our sense of obedience and righteousness should not be tied up in clothing. I think it should be reflected in what we say and do and how we treat others." (pg. 103)
Quoting a male respondent: "Garments are a teaching tool. I just wish they were made with more modern fabrics and shortened to be more practical. It's the marks that are important, not the boundaries caused by the length. The new modesty rage about being covered at temple length all the time, even children, is a classic Mormons-going-overboard movement. They are suppressing nudity instead of sexuality, which hurts body image." (pg. 119)
Quoting a respondent: "They do not work for me in my life, my belief in their ability to protect, while real for some, I do not feel overshadows my need to feel comfortable, in charge of how I cover my own body, in charge of who gets input on very personal matters like what kind of underwear I should wear while menstruating, exercising, sleeping or even having sex. These are not questions that should be for cultural consumption or public input, and whatever modesty is gained in covering up your garments is almost certainly immediately lost by incessantly talking about things as private as your own underwear." (pg. 128)
"While there are clear social costs to not wearing garments, understood in all gender-belief groups, the costs of wearing garments is often hidden to different gender-belief groups due to issues of secrecy, shame, and control. The less social power an individual holds in the LDS Church, the more likely that individual has to bear hidden costs, which often produce feelings of isolation, shame, and loss of autonomy." (pg. 162)
The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship
Tona Hangen, "Lived Experience" in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism
June 2, 2026
Wow. This book is a wild ride through the minds of 4,500ish Mormons and their relationship with garments, obedience, shame, and sexuality. Even just the way these authors chose to organize the data, into conforming men, conforming women, non conforming men, non conforming women, is fascinating and reveals so much about social behavior while leaving room for the diverse personal stories of individuals. This research helped me work through some of my sexual dysfunction, shame, and relationship with my body as a woman garment wearer of almost 20 years. “The institutional church’s anxiety about sexuality and women’s bodies is transferred to those bodies in ways that are disruptive.” (142) and “Garments are a religious technology that restrains sexual behavior.” (140) and “Silence and secrecy around garments insulated conforming men from the lived experiences of others.” (110) This book can hopefully disrupt the silence and secrecy around garments.
April 19, 2026
Very academic and more repetitive and wordy than I would like, but I still found the subject matter fascinating, with a lot of things to consider.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews