Introduction and Welcome to the Book Club

Mel Selko [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

Guest [00:00:07] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org.

Heather Olson Beal [00:00:29] hello, everybody, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Book Club Podcast. This is Heather Olsenville. I'm really excited to be here tonight with Nicole Hardy, the author of Confessions of a Latter Day Version, and several of my favorite people in the world who I'll allow to introduce themselves here. Well, let's just do it right now. So, Nicole, say hi to everybody.

Nicole Hardy [00:00:53] Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me as your special guest on the podcast. I'm excited.

Heather Olson Beal [00:00:59] Great. Claire, you want to just give a little shout out?

Claire Eden [00:01:04] Sure. My name is Claire Eden. Heather and I are old friends and I've always wanted to be on one of her book group podcasts. So thank you for inviting me.

Heather Olson Beal [00:01:14] You've always wanted to be on one of my book club podcasts. Always. It's going to be really actually hard for me to do this conversation with

Nicole Hardy [00:01:22] you guys, but okay.

Heather Olson Beal [00:01:24] It's good. Awesome. Thank you, Claire. And we have Claire's daughter, Maren.

Maren [00:01:30] Hi, my name is Maren. I'm Claire's daughter. I was born Mormon, but now I'm not because we stopped. Okay. I don't know. I think the book's really interesting, so I'm glad to be here.

Heather Olson Beal [00:01:44] Okay, great. And last but not least, Mel.

Mel Selko [00:01:49] Hey, I'm Mel Selko, and I got introduced to Nicole in the book at a local book festival, and I fell in love immediately.

Claire Eden [00:02:00] Thanks.

Nicole Hardy [00:02:00] The feeling is mutual.

Heather Olson Beal [00:02:03] Cool. So I was driving a lot yesterday, kind of across a big chunk of Texas and thinking about this, and I remember that the first time I had heard of Nicole Hardy was when your New York Times Modern Love piece came out. And I knew that I had talked about it in an Internet forum where I met Mel and Claire. And so I went this morning and I looked it up to figure out when that was and just to see kind of what, because I couldn't remember when it was. It was in January 2011, and another friend of ours named Erin, who was going to be on the podcast tonight but ended up not being able to. She's the one who posted in our group and just said, hey, does anyone know Nicole Hardy? And everyone was kind of, you know, abuzz about him. And I said, oh, I have a mutual friend with a Nicole Hardy, but I don't know if that's, you know, that one or not. And I still don't know that if that was the same Nicole Hardy, but it was just funny to see what people so that was three years ago. One of our friends said, good article. Funny, sad and hopeful all at the same time. She sounds like she could use an invite to this place, which is so presumptuous of us to think like she would want to be here with us because she's as cool as we are. Another friend of ours that also lives in Atlanta said that he'd read some of your poetry and that he really liked it. So he was like, hey, that's a really cool piece. But she's also a really good poet. So it was fun to see and kind of have a little walk through memory, walk down memory and see what we had thought about that three years ago. I'm just going to read just a little bit of the summary or the description from Amazon so people kind of know what we're getting into. And then Nicole is going to read

Nicole Hardy Reads from Her Book

Nicole Hardy [00:03:35] a little excerpt from us for us.

Heather Olson Beal [00:03:38] So from Amazon it says, When Nicole Hardy's eye opening Modern Love column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy's essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast to coast. Now, in her funny, intimate and thoughtful memoir, Nicole explores how she came at the age of 35 to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity. During her childhood and throughout her 20s, Nicole held absolute conviction in her faith. But as she aged out of the church's singles ward and entered her 30s, she struggled to merge the life she envisioned for herself with the Mormon ideal of homemaker, wife and mother. Confessions of a Latter Day Virgin chronicles the extraordinary lengths Nicole went to in an attempt to reconcile her human needs with her spiritual life. Flying across the country for dates with Mormon men, taking up salsa dancing as a source for physical contact, even moving to Grand Cayman where the ocean and scuba diving provided some solace. But neither secular pursuits nor church guidance could help Nicole prepare for the dilemma she would eventually face, a crisis of faith that caused her to question everything she'd grown up believing in. The tradition of the memoirs Devotion, which I have and not read, and Mennonite in a little Black Dress, which I have and loved, Confessions of a Latter Day Virgin is a mesmerizing and wholly relatable account of one woman's hard won mission to find love, accept and happiness on our own terms. So that's a good little intro. I just have to say, too, that I'm not sure that our lives could be a whole lot more different than they are. But I related to so much of it, so there's obviously some really big universal themes in it, despite lots of differences.

Nicole Hardy [00:05:17] Yeah. And I would really love. I mean, I know that we're going to talk about that later, but I'm super curious to see what other women who've had a different sort of LDS life than I've had have thought about the book and the ways that they could relate to it.

Maren [00:05:35] Yeah.

Heather Olson Beal [00:05:36] So we'll dig into that a little bit. But let's have you read the prologue? Another of a friend in this Internet group, this is starting to make us all sound really weird, said that he listened to the book and said you gotta listen to it because Nicole does such a great job. So I haven't been able to listen to it yet. But I'll listen to a few minutes. A few minutes now.

Nicole Hardy [00:05:58] Just a few minutes. So I'll be reading the prologue of my book, which is just a couple pages long. In it, I'm having a conversation with my mother. It's sort of the first time that she's trying to understand some of the issues that I'm going through. It's a really tense conversation. It shows up again about two thirds of the way through the book after we've backtracked 10 or 15 years and reached that point again. Sex isn't everything, my mother says lightly from the kitchen of my new condo. She means to be encouraging, but I stiffen reflexively against her words, as if to defend myself. I've heard it too many times from too many people. That sentence, so reductive it's offensive. How easy it is for my mother, who married at 20, to dismiss what she's never lived without. I can't help but feel like she's being purposefully dense, simply refusing to consider anything beyond the surface. My first impulse is a fierce rush of frustration, the urge to roll my eyes, shout a blistering, condescending no shit. In the direction of the kitchen where she's unpacking boxes. Obviously, the problem is not just the absence of sex. Obviously there are more complex issues at the heart of my unplanned celibacy. But when I turn to meet my mother's eyes, I work hard to keep my voice from veering into sarcasm. Do you think I'd be a virgin at 33, mom, if I thought Sex was everything. As if on cue, the CD we've been listening to reaches the last notes of the final track. The silence in the room highlights the trepidation we both feel. I know you're struggling, my mother says, resting her hands on the counter. An impotent kind of energy is humming around her. She wants to help me. I know she's trying. For the first time, she's asking. Seconds pass before I trust my voice not to waver, before the burn in my throat subsides. I don't know how to fix it. Ashamed by even that admission, I hold in the heaviest secret, the sentence that frightens me. At night. Outside, a container ship slowly barrows barrels through the shipping lanes. The north end of Vashon island is nearly obscured behind its towering mass of orange crates, its whole plowing awake toward the breakwater below. I don't know how much longer I can live like this, I say finally, half hoping my mother won't hear. The Mormon Church is a system of absolutes. There is only one right way to live, only one complete truth. Either I believe the doctrine of my church was revealed by God to a living prophet, or I don't. And if I believe, I must live the way I've been commanded, I must endure to the end. If I'm floundering, drowning, or desolate, my faith should be the solution. I can feel my mother's fear from across the room, the exaggerated stillness of her body. How can I tell her that over the past two years I have willed myself into depression, the relief of numbness, that saving grace? How can I say I'm glad to feel myself withering, that I can almost stop needing what I can't have if I don't allow myself to feel anything, if I say no, sex isn't everything, those mechanics that act. But it affects everything, she will say be faithful. If I say sex costs. If I say sex casts a monstrous shadow over my life, the visceral wanting of it, the religious sanctions against it, the looming threat of disfellowship or excommunication, and the damaging ways I've devised to resist it, she will tell me to follow the prophet's counsel and that of his apostles. If I say sex keeps me from getting near enough to a man to fall in love because non members are the ones who want me to, and I can no longer trust myself around them. If I say I'm unmarriageable in the Mormon community, if I say the crisis of celibacy is a crisis of isolation, that I'm Wrong in both places, judged by both sides. She will say, wait for my spiritual reward, look to the afterlife, as if this life means nothing. There will be no way to respond that isn't sacrilege. No prophet or apostle has lived a celibate life is what I'd like to tell her. No one who's told me celibacy is a viable option has ever been celibate. They don't even use the word. They say abstinent, which implies there will be an end. They don't consider what my life will be like if I never marry, which is likely, given who I am and the ways I'm different. People stand at the pulpit or they come to my house and tell me not to need what every human needs. Afterward, they go home and undress. They lie down next to the person they love most, or once did. When they reach across the bed, someone is there. The ship outside my window has traveled all the way from China. I imagine it's full of laptops, T shirts, lipstick, or toys. I imagine a crate full of telephones or headphones, some advanced technology that could help my mother hear me, make her understand. One of the apostles recently warned against withdrawing from others. Such retreat, he said, may ultimately lead to the darkening influence of the adversary, which leads to despondency, loneliness, frustration. He's got it backward. I remember thinking withdrawal is a survival tactic, because if I can't get numb enough, if I can't withdraw far enough from my body and the need to feel human, I will end up clinging to a stranger on a deserted beach again. I will find myself tangled in the arms of another, somebody, anybody, on my entryway floor. It will be some weary, medicinal surrender that destroys everything. One moment of weakness is all it would take to make myself a hypocrite or a failure. I open my mouth to try to explain, but there is nothing I can say. I listen instead to the steady, rhythmic crash of waves against the seawall and my mother's voice, which sounds as if it's coming from far away. Everyone has trials, honey.

