Navigating Sexual Morality Outside the Believer Narrative

[Anonymous]

I agree, there is NO gray area. I suppose if there were, plenty of people would push and push until they end up far off the edge, but I suppose that is what agency is about. I also agree about the culture of guilt. When I got married I had a very difficult time going from “this is absolutely forbidden” to “no problem, anytime”. It was a very difficult transition for me, especially when I had crossed the line a few times in the past and been through the repentance process. That made me feel even more guilty. Unfortunately my new husband simply couldn’t understand, and both of us were so inexperienced it was not good at all. Sad to say, I know that contributed to the end of our marriage a number of years later. Would being able to experiment prior to marriage have made a difference? I doubt it.

As for masturbation, I have come to believe it is not a sexual sin. It can be, if you are using pornography with it, or it is causing you to lose focus on real life, or it is the predominate thought or part of your day, but occasionally done, I have no problem with it. Couples who are apart, such as a job or military deployment, could benefit from said act just to make sure their appetites and needs are met. It is a whole lot better than cheating. I would never feel the need to “confess”. And “phone sex” between husband and wife? Nobody else’s business.

Maybe if the church didn’t make sexual desire so evil, we could have more fulfilling and normal sex lives with our spouses. Perhaps admitting that masturbation is a normal desire, and kept within appropriate bounds it is acceptable, would help our youth (and adults) not to feel so sinful. I still remember my first husband telling me about the talk to the priesthood about the “factories”. You don’t want to get those factories fired up because that’s all you will want to do, work in the factory all day. I almost laughed, but he was serious. These attitudes are a holdover from Puritan times, and I really don’t expect the men who head the church on earth to admit that some of these attitudes are cultural, and not necessarily doctrinal. I don’t even discuss masturbation with my kids, but I talk to them all the time about the evils of porn. I think we will find the next generation has fewer hangups than we do 🙂

[Anonymous]

LookingHard wrote:

Roadrunner wrote:

With my own kids I’ve openly told them that I don’t care if they masturbate as long as it’s private and doesn’t become an unheathly distraction.

I have told my sons not to go crazy with it and never do it with porn as that causes issues. I have told them that porn is 100x worse than masturbation.

I don’t know, if porn was really 100 times worse than masturbation then I would expect to see 100 times more damage done. It wouldn’t surprise me if porn is currently demonized and made out to be this larger-than-life boogeyman over 100 times more than masturbation in the Church and it looks like there are certainly more people that feel much more strongly about how wrong and completely unacceptable porn supposedly is for whatever reasons but as far as the actual consequences (or lack of consequences) I don’t really see that much of a difference overall. For example, if someone is single or their wife doesn’t know about it or care about it that much then it looks like porn will never do any significant harm in many if not the overwhelming majority of cases like this.

I realize that people occasionally get divorced over this but my guess is that it could easily be over 20 to 1 in terms of the number of men that have viewed porn sometimes after they are married versus the number that actually end up getting divorced largely because of this. Even if women find out about their husband’s porn habit and are not happy about it seems like it is fairly typical for the men to simply try their best to avoid it and/or hide it better when they don’t after that and then things will eventually return to normal. Plus it sounds like some women have a similar knee-jerk reaction to masturbation that many women do about porn where they will feel insecure and jealous because they think it means that their husband is thinking about other women and would rather be doing this than having sex with them, they feel disgust because they think it means their husband is some kind of deviant pervert, etc.

I guess it makes sense why viewing porn/gratuitous nudity would lead to more conflict than masturbation because it is slightly harder to keep private and if many women don’t like it as much as many men do, if at all, themselves then that makes it harder for them to understand the appeal and why men would even want to do this to begin with and it makes it easier for them to judge men relatively harshly for this. I understand parents and the Church trying to prevent this but my guess is that in many cases no matter what they do or say the majority of young men will end up doing this eventually anyway and making their own decisions about it (boys will be boys). In fact in some cases repeatedly telling people they shouldn’t ever do this so much probably backfires completely and only makes people more interested in it than they would be otherwise because they start to think about it more often and it makes it into some kind of forbidden fruit.

