Repairing & Building My Faith in Men

I told you all I'm going to be posting some vulnerable stuff! Hooray, for more vulnerable stuff! Today's post centers around some crud I'm dealing with as regards my perception of male people in my life.

Thing is, I really really struggle to trust men. Especially men who are more typical men. The more manlike a man is on the manly spectrum (earning points in the direction of manliness if they're obsessed with sports, for instance, or dismissive of touchy-feely discussion, or extremely driven to some specific manlike activity such as fishing or hunting or outdoor cooking, or very logical rather than intuitive, or collecting cars or boats, or displaying the sort of leadership or "protective" qualities men are supposed to have) the less I trust them.

(I know, in listing these traits, that many women exhibit them as well. Right now I'm talking about stereotypes.)

All the men I trust are kind of... not typically male, in the sense of what society thinks are man-like traits. Jeff is not. He's not interested in sports. He loves fishing but not to the point where he loves it above all else. He really enjoys being a teacher, not a leader. A mentor. He loves talking. *loooves* talking. I might be more manly that way than he is... I can't talk for as long as he can about dreams, feelings, experiences. He's also a fantastic dancer, a musician...

these are not the traits that society designates as manly, necessarily.

And my own Dad. He's manly in the sense that he's Logical. Very answer-focused, when it comes to problem solving. Very A+B=C. Logical. BUt he's not into sports. He's kinda geeky... into books, reading, music, computer games. He loves to hike, that's pretty manly. He might be more typically male than my husband.

There's my Ida-Dad. He's manly in the sense that he's protective, he is authoritative, he's kind of a guider. He's also pretty strong & enjoys being able to work hard. But He doesn't like sports, or hunting, and he loves talking. And he loves music. And he doesn't take himself too seriously... maybe I'm wrong to think that's not a typical male quality. Maybe it's manly to not take oneself too seriously.

when I think of the men around me that are more "typical" (acc to the definition I'm using) I feel pretty threatened. Even if they're good people, if they have some of theses traits (really into sports and talk about them all the time, speak authoritatively in front of a group & have that sort of attitude of protectiveness toward stuff, not really into emotion-driven conversation, not really into books or music...) I feel like I pretty much don't want to be around them. I feel rejected by them before they've really rejected me.

The thing is, these traits are traits. Period. They don't make people good or bad, or even necessarily more manly or feminine. THey exist in people. By golly, some women are really, really authoritative (see Sheri Dew) and protective (see ME!)

But when those traits exist in a man, I feel pretty threatened by/suspicious of that man.

Why?

Dunno.


And it's lead to some thoughts about how I feel about myself, my body, especially during this pregnancy, and my interactions with various men in my life. I think the reason my body during pregnancy makes me feel so very vulnerable and self conscious has to do with the fact that I can no longer hide that I'm female. When I was a young woman, I had subtle curves. I could wear stuff that made it so nobody really got a good look at me if I didn't want them to. They likely knew I had breasts, but couldn't really see them. They weren't prominent. My hips had a bit of curve, but not an outstanding, undeniably feminine curve like they have now. I walk into a room right now and sometimes I feel extremely conscious of the fact I am a woman and it's pretty obvious.


I think I feel really self conscious about it because I've been used before, and so I walk into a room, feeling overtly and vulnerably feminine, and all these men are sitting around and I don't know what they're thinking. What if they're looking at my body and purposefully allowing it to induce sexual thoughts? I can't do anything about that. What if they're being overpowered by my feminine body & can't *help* but think sexual thoughts? I hate that. That turns me into an assault weapon.

Oh gosh. I'm kinda messed up.

I guess that's what happens when you go through what i have, sometimes, though.


I don't think it's just being married to a porn addict that helped me develop these kind of insecure feelings, though. I think it comes from my mother, too. I'm not at all sure she's comfortable with her own feminine body. I think she's pretty embarrassed by her body. I need to not pass that down any further.


Lately I've been working on feeling like i'm beautiful and endearing, as a woman who can't be anything but woman, the way I'm shaped. Maybe JEff loves me because I have breasts, because I am growing and turning into a different, wider-hipped, more curvy shape. Maybe that shape is beautiful and endearing to him. Maybe he feels tender about me. Maybe he feels protective and full of joy because of my body being undeniably feminine.

I just feel threatened, because I trust him, but I don't trust other men. I want to be that just for him. I'd like to be a secret woman, with secret breasts and secret hips. Not a woman with obvious ones for everyone in a room to see. i'd like to be able to "choose" who looks at me like that. But I can't.


I was having this kind of discussion with my IDa-Dad recently (not nearly so articulate or in depth... I can't speak as well as I can write) and he was attempting to bring across to me the message that men don't necessarily "turn on" as soon as they look at a woman. That's not how it works.

And I said, "But don't men think about sex every seven seconds?"

And his response made me laugh so hard. I had to post it. I hope he doesn't mind. He said "That's a great statistic. Lots of people have used it. But I have to think that anyone who is thinking about sex every seven seconds can't really be a productive citizen."


Ok. Take a moment and laugh.

Now think about it.

In what ways is our world distorting and destroying our faith in each other, in men, in women, in this way? Since when have we been all about sex?

Why do we paint men as hormone-driven, barely-controlled sex machines? If I walk into a room, looking obviously feminine, and some people happen to enjoy looking at me maybe, is the thought on every man's mind "sex," or is it "she's beautiful. I like looking at her." Sort of the same way a sunset is beautiful. Or a particularly graceful quaky aspen is beautiful.

I mean, you can "go there," but how many men actually "go there?" Can I trust that men aren't using me as pornography simply because i'm female?

Oh, gosh. I really hope so.

Responses welcome. Remember that this is me being vulnerable & real and I don't mean to shock at all, just trying to figure stuff out, and this is the easiest way for me to sort these thoughts, so. Thank you in advance.

Pictures of Pornography: LDS Church's new website

I'm so ecstatic! In my own fumbling way, I've been trying to create honest, to-the-point, useful content on this site for people who are struggling with pornography, with a spouse who has a problem, dating and pornography etc.

And now the church has put out a site for exactly the same purpose. THe content is much more sophisticated, the topics range more widely. I"m not sure if there's a forum for discussion or not, but I'm betting that's not long coming. So hallelujah and hooray for the true church and inspired leaders who know what people need!

Go check it out.

Pictures of Pornography: Real Life, Real Women. A Talk By Van C. Gessel

I have been waiting to finish my series with this talk. I find it a stunning, honest treatise on just why pornography can interfere with real relationships, particularly where women are concerned. Read, and enjoy. And thank you, Margaret, for getting the electronic copy.

Real Life, Real Women

Stake General Priesthood Meeting

BYU 16th Stake

February 11, 2001

President Van C. Gessel



Brethren, I appreciate you being here tonight. You have heard powerful testimonies about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through latter-day prophets. My personal preference would have been to address the same topic, but the Lord has had another direction He has been trying to coax me toward over the past few weeks. But I cannot begin without sharing with you my personal, and powerfully internalized, testimony that two exalted beings—the Father of us all and His Beloved Son—did appear to Joseph Smith and selected him as the first prophet of our dispensation, and that the Book of Mormon was translated for the express purpose of being a second hemispheric testimony of Christ's universal mission to all the children of God to bring us salvation and everlasting joy. I have a profound personal witness that Gordon B. Hinckley is today the Lord's megaphone to a spiritually-deafened world, and that the closer we can conform our lives to the teachings of our prophet, the greater will be our happiness and the clearer our sense of direction in our daily activities.

And now, a preface to the topic the Lord wants you to hear through me. During His mortal ministry, the Savior, viewing our day and its many challenges and opportunities, declared, with what must have been a sorrowful shaking of His head and a sympathetic sigh that in our day "even the very elect will be deceived." Like King Benjamin, "I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them. But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard...even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not." (Mosiah 4:29-30) How many new "ways and means" to commit sin have been added to the adversary's repertoire just in the last fifty years?

As some of you will have detected, I feel a keen responsibility to try to expose some of Satan's techniques so that you can steel yourselves against them. Here again, I cannot be exhaustive in my listing of his pernicious plots to destroy us, but two specific approaches come to mind. Consider, for instance, the numerous ways in which the temper tries subtly to persuade us that there are limits on the efficacy of the Atonement of his arch-rival. Using a logic by which we are far too easily seduced, Lucifer not only leads us into temptation and then transmits to our minds ways to rationalize our sins, but he also is there to meet us immediately after we have transgressed to comfort and assure us and lull us away into carnal security by persuading us that what we have done is not so bad, that we can enjoy life now and repent later, that everybody is doing it, that we really can't or shouldn't control our selfish cravings, that God will beat us with a few stripes, and so on and so on ad nauseam. But then he turns truly nasty, using the quasi-scientific philosophies of men to delude us into thinking that we were "born that way," that what we have done is who we really are, and that we just aren't celestial material, no matter how hard we try. Or that repentance either works very quickly and painlessly—like arsenic—or that we can never refrain from sin long enough to merit forgiveness. In essence, he insists that we can never change, that we are doomed to repeat the mistakes engendered in our genes or inflamed by our weaknesses. Worst of all, perhaps, he has convinced far too many in our day that our sins have conclusively separated us from God and that there is no road back.

