Erotophobia in Zion: The Mormon Fear of Sex

On April 16, 2021, the Washington Post reported that sex therapist Natasha Helfer had been summoned to a Church disciplinary council by a stake president and Koch Industries executive from Kansas named Stephen Daley. (Helfer had moved to Salt Lake City since December 2019, but perhaps jurisdictional concerns are more fluid in Church policy, or her records still reside with the Kansas stake.)

Daley decided to take this action based on his perception of her professionally-held views on sexuality, many of which are in direct opposition to the stated positions of Church leaders. Consider Helfer’s very benign (but in the Mormon world, highly-controversial) statement on masturbation:

Masturbation is not sinful behavior in of itself nor is it a transgression. God has created us as emotional, spiritual, intellectual and sexual beings. He has created these capacities in the context of both relational purpose and self-sufficiency. Meaning we are social creatures – meant to thrive in relationship with others. At the same time, we are also individual creatures – and when not able to be in relationship have capacity to meet our own needs for certain periods of time depending on age and developmental stage.

Natasha Helfer, “My Official Stance on Masturbation”, The Mormon Therapist blog

In my view, Natasha Helfer is a hero. She rightly focuses on the negative views of sexuality prevalent in the Mormon Church, which I have written about in an earlier post. In addition to her reasoned conclusion that masturbation is not sinful, she goes further to state on the now-famous blog post that “unnecessary masturbatory shame and unmet attachment needs are at the core of most compulsive masturbatory behavior – becoming an unhealthy coping skill used in times of stress and discontent” (emphasis added).

Mormon Fear of Self-Pleasure

This is the point that so many of us in the ex-Mormon world have been making for years–that any problems that arise in Mormon marriages due to “porn addiction,” masturbation guilt, and other issues around compulsory sexual behavior arise directly from the Mormon culture of shame. Members of the Church will be quick to discredit Helfer given that she is only “semi-active” in her Church participation, but her blog post was written nearly a decade ago, and her views have long been consistent with evidence-based recommendations in the mental health profession.

Mormon attitudes on masturbation grew out of American attitudes that preceded the founding of the Church. Associations of self-pleasure with insanity and diseases were prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the lack of official guidance on the issue leading Latter-day Saints to fill in the blanks themselves. The first time that Church leaders spoke publicly on the matter was in the late 19th-century, when the Quorum of the Twelve was keen on justifying polygamy. They framed non-monogamous sex as a “cure” for masturbation.

Hysteria about masturbation within the Church subsided in the early 20th century as science began to conclusively demonstrate no ill effects, but it was revived in the late 1950s with the publication of Bruce R. McConkie’s book Mormon Doctrine. In it, McConkie contradicted mental health professionals on the dangers of masturbation shaming, thus giving the impression of an official Church stance against masturbation. Spencer W. Kimball’s 1969 book The Miracle of Forgiveness doubled down on this rhetoric by linking masturbation with homosexuality, which was echoed again by Boyd K. Packer in his infamous “little factory” sermon in 1976. These three publications (Mormon Doctrine, The Miracle of Forgiveness, and the pamphlet To Young Men Only) are what we might think of as the Holy Mormon Trinity of the Choked Chicken. They are the primary sources to which we can attribute the pain of thousands upon thousands of psychologically damaged Mormon youth.

The Church’s stance on masturbation even forced the Boy Scouts of America to revise a 1972 edition of the Boy Scout Handbook. The original edition had a passage that read as follows:

Many young men like to masturbate…. People used to think this caused weakness, insanity, and other physical and mental problems. Doctors today agree that it doesn’t cause any of these and is really a part of growing up sexually.

Boy Scout Handbook, 1972a: 334

There was great uproar about this wording. The Mormon Church’s influence as one of the biggest sponsors of the Boy Scouts caused 25,000 copies of the handbook to be destroyed, with a new revised printing changing the above passage to the following:

You may have questions about sexual matters such as nocturnal emissions (also called “wet dreams”), masturbation, and even those strange feelings that you may have. Talk them over with your parents and/or spiritual advisor or doctor.

Boy Scout Handbook, 1972b: 334

As I alluded in my earlier post about Alma’s sermon to Corianton in the Book of Mormon, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is obsessed with, and afraid of, normal sexual behavior. Illicit sex is the “sin next to murder,” a doctrinal foundation that incites the psychosexual shame that permeates Mormon culture, doctrine, and policy. The erotophobia is so bad, in fact, that a young man named Kip Eliason committed suicide in 1982 because of the shame he felt over masturbation. It is not a bit ironic that the most comprehensive record of this tragedy was written in 1986 for Hustler magazine. That such a tragedy was only documented in a porn magazine is a sad commentary, but unfortunately that fact alone has been reason enough for some Mormons to discredit the significance of Kip’s death. The Church ended up settling the Eliason family’s case for a very large sum.

