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In the final podcast in a 3-part series on sexuality, marriage, and singlehood, Candice Madsen interviews Dr. Finlayson-Fife and Dr. Jason Carroll, BYU professor of family life.  Links to transcripts and videos can be found here: Q and A: How singles can embrace both chastity and sexuality (+video) You can find the first two podcasts in that series here: If there is a secret to marriage, it just may be commitment Love, marriage and the single woman stuck writing about it

"When the wedding celebration and honeymoon end and we are left to work out a life with another flawed human being, we are often unprepared for the disharmony experienced in those early days. When so many of us anticipate bliss in marriage, what do we do when we find ourselves confronting disappointment and conflict? What meaning should we make of the discord, and what can we do to make our marriage better?"

The text below was adapted from a presentation given by Dr. Finlayson-Fife at the "Of One Body" Singles Conference in New York City on May 16, 2015 To listen to the audio recording of this presentation click HERE. When I told a friend recently that I would be presenting in NYC on Singles and Sexuality, she smiled and asked “Is there any overlap between those two topics?  What on earth are you going to talk about?” Of course, what is comical about her question is that it exposes the deep-seated desire among us, especially among those of us who are married, to pretend that the sexuality of Sin...

“The ones that had a hard time really internalized this idea that sex is bad … as opposed to sex is good, but the context of marriage really matters. Those who saw it as unfeminine, that pleasure is a problem, that sexuality is an inherent problem, they had a really difficult time making it now okay, except for an accommodation of their husband’s desire, which, of course, doesn’t work long, if at all,” Finlayson-Fife said.

"Far from protecting females from seeking male approval, the rhetoric on modesty unwittingly reinforces it. At the same time we are taught that pleasing men through sexual availability is unnecessary, we are taught to please men and God by covering and suppressing our sexuality. Either way women are sexual objects." Dr. Finlayson-Fife's recent Exponent II article is quoted in this article on the topic of modesty: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/57592727-80/women-modesty-lds-mormon.html.csp?page=1

Below is an article I wrote on the LDS Modesty discourse, published in EXPONENT II Magazine.  You can read it here: (Just scroll down a few pages to find the article). http://www.exponentii.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Exponent-II-Magazine_Winter-2014-Edition-4-website.pdf