When I was a YW, I had a nightmare about my imaginary future marriage. I dreamed that my parents had arranged a marriage for me with a “worthy” young man. He came to my parents’ house to live, and when it was time to go to bed, he came out of the bathroom wearing 1950s style flannel pajamas with horse heads on them. He was very awkward and bland, and he wasn’t attractive to me at all. I didn’t like either his looks or his personality, but I knew that I had to be OK being married to anyone who was worthy because otherwise, I wasn’t being a good Christian or a good Mormon.
I had been taught by my leaders something that Spencer W. Kimball said:
“Soul mates’ are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.” Spencer W. Kimball
My teenage interpretation of that statement was that I should be willing and able to make a happy marriage with anybody who was worthy, or at least that if I was being a good person I would be able to do that. It sounds logical, but it’s not without its flaws.
A Fungible Commodity
This definition of marriage assumes that spouses are a fungible commodity and makes personality traits an afterthought or less:
Fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are capable of mutual substitution. That is, it is the property of essences or goods which are “capable of being substituted in place of one another.”. . . The word comes from Latin fungibilis from fungī, meaning “to perform”, related to “function” and “defunct”.
A commodity is a product, a good or service that is useful or valuable that can be exchanged. The worldly definition of marriage usually implies a physical attraction, a meeting of minds, and an enjoyment of personality. Hollywood takes this a step further by requiring chemistry and fireworks, passion, and finishing each others’ sentences in an adorable manner. But marriage as a fungible commodity is far more traditional and is the definition most commonly used at church. It’s a utilitarian approach reminiscent of the Edwardians more than the post-sexual revolution generation.
In fact, many economists have noted that marriage nowadays has become a luxury, not a commodity. It is certainly not a right or entitlement, neither is it a duty. Those who have little means often don’t marry due to financial concerns. Only those who are middle class or better can afford the luxury of marriage. When marriage is a luxury, the struggle is to “earn” marriage through shared trials, saving money or convincing parents. The wedding is a culmination of all that has gone before, a celebration of the achievement of getting to the altar with hand-written vows unique to these special individuals and their unique love. When marriage is a duty, the trials come after the wedding and are what bring the couple closer together (or drive them further apart) after the ceremony.
BYU Dating
My first semester at BYU I lived in an apartment with 5 other women. One of my roommates was very popular, and she had received two marriage proposals within a week. She would walk around the apartment trying to decide which one to marry. I’m not even sure I could tell them apart based on her descriptions. She did eventually choose and left the apartment to start her married life.
Her replacement was a young woman from another state where there weren’t many church members. She only had enough tuition money for one semester, and her sole objective was to get a husband before she had to go home. She told us all that this was her plan, and she had a system to lure dates into marriage by cooking them a home cooked Southern meal, followed by a lengthy relaxing back rub on our living room floor. She bullied us all into vacating the apartment when her gentleman callers were scheduled to be there. I once accidentally overslept and came out in the middle of one of her dates. I looked over the couch, catching her mid back rub on the floor. She laughed tensely and asked what I was doing. I said I just wanted to see who she had on the floor that night.
While these examples are not necessarily typical of all Mormon dating, nor are they far-fetched in Mormon dating. YSA bishops often give their wards goals for dating a variety of people of the opposite sex. Mission presidents sometimes give similar advice. Many young women receive a patriarchal blessing that talks about their future married life. Girls are told that they are entitled to a worthy priesthood holder who will take them to the temple if they also live worthily.
As a result, I found many dating relationships at BYU to be very shallow and superficial, as if anyone who met the outward markers of worthiness was interchangeable and would do, so from that starting point it all boils down to who is best looking and/or has the most earning potential. There was also a strong sense of entitlement, a belief that each of them had earned a “worthy” priesthood holder by being a good girl. Most had never served a mission or done anything noteworthy to that point in life other than to stay out of trouble. It’s not to say that these marriage never succeed, but they don’t seem to have a higher success rate than other marriages, and the lack of preparation, self-awareness and life experience going into some of these marriages seems ill advised.
