This is the second of a series of guest posts on learning about sex within different religious contexts. Here’s a link to our guest post invitation. The author asked to remain anonymous.
I started masturbating when I was 17 or 18 years old. For most outside the church, this is probably quite late. Teen magazines like YM and Seventeen made me curious, and I wondered what it would feel like to take my arousal from beginning to end, instead of cutting it off (as I had become quite adept at doing with my frisky teenage boyfriends). So I did the things the magazine suggested.
Wow. My body can do that? I wanted more.
I became stuck in a constant cycle of sin–repent–sin–repent because I had not outlet for this drive of mine. The thought of going to a new bishop every year (sometimes 2 or 3 times/year depending on how often I moved in college) was paralyzing, and I would punish myself for months, not taking the sacrament and avoiding the temple in an attempt to take care of the problem on my own. No matter how I flagellated myself, I felt that sitting alone in a room with a man twice my age and talking about vigorously rubbing my clitoris was somehow a necessary part of the repentance process.
I knew that the opposite sex was doing it, but as a female I felt like a freak. Halfway through college I was obese, felt out of control in all areas, and couldn’t get my thoughts and actions under control. I was only able to pull up out of this downward spiral after a series of meetings with a kind bishop who helped me realize I was not abnormal, helped me find a wonderful therapist who prescribed depression medication, and helped me work through my emotional and physical issues. I lost weight, started succeeding in school again, and felt like I had my masturbation “addiction” under control.
I have been ashamed of this for almost a decade now. I was taught that those outside of our faith might try to convince me that self-stimulation is a normal, healthy part of mortality, but I was not to listen because that was Satan attempting to drag me down and enslave me with the bonds of sexual sin. Never mind that the majority of the world’s population somehow managed to masturbate while leading productive fulfilling lives, or that children often discovered the process naturally (later learning from their parents that this feeling of release and satisfaction they could stimulate in their own body was a dark mark of evil that prevented them from communing with God), the Puritanical elements in our faith have deep roots reaching back to our pioneer ancestors raised during a time when the wisdom and superstition of those who went before guided thoughts, actions, and belief. (Don’t believe me? Read this article on Cracked titled 5 Insane Ways Fear of Masturbation Shaped the Modern World.)
Before now, I had never thought to ask why. Why is it so wrong? Why would God give us a desire so strong, so incredibly natural that even a young child can discover and utilize it, and then tell us that we are evil and cast out from Him unless we abstain forever (for in the LDS faith the only source of sexual relief can be found with your spouse, from the time you are born to the time you die, and those who never marry must… suffer.) What if I only felt guilty about masturbating because I had been taught to feel guilty? And my parents learned the same thing from their parents, who learned the same thing from their parents, who learned the same thing from their parents, and so on. What if the pain and guilt I had experienced through high school and college didn’t come from God after all, but were a product of man-made superstition? Recently I found a quote by a well-known church leader suggesting that solo masturbation would lead to mutual masturbation with someone of the same gender, which would eventually lead to homosexuality, and continue to progress until the most deprave acts were committed.
Was I taught to avoid masturbation because someone was worried I would have sex with a girl, and then maybe want to get it on with the family dog? My faith has changed and developed in many ways since I was a teenager, and in this area specifically, I am now at peace. I’m married and have a sexual outlet, but that doesn’t mean masturbation is something I avoid. I don’t need anyone else telling me whether it’s okay for me to spend some time alone with my body. That’s for me to decide (with input from my spouse when I feel it is relevant).
As for my children, I haven’t decided how I will handle this subject yet. I think I’d like to tell them they are free to seek release as long as it isn’t harming others (the pornography industry is problematic) or inhibiting day-to-day life. Whether they are able to beat down the rhetoric and feel good about doing youth temple trips, going on a mission, marrying in the temple, etc. while masturbating will be a choice they have to make.
–anonymous
[Last post in the Teaching Sex guest post series: I Apologize]
So many points here that I would comment on. I will choose just one… for now… but it is NOT right for a young woman to sit in a room and discuss this with a man! That is an abuse of power, and entirely messed up. The cycle of guilt and shame related to masturbation, (oh how I can relate to that!), is hard enough without having the inappropriate relationship of an ecclesiastical leader hovering in your mind as well, ready for your next “confession”. I get that many bishops are good guys just doing their very best with an awkward situation, and to that end it’s up to parents to prevent this abuse and it’s on the shoulders of the church to “fix” this, and prevent it from ever occurring! As a parent of four daughters the bishop in our ward has a signed and hand delivered letter from me with very clear instructions on what he can and cannot ask or say in an interview, clear rules of engagement for how to handle any voluntary confession from my daughters, and very VERY clear warnings of how I will handle any breech of the rules that I have set for interactions with my kids.
Thanks for this post.
