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I just let the feelings go through without putting myself down & enjoyed by DH.
If I had to hazard a wild guess, I think he probably was OK with that.
😳 :shh: I’ve just been to the temple for a week. I’ve had to take a vow about no sex outside marriage in the Endowment, and listen to that how many other times in repeat sessions. I just wonder how I’ll keep it. I don’t exactly get women throwing themselves at me, but I do have my needs. It wasn’t exactly a great help that the couple in the room next door in the temple accommodation seemed to enjoy themselves on two nights running (although it was mercifully short on each occasion). The only way I’m going to get my physical needs dealt with in that direction (legally and lawfully) is with a wife. However, I’ve just heard a horror story about a church member getting divorced. Terrible. This was a guy I knew as a young boy before I became inactive, and I hadn’t even realised that he’d been married when I met him as an adult all those years later. Sometimes it’s not a good thing to marry your first crush.
Sorry to be so graphic, but yes, I’m a red blooded male (not an effective one), not a eunuch, which is what the church seems to want the unmarried to be. Now I gather Satan’s going to possess my body if I fail on that temple covenant.
wayfarer wrote:So a sexy book, words, thoughts — yes, if that results in arousal and (god forbid) masturbation, this I allow and have no issue with. If I see a beautiful woman, or if I think one of the ‘eve’s in the temple movie is attractive, I’m not inclined to go to bed with her (as if…), but I don’t consider the appreciation of beauty sin.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the Eve in that temple movie was very tasty (sorry). A really attractive woman, and very much the type I like, if a mediocre actress. But not much obviously sexual about her character, since you only see her ankles and her face and hair in the entire thing.
The odd thing is that the church deals with sex, big time, and doesn’t even realize it. We get told “families are forever”, to find an “eternal companion” etc. What do they think eternal companions do some of the time, and how do families appear? Do I need to spell it out? (I’m not saying eternal companions are just for that of course, but it’s certainly part of it) We also get given specific underwear, and modesty standards (that’s the less obvious side), but the temple movie is full of references to fertility and multiplying. We also get asked to vow chastity and told about the law of chastity, seal marriages and offspring etc… these are all partly sexual things in a roundabout way.
A bit ironic considering our founders had several wives or more.
Yeah, Sam, it’s hard when an ideal is stressed so much for those who aren’t in an ideal situation. Fwiw, I just want to second what wayfarer said in the excerpt you just quoted. I don’t like the current hyperventilating about masturbation. It isn’t addressed ANYWHERE in our official scriptural canon (seriously, the Old Testament passage that gets cited all the time isn’t about masturbation – especially since it isn’t even clear that’s what he did in that passage). Tension of any kind needs a release or it leads to damaging effects, and if the only release available . . .
So, if you are living the Law of Chastity as it was explained in the temple (think about the actual wording there), you are keeping that covenant regardless of how you deal with this particular topic.
Old-Timer wrote:Yeah, Sam, it’s hard when an ideal is stressed so much for those who aren’t in an ideal situation.
Fwiw, I just want to second what wayfarer said in the excerpt you just quoted. I don’t like the current hyperventilating about masturbation. It isn’t addressed ANYWHERE in our official scriptural canon (seriously, the Old Testament passage that gets cited all the time isn’t about masturbation – especially since it isn’t even clear that’s what he did in that passage). Tension of any kind needs a release or it leads to damaging effects, and if the only release available . . .
So, if you are living the Law of Chastity as it was explained in the temple (think about the actual wording there), you are keeping that covenant regardless of how you deal with this particular topic.
+1. good advice for anyone.i think the story of onan was clear: god commanded onan to bring up an heir to judah in his older brother’s stead, and performed coitus interruptus, also called onanism, and spilt his seed on the ground. for this, god executed him on the spot, because he disobeyed god in this specific case of having sex with tamar (outside the realm of marriage it would seem) in order to spawn an heir.
i think it important for people to read the entire story: in the next scene, tamar plays a temple prostitute and has sex with Judah her father in law in order to spawn the heir…and she is blessed for this… i love the old testament…it is really great fiction, and entertaining…but the stuff in this story does not compute as being clear moral law.
there are other levite laws about coming in contact with ‘issue’, resulting in ‘uncleanness’, but none of this can be taken as relevant. no, the proscription on masturbation comes from false science of the 19th century…
Yeah, if we want to interpret one part of that story in strict terms (death on the spot for taking advantage of and enjoying a command up to the point of real commitment :silent: – I didn’t say it that way.😯 )?I thought not.
I think part of the paranoia about sex & masterbation is societal, not just Mormon. Then there’s also parental attitudes we adopt or are influenced by.
There are a million different things that we cannot be commanded in.
We just have to trust our gut & common sense.
IE: Is it right to have sex when you really don’t want to?
Should we have sex just to “get off” or should it be done in love hope to please the other?
I am not an advocate, AT ALL, of licentiousness with regard to sexual practices, but I do believe strongly that much of our issue with sex and sexual matters is “bitter fruit” that was transplanted into our restoration tree by the Victorian attitudes of some of our early converts (and everyone was a convert initially) – attitudes that I believe were a big part of why I can accept “apostasy” language. Joseph Smith certainly didn’t have those attitudes, but they reared their heads after his death and were solidified during the sexual retrenchment of the mid-1900’s. There really is truth to the idea of an eternal round, imo – in various ways and throughout history.
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