Heather Olson Beal [00:12:34] You just love God.

Nicole Hardy [00:12:35] You keep the commandments and you say your prayers. She turns back to the dishwater, as if that is all that needs to be said.

Heather Olson Beal [00:12:46] Wow. That's very powerful.

Nicole Hardy [00:12:52] Yeah. It's intense.

Heather Olson Beal [00:12:55] Yeah. Does anybody have a spot where they want to just dive in?

Celibacy, Desire, and the Mormon Experience

Claire Eden [00:13:02] The thing that really struck out to me, Nicole, this is Claire. About when I read that in the. In the prologue, and then when I got to it again in the book, was the part where you point out that no one who's ever asked you to be celibate, has been celibate or even had to even contemplate celibacy. And it just sort of really struck me as how sort of unfair that is.

Nicole Hardy [00:13:29] Yeah, it is a strange situation. I think that, you know, in order to be called to the callings that these men are called to, they have to be married. And so there's no one in that situation who has lived a single life. And there are men who have become widowers, and I'm assuming there are a few of them who have gone through divorces. But there's no one who's been expected to never have a physical relationship with another human being ever. And so it is a tricky and complicated and complex situation. And I don't think it's often spoken about that way. The complexities of celibacy are not often considered. I don't think

Heather Olson Beal [00:14:20] so. Then, Nicole, you would say that

Claire Eden [00:14:25] we

Heather Olson Beal [00:14:25] have to have sexual relationships in order to sort of experience being fully human.

Mel Selko [00:14:31] Is that fair?

Nicole Hardy [00:14:32] I think so. I mean, at least for me. I'm sure that there are people who don't feel it the way I feel it. But it was so impossible for me to, you know, by the time it got to the breaking point where I felt like I just couldn't have relationships at all. You know, the sort of all of my pent up angst and energy and longing and yearning and loneliness was so intense that if I had the opportunity to even, you know, spend two hours, like being touched or being held by someone, the just kind of that need became so overwhelming that I couldn't allow myself to feel it. I was worried that I would break the law of chastity. I was worried that just the intensity of that need would overpower all of my reason in it. I don't want it to seem like I was just sex crazed, but I was really, I was really, really craving human contact. And I think that is a pretty normal reaction. And so as I said in the prologue, my response was just to withdraw completely. I stopped dating. I stopped even trying to have relationships because it all got too complicated. The only way that I found to really to know that I was going to keep the law of chastity was just to withdraw completely and go into sort of self imposed depression, which is obviously no way to live and that's no way to have abundance. And I found that during that time I couldn't feel the spirit either. If I couldn't if, you know, I was trying to make myself not feel my physical needs, but Then I also couldn't feel my spiritual side and I walked around a bit like a zombie for a couple years. And clearly that's not a solution that can be sustainable, right?

Heather Olson Beal [00:16:48] Yeah. I recently read this book called An Unquenchable Thirst, which is written by a woman who was one of the nuns in Mother Teresa's order for. And she was. It was almost 30 years. And she talks about that just total sensory deprivation because they're not allowed now. They do things like they self flagellate, so they hurt themselves. But the nuns in that order, and I guess in some others, they're not allowed to touch each other. They're not allowed to put an arm around each other or hug or hold someone's hand. You could shake someone's hand if you were just meeting them. But, you know, and she talks about that too. Just how totally unnatural that felt and how she just craved to be able to touch, you know, another human being. So I was reminded of that, you know, while reading this book. And then I was also reminded of sort of the rules that we impose on missionaries. It seems like it's on that same spectrum. So they're supp go for two years and they really can't, you know, they can't touch kids. No one's supposed to touch them. They're not really allowed to hug. I think the sister missionaries have a little bit more leeway, but it's kind of a similar thing, just closing off physical contact. That seems totally unnatural to me.

Nicole Hardy [00:17:56] Yeah, it's difficult. I don't think people. I shouldn't say, I don't think I should say. I wonder sometimes. About what people think is going to be gained from that because I haven't seen many instances where it turns out to be a blessing. I haven't seen that kind of withdrawal and that kind of abstinence turn out to be a positive force much at all. And my solution was to take up salsa dancing. I mean, there's this bit in the book where I talk about my secret life as a dancer. And, you know, three, four or five times a week I would go and, you know, put on clothes that would be a little too short or a little too tight for a church service. And I would just like be held in the arms of one man after another, and I would just move and touch people and spin and laugh and sweat and just be entirely physical. And that was kind of the. The surrogate for a long time. And because I didn't end up dating any of those people that were having real relationships with any of them, it was just sort of this isolated, alright, I'm gonna walk into this building and be touched for four hours and then I'm gonna go home. And that's how I'm gonna get through until tomorrow. For me, it worked for a few years and I think it sustained me really. It became a blessing in a way. But I don't know what people do if you don't have an outlet.

Claire Eden [00:19:36] Nicole, this is Claire. I thought the contrast between the salsa dancing and the scuba diving was really interesting because both of those are such like, they're more sort of physical experiences. Both of them are something that I haven't really ever been able to do. I haven't ever, I don't have any experience with either of those. But the way those two ways of living in your body were really interesting to me. The contrast between the two of those.

