Rolling Stone Article Re: Armpit Crabs at BYU

[jkwilliams]

52 minutes ago, bluebell said:

It's a weird place too. 

I've attended student wards in a couple different states and was pretty well in the know, and if the kind of stuff that BYU is always getting called out for happened in any of those single wards it was a one-off situation that the couple took to their graves.

What is it about BYU??  Sheer numbers and a case of the odds being stacked against it?

My guess is that, unlike at other schools, some BYU students are there because of family pressure. I have known people whose parents said they would not help with expenses unless they went to BYU. But that doesn’t really explain the people who try to skirt the law of chastity.

As I said, I was quite naive and completely inexperienced when I was at BYU. But I heard first- and secondhand accounts of people trying to have some kind of sex while somehow remaining chaste. Kind of skeeved me out. Still does. 

[Calm]

9 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

My guess is that, unlike at other schools, some BYU students are there because of family pressure

Unlike other schools?  You don’t think there are plenty of parents who envision a path for their kid that includes a specific school and they have a meltdown if their kid doesn’t make it into the Only One or foolishly thinks they know better what will work for them than their aspiring parent?  My kid’s going to be a doctor from ______ med school, lawyer from ______, etc etc.

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Unlike other schools?  You don’t think there are plenty of parents who envision a path for their kid that includes a specific school and they have a meltdown if their kid doesn’t make it into the Only One or foolishly thinks they know better what will work for them than their aspiring parent?  My kid’s going to be a doctor from ______ med school, lawyer from ______, etc etc.

Of course, but I’m talking about parents who believe BYU will be a moral or spiritual haven for their kids. I don’t think many parents would say that about Harvard or UCLA. It’s like parents who think if they can just get their kid on a mission, everything will be fine (hence promising things like a car in exchange for serving a mission).

[Tacenda]

Some of you might remember this from the Newlywed Game. 

 

[BlueDreams]

14 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

I’m seriously so hard pressed to believe this.  I mean unless the Clinton fiasco genuinely made a bigger impact than I thought- in that anything “but” is no problemo. 
I mean I was once young and felt the urge to merge and I convinced myself that I could get away with stuff but I knew for sure it wasn’t anything I was going to advertise, Because I knew it was wrong. But I sure had a lot of cognitive dissonance With the level of justification going on.

Get this, at BYU my bishop literally told us he would NOT grant temple recommends to anyone who kissed open mouthed.  He defined that as heavy petting, grounds even for expulsion.  So what did I do with that? I said to myself, here’s a guy in a wheelchair and clearly can’t have sex himself and is bitter. (Major false assumption to support my cause)  He has not earned my trust and I will tell him that I am worthy to attend the temple even though I probably don’t think I am. But he is an unworthy judge so I will just lie.
time came to interview, I lied, he pressed, I lied more. For 20 years I carried a tremendous burden of appropriate guilt. I never did the deed, and I never smurfed or twitted  or thrumped, but I sure as anything french kissed.  And a little bit of other otherwise harmless but outside the rule book stuff.  I did pretty good for a gal dating a non member for over a year.  
 

thank goodness at the 20 year mark I had a trustworthy bishop who set my mind straight and at ease. Go to the temple and never think about this again, he said. 
 

BYU is one horny place I’ll tell you what. 

Lol. Makes sense Byu is a horny place. Most people in the late teens early 20’s with no kids to suck out time energy and libido are. 😋

I would note the greater majority of active LDS clients I see really are fairly limited in the sexual experience pre-marriage. The first 2 categories I mentioned early are the bulk of clients I see. But there is a subset that have explored a little further. That subset tends to grow the older people get. TBH I was probably in the category of doing more Than the average pre-married to some degree. Part of that was because of those wonderful bishop chats I got. By late 20’s I’d heard 4-5 different “lines” drawn. I also saw how awkwardly quiet these talks got because the standard was often particularly rigid and a good chunk of the  room were doing more than what was defined as risky  (usually somewhere around making out, lying beside each clothed, staying over late, etc) or concerning (usually slightly more arousing behaviors…but only just so). Many things talked about were Ill defined. So at some point i stopped trusting these talks because  they were astoundingly inconsistent and at points just wrong. It became over the years more and more up to me, and I went with principles I did believe in mixed with spiritual check-ins/promptings to guide my standards in varying contexts. I tuned out most chastity lessons until I was old enough to do something about them. 
 