Exploiting The Weakness of Youth

In 1990, the Mormon Church issued a newly-revised version of a pamphlet for all adolescents and their youth leaders called For the Strength of Youth. In the section on “Sexual Purity” the pamphlet stated the following:

Our Heavenly Father has counseled that sexual intimacy should be reserved for his children within the bonds of marriage …. Because sexual intimacy is so sacred, the Lord requires self-control and purity before marriage…. The Lord specifically forbids certain behaviors, including all sexual relations before marriage … masturbation, or preoccupation with sex in thought, speech, or action …. All Latter-day Saints must learn to control and discipline themselves.

For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, 1990 edition, pp. 14-15

This pamphlet and the statements inside it constituted official doctrine of the Church, since it was directly published by the Church and endorsed by the First Presidency and the apostles, as mentioned on the first page:

The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have reviewed, accepted, and endorsed this pamphlet, which is printed at their request and with their approval for the information, guidance, and blessings of the youth of the Church.

For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, 1990 edition, p. 1

The pamphlet was widely distributed and translated into multiple languages. I remember being barely old enough to attend Church dances when this pamphlet was published. I had also recently “discovered” masturbation on my own. Reading the paragraph about masturbation brought me intense feelings of shame, because I didn’t see any “wiggle room” in the Church’s stance on the matter. It was very clear and signed by the First Presidency. And, as is common in the legalistic writings emanating from the Church Office Building, the Church covered its bases by adding the ambiguous phrase “other sexual behavior” to the language. This allowed for nearly infinite discretion in interpretation by local leaders. The bishop that led our ward at the time was not at all adept at providing clarity. Youth prone to guilty feelings, like myself, also had infinite capacity for feeling intense shame about anything remotely sexual in nature.

Our love for the Savior of mankind was also used as a weapon against us to keep us in compliance with sexual prohibitions. A New Testament seminary video called “Godly Sorrow Leads To Repentance” portrayed a young woman being interviewed by her bishop in preparation for her temple wedding. The woman is found to feel “not guilty enough” by her bishop, and has to cancel her wedding so she can repent of having made out with a boy before marriage. She is told that her lack of “godly sorrow” is preventing her from achieving true repentance. A darkly humorous and detailed break down of the video was done by Zelph on the Shelf. It is one of the most manipulative videos ever produced, right up there with Spiritual Crocodiles starring Boyd K. Packer.

The Millenial generation was targeted by Jeffrey R. Holland in his infamous October 1998 General Conference talk called “Personal Purity.” In this talk, Holland warned of the fiery flames of torment that awaited those who were flippant with sexual morality:

The body is an essential part of the soul. This distinctive and very important Latter-day Saint doctrine underscores why sexual sin is so serious. We declare that one who uses the God-given body of another without divine sanction abuses the very soul of that individual, abuses the central purpose and processes of life, “the very key” to life, as President Boyd K. Packer once called it. In exploiting the body of another—which means exploiting his or her soul—one desecrates the Atonement of Christ, which saved that soul and which makes possible the gift of eternal life. And when one mocks the Son of Righteousness, one steps into a realm of heat hotter and holier than the noonday sun. You cannot do so and not be burned.

Jeffrey R. Holland, “Personal Purity,” October 1998 General Conference

With images of fire and a scorched earth, Elder Holland warned of the “dangers” of sexual intimacy before marriage. His talk of “crucifying Christ afresh” by flouting morality was extraordinarily reckless. It brings to mind the seminary videos of Jesus Christ being flogged by Roman soldiers and how that was used to make us feel responsible for the torture.

Elder Holland continues:

If you persist in pursuing physical satisfaction without the sanction of heaven, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your longing for physical intimacy and your ability to give wholehearted devotion to a later, truer love. You may come to that truer moment of ordained love, of real union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved you have spent, and that only God’s grace can recover the piecemeal dissipation of the virtue you so casually gave away. On your wedding day the very best gift you can give your eternal companion is your very best self—clean and pure and worthy of such purity in return.