[Anonymous]

There are people who can watch porn occasionally and people who can’t – just like alcohol consumption. However, to say that porn really isn’t that much different or worse than masturbation is . . . let’s just say it is patently and obviously inaccurate. Also, there are multiple reliable studies that show addictive behavior increases significantly when the two are combined. That isn’t religious paranoia; it is scientific fact.

Aside from issues of addiction, there is the whole porn industry – which is as close to evil incarnate in many situations as it is possible to get. There are consenting adults in the porn industry, and there are the vast numbers throughout the world who are neither consenting nor adults. Porn runs the gamut just like many other things, from quite mild to extreme, by all definitions of the words. Discussing it in simplistic terms, as if it’s all no big deal or all evil incarnate, is no different than discussing faith crises / transitions / journeys in the same way.

Quote:

if porn was really 100 times worse than masturbation then I would expect to see 100 times more damage done.

If you don’t see it, you aren’t looking. The damage done by porn and the porn industry is WAY higher than 100 times the damage done by masturbation. They aren’t in the same universe – and the damage from porn is not limited to social or cultural biases. Seriously, if you don’t see or recognize it, you aren’t looking. Just because it might not affect you personally to that degree doesn’t mean it doesn’t have that degree of damage for many, many, many people – those who produce it, those who are products in it (and I use that wording carefully and intentionally) and those who become addicted to it.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

There are people who can watch porn occasionally and people who can’t – just like alcohol consumption. However, to say that porn really isn’t that much different or worse than masturbation is . . . let’s just say it is patently and obviously inaccurate. Also, there are multiple reliable studies that show addictive behavior increases significantly when the two are combined. That isn’t religious paranoia; it is scientific fact.

Aside from issues of addiction, there is the whole porn industry – which is as close to evil incarnate in many situations as it is possible to get. There are consenting adults in the porn industry, and there are the vast numbers throughout the world who are neither consenting nor adults. Porn runs the gamut just like many other things, from quite mild to extreme, by all definitions of the words. Discussing it in simplistic terms, as if it’s all no big deal or all evil incarnate, is no different than discussing faith crises / transitions / journeys in the same way.

Quote:

if porn was really 100 times worse than masturbation then I would expect to see 100 times more damage done.

If you don’t see it, you aren’t looking. The damage done by porn and the porn industry is WAY higher than 100 times the damage done by masturbation. They aren’t in the same universe – and the damage from porn is not limited to social or cultural biases. Seriously, if you don’t see or recognize it, you aren’t looking. Just because it might not affect you personally to that degree doesn’t mean it doesn’t have that degree of damage for many, many, many people – those who produce it, those who are products in it (and I use that wording carefully and intentionally) and those who become addicted to it.

I agree, Ray. And I just have to say, DA, that since you aren’t a woman, you can’t possibly understand how it feels to find your husband looking at porn. This happened to me on a few occasions, and it was a big deal. It had nothing to do with it being a sin, it had to do with the fact that I felt betrayed. When we got married, my husband in essence promised that I’d be the only naked woman he’d look at. I consider it a form of infidelity. On top of that, I’ve had body image issues since I was a teenager. Seeing my husband look at other naked women made me feel entirely undesirable to him even though he tells me I’m beautiful I am all the time (he’s awesome that way, and I know he means it.) We’ve always had an amazing sex life, so I coudn’t understand why he needed to go anyhere else, including the computer screen. When he finally uderstood how much his actions were hurting me, he stopped. This was all many years ago. I know you’re all thinking that he’s just hiding it better, but I know he’s not because he was just different around me when he was looking at porn. Plus, I ask him to report periodically, and I promise to strip for him anytime he wants 😳

Back to the OP in relation to this though: sometimes the church gets it right when it comes to sexuaity, sometimes not. Also, I will never, never think adultery is OK, and ALL of my non-Mormon friends agree. My BIL’s ex cheated on him and it was devastating to him and he’s a very progressive, non-religious person. Some things are just right or wrong. I’m not ashamed to say that to anyone who will listen.