Nicole Hardy [00:20:07] Yeah, I guess I never have thought about it quite in those terms. I think that, yeah, I mean, I feel like maybe I am a physical person or I was just craving sensation. And the thing about scuba diving is that when I took up scuba diving, I was in my, I don't know, early 30s. And it was happening at a time when, for those who haven't read the book, I kind of freak out at age, I don't know, 28, 29, 30, somewhere around there. And I sell every single thing I own and I move to the Cayman Islands and there I took up scuba diving. And everyone talks about, oh, it was so brave. It was so brave just to like go off on your own. And now that I look back, felt to me like a. I'm not sure bravery is the word that I would use to describe it. I feel like maybe I really needed to leave my church and I couldn't do that. And so I left my whole entire life. And there were things about the diving again that really sustained me and that felt like a blessing when my church life was crumbling, when I was so judged and so maligned and not valued by my LDSK community anymore. And yet there was so much about that community that was beautiful for so many years. I couldn't imagine living a non Mormon life. Diving kind of became my church and it was a place where nobody was allowed to talk. I mean, you can't hear underwater, you can't talk underwater. So there's a bit in the book where I talk about all I could hear was the beating of my own heart and the thoughts in my head. And there was something really, really beautiful and meditative about obviously the physical aspects of Being underwater, I mean, it is literally, it seems like you're in a different world. It's so magical. It could be heavenly, I think is one of my lines or so magical it could be heaven. But the idea that I just wanted to exist in my body was a big part of that as well. So, yeah, I think that I have these surrogates along the way. I just needed some access to the physical part of my life.

Claire Eden [00:22:26] I also wonder.

Mel Selko [00:22:27] I connected a lot with your story, and I feel like there's a lot, even without even being married, that you can connect to your story and this denial of who you are in a physical sense. You know, that women are not supposed to have sex drives, that

Heather Olson Beal [00:22:51] we're supposed

Mel Selko [00:22:51] to offer something to men, and that our worth is determined by it. And I remember, I think you were still in Grand Cayman. You went to General Conference and you

Nicole Hardy [00:23:00] had to leave because you were so upset.

Mel Selko [00:23:03] And this very young married woman follows you out and you say, I'm on page 160. You say, companionship is not the issue.

Nicole Hardy [00:23:11] Eros is the issue.

Mel Selko [00:23:13] And were I married, my sexuality would be acknowledged and valued. It would be wholly, fully sanctioned. And I wonder if there are a lot of women who don't feel like that. I know I definitely had to come into it on my own because I didn't get that from the culture. From culture I got. Sex is what you give a man to make him come home. Not you are a sexual being and entitled to sexual feelings. To regardless of where you express them is definitely defined. But I think a lot of women growing up in this culture are shut down to their own sexuality.

Nicole Hardy [00:23:51] I think there's definitely something to be said there. I mean, I remember in all of my lessons growing up, it was all, don't let him, don't tempt him, don't. And it was always like, if he loves you, he'll wait. And all of these things about his desire. But there's not overt discussion of a woman's desire or a woman's, you know, sexual need. Just. And there's always the thing about the drive being toward motherhood and the drive being toward procreation or the drive being towards strengthening your marriage, but there's not really a discussion about your drive as a person who is human. And I mean, even the talk. I mean, we're just going to get a little bit graphic here. But even the talks about masturbation, like, I know that men in the. Or young men growing up at the church have that lesson given to them on a Pretty regular basis. And we didn't. At least we didn't, in my word. I don't remember ever being told not to masturbate. And I think that's partly because it doesn't occur to them that we would want to or that we have those same desires as men. So luckily, I had parents who were pretty open about sex. And they always said that, you know, a sexual desire is a totally natural desire. It's just about place and time and that it's for married people. And it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't get married. I'm perfectly attractive. I'm perfectly smart. I'm sweet, I'm nice, I'm funny. I'm living the standards of the church and doing everything right. So why wouldn't I get married like everyone else does? It's the easiest thing when you're Mormon, is to find someone to marry you. So when that became an issue, it was a surprise to me.

Mel Selko [00:25:46] I think we should have salsa dancing for enrichment.

Heather Olson Beal [00:25:50] But then we would have to go. Mel. Okay, who would be our partners? The Elders Quorum president.

Nicole Hardy [00:25:59] Yeah. What was that, Maren?

Claire Eden [00:26:04] Dance with each other.

Heather Olson Beal [00:26:05] I guess we don't even need the men, right? We don't even need them.

Mel Selko [00:26:09] Yeah.

Heather Olson Beal [00:26:12] As a parent, so I have. All three of us have teenage. Teenage kids, daughters and almost son. My kids are 11. Almost 11, 13, and 17. It's interesting to me to hear you say these things, because it just makes me think, okay, well, for the most part, like that part of my life for now, unless we get divorced or unless Brent dies now this is turning macabre. That whole, like, okay, law of chastity thing for me is done. So then it makes me think, you know, well, what do I want to communicate to my kids? Because it seems like there are a lot of really dangerous messages, like Mel mentioned, like you mentioned in the book, I mean. So my solution right now is just to diminish or reduce my participation in church for many reasons. Not only just for that, but I wonder if there are other ways that people can do it without doing that if they want to. Because it just seems like there's so many messages out there that really are not good about sexuality, particularly. Particularly for women. I'm not sure if there is another way to, you know, to successfully navigate that. Navigate that issue.

Claire Eden [00:27:24] Even if we diminish church participation, it doesn't mean that our kids aren't getting messages. They're just getting different. Like we're reducing maybe church messages, but we're not. We're not. It doesn't really alter the messages they're getting elsewhere.

Heather Olson Beal [00:27:40] Yeah, I guess, right. I mean, I'm not suggesting that the messages at church are wholly bad and that there are no good ones. I have to think through that. Or that the messages outside of church, I mean, I know there's all sorts of mixed signals and lots of those negative messages come from more places besides just the church. But just as a parent, it is interesting to me to think, okay, well, once you let go of some of that, the fear and the shame and the guilt regarding sex, then you are kind of like, okay, well, what do I want? What messages do I want to communicate to my kids? Rather than one, rather than the one at church, which is, as Nicole said, you know, either it's bad or it's good, but if it's exercised at the right time and at the right place,

Nicole Hardy [00:28:22] yeah, it's good for certain people and it's bad for everyone else. So, yeah, I mean, that's a pretty

Heather Olson Beal [00:28:30] basic, simple message that we can boil down to about 20 words. And it's clearly, clearly much more complicated than that. But kind of for me, it's just been like, oh, if I'm not going to buy that anymore, then it sort of blows open the whole, you know, situation. Like, whoa, what is the. What kinds of messages? Plural, I guess. Do I want my, Do I want my kids to get well?

Nicole Hardy [00:28:50] I thought, oh, sorry, you go, I'm sorry.

Claire Eden [00:28:53] Nicole, I was just thinking about how in your, in the kind of the way you look at in the book, there's some kind of work up to the idea of sex being not being a journey or like working up to it rather than just, you know, a lot of us who got married young as Mormons is sort of like, you weren't having sex and then you are having sex. There isn't really an in between place. And I was remembering, you know, lots of youth conferences and efys where the sort of natural progression is laid out, you know, holding hands, kissing, touching and intercourse. It's, you know, yes, we know that one thing leads to another, but then it's labeled Satan's Slippery Slope. Instead of like the natural progression to having intercourse, it's like giving this like, terrible negative name to it, which to scare you away from it, right? Like, oh, if you start holding hands and the next thing is that he's going to put his arm around you and then the next thing you're going to be kissing and the next thing is there's going to be clothing taken off which is the normal, natural, even in a married relationship, that is the progression on some level to having intercourse. But then we're told this is Satan's way rather than this is Heavenly Father's way. I thought that was a really interesting concept in the book about. In your experience, it didn't have to be a place where you didn't, like, jump overboard into a sexual scenario in one day. You didn't just snap one day. I'm doing it now.