What nonsense! What vicious falsehoods! What a cruel abuse of us when we are in an imperfect, weakened state of mind and spirit! Reject such lies, brethren; if you start to be persuaded by them, Satan will ultimately succeed in having you place limits, restrictions, and malevolent misinterpretations upon the Atonement of the Savior, and before long your faith in the power of Christ to lift and heal and redeem you will be so debilitated that you will fall even further prey to temptation and despair.

Along with his attempts to dilute our comprehension and acceptance of the Atonement, the evil one does an absolutely splendid job of distorting our sense of who we are. Over the past couple of centuries, he has slowly moved us from an image of ourselves as children of our Heavenly Father to an intellectual conviction that we are merely slightly advanced animals, that our status is determined solely by biology and cultural determinism, and that we are so much lower than the angels that maybe they aren't really there, and even if they are, we'll never be able to join them on their level. Secularization has steered our society away from the highway of our God to the dead-end alleys of materialism and pleasure-seeking. I personally attribute much of the decline in our civilization today to the fact that so many of us—including members of the Church, unfortunately—have been swayed by Satan's agenda, whereby he tries to get us to think less of ourselves, less of our bodies, less of our divine origins, far less of our eternal destiny, and considerably less of others. Freedom has replaced responsibility, individuality has overtaken the value of community, the concept of "victimless crimes" has negated the need for sin and guilt, the "right to choose" has displaced the duty to replenish, and the "greatest generation" has been succeeded by the "me generation." It's ironic, isn't it--the more we focus on "me," the less we really think of "me," because "me" only means immediate gratification of "my" desires, attainment of "my" goals, and choosing what is best for "me" alone. We claim that technology has enabled us to shrink the world, to connect humankind together as never before--and how do we do that? By locking ourselves in a solitary room, turning on an inanimate object, and traveling to wherever the sensual surf washes us on shore.

But enough of my old-fashioned, outmoded philosophical ramblings. And on to my point, if I can remember what it is. Of all the things that concern me about our day and our society, I think I am most troubled by the way in which Satan has put sacred things up for sale, a phenomenon only superficially manifest a few months back when some fool put a signed temple recommend up for sale on e-Bay. Peter in his second epistle wrote: "...there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you..." (2 Peter 2:1-3)

"With feigned words make merchandise of you." Our bodies and our spirits, our very souls, were purchased by the blood of Christ and His triumphant resurrection and exaltation—we belong, in every part of our being, to the Master. But the false teachers of our day, in their damnable heresies, have sought to cancel out the Lord's proof of purchase. And because of their lust for our dollars, with lies and deceits they put us up for sale, body and soul. They are selling stolen goods as surely as that temple recommend put up for online barter belongs to the Lord and not to its brain-dead holder. The world has no claim on us—except as we allow it—and no right to put our bodies or our minds on the auction block.

Much has been said of late about the evils of pornography. In case that word gives you a sense of déjà vu, I will reassure you that I'm not going to repeat my ward conference talk and give you a list of movies and music to avoid. I have already given you that counsel; I hope you have taken it. This evening I want to try to expose the inherent spiritual and temporal lies that lurk beneath the surface of the pornography industry, an industry bound and determined to "make merchandise of you." And I hope to demonstrate for you what the long-term poisonous effects can be for you if you do not "watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard...even unto the end of your lives."

I apologize, brethren, for using the approach I am about to use, but I can think of no way other than specific plainness to say what I feel must be said. My goal is to make clear to you how a life of erotic fantasy can hamper your every attempt to find happiness in your life now and, to a much greater degree, in the future. I want to try to contrast the foolish fantasy women of the sensual realm with women of the real world, the kind of women in your ward, the women you associate with every day, the kind of woman you will eventually marry. We will call the women of the fantasy world "Playpets." And let me emphasize, brethren, that it makes no difference where you encounter a Playpet—in magazines, on TV, in movies, on the Internet, or simply in your own mental fantasies. She is designed to destroy you and your happiness, no matter the form in which she appears.

What is so alluring about a Playpet? First and most obvious is her unclothed physical body, for sale in every conceivable size and shape, tailor-made to suit the buyer's personal preferences. The wonderful thing about this particular sales transaction is that if October's Playpet doesn't fully satisfy your lusts, there is always November. And December. And several thousands more on the Internet and video. In other words, the satanic salesman allows you to pick and choose whatever body type appeals most to you. And you can trade her in for a new model whenever and as often as you wish. Like she were your own private flesh-and-blood Barbie Doll, you can dress and undress her according to your every whim. You are in charge. You are her Master. You control her fate, her wardrobe, her poses. She submits to your every idea, every fantasy, every beat of your hedonistic heart. She never gets pregnant, never gets tired, never throws up, never catches a cold—even when she's undressed—never leaves town or goes to school or work on church or anywhere. She never ages or gets wrinkles. She is, because she cannot exist, perfect in the worldly sense. But she is made of plastic and silicone, and she can never be yours forever, because she cannot be perfected in a spiritual sense.

For the here and now, however, she is always available. Your Playpet never gets headaches, never has periods, never would rather just sit and talk, never needs to take the time to attend to her own needs and obligations. Her only role in life is to convince you that you can have her whenever you want her. She will not complain, she will not pretend to have any feelings or desires of her own; she will cater to you on demand. Best of all, perhaps, she never has a single thought. She will never disagree with you, never want you to listen to her opinions, has no rights or feelings. She only has one purpose in life, and that is to be under your control.

Do you begin to see why and how women have, through most of our mortal history, been repressed and downtrodden and treated as objects? And why, though we have in our modern enlightenment given them equal legal and political rights, we continue to repress them in our fatal fantasies because of the lustful lies peddled to us by both Hollywood and by Hell?

A real woman—the kind of woman you will eventually marry—has been taught to dress modestly. Already she is a disappointment to the man who expects his women to dress like streetcorner saleswomen. The real woman will come to you in marriage with only one bodily type, which you cannot trade in for one you'd like better. Her physical body, which she and the Lord regard as a sacred, temple-like edifice, is real and mortal and therefore subject to the processes of change and aging. It is highly unlikely that she will, at age 45, look just like she did at 23. Does that mean she will be less attractive to you later in life? Only if you haven't abandoned your fantasies of living happily ever after with a supermodel.

You neither own nor have rightful dominion over the real woman you marry. She is her own person, as important to her Father in Heaven as are you. She is, with all her imperfections, a goddess in embryo. She gets headaches. She has periods, and if she's lucky enough to have them stop, it means she's pregnant. When that happens, her body will change in shape and in function—dramatically at times. I can pretty much guarantee you that at full term she won't look much like a Playpet.

A real woman gets tired, and occasionally even grumpy. She gets sick, which may not always be the most effective turn-on for you. In some cases, she will need surgery, and she may have to stay in the hospital for days on end and will likely emerge with a scarred body. Is that the point at which she should be traded in for a woman fresh off the pages of this month's Sports Illustrated?

The real woman with whom you will eventually live has thoughts and feelings of her own; she has her agency; she is, in most cases these days, very well-educated and bright and thoughtful and more often than not gives us men a run for our intellectual money. Her will belongs to her. She may actually have the temerity to disagree with you from time to time. If you're a fool, you'll tell her to get in line and follow the priesthood. I tried that once, many years ago—it's one of the dumbest things I ever did.

Your future wife cannot, and must not, ever be required to cater to your passions unwillingly. The amazing, challenging, and joyous thing about marital intimacy is that it performs all of its uplifting functions only when it is utterly mutual. It can only degrade when it is one-sided, selfish, and not consensual. Let me caution you very plainly: if you have trained your physical body to expect sexual release on a frequent basis, you have set in motion a process that will very likely have a serious negative impact on your future marriage. No real woman ever can or ever should be expected to be available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And she will sense the disappointment in your eyes and realize that she is not meeting your so-called "needs." She will be hurt, and a real woman in emotional pain is not likely to feel like initiating romance herself. Days and months and even years of mutual frustration and inadequacy may follow.

Because she is so much unlike the Playpet, the real woman of the Church, imperfect though she is, has within her the potential to become perfect. If you will assist her by accepting and loving and caring for her amidst all her imperfections.

Now to the heart of the matter, brethren. Do you really believe that you can, in the days of your singlehood, fill your mind and soul and body with illusory images of Playpets and a carnal sense of domination and then be fully prepared to live with and care for and nurture a real woman to whom you are sealed? Do you suppose that the habits of selfishness and supremacy which you have developed through repeated exposure to lifeless media images will somehow not spill over into your marriage and hamper your ability to love your wife with all your heart, might, mind, and strength—forever? Please don't allow rationalization or self-deception to stand in the way of answering those questions truthfully.

You are currently in the process of patterning your life, of setting up consistent habits and attitudes and practices to manage your thoughts and time that will stay with you throughout your life. When we talk about the addictive nature of media-bred or mind-fed fantasizing about sexual matters, we are not simply talking about the enticing lure of the material. We are talking about the ways in which such thoughts and deeds create potentially permanent attitudes and habits and feelings toward sexuality and toward real women. Let me be very direct, brethren: no matter how you might imagine this working in the future, marriage is not a cure for addiction to pornography. Neither is marriage a remedy for obsessive thoughts or physiological patterns established earlier in life. We are striving to teach you correct principles so that you will be able to govern yourself—in all things. Most especially those things that can either make you supremely happy or atrociously miserable.

