I lived in Dallas, Texas in the early 1980s… I am almost 50 now. Like most normal boys, I was excited to find some “dirty magazines” when I was walking home from school. I found them to be very interesting, to say the least, and being 13 or 14 at the time, I did what boys do when looking at porn. Then after my 8th grade year, I went to Philmont Scout Ranch. For some reason, a general authority came there and gave a fireside/talk to all the LDS youth on a Sunday. His topic was masturbation, which seemed like a really weird thing to talk about.
We all laughed and giggled, but I felt terrible afterward. I knew that the magazines and masturbation were “wrong” according to the church, but I hadn’t realized until that meeting exactly HOW bad it was. So I did the good Mormon thing–I told the bishop in my next regular interview.
Oh. My. Gosh. He wanted to know all the details about it–how many magazines? which ones? how long had I had them? Did I still have them? How often did I masturbate? And on and on and on. It was very creepy, and thoroughly embarrassing. He said that I would need to NOT prepare the Sacrament any more until after I had completed repenting. I was humiliated and devastated… now my parents and friends would all know that I had done something “wrong.”
Of course, everybody asked me why I couldn’t prepare the Sacrament, and I had to tell my parents what I had done. They were pissed… like really pissed. All I wanted to do was avoid church, but my parents forced me to go. I hated every minute of it. Then things got really bad. My bishop kept calling me in for follow-up interviews. My parents, of course, forced me to go. He asked me more and more perverted questions about sex and masturbation. He asked me if I had masturbated with other boys. He asked me if I had ever seen gay porn (I didn’t even know it was a thing). He asked me if I had seen a naked man, or an erect penis on a man. Like that. Not every interview, but over time (5 or 6 interviews) he asked EVERYTHING.
I had no idea I was being groomed by him at the time. Then it happened. We were at a scout camp the next year… he was there because I guess he was the Bishop. Remember, this was the 1980s… things were way different back then. The showers were sort of a wooden structure with one big shower room with maybe 4 or 5 shower heads. I was in there showering and he came in, stripped naked, and started taking a shower alongside me. We were the only two there (I am sure by his design). If it had been another boy, it would have been no big deal… but I was totally embarrassed by his just being there. He turned to me fully frontally naked (I was turned the other way so he couldn’t see and trying to figure out how to get past him to get my towel. That lowlife SOB got a full on erection right there in the shower and started asking me super nasty/creepy questions like in the interviews about had seeing it… asking me if I wanted to touch it, and even worse. I can barely type this. I ran like hell out of there and went back to camp. I couldn’t believe it–who could I tell?
Later that day he found me with my friends and told me he needed to speak to me in private… he was my bishop, and I was 15, so I went. He started in with this whole BS line about he was the Bishop, called by God, my priesthood leader, he was the final authority, people looked up to him, etc. Basically telling me not to tell anyone or I would have consequences (no specific threat, just vague statements).
Luckily, my family moved out of the ward a short time later–but who knows how many other boys suffered this. After that, my confidence in the church was shattered, and I never wanted anything to do with the church. My parents still made me go, and in fairness, I didn’t experience any other inappropriate behavior after that as a teenager. But when I went to UT, I was done and I have never gone back. It still amazes me that this could happen. My only solace is knowing that the SOB who did this died of pancreatic cancer in 2011. I hope he had a nice “interview” with God when he died.