I grew up in a small town in Southern Utah. When I say small I mean about a 100 people small, give or take a few. Everyone in town was Mormon with the exception of a wife and kids of a Jack-Mormon that had moved there to sort of homestead. Their daughter, in fact, was…
When I turned 12 I had a really cool bishop. During interviews he would basically say “I don’t want to know what you did just don’t do it again”. He was awesome. Then when I turned 16 they released the cool bishop and put in a bishop that was the complete opposite. This guy wanted…
I don’t know if my story is typical, at least the later parts of it, but the beginning part I believe, is almost common in the church, at least among those of my peers who, like me, and my oldest son, with whom I have discussed this issue, had the desire to be completely honest…
I was lucky enough that my father was my Bishop during my formative teenage years so the damage and shame I received as a youth was from other people in leadership positions or during lessons and not one-on-one interviews at an early age. I never had negative experiences with a Bishop, but that changed my…
On many more than one occasion, I was subjected to inappropriate interviewing that effected me even into my adulthood. From around the age of 12 to about age 19, I tried to correct what I was told were my immoral actions. First was masturbation. At the age of 12, I clued my current bishop at…
I should start with a little bit of history before going into detail about what happened to me between my years as a young child through to adulthood. I was the first born child of an active addict. Her addiction was severe, and as a result she used throughout her pregnancy and when I was…
When I was a 12 year old I went to my father full of shame and confessed I had masturbated. His reaction led me down a path of intense self-loathing that lasted well into adulthood. Because what he didn’t say was “Literally everyone, especially kids your age, masturbates sometimes.” What he did do was make…
I went through those highly emotional and impactive teen years, in the 70s. This was when our LGBTQ brothers and sisters were still in the closet. A time when much that we now understand about our sexuality was misunderstood and frankly the LGBTQ community was demonized. (I regret that my opinions and likely comments as…
My nazi-TBM parents never gave me the birds and the bees talk. I was raised in an information vacuum that only included the church and nothing else. I knew nothing about sex and if the subject ever came up in any respect, it was quickly quashed in our household. The “masturbation” word had come up…
Innocence Taken I grew up going to the Sugar Land wards of the Houston Texas South Stake. I was going in for my first temple interview to do baptisms for the dead. I was very naive and at the time didn’t know what self pleasure or masturbation were or what sexually active meant. I was…