With doing therapy I began to see that guilt was really not fundamentally tied to sexual acts per se, but by what people believed about what they were doing. If they believed they shouldn’t do XYZ and they did even just X they could be really heavy in guilt. Sometimes they struggled with managing their sexual urges and the guilt behind doing x and y would leave them hopeless till they basically gave up and did z. One I heard of just accepted that this wasn’t going to work for them and chose as much activity as possible without really focusing on the LOC. i think they drew some lines around what they wouldn’t participate in or do church wise but it was definitely surprising broad in what they would do. If a person believed xyz was best not to happen but x happened with say their fiance, they may feel mild guilt but be okay with it to some degree cuz they got married. And some just didn’t believe that x or maybe even y counted as long as z didn’t happen. Z’s intercourse obviously. But x and y were variable from person to person. What was lowball not okay (x) v really pushing it (y) varied somewhat from person to person. Straight up hypocrisy was rare. It was usually more complicated than that. 
luckily the era of probing interviews were starting to fade for my gen at Byu, so I never had to bold face lie to a bishop. I would have as well and I probably wouldn’t have felt that guilty about it because at that point I didn’t think it was his business. Though I would have felt a smidge of guilt for the principle of not lying. That’s a bigger value for me than not making out was. 
 

with luv, 

BD 

[bluebell]

On 11/5/2022 at 9:26 AM, MustardSeed said:

Get this, at BYU my bishop literally told us he would NOT grant temple recommends to anyone who kissed open mouthed.

One of my student ward bishops once gave a talk at church about how anything that caused a "rising of the loins" (one of his favorite phrases when talking about sex) was a sin.  I didn't even know what to do with that so I ignored it (and felt bad for the men since I guessed that happened often and not in any kind of a sinful way).

[Vanguard]

15 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Some of you might remember this from the Newlywed Game. 

 

Love it! : )

[Meadowchik]

On 11/5/2022 at 2:57 PM, MustardSeed said:

Oh lol - my autistic literal brain strikes again.  How desperate one must be and shrouded in justification thinking to land on this and think it fits in the definition of the law of chastity. Just do the dang thing. 💥😆

No, because it's "next to murder." That imo is the core of the thinking behind these really bizarre so-called alternatives.

[Meadowchik]

17 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Of course, but I’m talking about parents who believe BYU will be a moral or spiritual haven for their kids. I don’t think many parents would say that about Harvard or UCLA. It’s like parents who think if they can just get their kid on a mission, everything will be fine (hence promising things like a car in exchange for serving a mission).

I had a summer term roommate at BYU, didn't know her long before she moved out suddenly. Not long after, her family started calling for her and demanding to know where she was. We didn't know, we hadn't known her long at all. 

Come to find out, she had had an unplanned pregnancy and out of fear of being kicked out of BYU she married him quickly and secretly. The story came out afterwards. 

But I remember her older brother indignant on the phone that we didn't know where she was, as if we they had somehow counted on us to take care of her. Of course, I did try to be a caring roommate, but the family's expectations were jarring just the same.

[MustardSeed]

28 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

I had a summer term roommate at BYU, didn't know her long before she moved out suddenly. Not long after, her family started calling for her and demanding to know where she was. We didn't know, we hadn't known her long at all. 

Come to find out, she had had an unplanned pregnancy and out of fear of being kicked out of BYU she married him quickly and secretly. The story came out afterwards. 

But I remember her older brother indignant on the phone that we didn't know where she was, as if we they had somehow counted on us to take care of her. Of course, I did try to be a caring roommate, but the family's expectations were jarring just the same.

How terrifying for her family- how awful for her, the level of shame she felt, and desperation- 

where is she now? Still married? 

[BlueDreams]

On 11/4/2022 at 11:13 AM, smac97 said:

From the Deseret News (Hanna Seariac) :

This thought has come to me many times over the years.  However, I can't entirely object to people pointing out "hypocrisy" when exhibits by religious people.  We need to hold each other to account.  How and where and when and who does this is, of course, an important consideration.

I came across a few articles and social media posts about this story, but I had ignored it because I did not want to "pass it on."  But now that it's print in the Deseret News...

A few reasons:

First and foremost, hypocrisy is just a really grating thing for many people.