Consumers, Not Partners
When we commodify marriage, it’s all about what you, the consumer, wants from your spouse. You deserve someone worthy. Some missionaries are told that if they are obedient they will get a hot wife. The focus is on the getting, the consuming, not building a relationship with someone, but being obedient as a way to earn a good spouse, as if you can build a good marriage as an individual, without any actual personality or relationship skills. With this mindset, it’s no wonder that many spouses want out of the marriage as soon as one has a faith crisis or otherwise fails to meet expectations. Once a spouse is no longer “worthy” in the eyes of a consumer, they are free to seek another spouse elsewhere. They aren’t getting what they paid for with their obedience. They want their money back. Is that really behaving like a Christian? Is that really how God wants us to treat our marriage partners?
The Gay Problem
But what about homosexuals in this view of marriage? E. Nelson’s wife Wendy L. Watson, who was formerly a marriage and family therapist invoked YSAs in a BYU-H address this weekend to individually “pray for the spiritual gift of your sexual preferences to align with eternal laws.” In other words, she claims that being heterosexual is a spiritual gift, not only a choice, but something that you will receive if you ask for it in faith. Last time I checked, I didn’t have to request the gift of heterosexuality. It just happened. But apparently if you are gay, it’s just because you lack the faith to be heterosexual.
Of course, this view of homosexuals is a very traditional view of marriage. For most of recorded history, homosexuals made heterosexual marriages and either hid their sexual orientation or carried on extramarital affairs to find personal fulfillment. Even kings and queens who were homosexual were required to enter heterosexual unions to beget an heir.[1] These matches were usually unhappy, sometimes miserable. Personal happiness was sometimes a happy accident. It wasn’t the goal.
A Well Worn Path, Going Nowhere
We’ve been down this road before, and it seems that we are destined to get stuck driving in circles on it. When marriage is viewed as a fungible commodity in which the only price of entry is worthiness, and sexual orientation is a spiritual gift that the worthy can access, we end up right back where we started, encouraging homosexuals to pray the gay away and enter heterosexual marriages. And we know these marriages end in divorce at much higher rates and have many negative consequences to children and spouses alike.
If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
[1] e.g. King James of the KJV Bible.
Wheat & Tares 
Excellent piece, Hawk. I’ll forbear from recounting any personal experience in this regard except to say that the cost associated with the fungible approach is horribly high…
I think my own patriarchal blessing spared me the fungible approach with references to a kindred spirit. I’m very grateful for that.
That Kimball quote didn’t serve my peers well.
This approach has harmed me greatly, although it turned out alright in the end. I always hesitate to tell this story because it makes my husband seem like a jerk, but it is worth telling in the context of this post.
My husband went on a mission and was told, as you say some missionaries are told, that since he was serving faithfully, he would have a hot wife. A few years later and no wife at all, hot or not, he had a faith crisis and became completely inactive. Then we met, when I was a non-member. I converted while we were dating and “reactivated” him. We went back and forth in seriousness of dating for a full 6 years–probably a record for Mormons! While he readily admitted to loving me, knowing I’d make a great wife/mother, feeling like we would always be together, etc, he always was hesitant to commit because I wasn’t his trophy hot wife. These 6 years were extremely tough to get through. It caused me many problems with my self confidence and it cause him many problems with his faith and also with making him feel very shallow, conceited, and immoral.
Eventually we did get married in the temple are both very happy we did so and extremely attracted to one another now. But that was a hurdle that was completely unnecessary and could have had us start our family a few years earlier, which would have been really valuable considering other circumstances.
The irony of the whole thing is that I believe there is an element of truth in Pres Hinckley’s words, although they still are misleading and harmful. I think there is a ridiculous obsession with love (cue Moulin Rouge songs) where folks expect grand, artistic feelings from the start. While I believe that can happen and does happen some of the time (and kudos to those folks who have it happen to them!), it is not the only way and shouldn’t be judged as more righteous or ideal.
