Not as effectively as religious excess, false expectations, temple garments, polygamy, and relationship meddling from the "LORD's Anointed"...

If Mormon men are turning to porn in an attempt to fill something missing in their relationships, it's in no small part due to the fact that their Mormon wive's affectations are deliberately usurped by Mormonism.

It's been my observation and experience that the GA's employ a one-two punch strategy of encouraging the sisters to place priesthood leadership on a pedestal while at the same time denigrating the average guy as being "weak and worthless". The women of Mormonism ogle over the fictitious image of their "strong and righteous" leaders while at the same time perceiving their own guys as slacker and hapless buffoons.

This recipe for encouraging spiritual adultery used to be the mechanism that the early church leaders took advantage of to gratify their lusts and snatch away Zion's fairest from their husbands (marrying up in the Priesthood). But now that there is no polygamy, we're left with the cause but not the effect.

You doubt this? Well, I ask you how many times have Bishops and Stake Presidents been caught having affairs with a woman they were counseling? If they are still sexually vital when they're called to those positions, usurping the affections of a dissatisfied wife is like shooting ducks in barrel. The church has smoothed their path with all it's leader worship.

The idolatry of temples and eternal families are like crack cocaine to the women of the church and any perception of their husband's lack of enthusiasm drives a wedge into their relationships. Thereby destroying intimacy and satisfaction in the marriage and sending each partner in different directions to fill the void.

Mormonism Kill Love!

That's the way I've come to see it. Your thoughts?

*Disclaimer*
Temple marriage idolatry can also drive the Men of the church to insanity. When I was a Branch Prez. I had to deal with one brother who jettisoned his wife of 20+ years because she wouldn't get with with the temple + eternal families program. However, I'm sorry to say that this is far more a problem with the women than the men.

I'll try to refrain from jokes about crack whores and Tyrone Biggums.

Sexual repression usually results in some kind of "deviancy", which the church uses as a destructive control mechanism. Sex is totally fetishized from a young age. How could a guy not look at porn? And then he despises himself and that kills the love he has for himself and those around him. And once you annihilate a person's self esteem, they are your slave. Joseph knew this all too well.

Polygamy was pioneer pornography.. literally!!!

Ka-Ching!

Wow, Free, you really H8 women, don't you? I'm sorry you have obviously been treated so shabbily, but yeesh! This old harridan denies all that. Your asserting your so-called "facts" makes me feel rather PO'ed, but I can tell that you are another victim of cult-think. Making the sexes mean and suspicious of each other keeps the cult on top of things. Divide and conquer.

P.S. I never could have kids. I never felt like a failure, although a lot of churchy people of BOTH sexes assured me that I should be hanging my head in shame, and at the very least feeling guilty for being such a waste of oxygen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2016 01:28PM by Doxi.

In the "porn Industry" women get paid.

In polygamy, they are slaves.

What I could never understand is my wife would practically worship at the feet of some "priesthood leader" using any kind of authoritarian style. Meanwhile at home if her husband (who was a "priesthood holder" at the time) dared ask her to do more than watch television she would run to the Church screaming about "unrighteous dominion."

After I stopped participating at the temple my wife returns from a day long temple trip. In addition to sessions baptisms ("dead dunking"), she had done endowments and sealings and even stayed to clean the place afterwards. When she arrives home she tells me how "wonderful" it was because somebody had affixed labels with cleaning instructions to the base of everything. I asked her, "How would you feel if I did that for everything around here?" (Silence.)

Regarding sex: I resented that the bishop, my mother-in-law, all the harpies in Relief Society, any General Authority who ever said anything about the dangers of sexuality, all had a greater say in my sex life than I did. But they had sway over my wife because they had power to shame her about sex.

The Church doctrines, policies and endless demands destroy intimacy. How can you turn to each other as a couple when each are taught to reject intimate advances?

+1000000

Cannot agree more.

