I masturbated and was loving it before I knew what it was. It’s the way God created me, after all. I found out what it was and that the church was against it when I was a deacon. We went to a priesthood session of conference and it was discussed at that meeting. My dad discussed masturbation on the way home from conference and looked at me and said, “you don’t do that, do you?” I just looked away and told him, no.
He never told me that it was normal and that all young men do it. How was I supposed to ever tell him the truth after that. I thought I was all alone. I thought I was gay, even though I liked girls. I thought about killing myself so many times, because I wasn’t worthy to bless or pass the sacrament, yet I was passing the sacrament. I always thought that I would be kicked out of the temple when we did youth baptisms.
My dad became my bishop and to save time did worthiness interviews at home. “Son, do you masturbate?” I would lie and say no. I couldn’t bring myself to reveal the truth because it was such a horrible act in my head and I dare not let anyone know for fear of what they would think of me. It was torture. I would beat myself up and tell myself that I wasn’t worthy of happiness.
I’m just glad that I survived. Why was/is this so taboo? Why is the church so blind to this problem? Why don’t they teach young men about the normal things that happen to all young men?
A few years ago, a stake presidency member came and gave this stupid talk about the sin next to murder and mentioned masturbation and that the message was needed for our ward. My nephew asked my sister if he was the same as a murderer. Thankfully she had been more open with him and he felt that he could talk to her. I suffered for years. None of my leaders ever told me how normal it is. I was always asked if I did it and then told to never do that. I thought that someone, someday would shout my sins from the rooftop. I wanted to kill myself and end it all so bad. So happy that I didn’t. Life is good.