I masturbated only once (yes, ONCE) as a young man growing up in the Church. I was 14 years old. I didn’t really understand what I was doing or feeling, but my LDS upbringing made me quickly realize that I had committed a line never to be crossed, not even once. I was so horrified…
When I was twelve years old a male leader came to our Sunday School class. One by one, he took each child out of class to have a talk with the bishop. No parental permission. No “voluntary” confession (these assembly-line interviews with probing questions are at odds with the practice of voluntary “confession”). I can’t…
I didn’t know what masturbation was until I was a teenager, but found out that I had been doing it since I was six on an off again. At young women’s some girls introduced me to erotic novels and I ended up reading a few. I felt horribly guilty afterward and talked to the bishop.…
To tell my story I have to include some back story. When I was a child, probably 4th grade I was sexually assaulted. This is something I am still coming to understand as my mind had blocked many of the memories from me as a form of protection. Subsequently as a young child I always…
When I was 16 years old, I met with my bishop to confess some sexual sins I had committed with my boyfriend. I felt horrible and wanted to start on the path of repentance like my church doctrine encouraged. I met with my bishop alone on a Tuesday evening. I told him what I had…
It was my first temple trip as a new Beehive. Back then before the Albuquerque temple was built, the nearest temple to my small town in New Mexico was Dallas, Tx. That meant that youth leaders and parents would carpool and we would stay the entire weekend in order to do baptisms for the dead.…
Protect LDS Children: My Story, Trevor Cobb, March 25, 2018 Around 1992-1993, when I was a deacon in Olney, Maryland, my mom caught me looking at a Playboy in the bathroom. Since I was 7-8 years old I had been riding my bike with the Mormon neighbor boy, _______, who was four years my senior…
The earliest I have a memory of abuse was at the age of 6. At age 7, I remember preparing for baptism, I was excited, I was optimistic that my sins would now be washed away, so now I could start a new life. Such a fairy tale I told myself!…
My story has roots going back stemming from before I was born but I don’t think it is my place to tell them right now. My personal story mostly begins when I was 9 or 10. After school one day my friend and I were talking about “sex”, I put “sex” in quotes because we…
Many years ago during a family trip to San Francisco where we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, 11-year-old me stopped and peered down into the still, gently swirling water and tried to talk myself out of throwing my body into the soothing void. It seemed such an easy way to release the suffering that…