My story is complicated. I was sexually abused by family members when I was 5-7, but I didn’t know that’s what it was and didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t feel shame about the abuse, though I imagine my childhood that was full of anxiety and fear could have been because of the sexual abuse. It’s…
Due to the detailed questions, interrogations and guilt shaming I received as a youth in the church, I know have psychological issues with intimacy. I had sex with my husband on our honeymoon and cried because I felt like I had committed a sin….I felt dirty. As a young teen I recall being asked very…
I still have not yet recovered from the damage these interviews caused me when I was younger. It damaged my confidence, shamed me from such an early age and caused me mental problems well into adulthood. At age 11, I attempted suicide because I thought I wasn’t “worthy” enough to go to heaven with my…
I rarely had an interview by a bishop or by my own dad that was a bishop that didn’t have some extent of very uncomfortable questions having to do with boys and girls and sexuality. Fortunately I was never asked about masturbation but repeatedly asked over and over about sexual relations. Those did not even…
Growing up LDS, you are taught that sexual sins are one of the worst sins a person can commit, right below murder. When I realized at the age of 12 that by masturbating, I was almost as evil as a murderer, I was filled with so much shame. I was so filthy. I was worse…
While my story is a bit different, I feel compelled to tell it to you in hopes that maybe it will show light on another issue facing youth within the LDS faith. One day, while my regular teacher was out for a teaching conference, my class and I were substituted by a different. He was…
I began dating my husband when I was sixteen and he seventeen. I lost my virginity after we had been dating about a year. I felt an immense amount of shame and guilt and went to my bishop. He wasn’t loving. He was cold and condescending. He told me that I could go through the…
Bishop’s interviews made me feel like my sexuality belonged to everybody but me. I lost my right to secrecy, and that has had dire consequences. From those interviews, I became so uncomfortable with sex, that I was already too weak to defend myself when I needed to. Aged fourteen, I was raped by my best…
I was 14 when I was raped by a young man in my ward. I kept it to myself, shamed and fearful of telling anyone, because this young man was the son of my parents good friends. Two weeks after that event, I returned home from family vacation with a message on the answering machine…
I didn’t realize what masturbation was until I was 13 and went to church. It began at the stake center, when I attended the audio portion of a general conference priesthood session. This was in the days when it wasn’t broadcast on TV. One of the speakers described a terrible, vile practice. Slowly I realized…