There is value in compatibility, personality, attraction (esp. concerning sexual orientation/compatibility) etc and his implication that ANY two righteous people can make marriage work comes from the privileged position he is in. But I think you can foster romantic love through hard work, going through trials, sharing vulnerability and experiences, and, most importantly, making the choice to foster the love. Let me be clear though, using the statement to encourage someone to enter into a mixed orientation marriage is not okay. There does need to be the compatibility there and the choice to foster romantic love should only be made when it makes sense to– i.e. when two people are compatible to begin with.
Marriage isn’t fungible, but it isn’t about an exact and unique match either. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between.
Again, I am always hesitant to share these views because it makes my husband seem shallow and makes some think our love is less deep and genuine. I assure you, it is very deep– it was built though, not premade. In this, it is everything but fungible.
Two comments:
On Table 2 of this link, the male and female populations between the ages of 18 and 44 are broken down by “sexual attraction,” with the choices being “opposite sex only,” “mostly opposite sex,” “both equally,” “mostly same sex,” and “same sex only.” Among women, 17.8 percent reported some degree of attraction to the same sex. Of those, only 4.5 percent reported “same sex only”–opposite-sex attraction was present in more than 95 percent of women reporting some degree of same-sex attraction. It is not unreasonable for those in the 95 percent to pray that their heterosexual urges are sufficient to sustain a faithful opposite-sex marriage. (For the record, the comparable figure for men is 80 percent–still very high.)
The problem is that the debate has been hijacked by the small minority with no opposite sex attraction. Their lack of choice seems to trump everything. If the Church could admit that such people really exist, then would LGBT advocates be willing to grant the Church the right to try to influence the much larger numbers who really do have a choice?
As for “soul mates,” both my wife an I bought into the Kimball quote at the time, and it has been instrumental in keeping us together. We knew we were not soul mates from the getgo, but we thought we were “good”. Turns out we are more flawed than we thought. But through dealing with an alcoholic father, a daughter with OCD and a variety of eating disorders, and a son with Down Syndrome (just for starters) it became clear that the fairy tale would never have happened anyway. We went to counseling and were told that compared to most couples going through that office, we were in pretty good shape. So we suck it up and be the best we can. Our kids have made it clear that that’s important to them. And I truly believe that I have no soul mate out there who I missed.
I think President Kimball is spot on with “almost any good man and any good woman..” meaning, I think, he is equating “good” to trying sincerely to develop Christlike attributes. I’ve always felt we could take just about any decent man and decent woman, and if left on a deserted island, within 6 months to a year they would be living as man and wife. There obviously are exceptions, but I think the urge for bonding and affection are so powerful that their relationship would morph into one of marriage in due course. Once we get past the pizzazz of early love fueled by hormones and move into the mature love stage, the “good” men and women part really comes into play.
My patriarchal blessing was more like Hedgehog’s. Yes, it discussed a future spouse, but it cautioned that I needed to go through several steps to ensure I’d recognize a wise choice. The promised result would be a marriage providing “happiness beyond your imagination.” My husband and I dated for 2 years at BYU (a bit unusual in that culture). I felt way too young to get married, but I couldn’t deny it felt right. I got what I was promised, though everyone has to consistently work on a marriage to keep from getting stale.
The idea that you would enter into a marriage that you *knew* would be unfulfilling absolutely floors me. Yes, two people could make it work if they were stubborn enough, but life is difficult enough as it is.
@Last lemming, I agree that sexuality is a spectrum and we shouldn’t only speak to the small percentage who have absolutely no attraction to the opposite sex. But we need to speak to that small minority (not kick them out as apostates and shun their children). And when we speak to anyone, regardless of where they fall on the spectrum, we need to speak love.
