“’You asked me once,’ said O’Brien, ‘what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.’” -1984 by George Orwell. Those words hit me to my core when I read 1984 in my senior…
During one of my earliest worthiness interviews as an adolescent, the interviewer asked if I masturbated. I needed a definition because I hadn’t experienced it yet. Then I was asked, “Have you ever tried to have sex with an animal?” (I don’t remember if they said bestiality first and then had to define it when…
I support the stories shared here, and am now willing to publicly share my own. After just turning 12, I was scheduled for my first “worthiness interview” with my bishop before becoming a deacon and receiving the Aaronic Priesthood. Having already been molested by a close Mormon relative at the age of 10, I was…
Like most teenagers, I masturbated. During a worthiness interview, I was asked if I had masturbated. I was honest and admitted that I had. I don’t remember the details of everything the bishop said, but remember him telling me I couldn’t take the sacrament for two weeks and that I needed to read the Miracle…
I did not realize until I started typing how difficult this might be to share. I am flooded with so many emotions. I grew up in a very devout Mormon family. I was never sexually abused, but for some reason I discovered my sexuality in my childhood and began masturbating even before I was a…
I was a 14 year old child. I was raped. Had just had a lesson on “virtue”, the week before. I was so traumatized. I didn’t tell my parents because of the whole “it would be better to have your child come home in a pine box than to lose their virtue”, rhetoric. I went…
Long stories made short are the best when you’re still healing from the traumatic consequences you incurred. My first real boyfriend at the age of 21 was a priesthood holder. He attended church. He loved the lord. And he was a rapist. Upon confessing my terrible sin to the branch president, he advised I should…
20-ish years ago, in the seventh grade, I had a history teacher. He was single, in his late 30s, and he was very interested in having kids come swim at his house, the ones who got good grades. He had several “hush-hush” parties of which he did not have permission from the school administration. Just…
When I was 7 or 8 years old I was molested by an older neighborhood boy as well as a babysitter. As I grew up and learned at church concepts of sexual purity, I was devastated to find out that I had committed the sin next to murder. Also, I could not remember my exact…
When I was 12, I went in for my first Bishop interview. When it got to the part about chastity he asked me if I masterbated. I had no idea what it meant or what it was and I told him so. He went on to explain in detail how I may have masterbated… with…