By LMA
August 2019
I wrote on the blog last fall how I feel about pleasure, safety, and exploring our sexual selves on our own or with others. I wrote that all of us are entitled to express our sexual desires and identities in whatever ways feel safest and most comforting to us, including not being sexual at all. The things that I wrote were by far the most provocative things I have ever written or said in public, and it took a lot of assertiveness, courage, and emotional resources to say them. I’d like to talk about some of those things again.
There was a recent thread on Twitter asking about the perspectives of Mormon and Mormon-adjacent people about masturbation and how they would choose to teach their children about these things. It took me several tries to be able to read the thread because I knew there would likely be ideas and information that would be triggering for me to read. There were some lovely and honest things that were said. One very brave person in particular spoke about their changing views on masturbation and pleasure, and how they even had to change the way they spoke about it to their child in order to correct some things they had previously taught them. This person is provocative and brave and lovely – they know who they are. Some of the helpful things that were discussed included masturbation as an important form of self-care, a form of comfort, a source of health benefits, and a part of healthy sexual development.
It was also clear from the comments the types of messages I had anticipated I might hear were very present. These comments demonstrated some of the contradictory information Mormon folk perpetuate about solo sexual activity and its perceived acceptability and status. Multiple people commented that they thought masturbating is okay “in moderation,” as long as the person doesn’t see sexual gratification as a solo activity, as long as no one can tell you’re masturbating when it’s happening (so it’s alright if you swallow all of your normal body noises while you’re being sexual?) and as long as it’s private. At the same time, the comments also said that masturbation can become “distractingly excessive,” an obsession, “an unhealthy way to run away from your problems,” a potential addiction, and more.
As I read through some of these comments, I wondered, would people say sexual activities between a cisgendered, heterosexual, married couple are okay “in moderation?”
Would people say sexual activities between a cisgendered, heterosexual, married couple are a potential addiction and “an unhealthy way to run away from your problems”?
Would people say these same types of statements if the self-care activity involved was a cozy nap or being in nature? (e.g., being in nature is okay, as long as it is in moderation?)
The answer is no, people wouldn’t dare police the sexual activities of a cisgendered, heterosexual, married couple, and they would never say these kinds of statements about other forms of self-care that aren’t culturally stigmatized like pleasure (but especially self-pleasure) is. Furthermore, these comments and ideas describe the deeply conflicted ways Mormon folk feel about our bodies, solo pleasure, being single, and sexuality in general.
These conflicting, intricate justifications about why masturbation or any other form of sexual activity is or is not okay are the exact reason I didn’t look for information about bodies or sex in Mormon or Mormon-adjacent sources or talk to a Mormon soul about my solo sex life for a very long time. When I made the conscious decision to allow myself the time and space to engage with and explore my sexual self, I was not interested in engaging in mental gymnastics about whether or not it was okay (e.g., it’s okay as long as it’s under X, Y, and Z circumstances). I had spent my entire life internalizing shame about my body and my sexual self that I was not going to engage in what to me was a subversive and revolutionary act engaging with the same system that placed that shame and confusion there in the first place. To me, it was either okay/ healthy/ healing/ good/ needed/ safe, or it wasn’t.
Because there was no one to really talk to and get information from, I started looking for high-quality, affirming, helpful, concrete information about sex and my body. It took some time to find the right information, but it was an absolute godsend finding the website “Scarleteen” and its accompanying manual, “S-E-X: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties” written by Heather Corinna. These inclusive resources were exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Both the website and the manual are geared towards and adolescents and emerging adults, but so much of it is applicable to people beyond those age groups, especially for those who received a lot of dogmatic, shame-based messages about sex, sexual identities, and our bodies, coupled with a lack of high-quality information about these things.
