Mormon men are taught that sex is sacred, only to be used inside the confines of a temple endowed or church sanctioned union. And for the purpose of procreation.

How much pressure does that put on the Mormon psyche to have sex to reproduce, instead of enjoyment for its own sake?

Here, a Mormon male describes how he was taught to view sex, which conflicts with the church instruction manual. (Do guys really need an instruction manual?)

“In the Mormon Church, sex is for the purpose of procreation. I’ve been taught all along that sexual pleasure is of the devil.” Later on in the show, he stated, “After 15 years of marriage, I seldom gave myself to even think about what my ideal sex life would be like, because that would be wrong. In the Mormon Church that’s not something that should be done for any reason other than procreation.“

Excuse me??? Let’s see what the LDS Handbook states:

“Married couples should also understand that sexual relations within marriage are divinely approved not only for the purpose of procreation, but also as a way of expressing love and strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife.“

http://www.wheatandtares.org/10212/mormon-misconceptions-about-sex/

Wonder how many other LDS guys have the same preconception about how they view sex as this Mormon dude does?

That seems like an awful big hangup to be carrying around for a lifetime.

I don't recall being able to have sex in the confines of the temple. Sounds interesting



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2015 10:53AM by shodanrob.

Listening to old men speak in conference will cause impotence.

danr Wrote:
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> Listening to old men speak in conference will
> cause impotence.

For people like you and me it just caused impudence.

Actually, TSCC may cause impotence. The inhibition of sex - especially masturbation - until marriage probably increases impotence. This is possibly the case for men who are totally celibate until thirty or so. It would make an interesting study. Ironically, persons who have too many sexual partners also are more likely to be impotent due to STDs.

It seemed growing up in the morg, the more children a couple had was a sign of virility.

Love and sex was measured by how many kids could be reproduced in the shortest amount of time.

If a man's "quiver was full" was a symbol of strength and masculinity. When couples failed to have children for any reason, was perceived as a sign of weakness, instead of say, a medical condition or inability to either ovulate for the female, or adequate sperm count for the male.

More emphasis was placed on procreation growing up LDS, than it was sex for pleasure sake. That may be why some relationships are so strained - focusing more on the end result, rather than the process?

Today even families in the church place less emphasis on family size. When I was a kid it was normal to have large families LDS. The last time I dealt with a church representative was the current bishop where I once attended.

He has eight children (maybe more by now,) with his now middle age wife. He's dumb as a rabbit too. Which would explain why he became a bishop as others are fleeing the flock. The smarter guys have figured it out, and prefer keeping a more low profile than the sheeple. (Theory.)



Breed em young doesn't say much for the IQ capacity of some of these blokes.

The entry in the "handbook" was changed fairly recently. It didn't used to say anything at all about "strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds." It also still says nothing whatsoever about pleasure.

It has been in the handbook since at least 2001. That version was produced in the 90's, from memory.

But yes, it was fairly recent. Not from the Kimball era :-)

> That seems like an awful big hangup to be carrying around for a lifetime.

For my money, no one nailed the GA's (and hence the Church's) message about sex as succinctly as Paul Toscano during his Mormon Stories interview (circa 2007)

"...telling young people that sex is loathsome, evil, dirty, disugusting, immoral and you should save it for the one you love."
-Paul Toscano

https://youtu.be/lZXgdSBULUY?t=485

That pretty much sums up my take away about sex from growing up in the Church.

...so that's how you show love? By sharing the most evil, dirty, disgusting, filthy thing you know of with them?

I believe the Toscano quote is meant to be ironic. Along the lines of "If you want your kids to be at peace with ghawd, you'll have them stone adulterers and homosexuals to death..."

When in fact Christ supposedly taught the opposite... or taught the opposite, supposedly. Sometimes being an atheist creates tension in one's writing.

That gave me a belly laugh.

I remember in college--back when it was Ricks--my religion professor, a Professor Sellers, if I remember correctly, telling a story about this young, pure, righteous, perfect, beautiful married woman, with many children, who understood that the marital sexual relationship was only for procreation.

I remember sitting there a little stunned, never having really heard that before, although it felt familiar, so it must have been implied in teachings as I was growing up. And it sunk in and I totally believed him.

Intellectually, I knew he was wrong. But he was my religion professor. He seemed so righteous! And at one time I asked him be the sealer at my temple wedding, if/when that happened. (which it didn't, thank the universe!)

It took me many years to shake the guilt of liking sex even when I didn't procreate. It took me many years to realize that he was DEAD WRONG. I mean, I would say to myself, no, he's wrong. But...conditioning runs so very deep, that I didn't believe myself half the time.

How many people's lives did this man essentially FUCK UP? He's reinforcing the female Good Girl Syndrome and sending them out to poor, unsuspecting young husbands who already feel extreme guilt over their own sexual feelings.

It disgusts me.

My wife exactly!!!!

The only mormon guy I know who insisted sex is for procreation only, is gay.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2015 03:46PM by madalice.

madalice Wrote:
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> The only mormon guy I know who insisted sex was
> for procreation only, was gay.


I hope one day to read that this line was used in GC to get a laugh.

I'm a very positive, upbeat person!

madalice Wrote:
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> The only mormon guy I know who insisted sex is for
> procreation only, is gay.

Hmmmm! Now that I think about it, that Prof did seem particularly...gay. If that's not too stereotypical a thing to say.

Anyone else out there have him at Ricks? Dr. Sellars, I believe. In the '80s.