In the Pres. Kimball quote above, the word “almost” is not bolded. That would seem to be an important omission, because he absolutely does have that hedge in his original statement.
“In other words, she claims that being heterosexual is a spiritual gift, not only a choice, but something that you will receive if you ask for it in faith.”
Aw heck, where does it say that we actually GET any spiritual gift that we ask for? I would have a superhero cape if that were true.
The scriptures are clear that different people have different gifts. For whatever reason, we are given gifts that the Lord sees fit, perhaps not even what we asked for.
Yet that does not negate the reality that it may be appropriate for those of us who have certain physical inclinations to pray that those desires be aligned with gospel principles.
Last Lemming has pointed to some of the research on the range of sexuality and I think that is important. It is not uncommon for people to practice one sort of sexuality during one season of their life, but then go on to have a satisfying heterosexual relationship. The homosexual relationships in British boarding schools are legendary but actually have some truth, and the Lesbian Until Graduation (LUG) phenomenon at USAmerican women’s colleges is well documented. When I was in the military, I observed a Lesbian Until Discharge practice upon female soldiers, and heard from sailors about the temporary same-sex relationships on ships.
So for a certain percentage of the population, such prayers are entirely appropriate and may be efficacious.
However, during my time in the military I also watched a woman who chose to marry a man be bullied by the lesbians when she chose to leave their ranks. In their pain of betrayal, they were merciless and mean. They refused to continue any kind of friendship and showed no respect for her decision.
Having seen that behaviour, I worry about young people trying to make that transition. At what point does self-identification as gay become a matter of self-image rather than attraction per se, and the risk of losing friends become part of the equation?
And nowhere did I hear Sister Nelson’s comments as condemning those who experience only same-sex attraction as “lacking the faith to be heterosexual.” This is not a black-and-white zero-sum game.
Actually, in LDS culture, marriage IS considered a duty, especially for the YM. Elder Oaks has hammered this theme repeatedly.
I really like your critique here, Hawkgrrrl, particularly the “Consumers, not partners” paragraph.
This post reminds me of a coworker of mine who had an entire economic theory of dating. It basically brought all dating and marriage down to men and women as commodities. Men will always date/marry the very most attractive woman they can find. Women will always date/marry the highest combination of attractiveness/earning potential she can find. If a man’s earnings end up higher than his previous potential, he will ditch the current woman and find one that is more attractive. As women decline in attractiveness over they years, they are likely to get ditched and have to find a a man lower on the scale. My coworker honestly believed this theory. He developed it while watching the dating habits of his cohorts at UVSC – which is right next to BYU.
Also, there were more occasions than I can count on my mission where the “hotness” of our future spouse was used as an encouragement to do something correctly. The first time I heard it was when my trainer told me that every time I stepped on someone’s lawn instead of using the walk way, my future husband would get a little bit less hot. She actually believed this and was so worried about it that she would perform feats of great agility to avoid ever stepping on anyone’s lawn. I’m still a little bit in disbelief about the whole thing while recounting it years later.
Loved the OP.
“The scriptures are clear that different people have different gifts. For whatever reason, we are given gifts that the Lord sees fit, perhaps not even what we asked for.
Yet that does not negate the reality that it may be appropriate for those of us who have certain physical inclinations to pray that those desires be aligned with gospel principles.”
Naismith,
If we are going to imply that heterosexuality is a spiritual gift, we have to be ok with idea that God has not given some people this gift ant that they can still experience the family, which is the whole purpose of everything the church does. Period.
“To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to have sexual preferences that align with eternal laws. To others it is given to marry whom they will, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful.”
A few things from my reading of the comments:
1) I’m not a fan of the whole “we should push bisexuals to enter straight relationships” thing per Last Lemming’s comments, but I understand that’s where we get in a heteronormative society and religion that doesn’t actually value same-sex relationships at all.
