This is the fourth of a series of guest posts on learning about sex within different religious contexts. Here’s a link to our guest post invitation.
Last year, a friend sent me a YouTube video from the church entitled: “Chastity: What Are the Limits?“
He knew that I have serious concerns about the church’s approach to chastity, which I feel is excessively negative and shame-based. Many people I know, myself included, have experienced difficulty coming to terms with their adult sexuality thanks to the messages they received in youth. My friend hoped that I’d see this video as a step in the right direction.
While I appreciate that it’s more positive–and that it avoids comparing girls to food like so many of the lessons I heard in Young Women–its underlying assumptions are still damaging. I believe that until we can reframe the discussion entirely, we won’t be able to eliminate the sexual anxiety that pervades our culture.
Here are some of the damaging assumptions I identified in the video, and my attempt at reframing them in more positive ways.
ASSUMPTION: Sex is dangerous. In the video, sex is compared to crashing an airplane in the trees — not exactly a reassuring image. If our assumption is that sex results in a bloody, fiery mess of carnage, no wonder we’ve got problems.
REFRAME: Sex is powerful. Instead of teaching that sex is dangerous, teach that it is powerful. Like all power, it can be used in positive or negative ways. Emphasize that, as free agents, we have the capacity to exercise sexual power to our own benefit (or detriment). Instead of something that happens to us, like an accident, this empowers us to exercise dominion over our own sexuality.
ASSUMPTION: Sexual sin is worse than other sin. While not explicitly stated in this particular video, this is a common assertion in LDS teachings. Sexual sin is the “sin next to murder”. It requires special confession to ecclesiastical leaders. We “otherize” those who fall outside proscribed sexual behavioral standards. But because the struggle to harness sexual power in positive ways is universal, this makes pretty much everyone feel alienated from their community and their God at some point. Not awesome if we want happy, healthy sexual adults.
REFRAME: Sexual sin is less morally reprehensible than other sins, but carries potentially more serious consequences. Setting aside cases of sexual abuse, coercion, or marital infidelity (which I believe belong in different categories), “garden variety” sexual sin between consenting, unmarried singles is about passion and appetite. It’s time to get rid of the “sin next to murder” rhetoric: a closer reading of the text in Alma suggests that Corianton’s real sin is religious hypocrisy, not simply sleeping around.
While an important aspect of spiritual growth is learning to harness physical passion, even true disciples of Christ can find it difficult to do so (see Matthew 26:41). Sins of deliberate cruelty are far more spiritually damaging than adolescent fumbling at zippers and bra clasps. As C.S. Lewis said:
The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: . . . the pleasures of power, and hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.
Having said that, sex outside of marriage can have consequences that are more life-altering than their diabolical counterparts, including unwanted pregnancy, disease and infection, and emotional trauma. We can be frank about this without piling on guilt and shame.
ASSUMPTION: Teens should set standards based on other people’s level of comfort. In the video, teens are told to set standards based on this criterion: “Would I feel comfortable doing this in the presence of my parents?” This encourages kids to base their decisions on other people’s values, instead of their own, and can be especially problematic if their parents have unhealthy attitudes about sex.
REFRAME: Teens should be empowered to define their own standards. Joseph Smith famously said that we’re to teach correct principles and let people govern themselves. By teaching principles of love, self-respect, and natural consequences, folks can decide for themselves where to draw the line.
Does this mean they’ll make mistakes and draw the line in the wrong places?
Yup. Welcome to life.
ASSUMPTION: Arousal is bad. In the video, teens are instructed to avoid anything that arouses sexual feelings. Ummm…I don’t know if the person who made this video has ever been a human being, let alone a teenager, but sexual feelings are often aroused quite randomly and without invitation. This is a literally unattainable standard that only leads to discouragement.
REFRAME: Arousal is good. Teach kids that sexual feelings are good and natural. They come from God. To feel them means that their bodies work and that’s something to celebrate (How’s that for a Sunday School lesson? “So, boys, do a little dance every time you get a boner!”). Of course, harnessing sexual feelings is important because letting them run wild can cause damage. But we can harness them without hating them.
ASSUMPTION: Sex is about orgasm. At the very bottom of this is the subtle assumption that sex is ultimately about orgasm. Those “powerful feelings” (a.k.a. orgasm) are only for marriage! Don’t get aroused! Don’t masturbate! Don’t feel what your body is designed to feel! This misses the mark entirely and creates dysfunction.