[Anonymous]

Mr. MockingJay is a lucky man. Sorry that his viewing of porn hurts so much. Probably just as much as a wife that is proud of her title as sexual gatekeeper to make sure their husband does not get too carnal by having sex more than a few times a month at most.

[Anonymous]

LookingHard wrote:

Mr. MockingJay is a lucky man. Sorry that his viewing of porn hurts so much. Probably just as much as a wife that is proud of her title as sexual gatekeeper to make sure their husband does not get too carnal by having sex more than a few times a month at most.

OK, LH, I gotta say you lost me on this one. What the heck are you trying to say?

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

LookingHard wrote:

Mr. MockingJay is a lucky man. Sorry that his viewing of porn hurts so much. Probably just as much as a wife that is proud of her title as sexual gatekeeper to make sure their husband does not get too carnal by having sex more than a few times a month at most.

OK, LH, I gotta say you lost me on this one. What the heck are you trying to say?

Wondering the same thing.

[Anonymous]

MockingJay wrote:

I agree, Ray. And I just have to say, DA, that since you aren’t a woman, you can’t possibly understand how it feels to find your husband looking at porn. This happened to me on a few occasions, and it was a big deal. It had nothing to do with it being a sin, it had to do with the fact that I felt betrayed. When we got married, my husband in essence promised that I’d be the only naked woman he’d look at. I consider it a form of infidelity. On top of that, I’ve had body image issues since I was a teenager. Seeing my husband look at other naked women made me feel entirely undesirable to him even though he tells me I’m beautiful I am all the time (he’s awesome that way, and I know he means it.) We’ve always had an amazing sex life, so I coudn’t understand why he needed to go anyhere else, including the computer screen. When he finally uderstood how much his actions were hurting me, he stopped. This was all many years ago. I know you’re all thinking that he’s just hiding it better, but I know he’s not because he was just different around me when he was looking at porn. Plus, I ask him to report periodically, and I promise to strip for him anytime he wants 😳

I have heard of marriages ending over porn issues, and I’m not implying anything here to MJ, but this is the one thing that I have never been able to understand/agree with. Perhaps it is because I am not a woman (I get the issue of body image and feeling betrayed), but I grew up watching porn and even after joining the church, MIT, there were times that i was not perfect in this regard. The one thing i needed my wife to understand was that it didn’t mean that she was not enough, or that i didn’t love her, or that she wasn’t beautiful, or any of the myriad of things that crept into her mind. Guys like to look at naked ladies. Fortunately for me, I dont have the drive/impluse That I used to, So its not a problem. But that’s it. Period. Guys like naked ladies. I was always saddened when i heard of a marriage break up over it, because it seemed like such a thing that should not be a deal breaker. It doesn’t diminish his love for you, it didn’t for me towards my wife. If anything I appreciated her more, I know that sounds contradictory but it’s true. Especially now. Everyone is different and I’m sure there are those that it gets out of hand and run up credit card debt or go on to other more serious things, but for me it was never that big of a deal. Did I beat myself up over it? Sure. Guilt can be a great motivator for change, but it can also be an anchor that weighs us down and sabotages our future.

[Anonymous]

I was going to write a long response to ScoutMaster’s post, but I realized it wouldnt matter what I wrote because I’m a woman (and yes, I know that a small number of women like porn too. I actually know a couple that got divorced because the wife looked at porn and then it wasn’t enough, so she cheated on her husband, in their house while he was away. The kids were asleep in the other room.)

So, I’m just curious: How do the men on this site feel about ScoutMaster’s post? Agree or disagree? Is Ray the only man who has a problem with it?

BTW, I agree that there’s a huge difference between masterbation and porn.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

LookingHard wrote:

Mr. MockingJay is a lucky man. Sorry that his viewing of porn hurts so much. Probably just as much as a wife that is proud of her title as sexual gatekeeper to make sure their husband does not get too carnal by having sex more than a few times a month at most.

OK, LH, I gotta say you lost me on this one. What the heck are you trying to say?