2) ultimately, I think I agree with The Other Clark (comment 9) when he says that in LDS culture, marriage is a duty (with everything that attends it, in terms of commoditization). As much as that “Any good man and woman…” idea in all of its formulations really grosses me out, I think that’s probably a better fit with Mormonism and other conservative Christian ideologies. I think the challenge that conservative religions like these are facing is that they want to continue promoting this way of looking at things when basically everyone raised in these traditions are inundated/immersed in a society that doesn’t accept these thoughts. Mormons aren’t, say, Amish. We don’t shun outside society (no matter how much we want to say we are “in the world but not of it”). And unfortunately for the church, the Mormon way of thinking about things just so often looks, sounds, and experientially feels like a worse deal than other alternatives.
3) To respond to EBK’s comments (comment 12) to Naismith, I don’t think that Mormonism has to be OK with that. I mean, it would be *nice* if it was. It would be *nice* if Mormonism promoted families in whatever shape or form was the best fit for an individual, but it doesn’t.
No, Mormonism presents one ideal. If you don’t fit that ideal, it will not compromise. If you do not have the spiritual gift of heterosexuality, then you just *aren’t a good fit for the church program*. Your best bet is to hope that you can offer your own life as a living consecration to God — will he accept your celibacy and lack of companionship as a sign of your faith in the afterlife?
It’s either that or accept that if you act otherwise, you will be deemed an apostate, and you will not be a member of the church. (This doesn’t mean you can’t participate in some way…there are gay excommunicated folks who still participate in Mormonism…just that you won’t be a member while doing it.)
Andrew,
I think it’s inconsistent to view heterosexuality as a spiritual gift and then claim that those who don’t have it are sinning by not having it. We wouldn’t say that someone who has not been given the gift of tongues is sinning by not having the gift of tongues. And that if they pray for it and don’t get it that something is wrong with them. That’s not how spiritual gifts work. If we want to claim homosexuality as contrary to eternal laws, we can’t call heterosexuality a spiritual gift. It makes no sense. Personally, I’d prefer if we didn’t call homosexuality a sin or heterosexuality a spiritual gift. You can have one or the other or neither but you can’t have both.
I proposed to my wife 6 weeks before my mission ended. A recording of conference contained advice to get married as soon as you could after getting home.
So I had no job, and no qualifications, my wife had a degree, but as birth control was not allowed, we spent the first years having babies in poverty.
We were married in 1970 and have observed that couples’ success depends on how well they are willing to work together. Many couples seem to have one spouse that holds the other back, from achieving greater things.
I am also very hurt by the Nelsons pronouncements, and amused that when they try to explain anything about homosexuality, except that they believe God agrees with them, they get themselves in a mess, as has been explained about Sis Nelson.
I saw reports that Sis Nelson does indeed practice a form of conversion therapy in her therapy practice (from Kendall Wilcox) and pushes the narrative that you can overcome homosexuality through a profound spiritual change of heart. Not. Good.
I do think she used ambiguous language enough to not get called out on it; but I don’t think that will matter to the desperate, depressed LGBTQ+ millennial.
Hawk, a good, thought-provoking post as usual. I’ve just got two thoughts.
1) I think Mormons commodify marriage because of its cultural capital. Our doctrine about marriage, though it doesn’t say this specifically, clearly implies that if you’re not married in the temple, any relationship you have is “less than,” and that includes having no relationship at all. We over-value marriage and under-value the importance of the individual and that, I think, is a huge mistake. We ought to be advising our young people to go slowly, to get their educations first and to be very careful about who they trust with their heart, their being and indeed, their very lives.
2) A comment and a request for clarification: Did Sister Watson, a former therapist, actually promote a version of “pray the gay away” in the talk you mention? If she did, that’s incredibly irresponsible and doubly surprising from someone who was supposedly trained as a therapist. It’s been shown that so-called “gay conversion therapy” does immeasurable harm to the individuals involved. In the words of Dan Savage: “You can’t pray the gay away, but you can torture a conflicted closet-case to death.” It doesn’t sound like Sister Watson was urging folks to engage in gay conversion therapy per se, but it does sound like she implied/stated that one can “pray the gay away.” Such a statement is unconscionable. Am I reading that wrong?