If you allow yourself to get caught up in the net of carnal fantasy, I can all but promise that there will be heartache in your future. I know of too many marriages that have broken up because of the husband's unreal expectations for his wife's looks and performance, for which he compensated by turning—or, far more often—returning to pornographic addiction. Even if he doesn't slide in that direction, the emotional wounds he has inflicted on his wife are deep and painful. At the conference on the impact of pornography held earlier this week at BYU, Dr. Wendy Ulrich pointed out how involvement with fantasy images of sexuality can damage and destroy intimate relationships. A man who lives in his fantasies cannot simultaneously establish residence in reality. How would a wife feel, offering the best of herself to her husband, to find that he prefers the naked chicks on late-night HBO? Do you think she might feel truly desired, appreciated, and attractive? Or would feelings of inferiority—inferiority to an illusion, I might note—and inadequacy and pain and resentment pour from her? Would she feel more or less like a sex object herself? Dr. Ulrich claimed that pornographic addiction produces feelings of intensity rather than intimacy, of control rather than of safety, and of obsession rather than trust. Clinging to your fantasies will make it impossible to cling to your spouse; it will always be a wall that stands between the two of you and prevents oneness of body and of spirit.

The Church News reported last week a research study which found that "people exposed to repeated presentations of hardcore, non-violent adult pornography over just a six-week period develop callousness toward women, trivialize rape, develop distorted perceptions about sexuality, develop an appetite for more deviant, bizarre or violent types of pornography, are no longer satisfied with sex in their marriage, devalue the importance of marriage and view non-monogamous relationships as normal and natural behavior." (February 3, 2001) Did you hear anything there that runs contrary to the “Proclamation on the Family”? Or to what you want in your future? The irony, brethren, is that the kinds of feelings and attitudes developed when we keep our minds focused on carnal gratification can only lead to unhappiness, frustration, contention, and ultimately separation from what you most want in your life.

I beseech you, brethren: do not procrastinate the day of your repentance; for that same spirit which does possess your bodies at the time you go into marriage, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in the eternal world and make your relationship with your wife perpetually miserable. "I would that ye should repent and forsake your sins, and go no more after the lusts of your eyes, but cross yourself in all these things; for except ye do this ye can in no wise inherit the kingdom of God [along with your wife]. Oh, remember, and take it upon you, and cross yourselves in these things." (Alma 39:9) "All men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness." (Alma 41:11)

Brethren, we are all mortal men. We are all subject to temptations. Salacious thoughts will from time to time enter all our minds unbidden. But we have a choice about what we do with them. Elder Neal A. Maxwell reminds us of the example of the Savior: “Jesus noticed the tremendous temptations that came to Him, but He did not process and reprocess them. Instead, He rejected them promptly. If we entertain temptations, soon they begin entertaining us!” (May 1987 Ensign)

I am not here tonight trying to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. I confess before you that the struggles to control thoughts and to live in a real marriage are ongoing. There are days when I could apply Hamlet's self-evaluation to myself: “I am myself indifferent honest: but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me..." But I likewise testify to you that the struggles are very much worth the effort. They are, I would maintain, the only way to retain happiness and peace of conscience and self-respect and to fully enjoy the many great satisfactions of married life. I adore my wife, and my love and respect for her and my determination to help her attain her anointing to become a queen have helped me endure the many trials of health that we have shared together and the seemingly endless string of temptations that have paraded before me.

My final message, therefore, is to all of us: there is a simple solution if you are still battling the seductions of a fantasy world that is twisting and distorting your ability to fully embrace and love a real-life woman, and I can say it in four words: Stop. Get Help. Change. It is far easier to say those four words than to live them, but I promise you, brethren, that it is the only process that will prepare you for a celestializable marriage. If you are involved in anything in your life—whether in your thoughts, your words, or your deeds—that is draining from you the resolve and the ability to live with an imperfect but real woman in a sealed covenant of devotion and mutual joy, stop now. Go to your bishop, to a counselor, or both. Addictions are not easily broken, but true happiness is not easily attained. Repent and change your attitudes and your activities and your interactions that may be cementing false patterns in place in your soul, and I assure you that you will be forever grateful that you did.

I leave you tonight with a quotation from Elder L. Aldin Porter, senior president of the Quorums of the Seventy, delivered at last week's CES fireside; he said: "The message through the ages from the prophets has been to stay clean, to stay pure, and they promise you will reap unlimited happiness. Much of what is seen today on network television, videos and in movies is degrading to women and desecrates the sacredness of the powers of creation. I wish I had sufficient words or capacity in the English language to impress upon you the necessity of cleanliness of thought and action in order to build a strong foundation of righteousness in anticipation of a happy and fulfilling life." (Church News, February 10, 2001, p. 4) I add my personal testimony to that of Elder Porter. I want each one of you to be happy in every possible way, and I know from personal experience, from my past mistakes and trials and from many, many instances of direct personal revelation, that the only possible way to achieve and retain happiness in and after this mortal life is by preparing yourselves in all respects for a worthy temple marriage, and by patterning your life right now in proper channels by focusing all your thoughts and attitudes and actions on the sanctity of womanhood and the divine role of marriage in guiding you to exaltation. I bear you my solemn witness that as you endeavor to formulate within the depths of your soul a vision of celestial womanhood that respects all women as daughters of God and treats them like the queens and priestesses they are destined to become, your personal burdens will be lightened, and your heart and mind will be ready for all the blessings that the Lord has to give you. I bear testimony of that, accompanied by an unshakeable promise that the Savior can and will guide you along the specific path that will lead you from the great and spacious and totally unachievable fantasies of the telestial prison house in which we live and prepare you for the joyous reality of preparing yourself for eternal life with a beautiful, loving, supportive companion whom you can cherish freely and forever.

Blog traffic wierdness...

It is so weird when you look at your hit counter and see which posts are the most popular. It's completely nonsensical to me.

For a long time my number one hit has been my Vegan Broccoli-Cheese Soup recipe. Following closely behind, is my post on Fun and Interesting Facts about Ethiopia. Next up is search term like Funny Stories About Fear or Extremely Funny Stories, which leads everyone to the link I put on those search terms.

Another hit I get frequently comes from search terms like Pornography and LDS and Pornography, When to Go to the Bishop or pornography, What Happens When You Go to the Bishop or Spouse Pornography Problem, or what to do when kids find pornography. I'm very very glad to see these searches coming in, because it was with this very hope (gleaning traffic from those seeking guidance about their pornography problems, or their loved ones' problems) that I put that series together.

Lately there's been a new one. Who knows why, but I have gotten at least 20 hits in the last two days for the search term, SNL Making Fun of Obama, and that of course leads to the link I embedded there.

A few others that get regular hits have been my post about Whether Or Not I'm a Feminist, and my post entitled Naked Barbie Doll. I'm not exactly sure why someone would type that search term into a search engine.

Blogging is kind of a funny thing.

(BTW you see what I have shamelessly done? I direct-labeled all my most popular blog posts so as to raise the level of traffic! Hahahaha!!! [evil blogress laugh].)

Pictures of Pornography: Part II interview with Jodi Hildebrandt

NSG: The other piece I wanted to talk to you about is, the spouses and people who struggle with those who have gotten into pornography deeply, or maybe even not so deeply. Maybe their spouse or boyfriend messes up while they're dating or while they're married, and maybe feels bad enough to go talk to them and tell them what happened. I actually was married to a pornography addict, and we divorced and now I'm married to someone different. It was a pretty public thing, like it was in the news, and on the television. In the aftermath of that, because my story was so public, people kept coming to me for advice, and all I could tell them was, go see a therapist, it's not your fault. You know, that's all I could say to them. But so many different women come to me with their friends' stories, or their fiance's stories, and some of them say, you know, my boyfriend looked at pornography, and I don't know if I should marry him. I guess that's one of the things I want to ask you about is, do you think it's important for... what would you say in that situation? Would you tell somebody like that, just leave him? Or would you tell them it's probably something you're going to be able to work out, or you should try and work it out? What sort of advice would you give somebody in that situation?

JH: The question is, somebody comes to you--you find out, that your fiancee is... has just looked at pornography, what kind of advice would I give them. I would need to know a lot more information. I am not one to say, you know... leave'em. Because I believe in these people. Actually, really thing, that addicts are... can be, amazing people if they would just be able to start healing the shame that drives them. There's a couple things. I'd want to know: how often he's been looking. Is this the first time, how quickly he came to you and told you, and is he willing to go get help? because if you're looking at pornography, in my estimation, more than one time, you are developing the possibility of having an addiction. If you looked at it more than five times, you have a problem. It means you're going back to it for some reason. And if you can't stop... I mean, the histories I hear of people are, I started at 9, or I started at 11, or I started at 13, and I got over it for awhile, and I picked back up off my mission, and here they are forty sevens in my office and they've had these stints. It doesn't ever stop, they always go back to it. I mean, someone might keep it in check for a year or something, but they always go back to it. Which tells me that, this shame is constantly in their system. Who knows how else they're acting out? They might be acting out with... maybe they're masturbating or maybe they're addictively spending money, or maybe they're having a beer, or maybe they're using some other way to act out in an addictive cycle, you have to satisfy that shame because, Shame is: I want to get away from it. I want to feel different. When I go spend money, I shift my mood. And I can do it in an addictive pattern, I could go gamble that way. I could go run that way. I could go eat that way. So, when people keep going back to it, those are the little seeds of addictive behavior. and so somebody will say, I just masturbate! It's not that big of a deal! It's not what you're doing. You masturbating vs somebody going to go pick up a prostitute in my mind is exactly the same.