Nicole Hardy [00:30:43] I mean, if we start counting when I'm 18, I mean, there were nearly 20 years of, you know, trying to date and trying to have relationships and trying to draw lines in places that. That seemed normal. But there is something really strange and disconcerting about dating when you're 34 and 35 in the same way that you're dating when you're 14 and 15. And so that part made it really difficult to have any kind of relationships. And I think that that is the aspect of it that's really difficult for, I think, certain leaders or certain members of the church to understand that there is no one outside of the Mormon faith who wants to date a woman and hold hands and kiss and that's it. I mean, these people are looking for life partners, and sexual compatibility is an important aspect of that. And then within the church, because I didn't want to have children, I was undateable. So I couldn't get to the first or to the second date with anyone outside of the church, even though those people and I were much more compatible in every other way. And I couldn't get past the first or second date with a Mormon guy because I don't know anyone who will marry a woman who says that she doesn't want to have children and actually means it. So I was really stuck in the middle in both camps.

Heather Olson Beal [00:32:23] But Heather.

Nicole Hardy [00:32:24] Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Claire Eden [00:32:25] Especially at that age, right. If you were dating older men who already had children, then that might be a plus. But as a young woman, that's not who you're interested in dating. Those aren't your natural dating partners.

Nicole Hardy [00:32:40] Well, yeah. And to also be dating a guy who is a divorcee or a widower who's my exact age, who has teenage children and possibly like four or five of them, was really overwhelming to me as well. And so I'm like, I don't know how to even conceive of this life, of jumping into a life like that. So it was all just really strange. But I wanted to go back to something that Heather said, and now it is. Oh, and you Said you were saying that the law of chastity part of your life is sort of over now and it's something that you don't have to think about at all. But I've had a lot of really interesting conversations with women and a few with men who wake up one day to find themselves single again for whatever reason, for all the macabre reasons that you listed. And you know, there are women and men who have had good marriages and, or not so good marriages, but either way, active sex life and then to suddenly have to date and live like a 17 or year old again in the church where, well, we can hold hands and we can kiss, but that's all we can do. And that aspect has been really strange for them to sort of recalibrate their sexual identity as well.

Women's Worth and Spiritual Identity in the Church

Heather Olson Beal [00:34:15] Yeah, I think that's one of those things where women in the church are just infantilized or just sort of lumped into the same category as children. It's like, well, there's the men and then there's women and children because really, how ridiculous to communicate the same messages to a 12 year old girl as to an 18 year old girl, to a 35 year old woman, to a 50 year old woman. I mean, but that is kind of what we have. One message, I think, about sex that we think applies universally kind of across the lifespan, which seems really, you know, ridiculous.

Nicole Hardy [00:34:48] Yeah, I got, you know, as you can imagine, after the New York Times article came out where I sort of spoke publicly about some of the issues at the heart of my book. And I think even talking about the issues is just so scary for people. And so I received this letter at my house. I don't know how he got my home address, which is a little bit scary, but it was, you know, one of those 11 page front and back letters handwritten from the sky, who's a member of the church. And he was in his late 50s and his opening sentence to me was, well, I'm a youth leader, so I will speak to you the same way that I speak to the 14 year old boys that I teach. And I thought, why in the hell would you think that's an appropriate comparison to make? Like I've never been a 14 year old boy. I'm 36, 6 years old right now. Like, what is it that make. But because I'm single, the same advice applies to me as it would a child. And those incongruent situations are definitely a frustration.

Heather Olson Beal [00:36:02] Yeah, sorry. Someone was getting ready to speak and I interjected, anyone? Bueller?

Maren [00:36:13] I just think it's completely unnatural to assume that somebody is a child until the moment they get married, at which point they're a full fledged adult, according to, like, the church and their views on sexuality, because it seems much more inconvenient to assume that you can be with somebody and have no idea how their body works and how, like, they work until they're married. And then all of a sudden you are supposed to be comfortable with everything about them. So I think that it's really interesting how you kind of didn't even. Well, not that you didn't even do that, but just more that, like, by not being in the church, you kind of didn't have that experience, but I

Nicole Hardy [00:36:59] respect that about you.

Maren [00:37:00] I think that's cool.

Nicole Hardy [00:37:02] And along those same lines, I feel like the issue, the sexuality part of it is one thing, but the spiritual aspect of it is another thing too. To be told over and over again every week when you go to church that you're only allowed to progress so far spiritually as a single person and that you can't enter the celestial kingdom as a single person. And so there is also a sense of spiritual progress and adulthood that you're not allowed to take part in unless you're married. And obviously that's divisive. I mean, obviously a single life can't be respected in the same way a married life can. And so the only result is to be your situation as an unmarried person is one to be pitied or to be changed. And so you're never just accepted as a fully functioning, evolved adult in the LDS Church unless you're married. And that was a really, really big part of my frustrations. The older I got, I found that there's no value for me, especially as a woman who didn't want to be a mother. Like, we're told that that's our spiritual birthright as women, and that is sort of God's plan for us is to be mothers. And we've naturally been given these gifts as nurturers. And. And if you don't feel that, then what is your value? What is your identity? What's your place in the church? And as the older I got, I found that it seemed I didn't have value, which was disappointing because growing up, I really, I was an active member. I feel like I had a strong testimony. I feel like I really wanted a Mormon life. And it felt like as the years went by, it was sort of being pushed out because there was no way to value the life that I wanted.

Heather Olson Beal [00:39:19] Yeah, so that's actually One of the things that I related to the most, which is weird because I do have three kids, so I am a mother, but I would say that although no one forced me to have kids, you

Nicole Hardy [00:39:32] know, I chose it.

Heather Olson Beal [00:39:33] I put quotation marks around. Chose. I chose it in the sense that I didn't think that there was any other life to lead. Like, you're saying I didn't have it. It wasn't within, like, sort of my. I couldn't imagine living a life worth living without doing that. I didn't think of it in those terms, but it was just like, well, I'm married and we've been married for a few years now, and so now we should have kids. But so for me, I very much feel like I don't fit in in that whole Mormon church culture or even in the theology, because I feel like, okay, well, I do have kids, but it's really hard for me and it's very unnatural. And I often think, wow, should I have done this? But I have three kids and they're great. So I don't really mean to imply that I regret it, just that it's interesting to think this is not really what I wanted, or this isn't really a good fit for me, but here I am.

Nicole Hardy [00:40:23] Yeah. And we're just really told that it should be the most natural state for every woman. And I don't think that that's true.

Claire Eden [00:40:35] I think also we're told that's where

Mel Selko [00:40:37] our value comes from. And I think that message is equally harming whether or not you have children and whether or not you're married. To be told as a married woman that your value comes from the fact that some man is in your life who could disappear the next day. I mean, it's a damaging. It's damaging to be told that's where your identity is. And so I think that's where I

Nicole Hardy [00:41:01] relate as well, Heather, because I've got

Mel Selko [00:41:04] a bunch of kids and I love them and I don't regret them, but I don't find that my value comes from them. I enjoy them, I think they're fun, but I don't want my value to be determined by them.