The idea of “any two people can make it work” seems to align wih a common Mormon thought that the solution to any trouble is the Sunday School answers: scriptures, prayer, etc. Financial trouble? Tithing will fix it. Unhappy in your marriage? Repentance, temple attendance, etc. Homosexual inclination? Seek the desire to change, and God will give it to you if you just work hard enough. Something bad happened? If I’d only listened to the Spirit better, this wouldn’t have happened. I must have missed the warning – I must have done something wrong. People who don’t look/act the way I think they should are clearly making wrong choices and disqualifying themselves from promised blessings. As long as I keep following the rules, I will be blessed and life will turn out the way it’s supposed to.
People don’t like to feel out of control, and Mormonism has got it down to a science.
Sis. Nelson’s quote: “pray for the spiritual…gift that your sexual feelings will be in harmony with eternal laws”
a bit ambiguous on purpose, I think. But really not something I’d want my (if I had one) LGBT+ millennial to hear.
14,
EBK,
But people generally (at least, the rhetoric has certainly been shifting this way) aren’t claiming that people are sinning simply by not having the spiritual gift of heterosexuality. Rather, they say that if you don’t have that gift, then your duty is to remain celibate. You sin if you don’t do *that*. Action vs attraction, etc.,
Can a “same-sex attracted” person be LDS in good standing…absolutely, as long as they definitely do not enter into any same-sex relationships.
For whatever it’s worth, just because heterosexuality (as an attraction) is seen as a gift, doesn’t mean that one can’t botch that up either. One has to faithfully use gifts — e.g., monogamy, don’t lust after others, be sure to have plenty of children, etc.,
The “gift” rhetoric speaks to the fact that gifts are unwarranted, undeserved, unearned. But whether you have a gift or you do not, what matter is what you *do* with it (or what you do lacking it).
Context! Context!
Spencer Kimball’s comment you cite was delivered in 1977 in a BYU address entitled “Marriage and Divorce”. The bit quoted is in a section devoted to encouraging people who are already married not to jump ship when things get difficult, tossing aside the current spouse to find a “soul mate”.
(Soulmates were a very popular fiction in the 1970s; cue “Saturday’s Warrior”. And people were using it to justify divorce.)
Read in context the Kimball quote was NOT part of a discussion about deciding who to marry in the first place. It was not a “any good person will be okay” or a “if you are really worthy, it doesn’t matter who you choose” statement. Further, it actually fully supports your position that people who marry should NOT think that “once a spouse is no longer “worthy” in the eyes of a consumer, they are free to seek another spouse elsewhere.”
It’s unfortunate that people (teenage as you were, or not) take this small bit of a much longer discourse out of context and woefully misunderstand or misconstrue it.
Miriam – that’s an important note, but the admonishment when I was a YW was never given in context. Good call out, though.
Likewise, I don’t doubt that Sis. Watson intends for all of us to pray to have our sexual desires match up with gospel principles. Anyone who is gay hearing that is certainly going to hear that you can pray away the gay, just as any single person hearing the Kimball quote will hear that you should be able to marry anyone who is worthy.
If someone has been praying since adolescence for their libido to align with their gender at what point are they entitled to come to the conclusion that it has whatever the object of the desire may be?
Some men are attracted to men. That doesn’t make them women. Some women are attracted to women. That doesn’t make them men. Maybe everyone is just fine just the way Heavenly Father made them.
I’ve never been gay but that’s the way it has made sense to me for as long as I’ve been able to think about it. Possibly because all the gay people I’ve ever known have been great people. And I’ve mourned my share of their tragic and senseless deaths over the last 40 years or so.
Even if President Monson, himself, knocked on my door to tell me otherwise, I can’t change what my experience has been, how my brain processes it, how the Spirit speaks to me or the damage behaving otherwise has done to countless individuals and, now, to the church itself.