NSG: Depends why the behavior is there.

JH: To them though, Oh no! That's much worse!I'm not judging the behavior. I'm just saying what drives it.If you keep doing this, just like this other person keeps doing this, it's all driven by one thing, which is the shame. And that's what has to be healed. So I would tell them: How much have they been looking, how quickly did they tell you, what was their behavior when they told you, were they really remorseful? Did they keep going back to it? Are they willing to get help? Are they willing to humble themselves?

NSG: Right.

JH: If they're willing to do those things, I say, hang in there. I wouldn't say, go get married right now, I'd probably say, give it a year, really see if he's willing to do the things that are necessary. Um, but yeah! He can be healed.

NSG: What about someone who has never really gotten to the point where they've looked at it five times in a row, but they, they looked at it once when they were twelve, for instance? And, a couple years later they encountered it again, and instead of turning away they looked at a couple more, when they encountered it. And then, maybe several years later, it hits again, they do it another time. What would you tell somebody with something like that?

JH: It's still addictive behavior. Because you keep going back to it. I've got a client right now, he has an addiction, and he only acts out one time a year. And he does it and--I mean, he literally only acts out one time a year. And the rest of the time he is in what's called, the preoccupation stage. All during the year. SO he goes to Europe every year, he's been doing it for fifteen year, and when he goes there, he picks up a male prostitute, and he acts out with him. But the whole 364 days before that time, he is thinking about it, he is planning it, he is making phone calls, he's preoccupied. And he's in a ritualistic state, OK. So it doesn't matter how often you do it, it's that I keep going back to it. Keep going back to it.

NSG: And if--so then, I guess the other question would be, what about somebody who has just looked at it once? And then confesses that to their spouse, or their girlfriend, something-- one thing I have noticed is, I think a lot of women just feel a great deal of shock and outrage when a spouse or a boyfriend confesses to something like this. And I think, you know... they should, because the person needs to feel that but what about somebody who just messes up once. Does that still, something that...

JH: No, but in my head I'm kinda skeptical about that. If I heard that. You know looking at pornography to me is not a mess up, if it's one time, when they're not looking for it. If they come across it and go, "whoa!" And if they really are conscious, they will go and say, oh honey, you know, I just looked up, and I had no idea, that's--in my mind, he was assaulted. They are assaulted. But if, I go-- say it happens to me and i go and let somebody know, I don't confess it, I just tell somebody, whoa! I was on the Internet, and this--- I mean, it's happened to me. I was on the Internet, and I was just like, Whoa! I need to get out of this, I need to X this! But I start finding myself thinking about it, or fantasizing about it, how do I get back, where do I go to get this... and THEN I don't tell, that's when I'm creating this addictive behavior. Addiction isn't just about the acting out, it's about all the behavior that goes with it. It's about the lying and the deceit and the manipulation, the aggressive trying to keep people away from it... those are all addictive behaviors.

NSG: Well that makes sense. Um, Julie Beck just gave a talk in a recent CES fireside where she advised women to stay far away from men whom they even suspect might have a pornography habit, and what do you think of that.

JH: Whoa. She did?

NSG: She said stay far away. Yeah. If they even suspect.

JH: Wow.

NSG: Would you agree with a statement like that, or... or would you qualify it, or what...

JH: No. I would not agree with a statement like that. And I'm hesitating, because... she is the sister of my best friend.

NSG: I like her, I like her a lot, I love her talks, but that just made me stop and say, wow... you know.

JH: There's too many of them we'd have to say away from!

NSG: I know. Yeah.

JH: I would qualify it by saying, the things that I've already said. If a man has, looked at pornography, there's a way back. You know, he is not flawed and defective. Now, is it my responsibility as a woman to pull him back? No! But if I'm with a man and I find out that he has a pornography problem, whether I am dating him, or engaged to him, or married with ten kids, I say immediately, I will not stay with you unless you're willing to do the things to get you well.

NSG: OK.

JH: And these are the things. And this is why I appreciate you coming in and interviewing me because I'd like to get this information out. People are not educated, they don't know what help looks like. We think help looks like, "Well, OK honey, I'll do whatever you need!" And then I have just become their enabler. So I hold a firm boundary and I say, "You go to your twelve steps. You get a sponsor and you get into therapy. You go into lifestar. You do these things, and I will watch you over a period of time, I'll give you six months.

NSG: Right.

JH: And if you really are serious about changing, you will do those things and you won't complain and you won't blame me and you'll show up like a man. Now if they don't, then I would say... run away. That's when I would say it.

NSG: And it's interesting. When I was talking with the Bishop last night, he was saying that, as he was counseling couples who were getting ready to get married, and they had a pornography issue in the relationship, he found that the ones that were able to make it work were the ones where the partner was willing to do the monitoring, who asked questions like, "how have you been doing, you know, have you looked at it..." Be frank and ask, rather than skirting it and say, "that's not my domain, I shouldn't be intruding." Because if they're in a relationship with a person who has pornography as an issue, it is their business.

JH: Yes it is. But let me say just one thing. The concept I believe is true, about monitoring. But I do not think it's the spouse's responsibility.

NSG: Not their responsibility, yeah.

JH: That's why we send them to the twelve step program together, because the twelve step program has sponsors. The wife needs to be the wife, and the mother, and the lover, and all of that. Not the babysitter. But they do need to be monitored. So, and it's not even about monitored, I don't like that word, it's about being accountable; they need to be accountable to somebody.

NSG: Right.

JH: So that's why the twelve step program works as well as it does, is that... you know, back in the thirties when Bill W. created AA, he knew that. He actually felt like he was divinely inspired to create that program. And he created sponsorship so that the alcoholic or the addict could go outside the relationship and be held accountable, and then be able to come back into the relationship and not make the woman the police.

NSG: Right. That... that makes a lot of sense. What about a woman who feels that she needs to know and needs to ask those questions... what advice would you give her?

JH: Mmm hmm. I'd say... that you're codependent. That's what codependency is.

NSG: Ah! OK.

JH: So when a woman is trying to control a spouse, or whatever the addict is, the spouse is trying to control being dependent on them. See? Codependency is about, I'm not OK unless you're OK. So, if you're not OK and you've acted out, then I'm not all right. I can't have peace. The truth is, in a healthy relationship, if you're going to act out, that's your deal. I'm not going to hang around, but I don't have to control you... women get into the cycle of, if I'm more beautiful, or if I was thinner, or if I were more supportive, or made more money or had the kids... you know, whatever... then he would love me. NO.

NSG: Or not have a problem.

JH: Or not have a problem, it has nothing... NOTHING, ZERO, to do with that. Nothing.

NSG: It's an inner struggle.

JH: That's right. It is their own shame. But because we... if you have a coin and it's called shame, you have addiction on one side of this coin, and codependency on the other. So the codependent has shame, just like the addict has shame. And you see it play out, when the spouse wants to be in control. Because if they're in control, it moderates the shame. It tells them, I'm OK. I'm OK. I'm OK. So, you've got to pull them apart from each other. In therapy, you would try to separate them emotionally and say, "you deal with your stuff. Leave him alone. Don't check his phone bills, don't go through his cell stuff, don't look at his bank statements."

NSG: Right. But what if a situation, for instance, if, instead of having a spouse come and confess to a pornography problem, the wife discovers it accidentally. I'm sure... there've got to be trust issues after that. How do you deal with that. Is that same as codependency, or is that a different situation?

JH: Um, no, it's a whole different issue. When there's addiction going on, there's always a lack of trust. Whether the woman or the man even knows, it a lack of trust going on. So, oftentimes when a spouse finds their husband or wife acting out, they feel betrayed, they are furious, and it doesn't matter what they say, I don't believe you because this has been going on for years, or months, and you didn't tell me about it. So that's healthy. But if then I find out-- I ran into it-- but from that point on, I think I can control it after that, that's the codependency.

NSG: Right. OK, so is it possible, to entirely regain trust? After it's been violated in that way?

JH: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's not a um, wake up one day and I've got trust. It's an ongoing process of consistent--and I really enforce that word, consistent--honesty on the addict's part. So if, every time they open their mouth it's honesty. Because if they give ten answers and they lie about something, then all the track record goes out the window.

NSG: Right, because you would never know what they might be lying about.

JH: Yeah. Right. I mean, you could tell a hundred honest statements and then lie to me again.

NSG: And you wouldn't know which one it was.

JH: Right.

NSG: Right. OK, well... this is kind of an obvious question, but I just kind of wanted to ask it for the record... have you seen marriages fail, because of pornography habits and addictions.

JH: Yes.

NSG: Would you say, a large percentage of marriages fail? You know, are you able to mitigate a lot of marriages and help.

JH: Well, you know, by the time they get to me....

NSG: It's already, downhill.

JH: Yeah. It's in the toilet. And so... but, they have suffered for years and years, most times, before they get to somebody for help. Because they're trying to do it on their own, but what they don't understand is that this is a cycle and it will never change. I don't say that to be, you know, be desperate, it's just the truth. It doesn't change. And so, when they get to me, one or the other has had it. And so, I'll say, "Can you stay with him?"--it's usually the man--"can you stay with him? Can you stay with them if they're in recovery?" And I'll explain what recovery looks like. And they, often times they say yes. Because they wouldn't come to me if they didn't have some hope. They're looking for hope. I hope, that I give them some of that. Because you very much can, recover from this. They won't be recovered, but you can be in recovery. Just last night, I had my lifestar group, and I have this couple that's 3 years post their addictive behaviors, it was the man, and he'd been disfellowshipped from the church twice and excommunicated once, and had 30 plus years of acting out, and his wife finally got to the point where she said, "I'm done," and that's what snapped it. And then she thinks, gosh... it took thirty years.

