Local church leaders conduct worthiness interviews with their members, even the children. Every child in a Mormon congregation will have at least one interview with the presiding member of their congregation (Bishop or branch president) at age 7-8, and several more from the age of 11 to 18 prior to temple attendance or full-time missionary…
“’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…
My branch president said, “You can’t think gay thoughts, they will lead to going to hell.” I was 7 years old when two older boys sexually assaulted me. These boys were over for a sleep over with my older siblings. I awoke to these boys trying to hold me down and penetrate. I was able…
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 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…
My childhood bishop was a good man. I write this story not to blame him but to blame the system that would put an untrained man in a room with young children asking sexual questions. In my first interview with him, he asked about masturbation. I didn’t know what that word meant, and I mistakenly…
When I was 4-8 years old I was molested by a neighbor kid. I remember being sick to my stomach, afraid to fall asleep at night for fear that I was going to hell. Right before I turned 8 I started getting really bad stomach aches and wouldn’t go to school. I was afraid of…
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…
As far as I can remember, I was attracted to other boys – at least since age 6 – but I had no idea it was sexuality, let alone homosexuality. I discovered the term at 11 or 12 when reading ‘The Miracle of Forgiveness’, written by the LDS prophet Spencer W. Kimball, a required reading…
When I was 13, I was a very devoted little Mormon girl. I prayed every day, read my scriptures, dressed modestly, and got good grades. One day, I was thinking and realized that in previous years, I had intentionally viewed some things that were considered pornographic and masturbated on occasion (although at the time I…