REFRAME: Sex is about union. Teach the higher message: sex is about union. It’s about bringing two souls together and forming one entity, eternally united. Orgasm is not The Point, and if you make it so, you miss what is sacred and divine about sex. Orgasm is not wrong (obviously!), but without union, it can be lonely, unfulfilling, even addicting. Teach kids not to try to fill their emptiness with orgasms, but with the love of God. It will make all the difference.
–Katie
[Last post in the Teaching Sex guest post series: Two Tables?]
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I think you have reframed things very nicely. My only comment is about this sentence, “Orgasm is not wrong (obviously), but without union, it can be lonely, unfulfilling, even addicting.“ While I suppose orgasm CAN be those things, I do believe that there is a place for solo orgasm and that it can fill needs such as mental health and physical health needs especially for teenage boys. I might reframe that sentence as well because it plays into the fear we have around masturbation. I see that you address this in the previous assumption but this sentence then seems to be a contradiction. Other than that, fantastic job!!
Thank you for pointing that out, Canadiangirl. I wish I had been clearer with that sentence. To clarify now: I do NOT believe that masturbation is necessarily a spiritual problem. It can be, though, when it is a substitute for true intimacy, when it becomes an out-of-control compulsion, or when it is accompanied by thoughts or desires that objectify others instead of regarding them with the decency and humanity all human beings deserve.
So emphasis on the *can be*, with the qualifiers expressed above.
Been thinking more about this. :) I’d also add that if we can eliminate the shame that surrounds discussions on sexuality, we can approach masturbation with these qualifiers WITHOUT turning it into a fear-fest. Right now, masturbation is lumped in with “the sin next to murder,” which in my opinion is borderline abusive.
Divorced from shame, even the kinds of spiritually-damaging masturbation that I’ve mentioned above can become something more minor — maybe like swearing — as opposed to “you’re basically killing someone every time you do it.”
“That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.”
Love this!
Well said, on all accounts!
What’s the source of the wonderful Lewis quote?
Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 5.
A good few years ago I was head of the “parents and citizens association” at the high school my daughters attended. My bishop at the time was a teacher there and wanted the Sex education programme removed, because he claimed the church opposed sex ed. There were only 6 mormon kids in a school of 1200.
I asked for an explanation of the programme by the person who presented it. I was very impressed that most of the lessons were about self esteem, power imballances, abuse, the right to say no, and only a very small part about birth control, and intercourse.
Perhaps your schools also run classes that the Church could copy.
When I was growing up, there was a “secular” sex ed video that one of my teachers wanted to show in Young Women. As I recall, it was funny and frank and emphasized abstinence. My parents were all for showing it, but several other parents refused because it wasn’t “church-approved.” In the end, we didn’t get to watch it in YW (my parents showed it to us outside of church).
I think the church could take some of the positive secular materials that exist and create healthier lessons on sexuality from them. OR, we could tap our already-rich theological resources that are body-, freedom-, and sex-positive and get rid of the shame. The problem is that fear and shame are so effective at keeping people in line; I think the concern is that if we let go of that, and we will see an increase in sexual transgression. (And, let’s be honest, that will probably happen.)
However, I think freedom and health are worth it. Wasn’t that kind of the point of the whole Garden of Eden saga? We learn by our own experience to determine good from evil…not by clinging fearfully to rules.
Thank you for this series and thank you for this post. Your points are concise and concrete. I have great hopes that my kids will be much better prepared and comfortable in their skin than I was as a teenager or young adult! Thanks for sharing.
Wow! I loved this! It wasn’t till a few years ago that I realized how skewed my own sense of sexuality was and I do blame the teachings of Church for that. I’m 27 and single, and I’m choosing to abstain till marriage, but I finally see sex as something to be embraced and enjoyed, as opposed to some awful “next to murder” sin. MANY of my married friends had serious issues with sex because of erroneous views they gathered in childhood. It was hard for them to move from “sex is bad, sex is bad, sex is bad….to….make babies, make babies, make babies!” (which is a whole other issue all together.)
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Thanks for your reframing thoughts! They were very enlightening!
I love this! I’m actually in tears… I wonder how different my life could have been if someone had just talked to me about this stuff…
Awww, Jen. I’ve struggled coming to a healthy relationship with my adult sexual self and wonder the same thing too sometimes. :( Fortunately, WE can be the ones who have these conversations with others, so that they can be better equipped from the get-go.
Hinged and Nasty (and others who have enjoyed the post), thank you for your comments! I’m so pleased the post resonated with you.
Great post, Katie. A lot to think about–as parents, especially!