Spouse Swapping

[BJ64]

5 minutes ago, dellme said:

 

Exactly. For those who don't M-it's pretty easy and there isn't a whole lot of issues surrounding it.  It's don't do it, to do so is sin-we should teach the youth to not do it, end of story.  For you to make a huge issue of it suggests something else is going on . . .

If I said everyone does it that was a misstatement  my intent was to say almost everyone has done it at some point. It would be hard for me to imagine a man who hasn’t done it at least once in his life 

[dellme]

6 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

Because when a leader brings this topic up, it borders extremely close to sexual abuse of a child.  This is NOT okay.

The stories that are most horrific are NOT those that are about those who are shamed, but those who were pure and innocent and had NO idea what the Bishop or interviewer was talking about.  Then, they had that innocence ruined because the leader had no propriety of what was right or wrong. 

What the heck are you talking about?  Innocence?  The Bishop's not asking an 8-year old nor do they do interviews with 10-year-olds.  We are talking 12+, i.e. young individuals who either have or are going through puberty. Innocence at 12? Come on, give me a break. Anyone using this excuse is just a red herring.  By 12 (we are talking 7th graders here), they have already had sex education classes in school so don't try this "innocence" junk?

And sexual abuse? Sexual abuse? You've got to be kidding me. Billy do you obey the law of Chastity? Yes. Please explain to me what the law of Chastity is? Kid explains.  Now the law of Chastity also includes prohibitions on self-stimulation? Do you understand? Do you do that? Yes. Okay, doing this is a sin and against the law of Chastity, do you look at porn or is this the only thing? The only thing.  Let's read some scriptures together.  Will you strive to live the law of Chastity fully? Yes.

How in the world is that sexual abuse?  The parents that are worried about this stuff still send their children to school where they hear and see worse than that on a regular basis.

Seriously, if a Bishop can't ask about M, then they certainly shouldn't be asking about whether a kid is having sex . . . .

[dellme]

1 minute ago, BJ64 said:

If I said everyone does it that was a misstatement  my intent was to say almost everyone has done it at some point. It would be hard for me to imagine a man who hasn’t done it at least once in his life 

And everyone has told a lie at some point when they shouldn't have.  And you point being?  We shouldn't teach people not to lie either.

[BJ64]

5 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

In relation to the above subject, one of the most perfectly situated answer was given in a pamphlet that I'm not sure if it is still in print or not.  It is also quoted in the FairMormon article Grunt posted above, and as such I've taken the quote from there so it can have a source referred to (as I'm not sure where the pamphlet may be online and my google abilities with it are weak).

It was by Boyd K. Packer who stated...

This both sides that go to the extremes...rather than a more sensible medium.  It states that it is something we probably should avoid, but at the same time, this is NOT something that is on par with many other grievous sins that break the Law of Chastity.  We should not treat it the same as adultery or fornication or things like that, and treating it as such only does a disservice to those who are struggling with it.  When they think they will be treated as if they were fornicators or adulterers rather than on the level they really are at (which is far less severe than anything dealing with the sins of fornication, or other such things) they are far less likely to come forward to try to get help or assistance in overcoming such difficulties. 

When they realize that they will not be outcast pariah's for a very common problem among young men, then they might be more willing to find the love of the Lord in their struggles and in their life and become stronger young men in the process.

Thank you, again you are more eloquent than me in your writing. 

It’s hard to explain ones views on any given topic in a few paragraphs. I lot can be misunderstood. 

[BJ64]

6 minutes ago, dellme said:

What the heck are you talking about?  Innocence?  The Bishop's not asking an 8-year old nor do they do interviews with 10-year-olds.  

However there are a lot of documented cases of this very thing. 

[Just_A_Guy]

1 hour ago, BJ64 said:

However there are a lot of documented cases of this very thing. 

@dellme a bishopric interview is part of the Faith in God requirements; so while such questions probably aren’t supposed to be part of the interview, the interviews do happen.  

I do agree with you, though; that the outrage about talking to children about sex seems awfully contrived when you consider that the people who bleat loudest about this are usually the ones who are fine with elementary-school kids receiving “age-appropriate” instruction about the mechanics of sodomy.  And I further agree that this business of bishops not talking to kids about masturbation would also rule out talking to them about “sin” at all and in the main is merely battlefield prep for a longer campaign attacking Mormon clergy’s (and parents’) ability to hold adolescents accountable for their choices generally.  

Edited May 22, 2018 by Just_A_Guy

[Just_A_Guy]

10 hours ago, BJ64 said:

They both used to use the word masturbation and no longer do.

You’re right; they actually replaced it with even broader language that still rules out masturbation.

There are other changes to the handbook but I believe it is against the rules to quote the handbook. 