I assume the first 2 sentences are not hard to follow and it is the 3rd (run-on) sentence that is not clear.

MockingJay was saying as a men we can’t understand how it feels as a wife when a husband views porn, especially when she is willing partner. (hence my “he is a luck man”).

I think the flip side of this is that many wives can’t understand what the big deal is with their husband wanting sex so much (I know there are many exceptions, but that is somewhat the norm). Just as a husband viewing porn really hurts a wife, a wife that says “no” to almost all of her husbands advances also hurts her partner. The reference to “gatekeeper” is when a partner feels it is their duty to make sure that their spouse has the appropriate minimal amount of sex so that they don’t become “carnal”.

[Anonymous]

Men are from Mars, women from Venus. It’s hard for us to understand one another, people of the same sex even vary greatly from person to person. It could come down to how much testosterone or pheromones our bodies produce. It’s a complex thing IMO.

Disclaimer: I can’t pretend to understand the sex drive of a woman so take what I say as the rubbish that it is. I’m just tossing unfiltered thought to the wind, so I’m sure to step on toes.

I get the general impression that men have a stronger sex drive. There, I said it.

I know it sounds like fence sitting but I agree with both LDS_Scoutmaster and MockingJay. I’d believe the husband when they say that they don’t look at porn because they feel their wives are inadequate and I’d believe them when they say that it doesn’t affect how they feel toward their wives. I also believe the wife is perfectly justified in her feelings of betrayal and is harmed by feeling inadequate. They’re both right in their own sphere.

On one hand you have someone that has been deeply hurt emotionally, on the other you have someone that is probably only trying to release sexual tensions. When compromising it’s probably best to err on the side of not hurting someone emotionally.

I don’t want to put words into LookingHard’s mouth but what does the man do when his sexual tensions build quicker than his ability to (for lack of a better term) righteously release those tensions? Does the wife make herself available at all times for when those urges randomly overtake the husband? Does the husband masturbate to “spare” his wife of constant sexual advances? Does the husband set up base camp under a cold shower and sing a hymn in his mind? One answer is for the man to learn to control sexual urges, and that’s fine in principle. That can also take a lot of time though, even for the best of men. What behavior does the man exhibit while still in the process of learning to control sexual desire? Maybe it can only begin to happen for some people once they get older and start to produce less testosterone.

Switching gears for random thoughts time. These will also step on toes:

We often talk about leadership roulette on this site. The law of chastity sets up a sexual roulette of sorts, which can be far, far worse than any leadership roulette. I think for the unmarried man the concern is that they will only find out after marriage whether they are sexually compatible with their mate. I’m sure women have similar concerns, but I don’t totally understand the perspective. I know there’s likely a concern but I don’t know what those concerns are. I think it may be a bigger concern for the man. Maybe it’s just a concern for the more lecherous of us.

The man probably worries that they’ll end up with someone that’s prudish. The way morals are taught can produce people that view much of what are healthy sexual desires as being “gross.” Who changes when the husband has sexual desires that they know they could never voice because their wife feels like even Ivory soap commercials are “porn?” Back on the subject of porn… the wife probably feels like the husband turns to porn for this very reason. It’s easy to understand how this hurts the wife. No one wants to feel like they are sexually inadequate. No one.

The pendulum swings both ways. The pendulum is a swinger. :angel: I’d be interested in knowing what women’s fears are about sexual relations leading up to marriage.

[Anonymous]

This thread is turning into what the http://ldssexuality.com” class=”bbcode_url”>http://ldssexuality.com website is all about. This very topic is being re-hashed again there for anybody interested in the subject.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

However, to say that porn really isn’t that much different or worse than masturbation is . . . let’s just say it is patently and obviously inaccurate. Also, there are multiple reliable studies that show addictive behavior increases significantly when the two are combined. That isn’t religious paranoia; it is scientific fact…Aside from issues of addiction, there is the whole porn industry – which is as close to evil incarnate in many situations as it is possible to get. There are consenting adults in the porn industry, and there are the vast numbers throughout the world who are neither consenting nor adults.

