Note: this post was written using voice- recognition on a phone. Good luck.
I'm not sure why I've been thinking about this, but its been bugging me too much not to mention it.
I'm not sure how the lives of other Mormons differ, but in my house, having premarital sex was the worst thing you could do. Or at least the second worst.
Especially after multiple accident babies joined our family, the pressure was on to stay chaste and not have sex before marriage. It was bad.
It got so crazy at one point, that I was almost forbidden from seeing friends on Saturdays. Not that I had any friends in the first place, but that rule was quickly thrown out the window by yours truly.
It was never enforced because there were never opportunities for it to be enforced. Remember the mental illness thing? I had no interest in seeing friends.
Anyway, my parents were like many in the area. For some reason, this particular sin is problematic because parents don't talk to their children about sex at all, except for how forbidden and horrible it is, and then just expect their kids to not be curious.
Granted, not everyone is curious. I wasn't curious. I never expected to be one of "those" kids, especially given my family situation. I was old enough, when it happened to me, that I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately, my problem was a lack of self-esteem and the lack of much- needed...male attention. I've never been very attractive, but when I met Stephen, I was in a vulnerable position mentally. I was suffering. I gained a lot of weight at Weber State, despite water polo and water aerobics classes. I was actually lonely. Nobody ever looked at me with any interest. I didn't care enough about myself, and that's what got me into this mess.
I say mess, because there is a whole underground situation in Provo, Utah but no one acknowledges. I don't know if this is ignorance or if its a choice, but it's surprisingly vast. Shockingly vast.
When I was younger, I was under the impression that most people who married in the temple were virgins. Now I know better, and I really don't like it for some reason.
It just makes the temple seem dirty to me. Especially when I see people who took less than a year to "repent". I understand they want to get couples through the temple, but I don't personally see how someone can do it for years, with multiple people, and take less than a year to be sorry for it and ask forgiveness for it. You know, if it's such a serious sin.
And maybe I'm just bitter because Karyn "repented". I know she wasn't sorry. Nothing bad ever happened to her because of what she did. Why would she be sorry?
But I have a hard time thinking anyone else is either. It seems the partners of these people don't seem to mind. I do, but I seem to be in the infinitesimal minority.
I was always told in young womens but your virginity was this single, special gift that can only be given once, so you should give it only to your spouse. It was implied that bad things and sorrow could only ensue. For me, this was true. But again, I seem to be in a very exclusive, very infinitesimal minority.
It really doesn't seem like that big of a deal now. It doesn't seem to matter to anyone. And I just feel lied to. All this drama and hardship for something that is ultimately not a big deal to anyone.
I want to say that, had I known it would be like this, I would have had fun and experimented more, and slept with a lot of people. But again, I never had any "takers". Not on this meat. Maybe I just didn't know where the desperate people were...
I don't know, did I miss out? I gave my vCard to someone who had already given his away. And a lot of the couples I know about have a similar situation. Is that fair? Is it a big deal? Because it really doesn't seem like it, and I guess I just feel lied to.
From all the religious thinkers I've read, the purpose of chastity is to use sex and sexual pleasure as a means to loving another person/deeper spiritual devotion rather than as an end in itself, since sexual pleasure and orgasms are surprisingly short-lived and leave you feeling empty afterwards if that's all you're after. Some poets have called the orgasm "the little death" for that reason. That being said, it doesn't help anything at all to imply that sex and its pleasure are somehow "wrong" or to treat them as too "dirty" to talk about. That just gets people to think that the pleasure itself is dirty and that you can only have it in a sinful context.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere in Romans (the Bible book), it talks about how the law actually ENTICES people toward sin. In other words, because there's a spiritual law against unchastity, I'm going to be more tempted toward it than I would be without that law. But Paul makes the point that, since the law has been fulfilled in Christ, relief from sin comes from faith in Him--that is, trusting in God despite whatever you might be experiencing or feeling. In other words, while a law-based religion actually brings about sin, since it treats certain actions as ultimately immoral (making them seem unspiritual), a faith- and grace-based religion will treat EVERYTHING as a means toward God. And then, knowing that nothing is wrong "in itself, " a person with that kind of faith will realize that some actions just aren't satisfying anymore, since the only thing that made then exciting was the fact that they were "against the rules."
Basically, I'm saying that Happy Valley's preoccupation with repressing sex is directly bringing about that problem you mentioned. Get rid of the repression, and you get rid of the problem
I think you're right. Stephen said something very similar once. It would definitely be worth a shot. I certainly don't think not talking about it at all will help anything. And fear only works for so long, apparently. Eventually, though clearly not through Utah sex-ed, education will overcome fear-mongering. We've tried just not talking about it at all, I'd like to see a few families who talk openly of it and be able to hear the experiences of those kids. Definitely an interesting social science subject.
ReplyDeleteWorst of this whole debacle of a situation though, I think it subjects WAY too many people to pornography WAY too early. Whether it's just a young kid hearing the word for the first time from a friend or TV, or whether it's a young person about to be married trying to find out what sex actually is. The uncomfort of discussing this topic can cost someone a very great deal. It's SO sad.