Heather Olson Beal [00:41:20] Right. And I hear people at work, Mormon and not women, that I'm a professor, Nicole, And I'll hear my coworkers say things like, well, you know, everybody knows that the most important thing is your kids. And when I hear that, I always think, well, yeah, I don't want to kick one of my kids to the curb so that I can get my role turned in on time or anything. But whenever I hear that, I think, and I don't want to overstate my professional sort of status either, but I do derive a lot of meaning from it. So when I hear that, I think, well, I actually happen to think that the stuff I do at work is pretty important. People will be like, well, no one has as much influence. You know, you can't influence anyone as much as your kids. And I'm like, well, like every semester I influence in some way, like 150, you know, 18 to 25 year old people. Like, so why are we so quick to diminish that? So I think that happens even outside of the church. I don't know if it happens to men, but I just hear women a lot say that, well, of course everyone knows that work is not that important. And I'm like, well, maybe it is, maybe it is.

Nicole Hardy [00:42:18] I mean, I think it's dangerous to assume that there are, there isn't value. I mean if, let me rephrase this. I think if you're a man in the LDS church and you derive a lot of value and a lot of pleasure and a lot of your identity from the work that you do, that's never at odds with being a good father, that's never at odds with being a good parent. And I think that if you have those same feelings as a woman in the church, it is directly at odds. And you're often scolded or admonished for finding value outside of your responsibilities with your children. And I find that a little bit terrifying. I always found it a little bit terrifying. I could never really imagine living my life inside of a house. I mean, I know that sort of sounds ridiculous to say out love, but the measure of my worth would be based on tasks that I don't enjoy doing and that I don't derive pleasure from and that I don't feel like express anything about who I truly am and who I feel like God made me to be. And I think if I were in a man's body, there wouldn't be as much conflict with that.

Heather Olson Beal [00:43:39] Yeah, oh yeah. There's a huge, huge double standard there. I think outside as well.

Nicole Hardy [00:43:46] It's what, it's outside the church as well.

Maren [00:43:48] I think that's just a viewpoint a lot of people have about women in general, whether or not they're Mormon or not. There's always issues about whenever there's women like in media, in the public view, they're always asking, well, is this something that makes her a good mother or is this Something that is, like, she should be condemned for. So I think that's a big issue within and without, like, out of the church.

Heather Olson Beal [00:44:11] Yeah, that whole notion that no one ever asks, you know, a male politician or businessman, you know, how does he do it all? But, like, that's something that we ask women. And I have people ask me that too, you know, wow, how can you do all that? And I'm like, well, how I do all that is that I don't do. I cut all kinds of corners. So I'm not doing all that. I'm just doing different, you know, different amounts of some of the same things. Like, have you been to my house? Have you seen it? I'm not doing it all. A lot of stuff isn't getting done. You know, I'm choosing to do different things with my time and with my life. So, I mean, it's a zero. It's a zero sum game. It's not like, you know, some people have 40 hours in a day and some people have 24.

Claire Eden [00:44:49] So.

Nicole Hardy [00:44:49] Yeah, well, and also I do. I mean, I know a lot of women. I mean, every woman I know in my life right now has a job, and most of those are full time. And a lot of those women have children. And nobody questions whether or not she should be working or whether or not she should derive pleasure from that work. And so I think maybe that's the crux. And I think you're definitely correct in saying that there is the pressure of, you know, it's that whole, can you have it all? Can you do it all if you work too hard or you. Does that come at the expense of your family? I think a lot of people definitely feel that struggle. But the question of whether or not you should even be pursuing anything outside of the house is not a question for people outside of the church, in my experience. So I thought that was a pretty interesting issue. But I'm curious. I mean, this is the part of the conversation that is intriguing me. I'm curious about the ways in which married mothers in the LDS Church, even if they're on the fringe or have left the LDS Church. Like, how. What other things are you relating to in my story?

Heather Olson Beal [00:46:13] Hmm. Ladies?

Mel Selko [00:46:19] I'm definitely relating to this idea of being chosen. I think you say somewhere that single sisters are told that even if they're not chosen in this life, they will be in the next life. And that idea that the male supply is less than the female supply, if that makes sense, and that we have to be chosen, I think just a little bit of Background on me is I was living the Mormon dream. I had four kids, lived in the suburbs. And at some point, I relate to this idea that you had hit me later of I need to have a life that's worth living. And I related to the story in John, the scriptures, where the person has been ill for 38 years, and Jesus tells him to take up his mat and walk. And I felt like I had been looking for some kind of escape from a life that I didn't really plan for myself. And I felt like when I read that scripture and I read that story, it was a gradual process for me, but it was like, you're the one that's going to have to do this. You don't have to live in the suburbs anymore. You don't have to have your life revolve around your children. You can have a life that's worth living even with these choices that you've already made. So I definitely related to that.

Nicole Hardy [00:47:49] I would love to go live in

Mel Selko [00:47:50] Grand Cayman or something like that. But I do try to have great experiences even in the life, the frame, the structure of the life that I have now.

Nicole Hardy [00:48:03] Well, and I think that idea of choice for me was incredibly important. I wanted to choose my life. I didn't want it to be sort of told to me. It was really important for me to decide where I would go and what I would do and what I would study and what kind of life I wanted to. And making those choices was a really important deciding factor in a lot of the big decisions in my life. I was sort of terrified of not being able to choose.

Marriage, Choice, and Personal Fulfillment

Claire Eden [00:48:35] Nicole Maren and I were talking about, and I'm interested in what if you think sort of the drive like that, if you had been able to, if you were married, would you have really made those sorts of decisions that you did with your life? I mean, obviously, being single, you're able to. You have more sort of freedom. And I think that's something that, you know, I don't know if it's really me relating to the book, but I think everyone wants to kind of identify with the protagonist in the story. Right. So, you know, I'm looking, thinking, you know, would I have made those sorts of choices that you did if, you know, if I had the freedom of not having a family to consider the repercussions of, you know, you can sell everything and move to Grand Cayman as a single person with only consider.

Nicole Hardy [00:49:37] You've got four other people to consider.

Claire Eden [00:49:40] Right? Right. So I wonder if. What if you feel like having. If that if the celibacy that you were living really sort of drove some of those choices in a way that maybe wouldn't have happened for you if you weren't single.

Nicole Hardy [00:50:02] Yeah, I'm not sure I can speak to a couple aspects of that. I mean, I never had a fantasy of myself as a mother, and so. And the idea of being married was always really appealing to me because I've always wanted to be in love. I mean, I feel like I'm a really romantic person. I've always wanted to have a partner, but I was a little bit scared of the. The partnerships that I was seeing didn't really look like the ones I wanted to sign up for. And so I was always trepidatious about being married, even though in the way that in that super duper traditional Mormon marriage, I didn't ever have fantasies of myself as a mother. And when I got to the point where all of my friends started getting married one by one throughout my 20s, I just saw it inspired a little bit of panic in me. It felt like a lot of doors were shutting. And so I have this. I made this preemptive strike, and I bought a timeshare with international properties so that if my hypothetical Mormon husband arrived and told me it was impractical to travel, then I would have the response that it would be a waste of money not to, because I already owned this thing, which was sort of ridiculous. But I feel like I was always craving a bit of adventure. I always knew I wanted to travel. I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I mean, I feel like some of these things were, I hope I would have done even if I had gotten married, but there's no way of knowing. I think that maybe a lot of the reasons I resisted, nobody wanted to date me either in the church. I mean, in college, I was not popular with the Mormon crowd. And I think they could probably sense my reluctance to sign on for the program in the way that it was presented with the, you know, the young marriage and the possibly not finishing school or not going to graduate school and the supporting of the man's career over my intellectual pursuits and the having of children, all of that felt really scary. And so the minute I could, I went off to Chicago and got a job at Wrigley Field chucking peanuts. And it was a ridiculous job, and it was exhausting, but I really felt like I had to do everything I wanted to do really, really fast. And so I started traveling and I bought this timeshare, and I, you know, there was this intense desire to, like, hurry up and do everything I wanted to do. Because when I got married, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I now I've seen that you can be married in a lot of different ways. But in my 20s, when all this was going down and I really only had one model for how that relationship should work it, I was. I was reluctant and scared.

