When I was about 12 years old I went to my first combined region wide fireside which was something I was very excited to be a part of. At this event which took place on a Sunday night in the chapel I heard words that I had never heard before like masturbation and petting and that it was really bad. Also, that if I thought I had a problem wih it, to tell my bishop. It was probably a while later until I figured out what those words meant, but I definitely had a problem with exploring my own body. And at that young age it wasn’t even really sexual, it was just self-exploration. No sexual thoughts involved. But I felt bad since I knew it was wrong. So I told my bishop. I don’t remember what he said but I remember that I was scared and crying. And I continued to tell different bishops throughout my youth that I felt like I just couldn’t stop. I remember one bishop told me this would lead to homosexuality. I think another said it would lead me to actually having sexual intercourse and that is a sin next to murder. I cried over this a lot. I beat myself up about it. Surely no one else has this problem. I am a bad egg. Self loathing was a big problem for me. I felt like because I was a girl and only guys think about sex, maybe something was wrong with me. I used to pray for hours for Mormon god to take this problem away from me.
In the Mormon scriptures there is a scripture that says the natural man is an enemy to god. And my natural thoughts kept me an enemy to god until I got married. That was the weird part. As soon as a year passed the bishop asked if I would like to prepare for the temple and I told him I had sex before marriage and he said that it didn’t matter anymore because I was married. I was confused by that because previous to that another bishop gave me the miracle of forgiveness book to read and in the book it said, it would be better to be dead that give away my virtue. So now, all of a sudden I get a free pass because I am married. Didn’t make any sense. This is all I want to share for now. Basically this practice caused me a lot of self hatred and that could have all been avoided if I wasn’t raised in such a conservative Mormon community.