Wow--I have so much to say. I have been very quiet on my website, my social media and with my business. There is a reason, and it has taken me time to grapple with my experiences. On May 8th, 2022, I had a near death experience. And it is not as people report. People who report near death experiences are too often like Chad Daybell who are literally evil. Afterwards I went back to work and started therapy to cope with the medical PTSD, which has been amazingly helpful. And I have processed, and I hate that word, so many experiences and emotions.
So, I am here, with a concussion as I was hit by another car. Unfortunately, no near-death experience just concussed AF. While all this is going on some rather violent and very unnerving things happened in the Mormon Community. As a person born into the LDS religion I struggle with my silence about my experiences and what I have learned from my clients. I also struggle with how so many people frame our life experience, which intersects with my ideas about Mormonism. This blog post addresses Jodi Hildebrandt, shame, masturbation, and porn.
Shame and a shame-based life is one of the best ways to suck the joy out of life and create dark undertones and areas that can be exploited. Shame grows in the dark. Shame can encroach on every aspect of existence.
So, segue to Mormonism. What we see in the news is Mormons engaged in very bad behavior such as murder and child abuse. (I am addressing the nightmare of Chad Daybell/Lori Vallow and the new Jodi Hildebrant Ruby Franke shit show) The first thing people say is they are not representative of LDS people. I agree, but the fact is Mormon theology and beliefs played heavily into these criminal acts and the silence of people around them in the Mormon community allow those crimes. And that is rooted in shame and and the desire to control through fear and a negative worldview.
Shame. /SHām/
noun
a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
That seems not so bad, but if your entire life is feeling there is something wrong with you for being a human that is a problem. And humans have urges that are neither bad nor good, but just a part of the human condition. Lust, desire, hunger, jealousy are not sins. They are a part of our human condition. These things need to be embraced. Lust sparks our interest, drives us. Desire makes us feel alive. Hunger encourages us to work to feed ourselves and nourish our bodies. Love creates bonds of connection and hope. Jealousy motivates us to do better and often protect what is close to us. And all these things can be twisted and misused and become the setting for dark deeds. But none should be a source of shame. They should be a source of connection to our soul and our nature as spiritual beings not just beings of the earth.
My experiences of shame in the Mormon church are deep. From an early age you are told to hide your emotions, stay modest, stay pure, anger is bad, desire is bad, love is a bargaining tool to get what you want. Some of these are not spelled out, but a lot of are. And when I talk to my Mormon clients, I am often shocked at the misconceptions on they carry about sex, masturbation, desire, pleasure, gender roles. There is often so much to unpack. I can’t do it in one session, but often it has been the first time they have discussed sex and pleasure with another person. I have learned a lot, which I will always be grateful for in my business.
It has been awesome to be a point of trust. However, I feel it is important to speak about this issue especially with the Jody Hildebrandt in the forefront. The fact she was allowed to practice and hurt people with the support of Mormon leadership is distressing. Her philosophy was supported and promoted by the Mormon church. Young men and women and men and couples were sent to her to be cured them of their sins of masturbation, homosexuality, and watching porn. None and I mean none of these things are a sickness to be cured from. They are a part of our humanness. That is all!
I want to focus how Jodi Hildebrandt as she was weaponized by the Mormon church as she conformed to their belief that porn was an addiction and masturbation was a sin. And since I have a lot to say about this—a lot! I am going to focus on Masturbation. That is my speaking point and in periphery porn. The Mormon church has placed too much negative emphasis on healthy normal sexuality. That is the truth.
It is normal to masturbate. Let me repeat that Masturbation is healthy throughout life and necessary for good health. Not only normal but healthy. Not only healthy but a way to access higher levels of consciousness. Yes, you can practice self-pleasure to achieve heightened levels of consciousness. It is not a sin. It is good fun. Spencer W. Kimball said this in The Miracle of Forgiveness:
Youth come into contact early with masturbation. Many would-be authorities declare that it is natural and acceptable, and frequently young men I interview cite these advocates to justify their practice of it. To this we must respond that the world's norms in many areas—drinking, smoking, and sex experience generally, to mention only a few—depart increasingly from God's law. The Church has a different, higher norm.
Thus, prophets anciently and today condemn masturbation. It induces feelings of guilt and shame. It is detrimental to spirituality. It indicates slavery to the flesh, not that mastery of it and the growth toward godhood which is the object of our mortal life. Our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice.
While we should not regard this weakness as the heinous sin which some other sexual practices are, it is of itself bad enough to require sincere repentance. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation—practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality.
Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, pp. 77-78
Masturbation isn’t a sin of any type. Masturbation is natural and normal throughout life, married or unmarried. Certainly, it can be problematic if done at the local Fred Meyers. Not cool. It is natural and normal. The only people making it a problem is the Mormon Church and other high demand religions. This is the best advice I can offer about masturbation. It is a private matter, lock the door, and do not tug in public. Enough said.
If someone is making money off teaching people how not to masturbate that is the issue, not the masturbation. If a religion is trading in shame and pushing a certain therapist that promotes shame that is the problem. If a religion is making normal sexuality a sin, it is not the person, it is the religion. No God does not care about your sexuality unless it is non-consensual and with another person of unequal standing. If taking normal activities and using them to create shame it is done for one reason, control. It is done to control and to make people feel shame because shamed people are easy to control. Control. People like Jodi Hildebrandt are made possible because shame and shame makes natural human feelings bad. Humanness is not bad. The human condition is not one of shame. Being human is a cause of celebration not shame.
I will go through this too. Porn is not an addiction. Do you know why? If porn is taken away from a person, they will not die. Can you spend too much time watching prom? Yes! I can watch too many Harry Styles music videos. I am not addicted to them. If your value is to not waste time, then doing time wasting activities violates your values. Inform your porn watching with that idea. Then step back and ask why am I watching porn? What do I need in my life that porn replaces? I had a boyfriend began watching porn when we had sex. At that point I felt the intimacy stop. He was no longer relating to me. Porn is okay. Not all the time. I lost interest in him. He injected porn when he got too close to intimacy. Porn was a barrier to deeper levels of pleasure for us. It did not promote higher levels of pleasure. Examine your motivation beyond it gets me hot. That is not an exanimation. That is an excuse. Unless it is exploiting children, porn is okay. And the truth is the more normalized porn is--the less of a hold it has on people. One reason porn is attractive is that is forbidden. Let those ideas of shame go. Get out of your head, get into your body. Tomorrow the Daybells.
And for the record—I am probably addicted to Harry Styles videos, but it is harmless. And I am currently cheating on him with Justin Bieber. Jill
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