Mormon Muffins: Too Sexy?

A controversy is heating up among Mormons over a pinup calendar that toys with one of their core spiritual values: modesty. “Hot Mormon Muffins: A Taste of Motherhood” features 12 female worshippers posing provocatively in tank tops and Santa suits alongside recipes for baked treats. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has already excommunicated the project’s creator, Chad Hardy, for a previous calendar depicting shirtless male missionaries. While Hardy says he’s just trying to tweak the “stuffy” and “hyper-conservative” Mormon stereotype, some critics wish his models had kept their muffins to themselves. (Watch one Mormom Muffin mom give a baking tutorial.)

The calendar is an insult to Mormonism: “You either believe in and abide by your church and its teachings,” says JoAnne Thomas on the Right Cuisine blog, “or you remove your fanny from the congregation. ... Do we really need to sexualize a church?”

“Hot Mormon Muffins calendar”

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It helps break down stereotypes about Mormon women: While the photos admittedly flout Morman modesty guidelines, says one of the models, quoted by AP, they help get across the idea that LDS women are “not all the subservient housewives that people think they are.”

“Hot Mormon Muffins pokes fun at Mormon Mom stereotype”

It’s confusing … in a good way: Given my previous personal encounters with conspicuously nonsexual Mormons, says Mark Lorenz in Manolith, the photo spreads leave me feeling disoriented, “caught somewhere between a boner and a baked good. ... I really want to buy this calendar, but really don’t want to explain to people why I did.”

“Calendar will leave you confused and hungry”