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There are 2 parts to this problem… 1) Genuine Addicts who need the support and assistance and are too prideful to ask/associate with it. Sometimes it takes a “Come to Jesus” moment to get through that pride. There is probably a sub-group that could handle their challenges without this assistance, but I think it is rarer than common, personally.
2) Casual users who get branded as “addicts” by people making more of the problem than it actually is. The blatant example is divorces over p usage – and only for p usage.
I think we don’t tell our youth that there will need to be a series of conversations about this topic throughout their marriage. I think we treat it as “out of sight, out of mind”. Maybe we don’t have neutral conversations giving the head’s up in regards to the situation because it is such a charged topic, or maybe because there is no good way of doing so.
I haven’t taken a gospel marriage or family relations course, but when I was in YW (15 years ago) we didn’t talk about serious relationship conversations we would be having with our spouses. All of this was just… left out.
P.S. If I am ever called to teach the laurels in YW, I am going to borrow stuff from the “Marriage Builders” website and I am going to devote at least 1 lesson a quarter on effective inter-spousal/boyfriend communication techniques. I am going to see what kind of YW I have and see what kinds of conversations I can comfortably and respectfully have…. Which is probably why they know better than to call me for YW.
I see at least a few intersections regarding this topic. – Healthy sexual expression is not talked about in church, except when it’s framed as a list of Don’t Until You Can – In Marriage. Even after that, there is no clear, helpful, healthy way forward. I am not advocating that the church become a bastion of healthy human sexuality, but it’s a tough wall to scale.
– To add to the above, the culture makes up for the silence on sexuality by both hypersexualizing both genders, and suppressing appropriate sexual expression. This is also done in the West/American/Puritan culture at large, as other countries don’t have the same issues with sexuality as we do. Women get hypersexualized by having decidedly non-sexual body parts deemed sexual, but they also don’t have an independent sexuality (separate from their husband and beginning before marriage). Men are hypersexualized in the sense that they’re told their sexual urges are quite ravenous and need to be squelched until they have a release in marriage.
– It is normal for humans to be aroused by images, physical touch, stories, and fantasies. In fact, it’s considered abnormal if someone is incapable of being aroused. It’s also considered abnormal to be aroused by most things. Being aroused by arouseable things isn’t a problem; how you personally deal with your arousal CAN be a problem.
– The hypersexualization and following sexual repression of men leads them to secret activities that inevitably feed the shame that they have before any sort of porn use. The perceived unsexuality of women leads them to secret activities that inevitably feed the shame they have before any sort of porn use.
– Especially for older singles, sexual expression is perceived as unacceptable and nearly non-existent. Like I said earlier, being aroused and expressing your own sexuality in healthy ways is normal and good, for married and single people alike. Church members have different beliefs and values to manage than the culture at large, but long-term sexual suppression is not healthy nor does it lead to mature adults who are capable of connected and fulfilling relationships. Other religions tend to sublimate their single and celibate members’ sexuality through special callings and support groups, however the LDS church does not and it is taxing on those who don’t know what to do.
DancingCarrot wrote:
I see at least a few intersections regarding this topic.– Healthy sexual expression is not talked about in church, except when it’s framed as a list of Don’t Until You Can – In Marriage. Even after that, there is no clear, helpful, healthy way forward. I am not advocating that the church become a bastion of healthy human sexuality, but it’s a tough wall to scale.
– To add to the above, the culture makes up for the silence on sexuality by both hypersexualizing both genders, and suppressing appropriate sexual expression. This is also done in the West/American/Puritan culture at large, as other countries don’t have the same issues with sexuality as we do. Women get hypersexualized by having decidedly non-sexual body parts deemed sexual, but they also don’t have an independent sexuality (separate from their husband and beginning before marriage). Men are hypersexualized in the sense that they’re told their sexual urges are quite ravenous and need to be squelched until they have a release in marriage.
– It is normal for humans to be aroused by images, physical touch, stories, and fantasies. In fact, it’s considered abnormal if someone is incapable of being aroused. It’s also considered abnormal to be aroused by most things. Being aroused by arouseable things isn’t a problem; how you personally deal with your arousal CAN be a problem.
– The hypersexualization and following sexual repression of men leads them to secret activities that inevitably feed the shame that they have before any sort of porn use. The perceived unsexuality of women leads them to secret activities that inevitably feed the shame they have before any sort of porn use.
– Especially for older singles, sexual expression is perceived as unacceptable and nearly non-existent. Like I said earlier, being aroused and expressing your own sexuality in healthy ways is normal and good, for married and single people alike. Church members have different beliefs and values to manage than the culture at large, but long-term sexual suppression is not healthy nor does it lead to mature adults who are capable of connected and fulfilling relationships. Other religions tend to sublimate their single and celibate members’ sexuality through special callings and support groups, however the LDS church does not and it is taxing on those who don’t know what to do.
This entire summary – thank you!!
