I have a penis - AKA the evils of the Mormon stance on masturbation.

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I have a penis,
or: the evils of the Mormon stance on masturbation

Here are some of my writings on the Mormon masturbation issue. Most of these writings come from my own email exchanges with Mormons & others.

Related links can be found here.

I have a penis. A device which took some 10 billion years to evolve into existence. Neural pathways which linked it up to my core being. Evolution-instilled proclivities which are fundamentally good. The Mormonic Church [one of my aliases for the Mormon Church] told me that the thoughts & feelings of sex outside of Church or State ordained marriage were evil. But humans are animals. Humans HAVE been around a lot longer than the Mormonic or Jewish churches have. Humans have been getting it on, as have other animals, for a very long time indeed. We need not ask any state or church for permission to conduct an activity which has such a long heritage, a heritage which overwhelmingly supercedes the infinitesimally small amount of time Mormonism (or Christianity or Jewishness) has been around.

As an adult, I was worn down by orthodox Mormonism, and then to put a long story short, once I had been worn down enough, I allowed myself to become more enlightened. Enlightened by the firm foundation of science, not the shifting sands of mysticism.

The Mormon doctrine against masturbation is offensive. It serves to shame children for something they should not be shamed for.

The Mormon Church should apologize for: a.) what they did to the blacks, b.) what they do now to destroy the lives of young children via sexual shaming, and c.) the suicides of at least two gay young men who felt hopeless in the face of an iron fisted attitude on the part of the Church, and on and on!!!

Young Mormons are often abused by receiving the notion from their church that masturbation is akin to murder. In a highly noted book among Mormons called Miracle of Forgiveness, past Mormon prophet Spencer Kimball states that masturbation can lead to homosexuality, and that homosexuality is "...as grievous as adultery."

Some argue that the link between masturbation and murder is a weak one in the book. But as a young person growing up in the Church during Kimball's reign I remember Bishop-lead lectures given to the Deacons & Teachers & Priests (the 12 to 18 year old males) about the evils of masturbation, and about how masturbation could lead to homosexuality, and about how adultery was about the same as murder, and about how they were all directly related to each other. I heard similar things in Mormon Seminary [a release time program taught at many high schools where Mormons are].

One can raise a child to be happy with their bodies, or unhappy. Kimball's view is an unhappy unhealthy abusive one.

The Mormon Church can drive the children in it crazy by making them believe that a natural function of their own bodies is evil (eg: thoughts of sex, & their natural conclusion).

Masturbation was never a real "choice" for me. It was an unalterable conclusion because my neural pathways were made the way they were. Some would say by a god. I say by evolution.

I now strongly resent the fact that I was shamed for doing this harmless activity. It set up a cycle where I would hate it whenever I would get sexually aroused. For a sexual being to have such feelings is unhealthy & unnatural.

So my own experiences played a big part in why I left the Mormon Church. My personal experiences taught me that it is natural & normal to touch my own body in a sexual way - that I should not be shamed for it. That shaming for such a thing is abusive.

Now that I'm out of the Church I can look around and see that my personal experiences match up with what most reasonable child psychologists & sex scientists say on the issue. And it matches up with the overall idea that we are animals who took some 10 billion years to evolve.

One might argue that since humans become sexually mature between 10 and 16 years of age that they should start making babies at that time. But due to cultural constraints it is awkward to have humans making babies during their adolescent years. Is it therefore reasonable or unreasonable to ban what will naturally result when you tell an adolescent that they cannot make babies like their bodies are telling them to? Clearly it's unreasonable to ban any such activity, or to shame our children for being human.

The big cheeses in Mormonism tell their "sheep" that if they are "possessed" of the habit of masturbation they cannot enter into a Mormon Temple.

As a Mormon I was the only young man in my ward (Mormon Church unit) to have a regular recommend to do baptisms for the dead when I was 12. When I was 13 the prospects for going ended. I was heart broken. This then began a long history of doing what my 10+ billion year engineered body wanted me to do. Then feeling bad - not because what I was doing was bad, but because I was taught that it was bad, and because I knew I would have to confess. After a few weeks of getting up the courage I would go to my bishop and confess. After the confession I could manage to abstain for a week or so. And then the cycle started up all over again.

