Homoeroticism and the Mormon Male Ideal: A Conversation with Kate Davis

In this episode of Dialogue Out Loud, Dialogue co-editor Caroline Kline speaks with scholar Kate Davis about her provocative Spring 2026 article, “Heavenly Bodies: Mormon Male Homoerotics in the Sacred Art of Arnold Friberg.”

Together they explore how Friberg’s iconic Book of Mormon paintings helped construct a distinctly Mormon vision of masculinity in the twentieth century—one shaped by muscular Christianity, post-polygamy anxieties, and the idealization of the male body. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, Davis examines the homoerotic dimensions of Friberg’s art, the absence of women from these visual worlds, and the tension between “eternal” gender roles and the constant cultural work required to sustain them.

The conversation ranges from Boy Scouts and muscular Mormonism to Eve Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and even comparisons between Friberg and Tom of Finland. Along the way, Davis invites listeners to reconsider some of the most familiar images in Latter-day Saint culture and to ask what possibilities emerge when we queer inherited traditions of masculinity, spirituality, and sacred art.