Claire Eden [00:53:15] Yeah.

Nicole Hardy [00:53:16] Did I even answer your question? I have no idea.

Heather Olson Beal [00:53:18] No.

Claire Eden [00:53:19] Yeah. I think that really hit it because I think that's the part that I can relate to, is even when you think you're going to be. I know in my experience, it's like we thought of ourselves as being sort of unconventional and, you know, not falling into the mold, but then just the way things work out, you do sort of fall into the. You know, even when you're trying sort of actively to resist that, you do sort of fall. You know, like Mel was mentioning, you sort of wake up one day and you're like, wait, I am, like, living the life that I didn't think that I was going to be doing. I was going to be different

Mel Selko [00:54:01] or

Claire Eden [00:54:02] we were going to be more egalitarian. And then it's just when one person is earning all the money and one person is taking care of little kids, it's just hard to be the way maybe you anticipated it.

Heather Olson Beal [00:54:14] So that's interesting that we're sort of

Claire Eden [00:54:17] on the same wavelength there, even though our lived experiences have been pretty different.

Nicole Hardy [00:54:23] Yeah. And I think, I mean, even people who aren't in the church sometimes fall victim to those gender role situations. I remember I was on a date one time with a man who wasn't Mormon, and we came back to my house and we decided we wanted to, like, make milkshakes and watch a movie, and someone had to set up a VCR and someone had to make the milkshakes. And so I was like, I was in the kitchen and he was in the living room and he's like, I can't figure this out. And I'm like, I hate doing this. And we were like, why are we doing this? Because you have your parts and I have my parts. Like, let's just switch. So I ended up, you know, doing the VCR and he made the milkshake and suddenly everything was better. But I feel like the idea that, you know, gender roles, I think are tricky no matter what, but especially tricky when you grow up in a super duper traditional community like the LDS Church.

Heather Olson Beal [00:55:11] Yeah, yeah. I'll just say maybe I'll just embarrass myself. And say you were asking what we might relate to.

Nicole Hardy [00:55:20] I couldn't really relate to it, but.

Heather Olson Beal [00:55:21] But it was more just the actual sort of mirror image. Not mirror image, I guess, the negative image. I just felt so many times while reading it. Just total jealousy, to be totally honest. I kept saying to my husband, I'm like, oh, my gosh, now she's doing this. And even, like, when you say you moved to Chicago, you did this dumb job. I was reading that and thinking, oh, my gosh. I never did anything like that. So, Nicole, I got married when I was 19. So, I mean.

Nicole Hardy [00:55:51] Yeah, I.

Heather Olson Beal [00:55:52] Ridiculous. We were like. We don't know what we were thinking. What?

Claire Eden [00:55:56] Maren's, like, rolling her eyes, freaking out.

Maren [00:55:59] I'm sorry. I never get over these stories of, like, getting married at, like, before, like, turning 20. I just can't even fathom that.

Heather Olson Beal [00:56:07] I love.

Claire Eden [00:56:08] Freak out.

Heather Olson Beal [00:56:08] Continue freaking out. It's like we just look at each other and we're like, wow, I guess we got really lucky. But, you know, and I. And again, I can't regret. I guess I could. I don't. It'd be very midlife crisis crisis of me, even. Just this whole conversation, though. But, yeah, I don't regret it because I'm happy. It's not like I don't like my life, but I do think, wow, I just never. I never was an adult without being married.

Maren [00:56:34] I just.

Heather Olson Beal [00:56:34] I mean, what, for, like, 18 months at BYU?

Mel Selko [00:56:37] That.

Heather Olson Beal [00:56:37] Which doesn't really even count.

Nicole Hardy [00:56:39] Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think that counts.

Maren [00:56:42] No, it does.

Heather Olson Beal [00:56:42] I'm just saying, legally, I was barely legally an adult. I just never had a job and had my own space or my own, you know. So, yeah, I just found through. Yeah. I kept saying, right, now she's doing this. You know? And he was like, well, I'm a

Nicole Hardy [00:56:55] little bit worried about that book.

Heather Olson Beal [00:56:56] You know, not really. But he's like, you know, what are you saying? And I'm like, no, I'm just saying. Or I'll say, well, in eight more years, once all the kids are out, then I feel like, okay, then I'm gonna do something cool. Then I'm gonna do something that I've never been able to do. So I do feel pinned down, I guess, in a way. So, yeah, I felt a lot of jealousy, which was not what I mean. I don't know. Maybe not what you were intending, because you were seeming to say, oh, I wanted to be all these things, and I just couldn't make myself be it. And I'm like, no, I want to be all the things that you were. But that shift has sailed.

Nicole Hardy [00:57:29] Yeah, I mean, it goes both ways. And I think this relates back to. I think it was Claire's question about, you know, if the tables had been turned. I mean, you have. I talk a lot about, like, I'm. I'm nobody's first phone call. You know, like, if the house is on fire or the plane goes down or whatever. Like, there's no one who's going to call me first. And so the fact that you have this person in your life who's a partner of you, who's always there and who's going to, you know, who wants to help you through the terrible aspects of your life when they come and through, and is there for you to celebrate, like, the joys. I mean, like, I got a book deal. Like, every dream in my life came true one day and I couldn't get anyone on the phone.

Maren [00:58:19] Like.

Nicole Hardy [00:58:20] And eventually people check their voicemail and my phone totally blew up. And it was magical and it was amazing. And I've never, ever felt unloved in my whole life. I'm blessed with love. My family adores me. I have a million friends, but I have never had that kind of love. So, I mean, I think there are aspects of anyone's life that you can look at and envy, for sure.

Heather Olson Beal [00:58:45] Yeah, sure.

Mel Selko [00:58:47] So what I think is. Oh, sorry.

Heather Olson Beal [00:58:48] No, go ahead, Mel.

Singles in the Church and Leaving the Faith

Mel Selko [00:58:50] What I think is interesting about that, Nicole, is where you talked about being a single person in the church.

Claire Eden [00:58:58] It's supposed that there is a spiritual

Mel Selko [00:59:00] growth that comes from marriage that you can't experience, and so you're sort of

Heather Olson Beal [00:59:04] lumped in with the children.