NSG: To say that.

JH: Yes. Why didn't I say that before we had any children, because she thought that she could... she was in that codependent cycle.

NSG: She thought she could help.

JH: And she finally realized, it's not about me. It's not about me helping. And they're very happily married and I use them to talk to my other couples and show them that they can change.



--This concludes the material I have gathered so far for this series. I plan on having Skywalker post his article about computer safety and internet filtering, sometime in the near future.

I have put a link to the lifestar program in the title of this post. It's a great program, from all I've heard.

Please let me know if there's any other question or topic in this arena you feel needs to be addressed... or a topic discussed. I will do my best to address any questions asked, too. But if you really need help, a therapist is the place to go, in conjunction with your ecclesiastical leaders, and of course... your Heavenly Father. You may think He doesn't want to hear about this, but He does. He wants you to knock. His Beloved Son has already bourn all your pain and suffering, and you can find peace in your situation. I want to emphasize that I know this from experience, I have a burning testimony of this: Heavenly Father, through his Son's atonement, can turn any challenge or experience you have, into good. Into growth, into strength, into better happiness. That is the majesty and beauty of the atonement.

*OK, off my soapbox*

I've been neglecting you...

My wonderful fellow bloggers,

I'm sorry that I have been such a hermit these days. I have had several projects in the works, and I think a piece of me feels very guilty for not continuing the pictures of pornography series. I really, really really need to finish up the transcript of the interview I did, and I need to nudge Skywalker sufficently enough to get him to write the article I've been begging from him on Internet use and pornography, and how best to help your kids/family members/loved ones as protected as possible (or not? That's part of the discussion, I think.)

Anyway, I have been blogging a little bit, on a blog my family started which I already love and adore with a passion equal to my love for totino's pizza dipped in ranch dressing. here it is: www.goodandsogoodforyou.blogspot.com if for some inexplicable reason you're hankering to read something I've written...

I'll be back. Soon. Soon, Dave, I promise. :) Bearing gifts of pornography articles and discussions, and perhaps an adoption update or two... we're still in the same place, just waiting to see the outcome of our court date on May 20th. We sent a care package to Ethiopia with a family who went over there... our girls should have gotten it by now. The family also promised to take some up-close, good pictures. I hope they'll have some insights for me into their personalities, too. Anyway, I can't post pictures here until we bring'em home, but if I find out anything exciting, I'll definitely not keep you guys out of the loop.

Thanks for your patience, blogging friends.

Pictures of Pornography: Men Marriage, and (not) Making Love

An utterly AMAZINIG post by a well-known blogger, Hugo Schwyzer. Go read this please, if you are married, and if you are either a man or a woman. :)

This post has inspired me to finish up my POP&LDS series.

disclaimer: Read the post, and then, if you want, read the comments... but I can't guarantee that the comments won't contain some offensive material; this site is about non-moderation (for the most part) and so sometimes there are things that would be offensive to some people. The post itself, though... wow. Entirely wonderful and celestial. And if you want to start a discussion over here too, I'm OK with trying to accommodate that.

I'm baaaack....

So, after a brief vacation I'm back to regularly blogging. My pornography series will continue a little bit. I have about 4 posts left. Two of them are yet to be written.... one will be by Skywalker, about internet filters and controls and how to effectively protect your family from explicit media. As his job involves this very business, and he works at a certain university that takes it very seriously, he knows his stuff so it should be a good post.

Also a post by a friend of mine who studies human sexuality, human relationships, and addiction. This is a topic he is passionate about, and he's about to get his PhD in social psych. So I'm hoping he'll be able to find time out of his busy schedule to bring together a post sometime. Whenever he does, I'll post it.

Plus the interview with Jodi Hildebrandt has about 3 more parts, all of them very good and relevant. My favorite part is a discussion about spouses and codependency in addictive relationships... and how to avoid that and really help your addicted spouse in the way you can. I'll apply my "pictures of pornography" label to any additional post in future. And who knows? Maybe there are other people out there who would like to submit something. If so, my public email address is ttagyoureit@yahoo.com... just include the word "pornography" in the title of the email and my filter will catch it and send it to the appropriate folder so I don't have to search through loads of spam and possibly miss it.

So, anyway. Thank you for those who are frequent readers and have put up with this diversion. While it was a good discussion and I'm soooo glad I had the opportunity to start it, it also feels good to get back to normal.

easing back into normalcy...

So, I'm going to start posting like a normal person again, in between my pornography series posts. I miss blogging just to write about silly stuff, and all this heaviness is getting me down. I don't like to visit my own blog anymore. So, those of you who are reading for the next installment of the series I'm working hard at making productive and helpful for y'all, the next installment will be on Thursday, and then I plan on doing 3 or so more posts... on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm back to being a normal person in between. I'll tag all my series posts with the tag, "pictures of pornography", and if you click on those tags you'll get the rest of them.

sigh. Breathing in, breathing out... OK. Nice to have my own space back again.

Pictures of Pornography: quotes from a talk by Van. C. Gessel

Van C. Gessel was president of a BYU stake. He was also a Dean at BYU for several years. His talks have been set aside by some bishops of singles wards to use and distribute among members. He uses quotes by many general authorities to bring his message across, and so some of these will be by someone else. This isn't the talk I originally wanted to post, but it has some of the same content, and so it will do until I can find a copy of the real one.

This talk was directed to single, LDS church members attending BYU. Some of the content will seem applicable only to single people, but I think a lot of it can apply to married people as well.

Get ready for some fire and brimstone. :)

"I would propose for your consideration today that there is a kind of love that is "most sweet" and pure and "white and "Most desireable above all" other kinds of love, and that its is a love that will fill you with "exceedingly great joy," greater than any other kind of love you can ever experience. It is a love that comes only from God, and that can be obtained only through living the kind of righteous life that can lead you toward it, and that it can only be shared with a partner to whom you have been sealed for time and all eternity." --Van C. Gessel

"Sex is not the same as romance, and neither one is the same as love. It's wonderful if you can have all three gifts-- sex, romance and love-- wrapped up in one package and wearing.... whtie [clothing] in the temple .... Don't feel guilt or shame for your sexual desires any more than you feel guilt or shame for feeling hungry and thirsty when you fast. God has given us our physical desires and needs.... [But] take all honorable means of concentrating your thoughts elsewhere. You wouldn't usually go sit in a restaurant when you're fasting. So don't torment yourself by indulging in imaginations that you have no lawful or moral means of satisfying. Instead, feast on what is permitted and encouraged: the scriptures, inspiring music, noble thoughts..." --Chieko Okazaki

"Remember that all good things that come to us in mortality are given to us to help us become more like Christ. This means that our sexual desires were given to us by God to help us become more like Christ. ... Learning to properly understand, bridle, and use our sexual desires is perhaps one of the most important ways that we learn how to become like our savior.

"What is this great mortal tutorial all about? Well, for starters, one of our greatest challenges while on the earth is to learn how to conquer self. In their purest manifestation within marriage, the lawful use of our sexual desires can and must be always unselfish; their illicit use, despite the persuasive rhetoric that is inspired by the adversary, is always selfish. We are to learn how to love others more than we love ourselves, to put the needs of others ahead of those of our own. We must learn how to sacrifice for others... All these lessons, and many more, are most directly and powerfully and viscerally and profoundly taught to us as we struggle to control and bridle and ultimately to properly channel our sexual desires."

"The lawful use of these powers of procreation is the greatest force in mortality facilitating union, harmony, oneness, and total wholeness; Satan's counterfiet version invariably produces separation, loneliness, isolation, bitterness, and division."


"If you can learn to bridle your passions now, restraining the surge of passions within you, you will gain a moral strength that will set the pattern for a happy marriage and a confidence that will help you prevail in all of life's challenges. This tutorial, if you learn your lessons properly, will equip you with all the knowledge and strength of character you will need for the rest of your mortal existence. You will learn how to place the calm whisperings of the spirit before the impatient shouts of the body."

"Similarly, self-abuse is an addictive practice that focuses your mind upon carnal things, and drives out teh spiritual; it leads to feelings of guilt that come from the Lord, because He wants us to be in control of our thoughts and actions. When we fail to achieve this measure of control over the body, we fail to teach ourselves an important lesson in the dominant power of the spirit, and the body begins to think that it's the boss and demands more and more solitary satisfaction."

"ANd now, what if you are human, and have made some mistakes regarding the Law of Chastity? Well, for starters, it is absolutely vital that you engrave upon your soul this comforting counsel from President Boyd K.Packer: "There is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no offense exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness." There is not a single sinful action we have discussed here today, including a complete violation of the Law of Chsitty, that will not yield to sincere repentance and be blotted out through total reliance upon the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It doesn't make the slightest difference to me what you have done up to this point in your life. My concern is the choices you make today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life."

"Chasitity is the human manifestation of the love that comes only from God, and only from obeying His plan for us can we know all the joys that mortality and imortality can bring us."