I wouldn’t want to bait you into breaking a forum rule; but AFAIK the only handbook change you could possibly be referring to is the injunction that church courts shouldn’t be held for masturbation (err . . . “self-abuse”) alone—but that same injunction has also been added vis a vis pornography.  Which makes me sort of wonder why you aren’t downplaying porn use the same way you’re downplaying masturbation.

[BJ64]

13 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

You’re right; they actually replaced it with even broader language that still rules out masturbation.

 

 

I wouldn’t want to bait you into breaking a forum rule; but AFAIK the only handbook change you could possibly be referring to is the injunction that church courts shouldn’t be held for masturbation (err . . . “self-abuse”) alone—but that same injunction has also been added vis a vis pornography.  Which makes me sort of wonder why you aren’t downplaying porn use the same way you’re downplaying masturbation.

That and the fact that it is the only mention of it.  

[dellme]

19 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

@dellme a bishopric interview is part of the Faith in God requirements; so while such questions probably aren’t supposed to be part of the interview, the interviews do happen.  

Right but until a child is 12, they should normally only get 2 interviews from the Bishop-baptism and Faith in God.  This idea about spoiling a child's innocence is way overblown. Law of Chastity to an 8-year-old, you only have babies when a mommy and daddy are married. Done.

[Vort]

9 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

Because when a leader brings this topic up, it borders extremely close to sexual abuse of a child.

Absurd.

[Vort]

2 hours ago, BJ64 said:

I quoted part of that myself on how it is not so great a sin that the Lord would reject you.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of sin. You talk as if sin were divided into degrees, where the Lord will reject you for the big sins but will wink at the small sins.

This is false.

[Guest MormonGator]

17 minutes ago, Vort said:

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of sin. You talk as if sin were divided into degrees, where the Lord will reject you for the big sins but will wink at the small sins.

This is false.

He won't wink at the small sins, but I'm not sure that He views adultery the same way he views flipping the bird to that jerk who cut you off yesterday in traffic. If He does, I might as well just give up now. 

Both are sins, but that hardly means they are equal. 

Edited May 22, 2018 by MormonGator

[Vort]

10 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

He won't wink at the small sins, but I'm not sure that He views adultery the same way he views flipping the bird to that jerk who cut you off yesterday in traffic. If He does, I might as well just give up now. 

Both are sins, but that hardly means they are equal. 

True enough. But the point is that when we say, "it is not so great a sin that the Lord would reject you", we betray our misunderstanding of the nature of sin (and of God).

[BJ64]

1 minute ago, Vort said:

True enough. But the point is that when we say, "it is not so great a sin that the Lord would reject you", we betray our misunderstanding of the nature of sin (and of God).

That was a quote from Elder Packer

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, Vort said:

True enough. But the point is that when we say, "it is not so great a sin that the Lord would reject you", we betray our misunderstanding of the nature of sin (and of God).

Agree, but I think it's important to remember that God is a forgiving God. Repentance is always available to those who ask, up until the end. Christians, and in particular LDS, are incredibly hard on themselves. 

[Vort]

2 minutes ago, BJ64 said:

4 minutes ago, Vort said:

True enough. But the point is that when we say, "it is not so great a sin that the Lord would reject you", we betray our misunderstanding of the nature of sin (and of God).

That was a quote from Elder Packer

If this is the case, then I was speaking out of turn.

[BJ64]

28 minutes ago, Vort said:

If this is the case, then I was speaking out of turn.

Here is the quote in context. 

One of you, perhaps, has not fully understood 
until now. Perhaps your father did not talk to you. 
You may already have been guilty of tampering 
with these powers. You may even have developed a 
habit. What do you do then? 

First, I want you to know this. If you are 
struggling with this temptation and perhaps you 
have not quite been able to resist, the Lord still 
loves you. It is not anything so wicked nor is it a 
transgression so great that the Lord would reject 
you because of it, but it can quickly lead to that kind of transgression.

[lostinwater]

i don't think asking questions constitutes sexual abuse of a child.

However, - and i can only speak to the experiences of the people i know, but from what i have seen - a child/adolescent that admits (only after having been questioned explicitly regarding it, rather than bringing it up of their own free will), experiences a crushing amount of shame and guilt.  Not the healthy kind - at least not in healthy amounts.  And i've also found that it very often doesn't stay private.  i know - it should - but from what i've seen, it's very frequent that it leaks out.  And when that happens, i've never seen positive things result - not ever.  

And for those who know people it's happened like what i've detailed above for, i hope everyone can understand why what others say should have happened seems rather irrelevant compared to what actually did happen.  Good intentions are great, but they need to be tempered by how those intentions actually affect people.  

Happy to concede there are other ways it can and does play out - just speaking to what i've seen.

[Vort]

12 minutes ago, lostinwater said:

i don't think asking questions constitutes sexual abuse of a child.

