I was raised LDS and was a believing devout member as I prepared for my mission in my senior year of high school. I left for my mission a week after I graduated. During the interview process to determine my worthiness to serve as a missionary, I was asked by the counselor of the stake…
When I was 6, my brother and I played “doctor”. I had no idea at the time there was anything wrong with the game, we were nearly playing make believe. We did the normal children’s game of “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours”, and on the count of 3 we quickly gave…
When I was in my mid-30’s, my father admitted to me that he molested me when I was a very young child. He said that he “took care of it” by going to the bishop. He never said that he was sorry. He never stopped looking at me in a sexual way. Nothing changed. Yet…
As a girl, I never heard any messages directed to the young women about masturbation, which made me feel like I must be especially bad because I couldn’t stop doing something that seemingly no other young women had a problem with. I prayed and begged god to help me stop, to take away my desire…
Hi. I didn’t grow up LDS, but I did have a “problem” with masturbation. I had done it before I became a member (around 25 years old) and had no problem with it. I am not sure how I got the knowledge that it was a sin. If it was me asking or the Bishop…
I don’t have the horror stories that some people have, but I have a few incidents to relate. First, when I was about thirteen, Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped. I was afraid for her and I was afraid that something similar could happen to me. I began having panic attacks that made it difficult to breathe…
The first interview I remember was my pre-baptism interview when I was 8. The bishop took me into his office, having my parents wait outside. He asked me a lot of different questions, including whether I had ever touched myself. Due to the tone in which he asked, I recognized that “touching myself” was a…
I turned twelve in 1973, while living in Cache Valley, Utah. I spent the two years I was a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood in Utah. I do not recall any intrusive or poignant, sexually-themed questions at all during that time. But we moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee around my fourteenth birthday. The sexualization of my…
I was a good kid. Didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, over 4.0 GPA, seminary president (out of Utah, had to wake up at 4:30 every morning.) My only “problem” was I had a non-member girlfriend and we did “too much” according to church standards. Now, it never went beyond me touching her breasts on top of…
When my son turned 8 the bishop interviewed me to make sure I was worthy to baptize and confirm him. He also wanted to interview my son alone to make sure he was worthy to be baptized. I insisted on sitting in with him, but the bishop told me that wouldn’t be allowed. He said…