--Van C. Gessel, The Love that Comes From God,
Nov. 7, 1999

Pictures of Pornography: Addictions and Marriage

I wanted to post pieces of a talk today. It is a wonderful talk by Van C. Gessel, entitled "Real Women, Real Life." J, if you have it... could I borrow it? I actually have access to it, but cannot get it within the next few days.

So, apologies. This will be straight from me again. I have decided to relate a few experiences I had pertaining to addictions and marriage. These stories will not be about pornography addictions persay, but another addiction that has caused much grief among struggling, college wives especially: video game addiction. And I promise that as soon as I have access to this talk, I will post pieces of it as well. This will not be very well written. IT will sound like I am just talking to you. I hope you'll bear with me and read it anyway, and take from it what you can.

After everything happened to me, I found that people opened up to me in startling ways. I am not a particularly open person sometimes, and so I hadn't been used to having people confide in me (then). But as soon as people read my story or heard it second-hand from the people around who knew it, or saw my face on the news and realized that their classmate or co-worker or ward member had gone through something difficult and embarrassing, something akin to what they were going through, they came and talked to me.

One day, a co-worker of mine that had suddenly separated from her husband started to talk to me. I had been surprised and saddened by the news (which was, of course, being whispered all over the workplace.) She sat across the table from me with her stack of papers and her little paper folder, and told me that her husband had decided he didn't want to be married to her anymore.

Then she filled in the details. Her husband was a computer game addict. He did nothing all day but play computer games. In the beginning of their marriage it wasn't so bad, though it was annoying... he would play computer games for a large portion of the time he was home from school and work.

But then he quit school... he stopped going to classes, because he liked his computer games. She talked to him, bit her lip and didn't talk to him, tried to suffer through what she thought might be a phase.

And then he quit work. She was a school teacher with a freshly-minted certificate. She worked hard all day. Her husband stayed home playing computer games. It was all he wanted to do. SHe was bewildered, frustrated, and he would not talk to her about it. He was probably unsure exactly what the underlying issues were anyway. He didn't really care that much, he just wanted to play computer games.

Finally she had had it. She confronted him, and told him that she loved him and wanted to make the marriage work, but she could not keep this up. He had to go to school, or go to work, or do something! Other than just playing computer games all day. She gave him an ultimatum; you can choose me, or you can choose computer games.

He did not even hesitate, he did not even look at her. He said he chose the computer games.

She moved in with her parents.


A sad, bewildering story, that I admittedly do not have all the details about.

Another story about media addiction:

One of my best friends was married when she was very young, 18. She and her husband met only a few months before they were engaged, and were engaged only a few months. You hear of this happening, and you hear of possible sad outcomes in that situation, but hers worked out. Right now he's off getting his PhD at perdue and they have five children, and are a happy, well-adjusted family.

At any rate, after all that happened to me, I was venting to my friend about the experience above, and she told me that every time the women in her ward (they were in a Ymount apartment) got together, quite often they vented about their husbands' computer and video game use. It was so frustrating to them. These are hard-pressed, hard-working families with little time for extras. Mom stays home all day and then often attends night classes when dad gets home. Dad works a full or part-time job and attends classes himself. Ends are barely met. And often there are one or two kids to add into the mix.

These husbands came home, and instead of spending time with kids and family, they spend time relaxing with their consoles and computers. Moms felt lonely, kids tugged at shirt-sleeves and were rebuffed.

I have a friend who once told me about a frustrated wife of his acquaintance who went so far as to cut the cord to the console. The husband laughed, and then taped it back together.

So... media addictions. Pornography addictions. Video game addictions. These things are not just about spouses feeling objectified, or betrayed because of "unfaithfulness." It's also about time and emotional commitment to the family. Any addiction drains the family of emotional resources... the whole family. Spouses feel worthless and helpless and unspelled, and children feel insignificant and unimportant when a screen seems more important to dad or mom than they are.

Any comments/experiences/contradictions and rebuffs are welcomed.

Pictures of Pornography: When Children find it

By AnonMom


Hey, all you LDS Moms and Dads! You've got a problem with pornography. I'm a mom of six amazing, good, active LDS kids, and we have a problem with pornography. It's not "out there", it's right here, in our homes, in our cars, following our kids at school and wherever they go in the community.

Anywhere there's a computer with internet access, or a computer with WiFi capability close to another computer with WIFI access, an IPOD, PDA, gaming console, or a cell phone or any other device with "intelligent" capacity, all the pornography in the world is right there. And you don't have to go looking for it to find it....it just shows up sometimes, even if you're being careful, sometimes it's just there.

You know it happens, moms and dads, becuase if you use the internet at all, it has probably happened to you. You type in some innocuous search words and you get a screen full of links...some of which may have something to do with what you were looking for, and some.....that make your eyes bug out and your jaw drop. Or you're innocently perusing an apparently squeaky clean website, and some incredibly inappropriate popup appears. You didn't want to see that stuff, but there it is. You're an adult, and you know to shut it down and get out of there. But what about your kids? The same stuff has happened to them.

It is inevitable that our kids will encounter pornography at one point or another as they use computers and computer related devices. Sometimes they seek it out, and sometimes it just pops up before their eyes. As with many other ugly things, we may not want to talk about it, or think about it. But, as with any real danger, we don't get any good out of ignoring it and hoping it won't bother us. We need to assume our kids have either encountered pornography already, or will soon. We need to do all we can to prevent problems, but we also need to be prepared to deal with the aftermath. We don't help anyone by sticking our heads in the sand.

Of my six children, two have had issues with pornography before the age of 14. They found it accidentally, their curiosity was piqued, and they looked. That's not good. It's a sin. But think about what it's like to be 12 or 13, when you're just starting to be extremely interested in the opposite sex. It's pretty hard for an adult to look the other way, and it's almost impossible for a kid. And then there's the shame. They don't want to tell you what they saw (how embarrassing to talk to mom or dad about that!) and they especially don't want to admit that they KEPT looking, or looked for more. So the problem may not get solved right away....and now the temptation is stronger.

Some people mentally diminish the seriousness of pornography because they're not really "doing anything" to anyone. They don't classify it as a sexual sin because they're not having sex with anybody. They are only looking at pictures. They can do that fully dressed in Sunday clothing, sitting bolt upright at the computer. How bad can that be? Many, many apparently good latter day saints develop addictions to pornography, using this as their excuse.

We parents had no clue that our kids were looking at pornography. We were taking the basic precautions. We had filters in place, browser control management, our computer was in the living room. We monitored what the kids were doing on the internet. What we didn't consider is that children are far more tech savvy that most adults. They know how to find passwords, to enable and disable filters, to erase internet history. We found out what was going on only when their guilt and distress got so bad that they started having emotional problems. I'm glad they were good enough kids to feel guilt, because that led to intervention, confession, help, and eventually, healing.

The scary thing about pornography, like any really effective Satanic tool, is that it has a wide range of effects on its victims. Some come away apparently unscathed. Others are utterly ruined. What might seem like just a dirty little secret to some is the destruction of temporal and eternal life for others. I wish there was a bright red warning continually on every computer screen stating "when you view pornography you degrade, exploit and dehumanize the human beings it depicts, commit the same crimes on yourself, jeopardize your chances of ever having a normal intimate relationships, and may destroy your own soul. The End" That is what Satan would LOVE to have happen.

Our kids are OK now. We didn't get rid of the internet, though I wanted to. We are stricter about who uses what devices where and when. Our family will never have phones or IPODS with video and internet compatibility (ask your high school kids about photos that get sent from phone to phone) We check up on people more. The kids know that if we find internet history tampered with, the computers will be gone. We will never assume that everything is hunky dory, and "our kid wouldn't do that". Because our kids are the kind who wouldn't do that, and they did. They are human, just as we are, and the problem is right here with us, all the time.

Pictures of Pornography: Kids and Sexuality

By Anonymous for this

My daughter has done self-stimulation ever since she was a baby. It has been distressing to me, but I have not said anything. I was afraid that, if I said the wrong thing I might instill shame in her about her body. I might create the kind of “forbidden fruit” situations that seem to lead to trouble later. There were some difficult times we went through when she was a baby, and so I thought it might be her way of coping, and I left her alone. Sure enough, she has not done it nearly as often as she has gotten older.

I found her the other day, though, when I went into the spare room where she was napping to get something. She is six now, and I thought, I should probably say something. I was afraid of making her feel guilty, but also afraid that if I did not give her any kind of guidance about sexuality, and what those feelings she was after were about, I would also fail as a parent. Especially if I want her to avoid masturbation one day. As a teenager, a habit like that can be much harder to break.

I thought for a moment and said a silent prayer, then sat on the bed. She had stopped as soon as I came in, and I could tell by the wary expression on her face that she was ready for me to chastise or shame her. I just looked at her in the face and told her, calmly and lovingly, that I understood that what she was doing made her feel good. I told her that lots of kids do it, and it doesn't make her a bad person that she does it sometimes. I also asked her if she could try not to do it, because it's not something Heavenly Father wants us to do very much, and that those feelings are special, for when we get married. She nodded and looked at me seriously during the discussion.

I went downstairs and took a deep breath, and sat in the chair in front of the computer. I thought the conversation went fine, but I wondered if I had handled it right. Should I have been more stern? Should I not have said that lots of kids do it, almost validating it? Should I not have told her to try not to do it? She is not even eight; accountability does not apply to her yet. And yet... the habit. I did not want to make life harder for her because I was afraid to speak up.

