I just thought it was normal, being asked about sex – though I was incredibly naive. I was 15 or 16 and called in to see the bishop. A few nights prior, I had been out with a boy and things got heated. I suppose you could call it heavy petting, but I had no idea what that meant at the time. I didn’t want to go into detail so I simply said I’d fornicated. Yep, that was the word I’d used. I confessed to more than had happened because I was not comfortable explaining anything to a middle aged man who was deciding my worthiness.
He spoke with the boy’s bishop and then called me back in. He essentially told me that our stories didn’t match and he believed the boy (I later learned that’s pretty standard). Then he proceeded to give me a talk about sex as if I had no idea what it was. I was disfellowshipped (off the books) and was told I’d have to re-confess it again if I had to tell of another incident in the future. Then I was given a YW calling and the whole thing was swept under the rug.
Despite thinking this kind of thing was normal I was so uncomfortable that I still ended up lying to my bishop. My parents made me take a pregnancy test. I felt absolutely worthless which only set a standard in my mind for what was acceptable in my life. Hearing a decade down the road, in counselling that I am worthy was jarring. I was asked to repeat that to myself as a mantra and it still feels so foreign.