Modern Love

All I Wanted Was a Hug

By HOLLY WELKER

Published: October 30, 2009

I WAS strolling through a park in Taichung, Taiwan, hand in hand with my missionary companion at the time, Sister Shi. Although she was Chinese and I American, we both were 22-year-old women serving as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the Mormons. Our stroll wasn’t recreational; we were looking for people to chat up, hoping to persuade them to accept a pamphlet and invite us to their homes for an in-depth discussion of the church.

We hadn’t met with much success, so partly for mutual support, partly because we liked each other well enough and partly because it was a perfectly acceptable thing for women to do in Taiwan, we held hands. Before long, we came upon a teenage girl and boy who, like us, were conservatively dressed and holding hands.

“Will you look at that?” Sister Shi said in Mandarin, turning slightly to watch them walk away. “That’s disgusting.”

I was a year into my 18-month mission and could talk comfortably in Mandarin. “Why?” I countered. “They’re just doing what we’re doing.”

“But anyone can look at us and see there’s nothing going on,” she said. “If you look at them, you know something is definitely going on.”

The teenagers actually struck me as utterly innocent. But Sister Shi was right about one thing: Nothing was going on between us. In fact, nothing was going on between me and anyone. Up to that point in my life, nothing much ever had. Courtesy of my Mormon upbringing, I was, aside from a few unremarkable dates, completely inexperienced.

Heading off on my mission only extended and, by design, enforced my isolation and inexperience. Many of the rules missionaries live with are meant to reduce intimacy so that we are seen — by ourselves and by others — as servants of God, individuals set apart for a specific period of righteous labor, rather than as normal human beings pursuing normal human activities and relationships.

We were instructed not to let anyone call us by our first names. We were forbidden to engage in physical contact beyond a handshake with any member of the opposite sex. We were forbidden to date or pursue romantic relationships with anyone living within our mission territory.

Girlfriends or boyfriends back home were allowed, but interaction with them was limited to weekly letters — no phone calls. While men become eligible for missions at age 19, women can’t serve until they are 21, partly because many believe that the slight age difference reduces romantic attractions between missionaries. Companions are reassigned every few months, which can prevent either love or hatred from becoming too intense.

I sought out connection where I could, within the bounds of what was permitted. Descended from no-nonsense Mormon pioneers, I am not and never have been excessively affectionate, so even today it jars me to look at photographs from my mission; I am shocked at the displays of physical affection that became part of my friendships with women when I had so few other avenues for intimacy.

There I am in the photos, over and over, my arms draped around my roommates, their arms around me, one woman kissing another on the cheek. This is not to say that I was overtly affectionate with every companion or roommate I had. A few shared my strong physical reserve, so although we liked each other, we did little but exchange an occasional awkward hug. But in many cases, when we women felt at liberty to express our affections, we did so enthusiastically, without reservation, because we knew it was both innocent and harmless.

My desire for affection from male missionaries — that was neither innocent nor harmless. In most of the photographs of me with the “elders” (an ironic title, given they were only 19 or 20), we stand discreetly side by side, a good six inches or more between us, my hands clasped chastely in front of me, while their hands are in their pockets.