Mel Selko [00:59:04] But I think that there are lots of different types of growth. I don't know the plural growth

Claire Eden [00:59:13] that

Mel Selko [00:59:13] we can't experience without having them. And so I felt like when I read on page 42, when you went to Chicago, I had a little bit of jealousy there. And I think this is like a place that you were able to grow, I think, spiritually, even though it's not necessarily a spiritual experience, where you said it was the first decision that didn't require the advice, permission, or financial support of anyone else. And I wonder, even men in the church, once you're married, you shouldn't be making decisions that don't require the advice of someone else. I wonder how many of us who are married and who married young have had that kind of growth, have had the opportunity to make some really big decisions about our lives by ourselves and have to really live with the consequences of those decisions that we made ourselves. And so it saddens me that we can't look at, you know, look, you've had this experience, and Claire's had this experience, and Heather's had this experience, and we all have grown in different ways because of those experiences. Rather than one experience provides growth and the other experience doesn't.

Nicole Hardy [01:00:21] Yeah. And the other is just like killing time. And I will say. I mean, at that point, you know, people would say this to me, like, you don't know what love is. Or, you know, you're like, oh, what was it? Sort of like productively waiting. You know, people would just say things like that to me, as if, you know, when real life begins or when you really start living the gospel. And I thought, how is my life fake to you? Like, I have. I've had two different careers. I'm pursuing my art. I have two graduate degrees. I've traveled 14 countries in the world. I've done and seen and experienced a million amazing, fascinating things. And yet that's not real, or it's not considered real. And so I am agreeing with you on that point, that just because we're not all growing through the exact same experiences, there are ways to evolve as humans that you can get to through a different. Through different routes. I mean, I feel like I have been forced to. To learn empathy, and so have all of you. And I've been forced to, you know, learn loss and learn grief, and so have all of you. And it's sort of ridiculous to feel like there's only one way to get there.

Mel Selko [01:01:55] I like that.

Nicole Hardy [01:01:56] Can I ask you?

Mel Selko [01:01:58] This is a. I'm a pretty romantic person by nature, so I assumed that at some point you were going to become sexually active in your book. And so each experience you had with these different men, I was like, is this the one? Is this the one? And Fiji broke my heart. I was just like, what? I really thought that was gonna be

Nicole Hardy [01:02:20] the trip for you.

Mel Selko [01:02:22] And so I wonder if there. Now that you see where you evolve to, and I know you're grateful for that. You chose the person that you did.

Claire Eden [01:02:30] Do you ever wish you would have

Mel Selko [01:02:33] made that decision earlier in your life and seen where one of those other relationships that kind of got stopped up there would have gone?

Nicole Hardy [01:02:43] I don't know. I mean, everyone talks about, you know, if you could do it over again? I think definitely there was. I like to think that there was something that could have been more real with James, but I really wasn't ready yet. And the one thing I am always really grateful for is that when I made my break with the church, it was a very conscious choice and I decided that I was going to live a different life and I told my family I was going to live a different life. And then I embarked on a different life and I didn't want it to happen as a result of a mistake I made or something that felt like a sin to me or, you know, just something that got out of hand or I didn't want it to be either like a consequence or a rebellion or a mistake. So, yeah, I mean, I think there was definitely a missed opportunity there with him, but I also wasn't ready yet. So I don't know. But yes, Fiji broke my heart too. I will tell you that.

Mel Selko [01:03:56] The point where you're talking to your parents and you kind of say, I tried to change myself in my life and the only constant is I feel like shit at church. And your parents reaction, I haven't had that discussion if my parents were on

Nicole Hardy [01:04:18] a sort of a don't ask, don't tell

Mel Selko [01:04:21] type place. And I noticed, you know, at the end of the book when you throw yourself your birthday party, which sounded amazing, you know, that they kind of come

Nicole Hardy [01:04:30] around a little bit.

Mel Selko [01:04:31] But I wonder what your relationship is now and how it compares to your relationship when you were an active member.

Nicole Hardy [01:04:42] You know, I have to. It's sort of a. I wish there was a different word I could choose. But I have to say, at the end of the day, I'm really proud of my parents. I mean, my break from the church really rocked their world. And my writing a book about my break from the church really rocked their world. I mean, they didn't ask to have their whole life turned upside down and to have their vision of their eternal life turned upside down. And it felt like a very personal rejection. You know, both my parents were converts and they came to the church because it provided so many beautiful promises and so much hope for them and for the future. And for me to say to them that everything they built for our family, I simply don't want was devastating. And to have to say to your parents, you can keep me if you love me and don't give me a hard time, but if you, you know, if you want to lecture me or be angry with me, the only thing that's going to happen is we'll grow apart. Like, you can't shame me or lecture me into changing my mind. And I don't think that they would try. They don't deal in guilt in general. They're very loving and pretty open people.

Mel Selko [01:06:17] But

Nicole Hardy [01:06:21] are you guys all still there?

Heather Olson Beal [01:06:23] Yeah, I'm totally listening. Oh, good.

Claire Eden [01:06:26] Okay.

Nicole Hardy [01:06:27] I just didn't hear anything on the other end. So I will say that there was. The first year was really tough. My mom, especially was really, really terrified of what I was choosing and why I was choosing it. But they have seen over. You know, I'm 42 now, so it's been seven years since I officially made my way out of the church. And I'm proud of them. I mean, they've decided to keep me in their life, and they've decided to love me, and they've decided not to judge. And there are still some situations that come up that are kind of awkward, and there are still some conversations that are tense, but for the most part, we just love each other, and I'm still their daughter. And they've tried as hard as they can to be supportive through a pretty difficult and stressful time. My dad is the only one who was sort of able and. Or willing to read my book, and I really appreciated that he made that effort. He said it was just really important for him to try to understand what I went through, and that meant a lot to me. And my mom kind of sat down with me and said, I don't think I can read your book because I think it'll be too hard and it will make me too sad, but I'm going to get sad just talking about it. But she said, it doesn't mean I don't love you any less. I just can't, you know, I can't engage on that level with your spiritual struggle. And I feel like that's fair. It's fine with me. The version of the book I gave to my dad, I had taken a razor blade and a Sharpie, too, so he didn't get any of the sex scenes. I didn't want him to. I didn't want him to be terrified to turn the page, you know? And I don't care who your dad is. He doesn't need to know every detail of how you lost your virginity.

Mel Selko [01:08:32] Amen.

Nicole Hardy [01:08:33] I think we have a really good. Yeah, exactly right. We have a good relationship now, although it is complicated in ways that it didn't used to be. But I don't know anyone who doesn't have a somewhat complicated relationship with their family. They're supportive. They're really good. It's been harder for my brother. He and I are not nearly as close as we used to be. But I'm hoping, you know, once they see that I'm not shooting heroin and like having orgies with strangers on Craigslist. And my life is not in any way self destructive, like, everything's fine. I'm still a perfectly happy, much happier person. I'm a much more hopeful person now than I was then, which is hard for people to believe, but people within the church who think that there's only one way to be happy and one way to be hopeful, that's hard for them to hear without them telling me that I'm mistaken and my happiness is just an illusion. But my family has not taken that tack, which I'm very grateful for.

Reflections, Favorite Moments, and What Comes Next

Heather Olson Beal [01:09:45] Yeah, that's one of the things I loved about the book is just your emphasis, you know, rather. Rather than it being on loss, whether of losing your virginity or losing your testimony or losing, you know, your act of participation in the Mormon Church, that you framed it in terms of abundance and wholeness and, you know, an additive thing rather than a subtractive thing. And I can see where that would be hard for a Mormon parent to take in, but it's something that I appreciated. Because you felt like you were growing, you were expanding rather than losing something. So I like that.

Claire Eden [01:10:21] Yeah.