However, - and i can only speak to the experiences of the people i know, but from what i have seen - a child/adolescent that admits (only after having been questioned explicitly regarding it, rather than bringing it up of their own free will), experiences a crushing amount of shame and guilt.  Not the healthy kind - at least not in healthy amounts.

What a perfect time for a bishop to speak words of love and comfort while describing the nature of our mortal dilemma! Words to the effect of, "You are not filthy and awful. You are experiencing what it is to live a mortal life and have desires of the flesh. These things are not evil, but we need to learn to control them. Either we will be the master of our desires, or they will be our master. This is a chance for you to learn to be the master of your own body and mind in a small but important way. Don't be discouraged. You have people who love you and want you to succeed. We'll help you."

15 minutes ago, lostinwater said:

And i've also found that it very often doesn't stay private.  i know - it should - but from what i've seen, it's very frequent that it leaks out.  And when that happens, i've never seen positive things result - not ever.

I have not seen this. But in cases where it's so, that sounds inexcusable.

[lostinwater]

1 minute ago, Vort said:

What a perfect time for a bishop to speak words of love and comfort while describing the nature of our mortal dilemma! Words to the effect of, "You are not filthy and awful. You are experiencing what it is to live a mortal life and have desires of the flesh. These things are not evil, but we need to learn to control them. Either we will be the master of our desires, or they will be our master. This is a chance for you to learn to be the master of your own body and mind in a small but important way. Don't be discouraged. You have people who love you and want you to succeed. We'll help you."

I have not seen this. But in cases where it's so, that sounds inexcusable.

Thanks @Vort

Sounds like we have seen different things.  Amazing how two people spending time in the same church could have such different experiences.

i guess the people who have positive experiences with their bishops are warned to stay away from apostates like me!  

And that anyone who has a negative experience is more prone to come to where they won't feel judged.

Perhaps God and Jesus are using both of us - different as we are - to make sure everyone is taken care of!   

[Vort]

13 minutes ago, lostinwater said:

Thanks @Vort

Sounds like we have seen different things.  Amazing how two people spending time in the same church could have such different experiences.

i guess the people who have positive experiences with their bishops are warned to stay away from apostates like me!  

And that anyone who has a negative experience is more prone to come to where they won't feel judged.

Perhaps God and Jesus are using both of us - different as we are - to make sure everyone is taken care of!   

I hope you understood that my "that sounds inexcusable" comment applied to bishops or other leaders who would allow such private things to be made more widely known.

People who have positive experiences with bishops are not warned to avoid those with negative experiences. In truth, I have had both positive and negative experiences with my bishops, but weighted toward the positive. I have noticed in my own life that at times when I've been prone to self-justification, my experiences have tended toward the negative. When I have been truly humble, my experiences have been almost uniformly positive. Not sure if that applies to anyone else, but that's been my experience.

I do believe our Lord uses each of us to bless others, at least to the extent we're willing to cooperate with him. Clearly, having a bad experience doesn't make one a bad person.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Vort

[JohnsonJones]

4 hours ago, dellme said:

What the heck are you talking about?  Innocence?  The Bishop's not asking an 8-year old nor do they do interviews with 10-year-olds.  We are talking 12+, i.e. young individuals who either have or are going through puberty. Innocence at 12? Come on, give me a break. Anyone using this excuse is just a red herring.  By 12 (we are talking 7th graders here), they have already had sex education classes in school so don't try this "innocence" junk?

And sexual abuse? Sexual abuse? You've got to be kidding me. Billy do you obey the law of Chastity? Yes. Please explain to me what the law of Chastity is? Kid explains.  Now the law of Chastity also includes prohibitions on self-stimulation? Do you understand? Do you do that? Yes. Okay, doing this is a sin and against the law of Chastity, do you look at porn or is this the only thing? The only thing.  Let's read some scriptures together.  Will you strive to live the law of Chastity fully? Yes.

How in the world is that sexual abuse?  The parents that are worried about this stuff still send their children to school where they hear and see worse than that on a regular basis.

Seriously, if a Bishop can't ask about M, then they certainly shouldn't be asking about whether a kid is having sex . . . .

I've seen half a dozen Bishoprics involved (lawsuits now were over a decade ago though) with lawsuits over this, and the individuals (not sure if it went against the church but I don't think most of them were, I think it was normally mainly against the individuals, sometimes in civil, sometimes with criminal charges) LOST on those.  I've also seen the church involved with those that I know in regards to sexual assault twice regarding Bishoprics.  The church DID lose on both of those and paid out several millions of dollars.

I also know of this situation happening within my own family.  The Leader there was lucky that I didn't knock their socks off.  YES...there are those that are innocent at twelve, and even older than that. 

If you were not so innocent at that age, that may be indicative of the environment you were in, but I have known many that do not even know the definition of the word, much less what it means to do such things. 

And yes, it does qualify as sexual abuse in many nations. 