I think the church’s attitude about all this has far more to do with the fact that we have geriatric leadership who are mired in the 30s through the 50s (hey! I’m mired in the 60s myself) than divine revelation.
Sorry. Don’t know how I got that in the wrong spot.
Castigate me on the proper thread if you care to so this one isn’t hijacked by my dopey error.
I think people forget the power of prayer, the faith to change, and the ability of miracles. It actually is possible to change ones sexual inclinations and rise above the immoral abyss of Babylon that we live in.
Some may Rob, but they will be a tiny minority who will always be dogged by thoughts the rest of us don’t have to deal with. I’m not sure that is something to inflict upon your family, and i think a lot of sensible and sensitive people have come to that conclusion.We often fly in the face of common sense in this church and then blame God when it goes wrong.
I’m not sure it is only a “tiny minority” who is dogged by thoughts….
I’m an alcoholic. I cannot change the way my body lusts to be high. I can only control my behavior for a few minutes at a time through the grace of God. Even the most successful alcoholism management program in the world recommends reliance on a higher power.
I’ve managed to remain sober for over 30 years. But there have been various times when I was sorely tempted to imbibe and a few times when I used prescription drugs a bit longer or stronger than might have been needed. And my first reaction to a stressful situation is still that I want to get drunk.
One of the John Grisham novels had a character who has a Christian conversion and was instantly cured of alcoholism, with no further desires. I remember feeling inadequate when reading that, because I had not had that great change. But then I saw that the story ended only days later, so we don’t know if he was ever tempted to backslide.
We are promised that we can be cleansed and healed. I’m not sure we are ever promised that the temptations will go away. Perhaps some people do get that gift. Perhaps others of us have to settle for being able to control our behavior, which is also a gift. A lot of alcoholics would be very glad to be sober for more than 30 years, even if the yearnings didn’t go away.
I agree that someone who only has same-sex attraction should not be forced into a questionable treatment program.
But what about the young person who has bisexual leanings–a non-trivial percentage? If they actually want help in following a heterosexual path, should they not be entitled to help? And yet a lot of therapists would refuse to treat them.
I am not suggesting pushing anyone, but simply having support in place for those who want to go there. There is a huge difference between the two, which is not always recognized.
I also think that more attention should be paid to the social and emotional consequences of moving from a gay lifestyle to straight. The person may even be bisexual enough to find satisfaction, s/he may be in love with the new partner–but may still experience abandonment and accusations of betrayal by former friends. (Not claiming that the consequences are any worse than straight people who come out as gay.) But those issues may keep one in a homosexual lifestyle beyond sexual preference per se.
“I do think she used ambiguous language enough to not get called out on it…”
This implies some sly motivation on her part. Is it not possible that in referring to all those who want “sexual feelings in harmony with eternal laws” that she might actually be talking about ALL those who want their sexual feelings to be in harmony with eternal laws?
There are just so many different ways to sin sexually…even in a heterosexual marriage. I did not think she was addressing gays in particular.
What about those who have desire to have sex with children? Why is it okay for their behavior to be criminalized and treated? Aren’t they also just made that way?
the reason that sexual orientations like homosexuality and bisexuality are treated differently from pedophilia is because the former involves consenting adults while the latter involves children who cannot consent.
The fact that people keep making comparisons here (and sincerely appear not to understand WHY pedophilia is criminalized but homosexuality is not and should not be) is a bigger sign that as a society, we don’t really have a good understanding of sexual ethics.
I made a similar comment to Andrew but it got lost. You can’t compare consensual sex acts with non-consensual. The reason for criminalizing some sexual behaviors is that there is a victim involved!
