Quite apart from the standard questions on masturbation and sexual purity that always made me feel uncomfortable, I had one incident that was the most harrowing. I did some things on two occasions as a teenager, which of course are no one’s business. When it came time for my interview to go on a mission,…
When I was 8 I was shown pornography by my older brother but I kept it hidden. As years went by I felt dirty and worthless especially at church. Then when I was 13 I had sex for the first time and talked to adult men online and my mom found out. I was forced…
I am a woman in my 30s. In college, first in AZ then at BYU, I had urges to masturbate several times a week. It was a nice release, left no trace and wasn’t unhealthy in any way. Despite that, the church had me believe that I had committed a great sin in the sight…
It was my sophomore year of high school and one night when my boyfriend and I were making out he put his hand down the front of my pants. It was there for a few seconds but then I pushed it out and told him I had to go home. That was it. I feel…
Dear Sam: Thank you for fighting to protect LDS children. They need all the protectors they can get. It has taken me all week to write this letter; I have never told anyone else my story. Who would I have told? Who could I possibly trust with these details? My story goes back 50 years…
Growing up in the church, I first learned of masturbation from a bishopric member asking if I did it. I was young and being interviewed to go to the temple to do baptisms. I said “no,” as it sounded horrible, and then went home to look up the definition in the dictionary. (Thank goodness I…
I am one of the lucky ones that didn’t experience inappropriate questions from my bishop when i was under 18. I’m not so lucky, however, as I experienced systemic abuse from organized abuse that is part of my family history. I thank God that I, for whatever reason, never associated that I was doing something…
My boys went to our bishop in Henderson, NV in 1999 and told him that their older stepbrother (my husband’s son) was raping them, sexually abusing them and forcing them to perform sex acts on him. They were 9 and 12 years old at the time. The bishop related to my children as if they…
I had a mission president, ____ ______, in Tampa Florida who took pride in being direct, and often times blunt. During my second interview with him, he asked me if I masturbated. He then asked me if I talked with my companion about masturbation, or if we did it together. And lastly, he asked if…
When I was 12 years old, I had a meeting with my Bishop. He asked me about the law of chastity. I told him that I sometimes masturbated. He became visibly upset. A few days later, there was a game of capture the flag going on down the street from my house. When I showed…