When I was a child, I considered suicide as an alternative route to admitting to a bishop a “sexual sin” I had committed a few years prior. I remember the shame was so great that I would often cry myself to sleep with fear of the eternal damnation I was constantly told would be my…
I am in the process of writing my story about the sexual issues and shaming that happened within the church. It’s really hard to do. I’ve been in therapy for years, and it still sucks. I still feel lost with it. There are so many facets to it. Like old neighbor men asking about my…
I was a 17 year old good girl. Dating at Ricks college with a football player with 16 roaming hands. After months of dating and fighting him off I finally allowed him to touch one boob outside of my clothes. I felt like I had to tell the bishop so we went to see the…
I didn’t know what masturbation was at 11 when I went in for my “are you ready for the priesthood?” interview with the bishop. Little did I know when I walked into that office with my best Sunday clothes and celebratory new set of scriptures that this would be the beginning of years of group…
I’m one of the lucky ones who had only good men as bishops throughout my life and yet I still did not escape unscathed. I discovered masturbation by about age 4 or 5. My parents caught me and I then got the entire penis-vagina sex talk with a heaping side of the impending fires of…
I could say so much but I’ll keep it simple. I was indoctrinated into Mormonism as a child, I believed it because it was the only perception of reality offers to me. The LDS church taught me to hate myself when I was about 13 years old. I was lucky to get good kind bishops,…
I asked my children’s bishop not to ask them any questions related to sexuality. He refused my request, claiming that he had a responsibility as a bishop to address issues of sexual purity with the youth. We emailed back and forth a few times, and when he still hadn’t agreed to not ask my kids…
My son when he was 13 went in to see his bishop for the yearly interview. This was in the Kaysville Height Bench ward. He came home all upset, and for the next couple days would not say why. We have an office in our home. In the office is a 4 ft. X 7…
When I was about 16 I had to delay my ordination to Priest because I confessed to porn and masturbation. Because of the delay, I had to tell my dad, who then had to tell my mom and we had this big crying pow-wow. Fast forward about 6 months, I had been pretty good about…
When I was 17, I fell in love for the first time. This boy looked at me in a way that no one else ever had before. It was like his eyes bored straight into my soul and saw me, the me that I didn’t even see yet. It was like our souls met. And…