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:
DancingCarrot wrote:
– Healthy sexual expression is not talked about in church, except when it’s framed as a list of Don’t Until You Can – In Marriage.This is becoming a more visible problem as the conversations (and the expectations about when to have the conversations) about healthy sexual expression are now starting in Primary instead of YM/YW. Parents get the opportunity to present insights on this subjects before the parents were necessarily ready to do so as a form of inoculation measure.
DancingCarrot wrote:
Women get hypersexualized by having decidedly non-sexual body parts deemed sexual, but they also don’t have an independent sexuality (separate from their husband and beginning before marriage).I feel that single women have 3 forms of “independent” sexuality – either they are stereotyped as self-cloistered nuns, lesbians, or they are tramps. There is no middle ground. However, all 3 stereotypes are independent of a spouse.
One psychologist wrote ( here
Quote:In addition to contributing to the stigma of addiction and deterring people from seeking treatment, research shows that shame is a strong predictor of relapse.
Still, the media perpetuates the myth that there is a right way and a wrong way to recover, and that treatment that is luxurious or comfortable is inherently bad. A recent article in the Hollywood Reporter, for example, quotes Hollywood producers, former actors, lawyers and other “experts” who believe that high-end treatment centers do a disservice by offering upscale amenities and holistic therapies such as neurofeedback and equine therapy. Despite a significant body of research showing that these therapies strengthen the relationship between therapist and client, improve long-term abstinence rates and increase treatment retention, the media sends the message that addicts deserve to suffer.
The myths about addiction are damaging not only to addicts and their families but to all of us. What if the many influential business leaders, inspirational artists, best-selling authors, and history-making politicians who join the ranks of recovering addicts were shamed into silence? By understanding addiction as a brain disease and allowing people to recover in the way that works best for them, we can make significant strides in addressing the nation’s leading public health problem.
Good quote, Heber. Yes, great quote, Heber. In things regarding the mind, which inevitably involve the notion of thinking and choosing, we naturally want to treat everything as simple and easily resolvable. Untangling the parts of addiction that are genetic, physical, mental, emotional, and cultural is not something easily done, especially by so many people. That, and I think as humans we tend to create the consequences that bring the most suffering in order to see a short-term dose of “justice” served, instead of letting actual consequences that result from our choices have more sway.
I’ve been censored for saying this before, but a lot of people start off with nudie pictures and often end up getting into worse and worse stuff, some of which is actually harmful to the performer. Porn addiction falls somewhere between eating disorders (one has to eat to stay alive so dealing with it is unavoidable) and gambling which is not necessary at all, but which keeps leading you onto stronger stuff. It is related to a bodily need but one that doesn’t actually have to be fulfilled half as much as the modern western world claims
Good summary, Sam. GAHHHH About a week and a half ago, I was informed the stake president was holding a “secret meeting” with all adults in the ward and young women were going to take care of primary. Well stake president wasn’t there, but missionaries from the LDS Addiction Recovery program were there. I was hoping it was about addiction, but it was about pornography! (There was a mention of eating disorders, and a head nod to drugs, but it was by far about pornography addiction.)
I wanted to get up and leave, but decided to do genealogy on my tablet instead. I wanted to ask the following questions, but of course there was no time for questions.
- Have you seen the BYU study at the beginning of this thread?
Are you aware what Elizabeth Smart has said regarding modesty shaming? (although Smart does believe in addiction, so she’s a mixed bag there)
How does one know if one is addicted? Is once-week addiction?
Are you aware that some thing addiction is the wrong word to use in LDS culture?
Are you aware that the biggest problems with addiction come from religious communities like the Wasatch Front and Bible Belt? Why is that?
Do you talk to real sex therapists about whether the addiction model is the best approach?
Part of me wants to take my concerns to the stake president (although he wasn’t there which makes me wonder if this was simply the bishop’s idea with the stake president tacit approval), but I wonder if it will do any good.
In the Wasatch Front and Bible belt there are a lot of physically isolated people. Always worth bearing that in mind when talking about p. A friend was in the oil industry and said that the guys on the rigs out at sea had A LOT of the stuff out there and on obvious display.
I remember a missionary telling me about the amazing success rate of the quit smoking program that they were using. He told me that it was 100%. I was incredulous. He reiterated that 100% of the people that apply faith and really try with their whole heart are able to quit. I laughed. 😆 He seemed bewildered. I had to explain to him that excluding everyone that was unsuccessful from his sample size is kinda like cheating.
Roy wrote:
I remember a missionary telling me about the amazing success rate of the quit smoking program that they were using. He told me that it was 100%. I was incredulous. He reiterated that 100% of the people that apply faith and really try with their whole heart are able to quit. I laughed.😆 He seemed bewildered. I had to explain to him that excluding everyone that was unsuccessful from his sample size is kinda like cheating.
