I was asked specifically at 13 if I masturbate (had never heard the term before), and if I watched pornography (had heard the word, but didn’t know what it meant.
Bishop got to explain them to me…
Now because of his explanation, I learned I had been masturbating for 7 years (discovered it on my own at 6), but was blindsided by the question so I denied it. A few months later after connecting the dots of how it was breaking some “law” of chastity, I confessed. This then put me on a 2-4 times a month check-in with the bishop (from the age of 14-25) to see if I was worthy to partake of, or help with, the sacrament.
Because I was honest after that, I spent the majority of the next 11 years playing “greeter” instead of helping or partaking of the sacrament. Also never served a mission because I could never meet the “don’t masturbate for 3 months” requirement, and eventually became too old to keep applying.
In these meetings, I learned:
-I was cheating on my future spouse
-I was committing a religious crime next in seriousness murder
-that everytime I masturbated, it null and voided any previous repentance, making me re-accountable for every sexual act
-fear that I was gonna turn gay because what I learned in that god-awful book “The Miracle of Forgiveness” (turns out I’m bisexual, so I was fearing something already inside me) -another painful thing I studied was the pamphlet “To Young Men Only” by Boyd K. Packer, which filled me with shame for not being able to control my “little factory” -because of scripture about how it’d be better to drown with a millstone around my neck then loose my virtue (something I took away from myself at 6), I attempted suicide twice
These interview practices are toxic, and need to end