I’m not comfortable dictating that bisexuals should preference their heterosexual attractions or that because they are bisexual, they are “close enough” to make it work. My unwillingness is simply because I’m not bisexual, so I’m ignorant of this experience. I understand that the church is not willing to condone monogamous sexual relationships that are not hetero, while society now allows all consensual pairings (except polygamy where consent may be compromised by its very nature). That’s the prerogative of churches, defining sexual morality for that church’s participants.
“I’m not comfortable dictating that bisexuals should preference their heterosexual attractions…”
And neither am I. I would’t dictate anything about sexuality to anyone else.
My only point is that IF a young person wants to focus on the heterosexual, they should have whatever help is possibly available, spiritual or professional. Unfortunately the psychology profession has largely abandoned that kind of therapy for fear of being painted with the same broad brush as the truly horrendous “therapies” that had been attempted.
Naismith, I would suggest that we follow the advice of bisexual therapists on this matter then.
Andrew, I am not sure who the “we” is that is the society you are talking about. In much of the world, and in past eras, marriage to women barely into their teens was and is pretty common.
Juliet was only 12 when she fell in love with Romeo.
I personally agree strongly about the illegality of pedophilia, but reading some of the advocacy pages, some compelling arguments are made about the practice going back millenia and the only barriers being rather modern Western thought.
If the only concern with a sexual activity is hurting someone else, then masturbations is totally okay and the church should accept it, right?
In much of the world, and in past eras, human physiological and psychological development were not all that well understood…additionally, in much of the world, and in past eras, most societies operated under either explicitly or implicitly patriarchal systems where the well-being of women were not exactly taken into consideration.
so I mean, for someone advocating for child marriage or for pedophilia, arguing based on “the practice going back millennia” would be a non-starter w/r/t to human well-being, power differentials, etc.,
But yeah, I think plenty of people would say that the LDS church demonization of masturbation is inconsistent with what we know about sexuality, and causes more harm than it seeks to prevent.
“I think plenty of people would say that the LDS church demonization of masturbation is inconsistent with what we know about sexuality, and causes more harm than it seeks to prevent.” Yes, and that includes nearly all therapists.
I would only add that there’s a huge difference between the law and what is moral. The law seeks to prevent harming others and usually stops there (although libertarians would argue that point). What is moral is sometimes concerned with other matters such as personal purity (e.g. masturbation and voyeurism, for example). If it “degrades” the individual by whatever standard is used by that religion, then it is immoral.
Actually, I have heard the “ever since millenia…only a problem with modern Western prudery…” defense made in support of homosexuality. So I hope you are as unimpressed when gay advocates cite that as well.
Here’s the main point that I was trying to make: There are just so many kinds of sexual desires that may not be consistent with the best path for someone on their spiritual journey.
I think that we should show compassion for ALL who struggle with various challenges, and not just show sympathy towards gays because it is a trendy issue.
I am sure there are members who wrestle with pedophilic desires but find the strength not to act on them. I think that they could appreciate Sister Nelson’s talk and feel her sympathy for their struggles.
That sympathy for all who struggle is sometimes lacking from so many of these conversations that pick and choose, showing great sympathy to those with acceptable or “popular” challenges but ignoring or dismissing others as being not the same thing or clearly wrong.
When a person is on their knees begging for strength, I am not sure it matters what the particular temptation is.
To leap to the conclusion that Sister Nelson’s target was only gays is a bit egocentric–only the potholes in front of one matter, neh?
1) Wasn’t it Alma, in the Book of Mormon, who realized he was sinning when he wished that he was an angel?
2) When you commoditize relationships, you commoditize the people in them as well. Who benefits from that? Because it sure as heck ain’t the people that Mormon church leadership views as interchangeable, and judges based on their outward appearance.
3) Why are so many Mormons so sure that everyone outside their church is miserable, is in “Babylon,” and merits destruction or endless punishment by a loving god? Why are they so blind to their own tragedies and social ills, and the causes thereof?
Where is the mourning for lives lost to suicide, for love that will never bloom, for children in orphanages who will never have foster parents? Are those things all to be ignored, or even celebrated?