"In the Mormon Church, sex is for the purpose of procreation. I've been taught all along that sexual pleasure is of the devil."

That's flat-out nuts. Even Spencer Kimball didn't take such an extreme position.


The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 311:

"The union of the sexes, husband and wife (and only husband and wife), was for the principal purpose of bringing children into the world. Sex experiences were never intended by the Lord to be a mere plaything or merely to satisfy passions and lusts. We know of no directive from the Lord that proper sex experience between husbands and wives need be limited totally to the procreation effort, but we find much evidence from Adam until now that no provision was ever made by the Lord for indiscriminate sex."

A young mormon man goes to the doctor to review his test results and is informed by the doctor that he is impotent.

Knowing he was a mormon, and that mormons like to have large families, the doctor was surprised when the news caused a big grin on the young man.

The next Sunday, the mormon shows up at church driving a Cadillac and wearing a tuxedo.

His mormon friends all asked him what was up, and he replied, "the doctor said I was impotent, so I figured I better look impotent too! Might help with the ladies!

+1000 :D

If anyone has traveled the 50 states they will find no other place than Utah where it seems that half the population is under 18. This is a complete refutation of "impotence and the mormon male".

It seems you may be partially right. The national average for children under 18 is 23% (as of 2013.) In Utah, it is 31%.

Utah also leads the nation in candy sales. Word of Wisdom doesn't frown on sugar consumption. What Mormons sacrifice in other vices, they more than make up for in C-A-N-D-Y.

For Mos, they don't have to choose between the two. They can indulge in both! And probably have the dental bills to go with it too. :)

"http://www.religionnews.com/2015/05/19/mormon-vice-utah-buys-more-candy-than-any-other-state/

Don't forget though, these are averages only. While one family may have ten children, another may not have any. And reasons for sexual hangups or erectile dysfunction are not necessarily in the same category as family size or makeup.

Considering only 60% of all Utahns identify as Mormons, that leaves 40% who are not.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/mormon-population-60-percent-utah-4-5-percent-nevada

The first one being impotence is no longer used as a medical term. There's a good reason this term is no longer used as it implies "lack of manhood" and shaming men for experiencing ED.

The second that it's almost always psychological, when in fact most of the time ED has a physiological cause like age, Rxes, and neurological disorders.

It's nothing to be ashamed by and it's usually treatable if it's chronic. Most men will experience it at some point in their lives for one reason or another.

Don't most men have ED as a result of aging due to lower testosterone levels?
I think it might be a topic that needs to come out of the dark ages. It's just male menopause. Right?

My very TBM brother had ED/lower testosterone levels as a result of having been in the Navy, in his early-mid 20's. Brother attributed it to diet they were fed while he was in the military.

Who really knows? We know men from WWII got ED from the saltpeter served to them in their diet.

It wasn't male menopause for my bro, unless it was early onset.

Just sayin. What it has to do with his being a TBM - could be chance. Although his wife is a dominatrix. That might've contributed to it also?

Just sayin. You know the MAP stereotype.

She was/is the quintessential MAP on steroids.

amyjo Wrote:
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> My very TBM brother had ED/lower testosterone
> levels as a result of having been in the Navy, in
> his early-mid 20's. Brother attributed it to diet
> they were fed while he was in the military.
>
> Who really knows? We know men from WWII got ED
> from the saltpeter served to them in their diet.
>
> It wasn't male menopause for my bro, unless it was
> early onset.
>

I don't really know and I certainly wasn't there, but Snopes and Wikipedia say that the WW2 saltpeter thing then and in the years following is an urban myth.

There are legitimate anaphrodisiacs but saltpeter isn't listed as one of them.

My dad was a WWII Navy vet, and he knew men who lost their virility because of the saltpeter in their diet. It was fairly widespread and considered a common practice in the Navy. And was deliberate by those in charge of the troops.

It was done to lessen the sex drive of the soldiers.

My brother also has shared there was something similar in his diet when he served in the 1980s. And he most definitely was afflicted with low testosterone following his military service.

My other brothers, who hadn't served, did not suffer with the same infertility issues that brother did.

He believed the cause of his was from the Navy diet.

Lots of people believe what your dad believed.

The science behind KNO3 (saltpeter) and what it does and doesn't do to the human body are well understood. Within this understanding is that it has no value as an an aphrodisiac, and has actual negative values in terms of the human body.

In many of the articles I read, the comment was made that it is more fun to believe in the myth than not.

At this stage of our lives the facts hardly matter, other than to be amusing landmarks, depending on how the facts are treated.

I like to call this World's Most Poisonous Spider Phenomena. In social psychology, we call it belief perservance, meaning no matter how much evidence points to the contrary, people still need to hold onto these beliefs to confirm their worldview:
http://study.com/academy/lesson/belief-perseverance-definition-examples.html

Sometimes it's easier to have something to blame for an issue. I remember blaming my flu vaccine one year for getting really sick and after reading better information and battling with terrible allergies for a few years, I realized it was likely the allergies that day.

Mormons aren't just the only people who are susceptible to this.
Even some educated people believe urban legends to be true and even know someone who's experienced said urban legend or knows someone who knows someone. My communications professor last year is a good example. He's a PhD, very intelligent man, but has some odd ideas about the Coriolis effect which many people believe to be true.

Social pysch is riveting. If I wasn't more interested in sexual psych, I'd look for a path in social psych.

Why do I call it MPSP? Go do this social experiment sometime and ask a bunch of people of all ages what the most poisonous spider is in the world and get back to me.