This interview was featured in our 12th Issue: Controversy

Andrea Blanch: How did you come to this idea of putting Mormon missionaries in sexual positions?

Neil Dacosta: It had different meanings for the three of us involved. I thought it was a response to Proposition 8 in California that outlawed same-sex marriage. Prop 8 was, from my understanding, back-ended by the Mormon church who called on their congregation to donate money to it. Even though they’re not allowed to meddle in the government, they blurred the lines there. This was a visual discourse about the separation of church and state. It wasn’t an all out attack on the church, but a rebuttal to the way that they handled things.

Sara Phillips: If you can laugh or joke about anything, you’re much more open to having a discussion about it. So it was a way to open up a dialogue. The project was based on a quote and there was no skewing it one way or another from our perspective.

Neil: The church was in the news because Mitt Romney was running for president. We knew from the Astronaut Suicides that timing was important. That’s when we decided to finally make it happen. Missionaries go out as a pair usually, so that’s why we had two guys. It’s a time where you’re coming into your sexuality. Young males and females are put together and told to suppress those feelings. I obviously didn’t go on any missions, but I have friends who have, and they say it’s pretty wild, what’s going on in your brain at that age. Teenagers have a hard enough time figuring things out in that point of their lives.

Andrea: What debate do you think you started with this series?

Neil: I hope it made it easier for people and families to talk about this subject of marriage equality by breaking the ice and giving it some humor. It might not be something they want to talk about unless they saw these photos and said, “Oh, that’s pretty funny.” Hopefully they go into a bigger discussion about it instead of keeping those ideas to themselves because they don’t know how to bring it up or approach it.

Andrea: Why did you decide to keep the models clothed?

Sara: It was never meant to be offensive. It was meant to be humorous. Showing them in any state of undress would have charged it sexually and been offensive. There was a comedy in how pristine they looked. You wonder more what they’re thinking about. It was more interesting to depict these sexual positions with someone that kind of looks disengaged, rather than making it overtly sexual.

Andrea: What was the process of preparing for the shoot like?

Neil: Shelby was really involved in that. He was in the church, and his brother went on a mission. He had all the technicalities of how the suit should fit what they should look like. I was almost thinking of doing it in an actual bedroom scene, but Sara being the art director suggested that we do it on the grey. It makes it sterile and makes you concentrate on the idea of it and not what’s going on in the actual photo.

Andrea: The series became a viral hit after it was posted on Reddit. Were you surprised by the popularity of the project?

Sara: It got exposure on different media sites, but Reddit caused it to shut down the server. We had to re-upload the server speed at 4 a.m. Some people wrote some great reviews about it, and from there it got big. It was done organically rather than us sending it to other people. Anytime there’s that much debate and people have organically shared it in that way, it feels successful.

Andrea: What has the reception to this project been like? Have you received a lot of backlash?

Neil: There was some hate mail that threatened our lives, but most of it was positive. What I took away from it was that younger people in the church don’t have the same views as the old, indoctrinated views of the church. Their views are changing with society’s views. Their church is even starting to catch up with that. Not as fast as it should, but they are recounting some parts of it. They’ve had to do it before with other things, like allowing black people into the church.

Andrea: Were you anticipating any backlash?

Neil: Yeah. It’s a touchy subject. Like I said, we didn’t want to just go out and attack someone’s belief system and their religion because that’s easy to do. It’s not the way that I want to live my life. Even with putting this out the way that we did, I figured people would take it as an attack and some did.

Sara: We tried to reply to everybody except for a couple where there was obviously no point in replying, but it was just nice to be able to communicate with people who thought it was funny.

Andrea: No emails from the head of the church?

Neil: That was a concern to us, because who knows what goes on in those upper levels of the church that people like us don’t know about. I definitely saw some heads from the Church of Latter Day Saints headquarters coming to the site and thought, “Oh boy. Is this going to turn into something bigger?” It hasn’t happened yet, knock on wood. I think it would happen to the Book of Mormon show people before it would happen to us.

Sara: I think that the church would realize it was a respectful way to do it. There was an effort to make it tasteful rather than just be offensive.

Andrea: To be clear, you did this project because this whole question just got under your skin, so to speak, and you wanted to talk about it?

Sara: We all have slightly different perspectives. For me, it was a time when there was an election, and a candidate who was part of this religion wasn’t answering questions about the issue, even with a lot of people asking a lot of questions about it.

Andrea: From your knowledge of the Mormon church or religion, why do you think he didn’t answer questions about it?

Neil: I personally believe that the church and Romney made a conscious decision to separate themselves because they know how they look in the eyes of non-church members.

Sara: He said that he very specifically didn’t want his religion to be part of the conversation, which seemed strange. You can’t shut that off when you’re running for an office as big as that, especially when you as a candidate aren’t able to separate a political decision that you make from your religion. At that point there was no separation. That, to me, was fascinating.

You can read the full interview with Neil and Sara in our 12th Issue: Controversy

Jul 1 From Our Archives: Neil Dacosta

Jul 2 Flash Fiction: The Sisters

Jun 29 Parallel Lines: George H. King

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