Good article. He mentioned one thing that gave me warning lights saying that the church was false. When people "led by God" said the Spirit was with me when, according to their beliefs, it wasn't. Having a bishop tell me how he could feel the spirit around me, when I had masturbated the night before, or had cheated on a test, or had said a swear earlier. If, according to the church, I can't have the Spirit under those circumstances, yet a bishop who is "inspired of God" tells me I do have the spirit... it just doesn't logically make sense.
He also outlined pretty much the exact same steps I went through as a kid. "Wow! This feels amazing!" Then I learn at church that what I'm doing is next to murder in sinfulness, so eventually it goes to "Why I am so much weaker than the other priesthood holders? I'm going to go to Hell just because I'm morally weak." And I was also a 3.4+ GPA student, a Priest Quorum President, was on the honor roll, etc etc. Yet I too went through a severely depressed state full of tears where I actually considered suicide, and my only "sin" was masturbation. Now that I know the church is a hoax, it feels natural and good again, and I don't go through periods of depression due to some impossible to keep rules.
I went through similar problems. I was constantly told I was not worthy or good enough to date the women of the church unless I could stop this evil sin. Come to find out years later all my buddies and most the guys in my singles wards were lying or just not confessing to the sin. They were happy and many got married. Me on the other hand, I went through a ton of pain and trouble which included monthly meetings with the Bishop, which resulted in my temple recommend being taken away for months at a time. This then led to being turned down for dates because I was not temple worthy. Which ultimately led to me not dating at all for a long time. It has been 10 years of hell for me which has resulted in me completely quiting the Church.
Been there done that and I heartily agree with the author that the leaders of the church are committing spiritual and psychological abuse with their stand on masturbation. I suffered from it and like the authors friends just recently had a breakdown (one of several over my life) where I figured if I was already guilty of the greatest sin next to murder what's the harm in damning myself further.
For a while before this I continued in faithful church service and just kept my masturbation to myself because I didn't agree with the church's beliefs on it and didn't want to hamper myself with perpetual probation with the Bishop. Overall I was a good guy and one of the few responsible ones in the ward fulfilling his duties and being a good example to others.
There are many good and noble things that the church encourages people to develop better characters, but their warped sense of sexual purity undoes a lot of that as they cultivate guilt and hypocrisy over something so natural and therapeutic.
When will and bty how much collective evidence does it take to wake the membership up to the fact that these self proclaimed Profits are just a buch of religious con-artists.
You know, I think I have just lost all patience with these fools.