While I think rhetoric about masturbation has softened over the past decade or so (or is it just because I’m not a single youth anymore, so I don’t hear it as often?), the messages we send are still terribly harmful. Masturbation should not be a confession-required “sin”, nor should it ever be placed in the same category as fornication or adultery. While addictive masturbation can be spiritually damaging, heaping shame and church discipline upon it just makes things worse. In fact, the practice of excluding repentant sexual sinners from full fellowship in the church is borderline unchristian and on my more cynical days feels a lot like a control tactic and nothing more.
The issue of young female confession to untrained male bishops about sexual sins, masturbation in particular, gets my blood boiling. It is absolutely, unequivocally, inappropriate — possibly evil. I was asked about masturbation as a 12-year-old. At the time, I assumed he had the right, and I choked out a shame-filled, coerced confession. Today, I want to kick him in the balls. I was a child. How dare he?
Like James, when my children reach adolescence, I will be giving our bishop written instructions on what he may or may not ask them about sexuality (basically: not a damn thing). We have to stand up for our kids until this creepy practice goes far, far away.
I’m usually pretty chill about church craziness, but this is one that gets me beyond riled up.
Thank you for sharing your story. For me it was something that I discovered on my own and for years had no words to describe it. In my house where sex was never discussed, I learned what I knew from tv, magazines and more experienced friends. Masturbation was only discussed in relation to boys and somehow, I didn’t see the connection. I remember feeling a mild amount of shame and an abstract feeling of guilt but I think I was mostly confused as I didn’t have the vocabulary or a soundingboard/confidant to talk to talk about what was going on inside of me. That was until I decided to go on a mission and I found myself confessing to my bishop. I stopped that day, cold turkey and for a decade, I never went back to it, though I came close a few times.
And then, much as you described it, I started wondering what was so wrong with masturbation? I listened closely to the covenant I had made in the temple and it didn’t seem to necessarily apply to one conduct with oneself, so I went back to it and didn’t feel a lick of guilt about it.
This is wonderful. I only wish I had parents who had taught me that my body was okay in any way. As it was, I went through the same cycle of guilt and repentance, meeting with a bishop (who recommended that I wear yellow gloves every time I was in my room alone) and then feeling horribly guilty again if I masturbated while wearing my CTR ring. I didn’t even know what it was until I was 14 and I had already been doing it for years. It fed depression and anxiety issues for decades. I found no relief until I allowed myself to come clean with my own self and admit that I didn’t really believe the cultural parts of the gospel and that MOST of what is taught at church is cultural. I stopped going, started masturbating, and bought a decent little vibrator. My son will not be exposed to that rhetoric at all.
I think we have to fight for our children on this, uncomfortable and scary as the mere idea of advocating this is. The fact of the matter is that when we are old enough to realize the unnecessary pain and guilt our culturally-installed conditioning is, we are likely adults with a comfortable sex life. It is our children who are traversing the worst of it now (that’s the way our bodies grow and develop) and so, we look on and wonder if the strife of addressing this is worse than the individual guilt and pain that our children aren’t likely to show us. How can we know how harmful the culture-guilt will be on any particular child? I’ve taken to direct advocacy on their behalf to my husband, who still lives primarily in a black and white world of rigid mores which he believes keeps him safe from bad things and he may be right, for himself.
It’s a start. A very small start.
Thank you for this post.
It seems to me that the way that the church culture teaches about sexuality is deficient (I also think that this is a problem outside the Church as well). As far as I can tell, the way masturbation and sexual thoughts are treated is based on tradition and assumptions instead of revelation. In the Alma tells his son, “see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love.” (Alma 38:12) I think that this scripture can be applied to this situation. Alma doesn’t say to let the horse run uncontrolled, but he also doesn’t say to kill it. I am glad that the Church encourages its members to have strong marriages, but this can be difficult when people have been encouraged to suppress their sexuality and feel uncomfortable with that part of themselves.
anonymous, the Church *doesn’t* teach kids to bridle masturbation, it teaches to kill it, and to feel guilty and unworthy if you are not successful.
I actually do very little of this, and never did it all that often as a child, but I do credit my current happy sex life to having gained and understanding of what my body can do. I am very sorry for those who were not able to imagine that their bodies are meant for joy and so, don’t ever learn about it in whatever ways that can be explored. It is a gift I give my husband today, and am also able to keep for myself: I understand how my body works and am able to be happy in sex, which makes us both happy.
Many, many women (and later, their husbands) do not have this gift to share or keep, instead they are in guilt-ridden depressions.
Many in the church right now wonder as to the exodus of youth who are leaving the church.
I suspect a great majority of those leaving the church are children of parents who were traumatized this way.
I have had little motivation to teach my sons ‘church standards’ because of my own experience.
I have done my best to give them enough distance from indoctrination that they were able to ask questions
and think for themselves. Am I encouraging them to prepare for going on a mission? Not so much.
Why would I want them going door to door preaching the gospel of homophobia?