In the corporate world, in every organization or institution, it is common sense to avoid doing anything that would put you in risk to be sued for any type of abuse. Even the smallest sign of of abuse is avoided. I wonder why is that the church doesn't just stop the practice? they could avoid a lot of trouble not only for them but also for their leaders. I am sure that some bishops may be concerned about the problems they could get into...
Can someone explain why the stubbornness?

Godzilla Wrote:
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> Can someone explain why the stubbornness?

Because God. MLMs just have their own stubbornness to interrogate people to push their products. Mormons have God to protect them in going even further and interrogating people's children.

If people were righteouser, like unto los mormones, nothing would ever go wrongier, just like in mormonismism.

It appears that the 10,000th monkey is on sick leave.

"Can someone explain why the stubbornness?"

Yes. Because "the" church is all about control. Interviews are about control. If "the" church didn't have control and guilt, they wouldn't have tithing.

There is also the impression they desperately want to sustain, that their plan of action, all the steps they take to foment righteousness, sprang from the forehead of the most hi, how are ya ghawd, who handed this knowledge to the I-am-sustained-as-such prophets on a golden platter.

Finding fault with ghawd's master plan is naughty-naughty! Whom does one think one is?! The mormon ghawd make mistakes? Of course not! He is perfection itself.

If teens are masturbating, inquiring Bishops want to know.

My first interview with the bishop when I was a child is when the mind control started for me. I joined the Mormon church when I was 12 going on 13. I had my first birthday interview with the bishop (a trial attorney who made his living interrogating people in court) a few months after I was baptized. It was the beginning of the intense feelings of guilt and shame as I was entering the age when hormones were doing their thing and I started to think about things I shouldn't be thinking about, according to the Mormon church. That's all it took for a person like me with low self esteem - just a thought was enough to make me feel like a sinner.

It started with the interrogating questions asked by the bishop: "are you morally clean?" He never explained what that meant. I assumed it meant if I thought about "naughty" things, like sex. And then, "do you obey the law of chastity?" Again, what exactly was that? Masturbating? Making out with a boy? So much guilt for me. It all started when I was 13 years old in that bishop's office with those questions.

I dreaded those interviews all year long. Every time I wasn't perfect I knew I'd have to tell the bishop all in his office. It was such agony for me. I felt so unworthy and worthless from such a young age. I felt like a sinner with a black cloud of shame hanging over my head - a black cloud that could only be lifted if I confessed to the bishop. Such power he had. Even though the Mormon church taught about the atonement and forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, it really wasn't practiced that way. The bishop had the power to forgive. A prayer to God in the name of Jesus for something so innocent as a thought about sex wasn't enough to be washed clean. All "sins" had to be cleared by the bishop. Only then could I feel that black cloud lifting briefly, till my next naughty thought or passionate embrace with my boyfriend filled me with guilt.

LDS Inc. practices mind control, and for me it all started with those annual interviews with the bishop, starting when I was a child.

Putting a stop to those interviews with children will mean the end of one of the biggest means of control the Mormon church has over its members. When it starts with children it can easily continue into adulthood. LDS Inc. isn't about to end those interviews. Even if bishops stop asking about masturbating there are still enough questions that will make a good kid feel like a sinner and in need of the bishop's all-clear to feel good again.

because in mormondom getting aroused is next to murder. It leads to petting which leads to teenage pregnancy which leads to becoming gay which leads to sin against nature, which leads to apostasy, or something.

Kimball loved to have people come and spill their secrets in gory detail. After all he wrote that book "miracle of forgiveness." (It's all in there)

I think it's considered essential for the conditioning of the children. It's important for Mormon members to learn how to feel guilty and accept all the blame. The church is innocent of any and all malfeasance. Anything that goes wrong is a lack of faith or virtue on your part. Under the thumb of the bishop as early as possible, that's the strategy.

(possibly graphic- warning)

I agree with Don.

There are times that I wished that I was the oldest in my family. I would have been beyond the heavy duty interviews by the time I was 18. Instead, I was interviewed by hand-picked pricks that were certain every youth in my ward (and the stake~ stake president was paranoid) was morally unclean. Lots of arguments about how I touched myself while urinating and bathing in the shower.

These terrible questioning briefly ended just before my mission, but once at the MTC they resumed. At one point, the accusation of masturbating was thought to be the cause of not getting along with my missionary companion. I was later falsely accused of blowing him kisses.

Don Bagley's right; it's not about sex or avoiding abuse lawsuits, it's about control.

Adults raised outside the Morg would never stand for a bishop asking whether they masturbate or not. So the Morg wants to groom kids while they're young to keep them obedient as adults.

If Mormonism was a person, it would be an abusive narcissist.

ookami is right. I joined (for social reasons) as an adult. I'd never had an abortion, so I was in the clear with that one.

I wasn't married when I first joined the church. If a bishop had asked me if I masturbated, I would have said, "EXCUSE ME??" But all they ever asked me was whether I obeyed the Law of Chastity. At that time, I didn't have anyone to disobey it with, so it wasn't an issue.

After DH-to-be and I became an item, the bishop (who was a bullying jerk) had the idea he had the right to grant or deny us the right to marry. We had a rather nasty interview in which I reminded him that there were other venues out there for marriage and we were perfectly free to take our business elsewhere. He nagged at us a lot to become temple-worthy. I told him quite bluntly that unless he married us soon, there was bound to be a chastity violation, and surely, he wouldn't want that on his conscience. He caved.

I eventually got a temple recommend, and was dreadfully disillusioned.

A number of years after we were married, I played nice again and got another TR so I could attend my stepson's temple wedding. This was a different bishop - a very nice guy, to whom I would later submit my resignation letter.