At first, I only admired the clever irony of the Hot Mormon calendar but lately I’m starting to think those sexy blasphemous heathens were on to something. Elder Freeman and Elder Jones came to my door a few months ago and when I wasn’t staring deep into their eyes, hoping to impart some telepathic anti-cult wisdom—run—I kept having to fight the urge to take all my clothes off. It happened again when I was driving home from work today, and spotted some missionaries on the corner, LDS bibles in hand. It’s a little bit that I want to open their eyes to the vastness of the world outside Utah, but it’s a lot more that I think it would be hot to corrupt their pure minds. What’s perplexing, and maybe hotter still, is that I’m fairly sure the whole buttoned-down outfit, no-tv-watching, no sex, no alcohol, 2-year mission thing —if not meant to fend off entirely the distraction of things like inciting predatory lust in members of the opposite sex— is at least surely not meant to encourage it. And yet…

EDIT: I should note that this sentiment also comes up occasionally when I run across Hasidic Jews, but is typically much less potent. For one, your average Hasid in Louisville is a lot older than the mission-bound Mormon and for two, I think I’ve already made my preference for facial hair maintenance abundantly clear.