Nicole Hardy [01:10:21] I mean, in the end, I really did. The only thing I ever wanted was an abundant life, and I didn't. It's not a book about bitterness or anger or rebellion or I don't know what other adjective I could use, but it was just really about joy and hope and abundance and trying to find a life that would bring me closer to those things. And I still consider myself a spiritual person. I don't know how to live without a belief in God at the core. And I. You know, my life isn't that much different now, except. Except that I never sit in a room with people who tell me that my life is less so that's better.

Mel Selko [01:11:09] Yeah.

Heather Olson Beal [01:11:10] And that you mentioned earlier that you wanted that choice was important to you. So then it seems like that was doing that was another way for you to choose, like, this is who I'm going to spend my time with, or this is who, you know, this is how I want to live, which to me is really, really powerful. And that shouldn't be so foreign because.

Nicole Hardy [01:11:28] Exactly. And I really.

Heather Olson Beal [01:11:30] No, go ahead, Nicole, go ahead.

Nicole Hardy [01:11:35] Oh, I lost you. Keep going.

Maren [01:11:37] Oh.

Heather Olson Beal [01:11:37] I just was saying we have so much emphasis on agency that it should. I mean, it's sort of like one of those things that we talk about,

Claire Eden [01:11:43] but then we

Heather Olson Beal [01:11:46] sometimes reject in practical application the idea of choosing, you know, choosing your Path,

Nicole Hardy [01:11:54] Yeah, definitely. There's not much respect for choices that are even within the bounds of correct doctrine. There's not much patience for choices that contradict the culture as well. And so it was hard for me for a long time to figure out if what I was struggling with was culture or doctrine. And when it. When I figured out that I had some pretty fundamental issues with both, and, you know, none of this was clear to me that I didn't have such a. An analytical view of things, I just, you know, knew that it. I felt like I was drowning. And once I realized that it wasn't just the culture that I had a problem with, but that there was a certain. There were doctrines that excluded me and that felt really, really inherently wrong, especially in terms of how we treat the LGBT community. I. You know, it was at that point that I had to make a break, but even when I was really active and I was just making unconventional choices, that was met with a lot of resistance. And that part, I hope it changes for sure in the culture of the church, because there are a lot of ways to live that don't go against Mormon doctrine at all. And I hope more people feel freer to make some of those choices that just give them some joy or freedom or adventure or fulfillment.

Heather Olson Beal [01:13:43] Yeah. Okay. Did anyone have a final question or comment to Nicole for us?

Mel Selko [01:13:51] I just wanted to tell her my favorite line from the book, and now I can't find it, so I hope I get it right. I loved, like, all of the in depth pieces, and I cried while I was reading it, but I laughed too. And so my favorite line has to be a funny one. And it's when you're with your kids friend and you're still trying to find a Mormon dude to date, and you guys have gone like, you're like, now we're gonna go on the Internet, we're gonna find somebody, and you say there has to be a Norman instead of all the Boormans and hormones.

Nicole Hardy [01:14:22] I just laughed so hard, I cried

Mel Selko [01:14:24] when I read that line.

Nicole Hardy [01:14:25] Anyway, I'm so glad that you thought that was funny. I didn't want to be offensive, but, yeah, there's hilarious hormones and hormones, and I'm like, where are the people like us that are just normal and Mormon? I never, never quite found my Norman unfortunate.

Mel Selko [01:14:49] I want to get it as, like, my personalized license plate Norman.

Heather Olson Beal [01:14:55] That's good.

Nicole Hardy [01:14:58] Anything else?

Heather Olson Beal [01:15:00] Yeah, well, I just. I had asked some people in some of these online Mormon groups, and there were. There were lots of people that said, oh, just thank her for her peace, thank her for sharing her talents. I mean, there were a lot of people that had really, really great things, but there were a number of people that are single Mormons. I don't know if this is a question that you frequently get, but this said. Oh, I would just ask her if she has any advice. What would she say to someone who's, you know, 30s, 40s, Mormon? To whatever degree do you feel like you've learned any lessons or any little nuggets of wisdom that you could pass on to people?

Nicole Hardy [01:15:36] I'm always a little bit terrified of this question. I'm really reluctant to give advice because I didn't intend to write my story, to change anyone's lives or to make others believe differently or act differently. I just wanted to share my experience and talk about the ways that I changed. I don't know if I can give any dating advice. I honestly feel like all the years of not being allowed to have relationships and feeling like everything was doomed before it started did a lot to teach me how not to have love in my life and did a lot to teach me how to keep people away from me. And that really depressing note to end on. But. But I don't. I think I'm unlearning right now a lot of the. The damage that I feel like was done. And I just. I don't know. I. I'm. No, I can't give any advice.

Heather Olson Beal [01:16:41] No advice.

Nicole Hardy [01:16:43] I have no. I'm so sorry. I wish I had some pearls of wisdom and something that's gonna change everyone's lives and make it better, but I'm still. Still struggling through it. I'm still trying to find my way through a life where I can have love and also be who I believe God made me to be. So I think it's a struggle for a lot of people, not just Mormons, but I feel like our. Our experience is very singular, and that is for sure. Yeah.

Heather Olson Beal [01:17:20] Well, so let me ask one more thing in case that was too much of a downer. Why don't you tell us what you're doing now or what's on the horizon for you? It's been out for about a year. Is that right? A little bit more than a year.

Nicole Hardy [01:17:31] Did it since August, so less than a year. Only like five or six months. And I think I did. I came up with a pearl of wisdom. Are you ready for it?

Heather Olson Beal [01:17:40] Yes.

Nicole Hardy [01:17:41] Okay. My pearl of wisdom is to figure out a way to live a high. To live a life where you can retain hope. And I feel like, the frustrating thing for me in my strictly Mormon life is that I just began to feel more and more hopeless. And so if the church is the thing that brings you hope and sustains your hope, then by all means, like, keep going down that road. But wherever your hope lies, I think that's where you have to take your life. Okay, so what am I doing now? I want to do. I'm pitching a book to my agent in the next couple months. I don't want to give too much away, but I know I want it to be a travel book. I have heard from a lot of reviewers and a lot of fans who thought that the bits where I talk about my travels were sort of the most engrossing and most beautiful parts of the book. And it's been a long time since I've taken a big trip. So I think I want to take a few months or maybe even a year and see where the world takes me. And that's all I can say right now is that I definitely want to do a travel memoir. But it'll still be a memoir, and it will still have a lot of the humor and the elements of faith that I still have with me. And my sense of adventure is going to stick with me as well, of course. Great.

Heather Olson Beal [01:19:18] Well, Nicole, I just want to say thank you to you and to Mel and Claire and Maren. We've had some Skype technology issues that have been a little bit frustrating, but we'll get it all pieced together. Thank you for writing the book. I thought it was beautiful and, yeah, I thought it was funny and it was heart rending and it was vulnerable and honest. It was so many things and I just really, really loved it. If you haven't had a chance to get the book yet, I would highly recommend it. Get it and read it and love it.

Nicole Hardy [01:19:47] I'm pleasantly surprised to be asked to participate in some conversations like this. I think if I had known these kinds of things existed when I was struggling my last three years of my activity in the church, it would have been a boon for sure.

Heather Olson Beal [01:20:04] So thank you to Claire, Mel, Maren, and to Nicole.

Claire Eden [01:20:09] Thanks for having us.

Nicole Hardy [01:20:11] Who just whispered bye. That was Maren. Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear. But with Jo.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.