Jeffrey R. Holland, “Personal Purity,” October 1998 General Conference

So profoundly influential was this talk that it was used at Brigham Young University as part of the curriculum. I know this because I studied this talk in detail in a marriage and family religion class. It is unclear to me how “spiritual and psychic damage” can be anything but guaranteed when the trusted leaders of the Church are laying it on thick in such a tortuous manner. To go so far as to warn against losing your sexuality by the very act of engaging in it is absolutely disgusting.

Sexual Anxiety In Mormon Adulthood

After my first wife and I got engaged at BYU in the early 2000s, she made an appointment with one of the university OB/GYN physicians. Instilling in her a fear of the size of my penis and any possible discomfort she could experience on her wedding night, the doctor prepared her by providing a set of progressively-sized vaginal dilators with which she could ensure that her hymen was properly “broken in.” Apparently these “premarital exams” are still quite common in the state of Utah.

The evening after she received the vaginal dilators, she attempted to “break herself in” in the bathtub. She told me how she had hurt herself, possibly causing a tissue tear, and proceeded to gush blood into the bathwater. The wounds became infected. I felt terrible for her, and did not know what advice to give. Imagine living a life where you are told never to touch yourself, and then being asked to insert foreign objects into your vagina and causing yourself great pain. When the big moment came on our wedding night, she got frightened and said my penis was “really big.” I can assure all you readers that my penis is quite average, but in her mind, it was terrifying. I can’t help but think that her experience with the BYU-provided dilators had primed her to be afraid.

Growing up with sexual fear and shame can make for a lousy sex life in adulthood. Most Mormon priesthood leaders believe that masturbation is still prohibited even in marriage, but my wife and I considered it “okay” if your spouse was laying next to you in bed. In that case, it wasn’t masturbation, but it was something that you were doing “together” as a couple. We read the book Between Husband and Wife: Gospel Perspectives on Marital Intimacy together, thinking it would teach us something about the godly way to engage in sex. The following negative review of this book on Amazon sums it up perfectly:

It makes unsupported/unscientific claims about normal and healthy eroticism, promotes rigid, unrealistically narrow limits on sexual expression (even within marriage), and will undoubtedly reinforce the sexual anxiety that plagues so many LDS marriages.

1-star Amazon product review of the book Between Husband and Wife
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/1680476548/

We definitely did not gain any healthy perspectives from the book. My wife at the time suffered greatly in the first year of our marriage, and I was mostly oblivious to her emotional pain. I was also filled with shame even though I was now engaging in “approved” sex, mostly because I felt that I had never truly repented of past sins, and that my sexual experiences were now less sacred as a result. I have Jeffrey Holland to thank for that.

When my wife and I eventually became disaffected and left the Church after our second child was born, we ended up engaging in non-monogamous sex to “make up for” the repression we had felt earlier in our lives. We went to a few sex parties. I never felt comfortable in these environments, and any attempt to “compensate” for repression and sexual anxiety only resulted in more anxiety. With each new sexual partner, I felt more and more like I was outside my own body. While everyone else in these sexual engagements seemed to be at ease and having playful and fun adventures, I took it all extremely seriously. All of this eventually (and predictably) led to our divorce.

The story of the sexually-repressed and newly-free ex-Mormon is a cliché. It seems that every ex-Mormon that John Dehlin interviews on Mormon Stories Podcast has a story to tell about how they were damaged by Mormon sexual attitudes and anxiety.

Protecting The Next Generation

I am now married to a non-Mormon, and have mostly healed from these horrors. But I am keen on protecting my children from the same pain. My first wife eventually returned to the Church a few years after our divorce, so my two children have grown up with a hybrid Mormon/atheist experience. Nevertheless, my atheist son has told me that the Church had made him feel guilty about masturbation even though he didn’t believe in the doctrines. I have done my best to correct this and make him feel at ease with his own body.

The excommunication of Natasha Helfer still shows that the Church has a long way to go before it fully reckons with the science and our common reality of human sexuality. Fortunately, the most egregious language about masturbation is no longer common. The word “masturbation” has been removed from the latest edition of the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet:

Before marriage, do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing. Do not do anything else that arouses sexual feelings. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body. Pay attention to the promptings of the Spirit so that you can be clean and virtuous. The Spirit of the Lord will withdraw from one who is in sexual transgression.

For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, 2011 edition, pp. 35-36

Instructing the youth not to arouse themselves is a small improvement over any explicit mention of masturbation, although I still find it objectionable.

I am encouraged by data reported by Malan and Bullough that shows that the majority of modern Mormons do not feel that masturbation is immoral. I just wish that modern attitudes hadn’t required so much destruction to finally bring them about.