This process of learning and taking in information and unlearning shame and guilt about myself and my body took a long time and a lot of work in therapy. There were months of time when I would go to therapy and just cry the entire session because I felt so guilty and ashamed I was being sexual at all. I was raised in a home where I was not even allowed to hear basic information about sex or bodies as a single person, so how guilty must I be for actively facilitating my own pleasure? Even though I felt so much guilt and shame because of what I had been taught, I felt competent, safe, and empowered exploring my sexual identity and self. As a trauma survivor, it was incredibly meaningful to be able to tune into and tend to my body’s physical and emotional needs in a way I never had before.
Another layer of this process was the way I perceived and felt toward my own body. I inhabit a fat body and use this term as a loving, neutral descriptor for my body. As a fat woman, I have been told many damaging things about my body by family members because the way my body existed was not preferred within my family of origin or society. This is a reflection of the deeply problematic and oppressive structures of fatphobia that exist. One of the lovely, unanticipated benefits of my conscious effort to process my sexual shame and engage with my sexual self was that for the first time in certain respects, I felt safe and at home in my body. I realized I could feel physical pleasure in my body, and that it was completely unrelated to my body size. A clitoris is a clitoris is a clitoris (or penis is a penis is a penis or any configuration of body parts), regardless of body size. Sure, maybe I had to move my soft tummy around a little bit, but because I had taken the time to understand and know my body intimately, I was able to feel safety and comfort and peace in that body. That was profoundly empowering and important for me.
I talk about this because the ways we teach about sexuality, sexual expression, and our bodies needs to change in our faith and in our society so that we can nurture, support, and facilitate the health, comfort, and pleasure of all of the many varied and wonderful intersections of sexual identities, desire, and expression people embody, including not having a desire for sex, as in the experiences of asexual (ace) folk. That starts with identifying and understanding what specific beliefs and values we were taught related to sex and our bodies so that we can make decisions about which beliefs and values are serving our self-care, emotional health, and physical experiences, and which aren’t. This process is so painful (and often ongoing), but worth every bit of effort for the comfort, safety, self-care, and self-understanding it facilitates.
What are the beliefs or values about your body, your sexual self, or sex that you would like to give up? What beliefs or values would you like to gain?
p.s. A list of high-quality, affirming, helpful, concrete resources I found, read, saw, and watched will be posted on the blog later today (August 23, 2019). Good resources about these things are a precious gift.
I love your openness, bravery and vulnerability in sharing all of this with us!
Reminds me of this post from our archive. https://www.the-exponent.com/how-i-became-sex-positive-and-suggestions-for-you/
Also highly recommend this piece by Natasha as a way to debunk masturbation and chastity in an lds context.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/mormontherapist/2012/08/my-official-stance-on-masturbation.html
Thank you for the kind things you said. Those resources you shared are really helpful and important, thank you.
LMA, This is important to talk about, (easier said than done) but you have started and continue the dialogue.
OP: “What are the beliefs or values about your body, your sexual self, or sex that you would like to give up? What beliefs or values would you like to gain?”
It’s difficult (for me) to answer these questions, even anonymously on line, but you have bravely gone there. Thank you. We have much to consider.
One thing for sure is that it is no one’s business to ask about during interviews.
I really appreciate what you said, and I feel like it’s hard for all of us to talk about these things sometimes, even to ourselves. I really appreciate the vulnerability in what you said and I completely agree it is never an ok topic of discussion in an interview.
one belief about my body I feel I need to give up is that I need to do something to it to make it loveable and worthy. I get stuck in cycles of trying to fix it or punish it and even though I know I need to embrace it and accept it, I still end up with the pendulum swinging back to feeling something is ‘wrong’ and ‘undeserving’ about my body, and that my problems would be ‘solved’ by getting my body in line. its hard to root out all the deeply harmful body messaging we pick up over a lifetime
Thank you so much for sharing this. I feel like this is something so many of us struggle with, and it is such hard work to un-learn these things because it is so engrained and taught to us from the time were young, especially for girls and women. It helps me a lot being in body-positive and sex-positive and fat-positive spaces where bodies are allowed to be bodies. Reading and seeing affirming things in those spaces helps me feel more comfortable and accepting and loving toward the body that I have and helps tune out other punishing messages or noise. Sending so much love and solidarity.