Quote:

if porn was really 100 times worse than masturbation then I would expect to see 100 times more damage done.

If you don’t see it, you aren’t looking. The damage done by porn and the porn industry is WAY higher than 100 times the damage done by masturbation. They aren’t in the same universe – and the damage from porn is not limited to social or cultural biases. Seriously, if you don’t see or recognize it, you aren’t looking. Just because it might not affect you personally to that degree doesn’t mean it doesn’t have that degree of damage for many, many, many people…

I was thinking more in terms of direct and unavoidable consequences for the average Joe that views porn once in a while. In that case, I don’t see it and it looks like there is no way that the damage done for men on average is 100 times worse than masturbation. Sure there are some real sex addicts that suffer because of it but to me it looks like these numbers are so small in proportion to how many view porn occasionally without experiencing anything of the sort that they are not that significant in the grand scheme of things. As far as I’m concerned, the Church has basically relied on pseudoscience and thrown the term porn addiction around to make it sound like any man that doesn’t stop viewing porn permanently is supposedly an addict. Well if we applied the same criteria to masturbation then an overwhelming majority of men would be “masturbation addicts” but for some reason we never hear about masturbation addiction the way repeatedly we do about porn addiction.

To me a real addict would be someone that spends an unusual amount of time and/or money on porn, views it at work, etc. As far as any harm done to the actresses/models I see that as something for various governments to worry about where to draw the line and trying to stop any abuse by giving end consumers a guilt-trip about it is never going to make much of a difference because even if you can successfully train one man to avoid it there will always be millions more that continue to view it. Also, I don’t believe that many of these people are being pressured into this or feel that badly about it especially in the case of soft-core sex scenes/gratuitous nudity like late night shows on Showtime, Cinemax, Playboy, etc. that the Church would still lump together under the general term “pornography.”

[Anonymous]

LDS_Scoutmaster wrote:

I have heard of marriages ending over porn issues, and I’m not implying anything here to MJ, but this is the one thing that I have never been able to understand/agree with. Perhaps it is because I am not a woman (I get the issue of body image and feeling betrayed), but I grew up watching porn and even after joining the church, MIT, there were times that i was not perfect in this regard. The one thing i needed my wife to understand was that it didn’t mean that she was not enough, or that i didn’t love her, or that she wasn’t beautiful, or any of the myriad of things that crept into her mind. Guys like to look at naked ladies. Fortunately for me, I dont have the drive/impluse That I used to, So its not a problem. But that’s it. Period. Guys like naked ladies. I was always saddened when i heard of a marriage break up over it, because it seemed like such a thing that should not be a deal breaker. It doesn’t diminish his love for you, it didn’t for me towards my wife. If anything I appreciated her more, I know that sounds contradictory but it’s true. Especially now. Everyone is different and I’m sure there are those that it gets out of hand and run up credit card debt or go on to other more serious things, but for me it was never that big of a deal. Did I beat myself up over it? Sure. Guilt can be a great motivator for change, but it can also be an anchor that weighs us down and sabotages our future.

MockingJay wrote:

I was going to write a long response to ScoutMaster’s post, but I realized it wouldnt matter what I wrote because I’m a woman (and yes, I know that a small number of women like porn too. I actually know a couple that got divorced because the wife looked at porn and then it wasn’t enough, so she cheated on her husband, in their house while he was away. The kids were asleep in the other room.)… So, I’m just curious: How do the men on this site feel about ScoutMaster’s post? Agree or disagree? Is Ray the only man who has a problem with it?…BTW, I agree that there’s a huge difference between masterbation and porn.

I can’t speak for the other men that still post here but in the past it seemed like most of them would take a position along the lines of the idea that any men that could hurt their wife’s feelings by viewing porn/nudity should just be a good boy and do what they are told and then there wouldn’t be any problem and I have often felt like the only one here willing to say much in defense of men that have a harder time resisting the temptation to sneak a peek once in a while. So I’m glad LDS_Scoutmaster shared his perspective which I agree with. I understand that many women feel like it is a big deal, some kind of betrayal, etc. and it’s hard to argue with feelings that may be impossible to change depending on the individual.