Several minutes later, she came downstairs and climbed into my lap and gave me a big hug. She is not normally an actively demonstrative girl; most of the hugs are ones I ask for, or sometimes she will playfully hug me. This was a real hug; an honest-to-goodness, “thank you for being my mommy” hug. I will remember it forever.

I think I did the right thing.

Pictures of Pornography: JustAGuy

by JustAGuy

This story is about more than porn. It is about growing up as a common LDS boy with a common hate/love fascination with sex. Only, I thought I was a rare pervert and I would surely go to hell if I couldn't get free. That is also common.

I know my experiences were common because I've now met many others worse off than me. I've listened to others conversations and I've had a few heart to heart talks and I'm glad I stopped walking the path to porn addiction when I did. I hope my frank sharing will help you and others avoid this path and find a better way. I have now learned and grown up enough to understand and control sexual feelings, but it was a hard, sad way to grow up, sexually. It was like living two lives.

I grew up in a good LDS family. We went to church, had FHE, all us kids were good friends and our parents taught us the gospel and lived it too. I believe that the problems didn't come from religion, or family, they came from our closed culture. I was never really taught about sexuality at home or at church. I learned it from the world, particularly my friends, the media, and experimentation.


Lesson: Start Young
I saw my first hardcore pornography when I was five or six years old. But I was already addicted to sex by then. Of course I had no idea how sex really took place for adults. I just knew what felt good and that it wasn't good to feel good that way. Kids played and kids talked and I was curious. My mom caught me a few times alone and with others so I knew it was scary bad to touch there! I learned quickly to hide my curiosity from adults. They just got mad.

I didn't really understand real sexuality until I was 10 or 11. By then, I had learned enough from other kids to know the basic body parts (that girls weren't really broken boys), how they fit together and liked it, and that parents didn't want us to know this, even though my friends said parents played all the time. This made me even more curious. After all, I was grown up enough (so I thought) to know and no one would tell me why it was bad, just that it was.


Lesson: Be Frank, Open, Complete, Truthful, and Uplifting
I was very confused and very curious. So I turned to the only answers I could find by experimentation and questions to older kids. My parents taught me a little here and there. They did not say that bodies were evil, but they didn't explain why some actions were. Nor did they tell me what to expect with growing up and how to cope.

Primary didn't help. They just talked about good people doing good things and how to be obedient. Who cared?! That just made me feel bad when I couldn't sit still or when I knew I was doing bad things. They said "follow the Spirit." It makes you feel warm... AND??? That didn't mean much. "It will teach you right and wrong." REALLY? HOW?

Now I know I felt the Spirit back then. But I didn't know it at the time. I felt guilt. I felt frustration. I felt fear. I felt curious. I felt sidelined. I felt demeaned. All because I had questions I could not ask. I didn't know how to hear the Spirit in all that noise. No one talked about how to control curiosity by getting answers from the right sources, like parents. When would we talk about real things? That's what Scouts was for!


Lesson: Anticipate Exposure
Besides that early experience as a young kid, "real" porn was completely absent from my life. But I believe that a form of porn was always available to me. When you are curious, any hints or possible answers are examined carefully. I remember seeing "private parts" in shapes all around me. I was fascinated by the human body and looked at pictures anywhere I could. I remember wondering how they would fit together, and how it would feel when I grew up and got married. I listened intently when anyone described anything about sex. I learned slang, and more of the "dirtiness" of sex because that was all that was talked about. And all this was apart from church and family. This was my secret self.

I remember the feelings I felt when I first saw those Playboy magazines as a five year old. It was all about fear of getting caught doing something wrong. But I didn't know why it was wrong. The other kids said it was. I had no idea what I was looking at. I don't remember images, but the experience is vivid in my mind because it was forbidden. It made me so curious. That was when I needed to be taught by my parents what sex was about. That was when I needed to learn what porn was and why it was wrong. The Spirit was there, telling me, but I didn't know what it was saying.

Events like that were repeated in other ways, time after time, as I grew up. Porn has many forms all around us. People on the street, magazines in stores, bra ads in the paper. It was all porn because I wanted to see it that way. I wanted answers but I knew I couldn't talk about it with my parents.

Once puberty began, I discovered a new variable. I felt drives and hungers that were scary and uncontrollable. Everything was stimulating! Walking, breezes, bathing, warm sun. I knew something was wrong because nearly everything had a sexual bend to it and I thought that these feelings were evil extensions of my perversion. It didn't make sense and it made it harder to think of other things in life. But I trusted the rules and commandments from primary and home and I tried to change.

The problem was, puberty was too late for an easy change.


Lesson: Don't Underestimate Masturbation or the Imagination
The M word is ugly. Sex is a dirty word. I used to get a thrill looking it up in the encyclopedia. Righteous people don't think about either and they aren't tempted. I know because there are no stories about it.

As a teenager, I didn't know what to do. I had lofty goals, and I was a model student and young man, on the outside. I felt like there was a demon inside. I did a good job controlling him. He was only in control in times of stress, when I was alone. Its to bad teen life is stressful. Maybe I could have thrown him out before my mission. But I didn't quite. And I really tried. At first, I was sure that masturbation would get me excommunicated if anyone ever found out. I thought about killing myself to be free, but I knew that wouldn't fix a sin, just keep me from getting worse. Maybe God would have mercy and put me in a lower kingdom and not send me to hell. But maybe I had committed the "unpardonable sin" because I knew masturbation was wrong and I still did it.

I read every church book I could. The Miracle of Forgiveness tore my heart out and I prayed and prayed to be free. But I was petrified to talk to the bishop. He knew my dad. And dad would tell mom and they would be so disapointed. I loved them and they loved me and this might break that.

The secret had to be kept between me and God. The scriptures were comforting. Enos's prayer inspired me. But prayer didn't seem to help much. Maybe in some moments of temptation, but not always. I never felt free. But I began to understand, everything. God did teach me and he did give me answers.

I read and read including non-religious books about sexuality and I eventually began to understand the difference between God's purpose for sex and man's twisting of it. God said masturbation was wrong while psychologists said it was natural and even necessary. I trusted the Spirit and I knew it was wrong. But I still had a habit to break.


Lesson: Don't Expect the Church to Preserve Your Children
Church didn't help much. No real discussions could take place there (Pres. Packer's beeping slideshow about stages of the mind and singing hymns just doesn't cut it). No one was willing (or felt enabled) to openly discuss sexuality's good and bad points, answer questions and provide real support to overcome bad habits and look forward to healthy sexual expression in marriage. I think this was because most leaders didn't know much to share, or were suffering themselves, or had "cut off the offending hand" and ignored it all together.

Don't ask. Don't tell. Don't look. Don't see.

Scouts actually caused problems by putting boys together, late at night, to talk dirty about sexual exploits without leaders noticing, explaining or correcting. And then there was my mission. If I felt mixed up as a teen, I was thrown in a blender and frappéd as a missionary.

I always wanted to be a missionary. I never felt any indecision about going. Every year that I grew closer to going, I would resolve to break my habit and enter the temple and mission a pure man. I was prepared in every way, but morally. When my mission interviews came, I was petrified. All my friends were getting mission calls and I was sure that I would be shamed before them, excommunicated, or disfellowshipped, or at least refused a mission call. I was sure the doctor giving me a physical could tell I had a longstanding habit and would turn me in.

Finally, when faced with telling a boldfaced lie to the Stake President, I had to come clean. I admitted to the big M. His only question was "Do you still do it?"

Well, of course not! I had resolved right there and then to never do it again.

That's all that happened. No followup, or counsel, or help, or explanation, or encouragement. It is the "unseen" habit. When I failed in my resolve, I felt angry at him for just passing it over. I realized later that I was a odd case, not for the habit, but for bringing it up in the first place.

I loved my mission. It was everything a mission should be, the best of times and the worst. It transformed me. But it did not break the habit. The habit almost broke me. The tension between my secrets and my faith was so strong that I felt like Alma the Younger, wishing to be an angel, but feeling like a slave of Satan. I wish I could tell you just how excruciating that felt. At times I felt like I was one big hypocrite and then I would feel the overwhelming love of God for me, personally. But in that love I also felt his disappointment.

During this conflicted time I learned two things. I was very special to God. He knew and cared about me. Me. And Satan did too. He had worked long and hard to bury a solid hook deep inside me that was holding me back. But that didn't make me evil. Despite my weaknesses I witnessing miracles in the work. I had a vision of what I wanted to become. I was following the Spirit and I was drawing close to God. And second, I learned how the atonement worked. I preached it until I understood it, then I wanted it for myself like nothing else.

So I went to my Mission President to confess and be free once and for all. He looked disappointed. He encouraged me to get in control. He told me that the work would suffer until I did. In two later interviews he asked how I was doing. That was it. Months later, I learned from another missionary that he had addressed the leaders of the mission and told them that one in two missionaries currently masturbates.

As horrifying as it was to hear, I suddenly had a revelation. I was not alone. Did that mean I was not a pervert?

Then my mission ended. I wish I could say that was the end of it. But no. Leaving a mission is depressing. Depression doesn't help addictions.


Lesson: Get Help
I continued to struggle with masturbation and sexual curiosity for years after my mission. Only now, I had new challenges added on. I was not serving others all the time and the Spirit was harder to keep close. I was losing focus on the great spiritual person I wanted to be. I was expected to date, get close to girls and prepare for marriage, but stay chaste. I noticed how women looked. I had to battle wandering thoughts far more than before. Without a mission companion, I was alone. Absolutely alone.