Looking back on it I just feel so angry that the Church could be so abusive as to consider masturbation to be a sin. I could have been a happy Mormon. I could have been a temple worker from the time I was 12 until I left on my mission. But no, people like Kimball with their backward fucked up ideas about the nature of humans said that a harmless & natural activity was evil & not ordained of [their] god, and that we should come to associate bad feelings for doing something harmless, for something which is in fact good.

Also, because I know that some men do like to hear about the sexual activities of others, and that they derive some enjoyment from such things, I can't help but think that my bishops may have enjoyed hearing one child after another confessing about their maturational activities. It was a form of child abuse in my opinion. Perhaps it's ok to hear the stories of other adults among equals in a friendly atmosphere. But to bring a child in - a child who you are not the parent of, and to shame them for doing something natural & normal & harmless, and to then get your hidden jollies out of hearing story after story of masturbation - that is evil & abusive. It's maybe a little funny in retrospect. These dirty old men get to hear about the sexual activities of all the teenage children in their Mormon ward. But it also feels wrong, sick, and backward.

Reflection:

In some ways Western Europe is more enlightened than the United States. Why? First of all because in most countries there is a national heath system. Secondly because the circumcision rate is a lot lower there than here. Thirdly because Europeans seem less hung up about the human body than Americans are. They have more nudity, more openness, more reasonableness about sex & drugs and I think that all their progressiveness is a good thing.

Observation:

The inconvenient fact for people who created Kellogg's Corn Flakes & Graham Crackers (ref the book "Hot and Cool Sex" as orderable from www.abebooks.com) is that humans are sexual beings. They've got these parts. Parts which are a great inconvenience to the purist who does not want to be bothered with sexual thoughts or feelings. The purist who wants to divorce himself from his body. But the purist who doesn't realize just how long it took for his body to be engineered (10-16 billion years), and he doesn't realize that he should be grateful for all the enjoyable activities which evolution has given to him.

What evidence is there that masturbation is either beneficial or unavoidable?

Speaking very frankly indeed...

Some beneficial parts:

* The teenagers who do it diminish their desire to make babies with other teenagers.

* People who do it just for fun. Enjoy what evolution has provided to you.

* Women who do it & thus learn how to have orgasms & what physical procedures provide sexual pleasure to them.

Unavoidable:

While a Mormon I was told that masturbation was the universal sin for men. A Mormon or Christian might say "We are all sinners." I wonder why? They may as well say breathing is a sin. "We are all breathers." Big deal.

Boyd Packer, one of the big wigs of Mormonism, is personally responsible for abusing thousands of children via sexual shaming. A talk given by Packer in 1976 has been widely distributed in pamphlet form to many Mormon Bishops & from them to many human children unfortunate enough to grow up in the Mormon Church. The text of Packer's evil & abusive words can be found at: http://www.lds-mormon.com/only.shtml

And a related document can be found at:
http://nowscape.com/mormon/mormast.htm

After rereading some of Spencer Kimball's Miracle of Forgiveness & Boyd Packer's anti-masturbation pamphlet I am starting to feel that these two men were so sexually repressed that they apparently enjoy writing about wet dreams, petting, and fornication! Oh yes! Heavy petting! Spencer wanted to do that sooo baaaaad!

Humans are sexual beings. When they try and suppress the sexual side of their natures the sex comes bursting through in one form or other. Spencer Kimball's & Boyd Packer's writings on the topic are at the very least prurient, at the most pornographic. Not that I think there's anything wrong with either (as long as the participants are adults & they aren't forced in any way). I just regret that Spencer & Boyd had to express their sexuality in a way which served to hurt so many people. Their actions are those of moral criminals.

Joycelyn Elders on masturbation - "...Masturbation, practiced consciously or unconsciously, cultivates in us a humble elegance -- an awareness that we are part of a larger natural system, the passions and rhythms of which live on in us. Sexuality is part of creation, part of our common inheritance, and it reminds us that we are neither inherently better nor worse than our sisters and brothers. Far from evil, masturbation just may render heavenly contentment in those who dare..."

Masturbation Frequently Asked Questions file from sexuality.org

Looking at Women's Orgasm Over the Last Thirty Years

Betty Dodson - letters about the joy of masturbation

Positive sex primer from sexuality.org

www.positive.org: advocates POSITIVE sex eduction

sex related links I've gathered

By Jonathan -

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by Jonathan