Loved this quote,

"It's been my observation and experience that the GA's employ a one-two punch strategy of encouraging the sisters to place priesthood leadership on a pedestal while at the same time denigrating the average guy as being "weak and worthless". The women of Mormonism ogle over the fictitious image of their "strong and righteous" leaders while at the same time perceiving their own guys as slacker and hapless buffoons."

Generally agree, except for the root causes.

It is assumed that Mormonism trains women a certain way, but I think it merely caters to their natural interests. While it may exacerbate the issues you describe, they exist in the society in general, and across the world.

The biological interests of women generally, are to bear and nurture children. Were it not so we would not be here. To do so, they need resources and protection, for which they need a man. The man is programmed to want sex, so the woman allows him to have sex in exchange for his resources. All of which adds up to propagation of the species.

So sex is a form of currency for trade, to which the laws of supply and demand apply. Offer too much sex, and the exchange value goes down, which is one reason women want to restrict it. They want more buck for the bang. Which is why I see women fighting the city to limit the espresso stands with scantily clad ladies, claiming it "hurts the children". Also the reason behind all the obscenity laws. Fascinating you can't show a female nipple on TV, but women don't mind watching all kinds of violence.

Besides wanting to restrict sex to increase it's exchange value, women also have reduced testosterone relative to men, so simply are less interested in sex. And their attention is more focused on children. Another reason they favor an environment that restricts sex.

Men don't look at porn only because they are filling a void. Some of us look at it simply because we like looking at the female form and sex. God wired us that way. But we are told to only lust after a woman if she allows it and can get something in return. So there is probably some rebellion going on with the porn thing. Kind of like a woman would feel if the guy controlled all the money and had to go through him for all spending.

Men are shamed from their youth, told their natures are dirty.

Anyway, the church favors women. Most of us realized on our missions it was easier to convert them. My wife was a convert, and liked the church for its emphasis on family, and allowing her to stay home with kids, and though she doesn't admit it, she like the restrictions on sex. And the guarantees of a strong marriage agreement that gave her more power. More money from husband for less sex. Quite a deal.

Now there is a very small percentage of men that the church favors. They offer the services of the church to the wives for controlling their husbands. Wives can report their husbands whenever they get out of line. And men send their money to the church at the demand of their wife, all in hopes of some sex.

All this power to women is why so many get upset when their guy expresses disbelief. That threatens their whole control mechanism and their survival, at least in their mind.

Sure there are men in church that are abusive jerks, but the common theme here is that women in the church are oppressed on a wide scale. Mormonism, exmormonism, and feminism all share the same common theme - men are bad and women are victims. This attracts women, and as victims, they get more benefits.

Oh man, I am SO glad I am a gay male.

This makes me wish I were a gay male.

DYAMMM!!! I think I've probably said this before slightly differently, but I'll say it again: I am so sorry you have been cursed to live in that wretched Bizarro World of your own making. You must miss out on SO much!

>>"...women also have reduced testosterone relative to men, so simply are less interested in sex."

Maybe the women YOU know, Free. *rolls eyes*

Free Man, you don't recognize it, but you're as much a victim of mysogynistic culture as women are. You've experienced the other side of the same coin, but you can't see that the coin, itself, is rigged. Basically, everything you've said about biology is wrong. Your biological view is nothing but a biological excuse for an unworkable human culture. Feminists have been pointing out that this gendered human artifact of patriarchy doesn't work. They argue from one side of the coin, but you can't see that your side of the coin isn't a rebuttal, it's the same coin!

In the first place, if you knew anything about evolutionary biology--the pose you argue from--you'd know that the only thing important to both sexes of any species is having children that grow up to have more children. That's all that matters. Without that, there's no future, you're dead. No one needs to care about having children, though. The desire for sex, which males and females experience equally, obviates any need to want children, per se.

