sexuality Archive

This Must Stop: A Call to End Sexually Invasive Interviews Between Priesthood Leaders and Minors in the LDS Church

Posted on August 18, 2013 | 396 Comments
TRIGGER WARNING: sexual and spiritual abuse When I was 13-years-old, I was violated in a very personal way. A middle-aged man from my neighborhood pulled me aside, brought me into a private room, and asked me explicit sexual questions. It was a traumatic experience. It […]
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Teaching Sex: It Seemed Terrifying

Posted on July 2, 2012 | 6 Comments
When dating I thoroughly enjoyed cuddling, holding hands, and kissing. I felt guilty for just how much I enjoyed kissing and frightened by the emotions that were raging inside me
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Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut

Posted on June 20, 2012 | 24 Comments
Last week I read this comment in an online Facebook group: “My daughter’s handout from Young Women’s today: Your greatest role in life is to be wife to your “sweetart” and mom to your “sugar babies.” Along with accompanying candy. I get it! Mormons […]
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Teaching Sex: It’s Not the Stork

Posted on June 15, 2012 | 3 Comments
Sometimes, he would preface with, "do you really want to know, because you won't be able to un-know it."
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Teaching Sex: Sex Talk (Somewhat) Misremembered

Posted on June 13, 2012 | 6 Comments
My only hope now is that my son will also positively misremember my talk with him.
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Teaching Sex: On Reframing Negative Assumptions

Posted on June 9, 2012 | 15 Comments
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.
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Teaching Sex: Two Tables?

Posted on June 7, 2012 | 7 Comments
He walked forward and thrust in his hand. He pulled it back out to reveal . . . the centerfold from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue!
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Teaching Sex: My Body Can Do That?

Posted on June 4, 2012 | 8 Comments
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).
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Teaching Sex: I Apologize

Posted on June 2, 2012 | 8 Comments
I apologize after sex. Yes, I literally say, "I'm sorry." Actually I have come a long way in recent years about uttering the actual phrase. . .
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Guest Post Invitation: It’s SEX Guest-Post Month

Posted on May 23, 2012 | 9 Comments
If we approach the question of sex from the perspective that it is our responsibility as parents to teach our kids how TO HAVE sex, how does that change things?
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Rotten to the Core

Posted on October 16, 2011 | 84 Comments
The Sanctuary may seem like an unusual place to discuss Facebook status post trends, but recently, I was so disturbed by a word art image being shared and “liked” on FB walls that I wanted to analyze the harmful subtexts of this image in light […]
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Book Lover

Posted on September 6, 2011 | 7 Comments
I’m not afraid to admit it. I have a problem. I’m addicted to books. I thought I had kept it hidden for many years, but when my wife finally catches me looking at the most recent Library of America catalogue with lust in my eyes, […]
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We Are Pioneers

Posted on July 28, 2011 | 4 Comments
As I was telling my Kindergartner earlier this month that we're all pioneers in some way. Whenever we stand up for what we believe in or do something because we know inside it's a good thing to do, we are pioneers.
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The Gluttonous Baby

Posted on July 21, 2011 | 10 Comments
For as long as humans have made objects, there have been baby dolls. It’s an almost universal phenomenon that young children play with dolls. Especially if they have younger siblings or see babies being taken care of in their daily life, little […]
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Mormon Matters Podcast

Posted on March 6, 2011 | 1 Comment
I don’t know what I was thinking, but I (Heather) accepted John Dehlin’s invitation to participate in his first re-tooled Mormon Matters Podcast. Check it out here and let me know what you think: Mormon Matters Podcast 21: Sex and Immigration ;
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The Trouble with Immaculate Contraception …

Posted on February 9, 2011 | 8 Comments
… is that there are always exceptions. Love to Jesus and Mo.
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What do a burger, a rare steak, and a gift all have in common?

Posted on February 9, 2011 | 48 Comments
A couple years ago, I sat in a Relief Society lesson at church about modesty. According to the rumor mill, this lesson was necessitated by the fact that some women in our congregation were dressing immodestly, a most unfortunate reality that was making it difficult […]
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The Birds and the Bees, Mormon Style

Posted on February 2, 2011 | 31 Comments
Did you have a birds-and-the-bees talk when you were a kid? Mine occurred in fourth grade the night before they showed the puberty video at school. My dad came up to my room, pulled out a legal pad, drew a very simple drawing of . […]
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Forbidden Fruit

Posted on January 26, 2011 | 45 Comments
So, I just finished reading an absolutely fascinating book called Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers by Mark Regnerus, a professor at University of Texas-Austin. The book focuses on how religiosity influences teenagers’ sexual attitudes and behaviors. (See the […]
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Penelope’s List

Posted on December 4, 2010 | 12 Comments
Is the desire to be happy a human universal? Or is it just another one of those preferences that arise from the murky depths of some personalities? On its face this question seems to have an obvious answer. I mean, who doesn’t want to be […]
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Forgotten

Posted on October 9, 2010 | 34 Comments
Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul laments Humbert Humbert. The recollection of Lolita draws Nabokov’s unreliable narrator far back in time as the middle-aged man, now grown old with memories, paints a portrait that pleads for pity and argues […]
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