Posted by:
baura
(
)
Date: June 25, 2013 07:40PM
In the 1800s the medical community came to the conclusion
that masturbation had horrible effects on one's health. Books
of sex instruction (with titles like "science of life") warned
against it. Although they didn't warn that hair would grow on
the palms of your hands or that you would go blind, they did
warn that it would drain your "life force" and that it was a
cause of insanity. Masturbators could be recognized by the lack
of a gleam in their eye etc. Chapters in such books had titles
such as "The Secret Sin" etc.
It was thought that spicy foods inflamed the genitals and
encouraged masturbation. This lead Presbyterian minister
Sylvester Graham to invent the "Graham cracker," a bland food
that was designed to decrease the appetite for masturbation.
In addition to the supposed health risks, masturbation was
seen as an indication of lack of self control, that one was
not "master of one's domain." It was also seen as an
anti-social activity since it is engaged in in private. Among
the communally minded Mormons this is significant.
On June 18, 1870, First counselor George A. Smith told the
Salt Lake School of the Prophets about "the evil of
Masturbation" among Utah Mormons. Apostle Lorenzo Snow offered
that "Plural Marriage would tend to diminish this evil
self-pollution," and that he believed that "indulgence on the
part of men was less in Plural marriage than in Monogomy."
Back in March 19th, 1883, in Victorian England, Apostle John
Henry Smith, [father of later Church president and mental-
disease sufferer George Albert Smith] while serving as
European Mission president, visited the Anatomical Museum of
Liverpool. He reported in his journal, "It shows the effects
of vanerial (sic) diseases upon the parents also upon children
born of diseased parents. It also shows the frightfull (sic)
effects of masturbation on both men and women."
Later that year, in a meeting with stake presidents lasting
several hours, the First Presidency and apostles gave
instructions about "Masturbation...self-pollution of both
sexes and excessive sexual indulgence in the married relation."
At their regular Thursday meeting, on March, 27, 1902, the
apostles and First Presidency received a report that "the
practice of masturbation was indulged in by many young people
in the church schools. Pres. Smith remarked that this was a
most damnable and pernicious practice, and the face of every
apostle, president of a stake, and high councillor should be
set as flint against it. The priesthood should be called
together at the stake conferences and the brethren and parents
should be instructed and warned in relation to this matter."
On June 24, 1903, Apostle Rudger Clawson wrote of a meeting of
the general board of education of the church: "During the
meeting I called attention to the importance of the study of
the science of life, which I thought was being neglected in
our schools. It seemed to me, I said, that [more] of [the]
young people should receive instruction in relation to love,
courtship, and marriage, and should be warned against
self-abuse [masturbation] and kindred evils. Many of the young
people acquire the habit of self-abuse without knowing its
baneful effect upon the health."
Thus Mormon leaders started to talk about it as a problem in
the Church. Basically they took the "medical common
knowledge" of the day and clothed it with ecclesiastical
sanction, although there is no mention of masturbation
anywhere in the LDS scriptures.
Masturbation worked its way into the "worthiness" questions
that bishops and branch presidents asked Mormon youths in
their "worthiness interviews."
In the late 1940s and early 1950s Alfred Kinsey's surveys of
sexual behavior of Americans was a shocking splash of cold
water on the face of puritan America. The effect was felt in
the Mormon community and specially at BYU where the teaching
of sociology was under the watchful eye of the Brethren. In
1953 two faculty committees were formed to address the
"masturbation problem."
In 1972, BYU sociology professor Wilford E. Smith conducted a
survey of Mormon university students and found that
masturbation among Mormons is not that much influenced by the
level of Church activity. He found that 83% of inactive
Mormon males masturbated as opposed to 76% of active Mormon
males. The numbers for inactive and active Mormon females
were 38% and 27% respectively.
Masturbation got a boost in Mormon consciousness due to
Apostle, and later prophet, Spencer W. Kimball. He cautioned
against the "sin" as a gateway sin to such things as mutual
masturbation and "total homosexuality" and on to bestiality.
His assertion that "the sin of homosexuality is equal to or
greater than that of fornication or adultery," placed
masturbation only two steps away from murder in the Mormon
hierarchy of sin.
In 1985 the LDS Church published a pamphlet titled "A Parent's
guide," which was designed to help parents discuss sex with
their children. Along with calling the human sex drive a
"myth" and counseling against sexual excess on the honeymoon,
the pamphlet reiterated the Church's ban on masturbation.
With the medical community doing an about-face on the subject
of masturbation, no longer regarding it as a "vice" but as
normal and healthy, the Church had to justify it's rationale
for its anti-masturbation stance. Without contradicting the
views of medical and psychological specialists, the Church
said that masturbation was a MORAL and SPIRITUAL problem, thus
taking it out of the realm of empirically verifiable knowledge.
The Mormon war on masturbation included at least one
casualty. On March 2, 1982 a sixteen-year-old Mormon boy, Kip
Eliason, committed suicide due to self loathing that he felt
from his inability to refrain from masturbation. Kip had been
counseling with his bishop and an LDS therapist, both of whom
accepted that masturbation was a serious sin. Kip left the
following suicide note for his father:
"Dear Dad,
I love you more than what words can say. If it were possible,
I would stay alive for only you, for I really only have you.
But it isn't possible. I must first love myself, and I do not.
The strange feeling of darkness and self-hate overpowers all
my defenses. I must unfortunately yield to it. This turbulent
feeling is only for a few to truly understand. I feel that you
do not comprehend the immense feeling of self-hatred I have.
This is the only way I feel that I can relieve myself of these
feelings now. Carry on with your life and be happy. I love you
more than words can say.
—Your son, Kip"
With no mention of masturbation in any of the scriptures, and
with no empirically-verifiable reason to consider it a
deleterious practice, the Church's current teaching on
masturbation seems to be an erotophobic vestige of nineteenth-
century Victorianism.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2013 07:44PM by baura.