Your argument that women want protection for their children and men want sex, and both genders use sex as a medium of exchange to negotiate their gender roles, isn't a statement of biology; it's a statement of mysogynistic culture. This is what feminism has been fighting. That's why key features of feminism have included reproductive rights, so women can express their sexuality freely without producing dependents; and economic equality in pay and opportunity, so women can support themselves directly and not indirectly through the support of men. Free Man, you should be a feminist, you've seen the severe distortions caused by patriarchy.

What you seem to be missing is that the patriarchy of Mormonism isn't a mechanism for women to control men. It's a guild that shares resources among and sustains the power of the men at the top. Institutional survival is the name of the Church's game. To survive, it needs adherents and money. The Church is not in the least above using women as adherents to both breed more adherents and to extort compliance and money from men. The Church is like an MLM company. It's got no substance, it traffics only in churn. That the churn capitalizes on mysogyny, against women when that profits them, and against men, too, when that profits them, shouldn't surprise.

The Church capitalizes on rape culture. That culture harms both men and women.

Many LDS women enjoy the strict gender roles as prescribed by the Church: man "earning" / woman "homemaking."

While sex is involved (in any marriage), I believe these women approve of this domestic arrangement because it allows them to live Mormonism 100%.

In another active discussion on RfM people are complaining that TBM Mormons will block anyone from their Facebook that use swearing in their posts. ok. My TBM ex-wife takes this much further. She will quit any job immediately (without notice) if she hears a customer or colleague swearing. Her TBM ears can't abide such language. I just got off a conference call this morning with a Vice-President swearing about the status of a project. Can I quit my job? (No.)

She can adopt this view because she believes that even after our divorce that her husband is obligated to support her. The reason why my (ex-)wife can take such a stand is because LDS gender roles allow her the discretion to become employed or not. She doesn't really have this claim upon me now (except in her fantasy), but she believes she does.

Wow.
The above wins the "make shit up to justify bigotry" award of the year. Hands down.

The seething, roiling vitriolic hatred for women is dripping right out of this thread. I feel a little sick just now, reading all that bullshit about what women think/want and why we do what we do.

I'll just show myself out.

That abusive husband in the movie is exactly how I imagine some of the misogynists here act towards their wives and then wonder why they don't want to have sex with them.

YES! I have a love/hate thing for that movie.

On one hand, it's kind of ridiculous and nearly comical. I hate the whole "cheat with my OB/Gyn" thing -- both are married and that affair is presented as a positive thing in the movie, which squicks me out. And the abusive husband is portrayed as easily shunted aside when the Waitress just straight up told him off. In real life, he'd have beat the shit out of her and maybe even killed her for defying him in front of people like that. That whole movie is just dark and sad to me. But the pies all look and sound delicious and the other waitresses are adorable and hilarious and I'm just all over the place with that one.

I had pretty much the same exact thoughts while watching it. There's no way she would have escaped a marriage like that with her life intact and the affair angle was portrayed in an eyebrow raising sort of manner. It did make me want to develop my pie making skills further, though!

In my late teens and early 20s (several decades ago,) *all* of the nevermo men of my acquaintance looked at porn. Every last one of them. Back then, in the pre-internet days, it was Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, and whatever else they could come up with. They usually didn't make a show if it, but neither were they ashamed of it. I can't say that I was wild about it, but I accepted it as a part of human nature.

Virtually all of them grew up to be responsible family men. Almost all of them graduated from college, often have multiple degrees, hold responsible jobs, and are still married to their first spouse. They raised families and their children also appear to be doing well.

Viewing porn (using discretion and moderation) in and of itself DOESN'T harm individuals or destroy families. IMO this is just another control mechanism of the Mormon church. The church's attitude toward porn is what is wrecking families. The church is trying to convince people that viewing porn is unnatural and immoral, whereas it is what it has been for dog's years -- simple human nature.

here. It doesn't mean we are all like that. All men aren't the same and neither are women.

But I certainly do know many mormon women (and not mormon women) who fit the bill.

I've always felt mormonism is an equal-opportunity abusive corporation for men and women.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2016 02:42PM by cl2.