I felt more stress than ever before and I began to feel less fulfilled by my habit. I was going to college and had easy access to the Internet. But I didn't feel any real curiosity about porn. I had always known it was dangerous and demeaning. I also vaguely remembered it as gross.

I was fortunate to avoid porn until it found me. I was caught in a "porn storm." Thats when a mistyped URL takes you to a site that hijacks your browser and every click to close it opens more windows on more sites. It was sickening sweet. Hunger, loneliness, shame, curiosity, horror, shock, lust and fear of discovery all rolled over me at once. After a few seconds I realized what was happening and logged out to force the windows to close.

But my body remembered the experience. It was new and enticing. But even stronger was my disgust. I never mentioned this to anyone. I just went on with life. But I didn't change the other "softer" porn habits of thought and personal practice. Satan just had to wait for another moment of weakness to inject more shame. That came several years later when I was still not married, had just broken up again, and felt like I was doomed to be a "menace to society".

I just felt like I wasn't worth much to anyone. I couldn't get a good job or make enough to win a girl over and live like everyone else seemed to. I began to feel angry at society and the church. And that's when I decided to learn more about sex on my own and I went to the Internet, alone.

I looked up all sorts of educational stuff, learned a lot, but eventually found and viewed some porn. I did this a few times. Then I met someone that I wanted to marry. At that point, my shame was deep.

But I reached deeper into myself and remembered my mission, my goals, I realized that these sexual interests were perverted from something much more important to me and I wanted the better way.

I decided to confess to my girlfriend and to my bishop. Both were supportive. It was difficult. I worked hard and we moved on and got married.

For me, marriage was the way out. I realize that this may not work for others. My demon has tried to climb back a few times, but for me it is much easier to ignore him with a loving wife near! I wasn't into porn very deep, either.

I don't know what to say to those who can't marry to be free, or who are much deeper than I ever got. I just know that sex was designed by God for good. I had a long journey with many troubles, but I'm now traveling in good company and I'm very, very happy. I also feel a great responsibility to teach my future sons and daughters with love and openness. Maybe they can avoid all this trouble and pain.

Pictures of Pornography: finding NCMO

This week I thought we could talk about one of the hypothesized reasons why LDS men and women struggle with sexual addictions like pornography. When we are single, we can't have any official sex until we marry. That is, if we want to remain in good standing with the church. It is good to save yourself until marriage. But dang it! It is difficult, isn't it? A man's sex drive peaks at around age 18 (according to rumored highly scientific studies).

So what does a single, celibate LDS man, for instance, do with all that energy? (The subtext: why pornography might distract, for a moment, even the worthiest, most returned missionary of returned missionaries).

As an introduction to this particular facet of the discussion, I have uploaded a short film that was made by actual BYU coeds. It addresses the phenomenon of NCMO at BYU. For those of you who have never encountered the acronym before, NCMO stands for "non-commital make out." This occurs not infrequently among single, LDS people. A few years ago, BYU students were actually advertising NCMO opportunities in local papers.

NCMO is much like pornography. It's a conscious, unproductive vent of sexual frustration. And unfortunately it has gotten some good people in trouble church-wise.

So watch, enjoy. Or you could watch, groan, and fall asleep depending on your sense of humor. And stay tuned for the post on Thursday: a guest article full of insights by someone who has had a lot of experience with this particular issue.


Credit for this video (script, most of the acting, editing) goes to Chris, Anthony and Kyle of White House North.

Pictures of Pornograpy: an interview with an LDS bishop

This is part I of my interview with BR, who is a longstanding, active member of the Mormon church. He was the bishop of a BYU singles' ward for three years.

NSG: When you were bishop of the singles ward, did you have a lot of people coming to you with concerns about pornography?

BR: I would guess from my experience that about 98% of LDS people have some brush with pornography.

NSG: whether that be a chance encounter, or an active perusal…

BR: Yes. I think most people have had a time when they have viewed pornography and even sought it out. When I was bishop there was one time when I was counseling 25% of the ward about pornography or other sexual issues. I even counseled some women… though I would say with the women it was more like 10%.

NSG: do you think that might be because they would be less willing to talk about it, or do you really think less women have a problem?

BR: Well in my experience, women are a lot more reluctant to talk about it. I feel like I was able to be a bishop that lots of people felt comfortable talking to about these problems, and I pretty much had to prompt the women to talk to me about the pornography.

NSG: These people who came to you to talk about pornography; why did they come? Was it just out of the blue, they wanted to talk about it, or was it more in preparation for marriages and missions?

BR: There was a lot related to getting married. I had about ten cases where I had to counsel the couple about a pornography problem in order to get them worthy to be married in the temple.

NSG: Were there any cases where it didn’t work out, where the couple broke it off because of pornography?

BR: Yes. But most of them were able to work through it. I tried to counsel with the women especially, about why men struggle so much with pornography. I have found that it is very hard for a woman especially to understand why a man has such a hard time with it. I talk to them about how a man works in that way… how any attractive woman that walks by can become an issue. And it seems that men have a hard time understanding why a woman’s heart can break over an issue like this. A lot of the women save themselves for marriage and that relationship that should only come after marriage, and they feel betrayed when they find out that their partner or fiancée has gotten into pornography.

NSG: What would you say is the general reaction of a couple when someone confesses to pornography problems?
BR: A man will feel very guilty, unworthy of the woman. He will wonder if he can be trusted or if he should even expect the woman to trust him. And typically a woman will react with sadness and anger, and wondering if she can ever trust him. Her perfect image of him as prince charming is suddenly different; the knight in shining armor is looking a little tarnished. The thing is, that happens after marriage anyway. I have to counsel couples to really think about how much they love each other, and if they do love each other to make it work, to work with each other and try to overcome this.

NSG: So you would say in most cases, you think it is important for them to think about trying anyway.

BR: Yes. At least not react right away, give the matter some thought and some prayer, and decide what you want to do.

NSG: What about a case where there is a real problem, something that could be classified as an addiction, maybe. For instance, someone who spends hundreds of dollars a month on porn, someone who buys magazines and movies and spends hours a day looking at it? Would that be something that might cause you to advise differently?

BR: It really depends. Are they wanting to overcome it? Do they want to get better? Are they committed to being free of it? Those are the real issues. And sometimes a pornography problem is beyond what I can address as a bishop and I refer them to a professional who can help them overcome it. But yes, I think there are some cases where it is better not to get married because it will just cause further problems. And you have your own progression to think about; if you marry someone who is in it so deep that his progression is going to be stunted or keep you from progressing, you have to think about that too.

NSG: What sorts of pornography are most common? In addition to internet porn, do people ever come to you with things like movies, magazines, literature?

BR: All of that.

NSG: Do you find that women tend to look at pictures or gravitate more to literature?

BR: It does seem like women have more involvement with what we call “soft porn”, things like romance novels. I have found also that a higher percentage of the women who came to me tended to look at same-sex porn, meaning they view the same porn men would want to view.

NSG: Really? That is very interesting.

BR: There were some men who had the same issue… viewing pornography of the same sex. More men came to me about porn in general, and a smaller percentage of those men looked at pornography in what you could say was a homosexual way. Less women came to me, but a higher percentage of those women were looking at their own sex. I think with women, they keep those drives so much inside that they are not willing to try to talk about and understand them, and so they cover it up by romance novels and things like that. It is a lot harder for women… they did not want to talk to me much, I had to ask them questions to lead them to telling me they were struggling. I found a very good therapist to refer them to who did a lot of work with the women, with abuse issues and such.

NSG: Could I have that referral?

BR: Sure.

NSG: Did you find that, when you were counseling dating couples on this issue, that women or men would ever overreact to one of those “fleeting glance” type instances and decide not to go through an engagement, for instance?

BR: Yes.

NSG: What do you think of that?

BR: I think you should really stop and think about it. Think about yourself and how much you love someone. Try to learn about it and understand it rather than being afraid of it.

NSG: Give it a chance rather than just dismissing the idea of staying together.

BR: Right.

NSG: Did the couples you counseled work it out?

BR: For the most part, yes. There were three that broke up over it. There are a few that I am sure are still dealing with the issue in their marriage.

NSG: So really if you decide to stay together you should think of it as a recovery process and something that isn’t always possible to stop cold turkey… to try to be compassionate and work on it together.

BR: Yes. It seemed to me that the best successes came when the partner stepped up and took an active role in the recovery process. Talked about it. Did some monitoring. Called them sometimes and asked how they were doing. Asked them frankly if they had looked at it since they last spoke. As a bishop men usually wouldn’t react as well when I asked those kinds of things as they did when their girlfriends or fiancées did.

NSG: What can couples do to help each other avoid pornography and other inappropriate sexual acts while dating?

BR: I think some women are so innocent, and sometimes sheltered, that they just don’t know what affect they can have. Men just go… they react to things that some women don’t realize. A woman can help by not allowing a lot of caressing and long kissing sections, and no inappropriate touching… it’s hands off. A man should be wise and know where the boundary is and be responsible. Those long make-out sessions lead to so much pain and trouble… just stay out of it and keep it well within what is appropriate. And couples need to talk about it. They don’t have to do it a whole lot, and they should treat it as sacred, but they have to talk about sexuality, and about their own desires and expectations and as they prepare for marriage, they just need to talk about it. It’s important.