His argument would be that they didn’t apply enough faith. Ah the naïveté of youth!
gospeltangents wrote:
BYU study says the problem with porn use is the stigma, not the actual usage. Porn’s bad for relationships because the church says it is, and labeling anyone who has looked at it as an addict is not helpful. Short 5 min story with transcript is athttp://kuer.org/post/religious-communities-stigma-pornography-brings-consequences-its-own#stream/0
I read one article that indicated porn can help marriages stay together. You have a man who who won’t be sexually active with his wife so she turns to porn to relieve the tension and can at least have the powerful, involuntary urges satisfied through MB. If you are a church member, and have the law of chastity to obey, you have no other place to turn when your spouse won’t play ball.
This strikes me as grossly unfair, quite frankly. What does the church expect you to do? Live like a celibate nun or monk your whole life while assuming all the obligations of marriage and child rearing (if any)? Your other alternative is to go outside the relationship and of course, that means church discipline and much familial damage. You can get a divorce — but what if the other non-physical parts of the relationship are still firing on enough cylinders to make the marriage otherwise feasible and stable and healthy for children? What are you supposed to do — throw the baby out with the bathwater, get a divorce over the sex part and destroy the rest of the good things in the relationship??? Yeah — that supports the goal of an eternal family, doesn’t it
🙄 The problem is that church leaders CANNOT stand up and say “Pornography is acceptable under certain circumstances”.
First, it would alienate all the people who don’t “get” the unusual circumstances. Anyone who has a family member with a disability knows that people with normal lives have a very hard time understanding what life is like with a family member who has a disability, or say, a problem with sexual dysfunction. We ran into that with my son who has a medical condition (type 1 diabetes) — the schools, friends, others would behave in ways that startled us, or that required significant education and sometimes, forcing on our part to get them to do the simplest things. For example, the school would refuse to listen to us on even the most basic, routine matters, saying we had get our doctor to call them and tell them. We finally had the doctor write a letter indicating the school should listen to us on a long list of issues, which cleared up that maddening problem.
In one situation, they were insisting I pick my son up at school when his blood sugars were high. A huge, repetitive disruption — simply because they didn’t understand the difference between high blood sugars and a more serious related condition that happens rarely involving ketones. This was even though this was written in his management plan with the approval of a doctor. Stuff like that — which shows knee jerk misunderstand and subsequently, bad decision making on the part of the people outside the situation.
My point is that a) I don’t think church leaders who have a normal sexual relationship with their spouse can readily empathize with heterosexual couples with sexual dysfunction b) even if they could empathize, I think politically it would alienate half the membership if they indicated porn use was Ok in certain circumstances. So they can’t say it.
This reminds me a bit like the problems people with Same Sex attraction have. The church forbids a committed marriage among Same Sex individuals. But what alternatives do they present? There is therapy — that doesn’t work, there is marrying heterosexually, that doesn’t work, and there is pursuing a SS marital and sexual relationship — and that leads to excommunication. I suppose there is porn and MB, which I didn’t see addressed in my fast glance at his research, but that could help ease the situation a bit. But they still don’t get the intimate emotional connection with a loving spouse.
Check out John Dehlin’s doctoral dissertation on the issue where he summarized the measures taken by people with SSA to deal with the issue.
http://www.johndehlin.com/research/ It appears to be a dead end.People in these situations are left with nowhere to turn and nothing but misery until this gets worked out in the eternities — if it even does. And then I ask myself, how do conundrums like this make the LDS gospel a “gospel of happiness”? At what point do you say “forget it — I am not going to live my life miserably for a gospel that offers no solutions. I am not going to embrace the only alternative — divorce — that will destroy one of the very things the church is here on earth for — eternal family??”
Even Eve had to make a choice between two commandments, and chose the better part.
Part of my commitment crisis is that I have found the church can be a source of great misery. A source of great misery unless you take matters into your own hands, decide what is best, and live according to the dictates of your own conscience. When rabid, vindictive behavior from women in the church affected my mental and physical health a few years ago — it was a major turning point in how I viewed the church’s role in my life.
I am so thankful I’ve been able to mediate between all the rocks and hard places.
mormonheretic wrote:
Part of me wants to take my concerns to the stake president (although he wasn’t there which makes me wonder if this was simply the bishop’s idea with the stake president tacit approval), but I wonder if it will do any good.
I am afraid that would put you on the radar as someone who uses pornography even if you don’t use it. Plus it’s so ingrained in our culture, that’s not a hill to die on.
As StayLDSers, our greatest potential for effecting change is on the soft cultural issues or revealing little known parts of the handbook or conference talks that run counter to popular mormon culture. For me, it means — attitudes toward volunteerism, softening stances on the Sabbath day, judgmentalism (Mormons seem to sit up when you tell them they are sinning
:shh: ), allowable musical instruments in sacrament meeting, not immediately assuming less activity is due to sin — issues like that where there is wiggle room. And preferably GA conference talks to back you up.SilentDawning wrote:
Even Eve had to make a choice between two commandments, and chose the better part.
Interesting Thought. Adam had the choice to remain in a state of paradise alone or to enter the lone and dreary world with his spouse and companion. After the fall his fate would be to work hard daily, experience sickness, pain, and sorrow, and eventually to die. He chose Eve.
- Have you seen the BYU study at the beginning of this thread?
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