If you were a Bishop and brought up that type of conversation with one of my kids when they were young...then YES...we would have words...and YES...we might even have a confrontation.  I DID have a confrontation with one Bishop.  A child was having problems with natural phenomenon which many young men have when they sleep and have a nocturnal emission.  This Bishop was so callous as to then make that child understand that this equaled a great sin (as in the M that we have been discussing).  This pervert SHOULD have gone to jail in my estimation, and if I was NOT such a loyal Mormon I probably WOULD have pressed charges of emotional abuse on that individual. 

I grew up in an older era, but I didn't even understand what many of these terms meant until after I was married.  I didn't know what the M word actually meant or how people accomplished it.  No one taught me and I didn't practice anything like that.  I didn't know what Petting was or necking until after I was married, and with necking, I didn't know what that was until after I was in my 30s!!!

If a child knows what things are, then they can extrapolate and explain it themselves.  There is NO NEED for a Bishop to go into sexually explicit explanations, and one that does is walking a very fine border between what could be termed abuse and what is not.  Instead of coming up with questions out of the blue and explanations on our own, we should STICK with CHURCH POLICY.  Church policy does NOT instruct one to instruct kids about how to do sexual things in an interview.  There are VERY good reasons for this that the church has learned through the years.

Why ANYONE would argue for a Bishop to IGNORE church policy is mystifying to me, but THIS is a big reason that some get into trouble when they do.  Instead of sticking to the questions and expanding it if needed as the church instructs one to do, they go off on their own ideas and start going into explicit details that have NO place in a church setting between an adult and a child.

I feel strongly that we should stick to the questions that the church instructs us to do.  I feel strongly that in this instance, the church knows BETTER than some hotshots who think that they will go and get into details of sexual acts which they have NO PLACE explaining.  Do as the church says, stick to the Temple recommend questions when giving a temple recommend and be guided by the spirit, not some self righteous stupidity that will get one into trouble because they ignored the church advice and instead went off on their own thinking they were some sex educator rather than a Church leader.

Edited May 22, 2018 by JohnsonJones

[dellme]

57 minutes ago, lostinwater said:

And i've also found that it very often doesn't stay private.  i know - it should - but from what i've seen, it's very frequent that it leaks out. 

I just simply don't believe this-not "very frequent" or "it very often doesn't stay private"-that's a load of junk. I'm sure it does happen rarely.  Confidentiality is one of the single greatest attributes a Bishop needs to have, any Bishop who can't maintain confidentiality should be removed post haste.

Probably more often than not, the individual says something outside of the Bishop's office and then blames the Bishop of leadership for making it known.

[lostinwater]

Just now, dellme said:

I just simply don't believe this-not "very frequent" or "it very often doesn't stay private"-that's a load of junk. I'm sure it does happen rarely.  Confidentiality is one of the single greatest attributes a Bishop needs to have, any Bishop who can't maintain confidentiality should be removed post haste.

 Probably more often than not, the individual says something outside of the Bishop's office and then blames the Bishop of leadership for making it known.

Thanks @dellme

i'm just speaking to the experiences regarding which i am familiar.  That's quite a lot of experiences from where i sit - but i definitely won't claim my perceptions are necessarily representative of the whole.

Though regardless of whose match-stick of experiences represents the tree more fully, concepts of statistical relevance are profoundly irrelevant for those to whom this has occurred.  

[dellme]

37 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

I grew up in an older era, but I didn't even understand what many of these terms meant until after I was married.  I didn't know what the M word actually meant or how people accomplished it.  No one taught me and I didn't practice anything like that.  I didn't know what Petting was or necking until after I was married, and with necking, I didn't know what that was until after I was in my 30s!!!

Then you are quite frankly a very naive individual as much as I'd love to go back to the 50s social code and morality-that ain't happening. Average age kids today are exposed to pornography  is at most 11.  You do a child no good by not telling them about the world-you leave them defenseless.

I was told about petting and necking easily in YM/YW when I was no more than 14 (probably younger). Looking back, I only wish they had actually explained what necking was (for some reason my recollection is that is was never really defined-petting was however).

This is really, really simple, you can't obey the LoC if you don't know what the LoC actually is.  So part of being in a leadership role is to actually explain and teach what the LoC encompasses-that is NECESSARY.

I understand the fear that if you teach someone that smoking is bad, they might just try out smoking, but if you don't teach them smoking is bad and then they do smoke the fault lies with the leader for not teaching that it was bad.

No one is suggesting that a Bishop explains HOW to M or HOW to have sex, only that that Bishop teach that self-stimulation is against the LoC just like pre-marital sex is against the LoC.  The logical conclusion of your argument is that if it's so horrible to simply teach a child from a Bishop that self-stimulation is a sin, then they should never teach that premarital sex is a sin either.

Edited May 22, 2018 by dellme