However, to me it looks like some of this is largely the result of misunderstandings caused by common gender differences where many men don’t actually think of this as having anything to do with their wife, it is mostly just a goofy thing they like to do sometimes simply because it gives them some quick and easy gratification and it’s not really their fault that they naturally like it so much. I see it as being similar to the case where some women like to read romance novels, flirt, etc. without ever seriously considering progressing beyond the fantasy stage as far as actually betraying their husband in real life. But in the case of porn the Church has also set the expectation that this shouldn’t ever happen when it is definitely going to continue to happen more than ever which in many cases only encourages men to hide it and then both the secrecy and expectations that this shouldn’t ever happen only add to the feelings of shock and betrayal when women find out about their husband’s porn habit.

Also, not all women feel as strongly about this being impossible to tolerate as others if they feel that way at all. Before I was married, I had girlfriends that knew I viewed porn sometimes that never told me that I needed to stop or else and one of them even watched porn with me sometimes. That’s one reason why if I wasn’t already married I would never promise that I wouldn’t view porn anymore again because now I would feel like anyone that couldn’t live with who I am upfront would be better off with someone else but when I got married I felt like I had no business trying to defend my true feelings mostly because I still believed in the Church so I didn’t feel like I had any real choice in the matter. I guess people will try to do the best they can to work things out but personally I think many Church members and leaders could use some more realistic expectations about this and recognize that in many cases nowadays no matter what they do or say complete abstinence is simply not going to happen over the long run.

[Anonymous]

ScoutMaster, DevilsAdvocate……men love naked women, great, normal biology.

What is not normal is that in today’s world men with the click of a button can view thousands upon thousands of videos of females existing only to fulfill men’s sexual desires. The girls and women in these videos only purpose is for sexual consumption by men. That’s the whole point that men, women and the church miss when discussing whether porn is harmful or not. It isn’t about whether it is harmful to YOU or YOUR marriage….no this whole debate should be is it harmful to the girls and women in porn? (yes there are trafficked boys and men as well) Regardless whether by choice (which is limited) to those being forced into it as a form of modern day slavery, what is the outcome for the individuals in the porn industry? And NO you cant tell through a screen which girl is being forced physically and which is being forced due to her life circumstances.

So the evil isn’t the masturbation ( which without porn I think is healthy and fine) the evil is the porn itself in that it reduces females to nothing more than breathing blow up dolls.

If you put aside for a moment the realities of sexual human trafficking, child and teen sexual slavery, rape porn, gang bangs etc. and say…”oh hey I’m not into that stuff, that’s not me,” you are still viewing and supporting a product that destroys the souls and literal lives of its participants. How do you know that the “barely legal” girl that you are masturbating to isn’t trafficked? Or if you know she isn’t trafficked did you know that most females in porn have been molested or raped at one point in their lives usually as children or young teens? Of course not, why would you want to think about what happened in her life that lead her to the porn industry.

So sorry the fantasy isn’t just the sexual acts. The true fantasy is that good men convince themselves that yes that “girl/slut really wanted it that way and for me to watch it.” Or my favorite, “I’m the consumer/victim here because she is getting paid for me wanting her so she deserves what happens to her.” Because you know guys, every little girl has dreams of one day having to sell and pass her body around for men to use and throw away at will. Every little girl longs to one day be filmed with three men in order to survive. Wake up! You guys are not the victims here because you have sexual desires and there are women that may profit from it in very rare instances. Do you really think that porn is a girl’s vision and dream for herself? That she is happy that her only worth is how many men wack off to her? How about the girls and women that are forced into porn by pimps and organized crime? Nope, just stick with the fantasy that she wants it and is being well paid so you can masturbate with a clear conscious.

If you looked at the girl or woman in the videos as a complete person with a soul, a true valued and loved daughter of God regardless of how she ended up doing porn would it be as easy to watch her be “pounded?”

Who am I kidding….why would men look at a porn star as a cherished and loved beyond all measure daughter of our Heavenly Father?

[Author]

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