Second, I think antipathy goes a long way in explaining the perpetuation and repetition of these tropes.

Third, schadenfreude, or whatever it is that impels us to gossip and backbite, to rubberneck and gawk at others' missteps.

Finally read the whole of the article so I feel I can respond more. I think it's important to note what subsection of news and social this pops up on. The places that wrote these articles tend to like sensationalistic and shock-factor news and are more...let's say flexible...with how corroborated their stories are. My husband showed me one last night that popped up on his favorite meme site to laugh at. Though they can have decent articles/information, they can also be glorified rumor mills. Rumors generally enjoy juicy tidbits that fuel hunches or go against the character of a person/people in shocking ways. This is both depending on how one views religious communities. Some view us as straight-laced. I remember a high school friend being shocked that I admitted to even having sexual urges as a teen because I was "mormon"....like religion magically turns off sexual development and its effects. But there's others who assume the worst in a cultural context that runs counter to their own beliefs or experiences. They assume there must be some form of hanky panky or complexes lurking under most corners of the faith. That could be things like sexless marriages, boring marital sex, repressed singles, and hidden kink. Note all of these do happen, but not to the degree that's assumed by those outside looking in. We're human, we tend to be suspicious of views that don't corroborate our own and we tend to stereotype based on negative experiences we've heard of, experienced, or assume. This means they would gravitate to accounts or hearsay like this because it validates deep seated assertions about said practices that they hold. Plus it's just funny-stupid. People like funny-stupid things. 

 

On 11/4/2022 at 11:13 AM, smac97 said:

Here is where Hanna really gets going:

Good stuff, this.

Go Hanna!

Again, good stuff.

I agreed with much of the picture painted. As I've mentioned, most people I meet who practice their faith generally limited their sexual experiences pre-marriage, somewhere around heavy make outs. None were doing really out-there work arounds to get more hanky-panky. It's hard to reinvent the sexual wheel and most just renamed practices and experiences that have happened for ages. 

On 11/4/2022 at 11:13 AM, smac97 said:

Yep.  The popular approach to sex being both meaningless (such as when someone wants to excuse/justify/rationalize one-night stands, "hook-ups," "sex work," etc.) and meaningful (sexual abuse is particularly and uniquely awful, etc.) is pretty weird.

Not necessarily. It's usually more that the meanings they were told it meant based on religious/parental/abstinence only lessons come to not be super true unless you treat sex as something more special. So sex itself becomes just another thing you may do...over time there may be values that you personally find that are similar to more conservative ones. one-night stands may become fairly barren compared to sex with a partners you've been dating for a bit for example. But there are still usually things that are considered bad because sex is being used in a way that harms or controls others in ways most view as bad. "meaningless" sex doesn't mean value-guided sex, in other words. You can still practice basic human decency around people's bodies while still not subscribing greater meaning out of the experience beyond seeking pleasure. 

Not that I personally value this, but usually the disconnect or seeming contradictions come more from juxtaposing our moral frame work/language onto another who does have the same.

On 11/4/2022 at 11:13 AM, smac97 said:

Great response.  Great reasoning and evidentiary support.  Well done, Hanna and DN!

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Smac

Very little that I haven't already said. Only thing I could add is that I mentioned I was a little relieved that I'd waited till marriage to have certain sexual experiences. I would say the reasons for that range. 1) I have no unexpected kiddos and more complicated family structures that have happened with several of my cousins over the years. That was a biggie for me. 2) The partners I did have who afforded me having sex if I held different values just aren't my husband. I have a man who cares and knows me. Who supports and is committed to me and the life journey we're taking together. It makes any type of sexual experiences we have more than anything I had prior. I don't think it would have been long-term damaging with most of them to have been more sexual. (Okay, one probably) but I didn't miss out on it because they weren't what I truly wanted: a fun loving life-partner where sex is a dynamic experience within it and an expression of us rather than a more individualist seeking of pleasure. 3.) I didn't have the haphazard journey to find my sexual balance that I've seen with those that didn't wait and didn't really have a model for what they want without a a lot more trial and error. 4.) no need for STI checks/treatment. Not that much of a biggie most the time, but i'm grateful to have avoided it none-the-less. In short I don't hold a lot of envy or sense of loss. I had heard a wide range of experiences of others to know pretty solidly that I wanted a good partner to have generally better quality sex. And I got that. 

 

With luv,

BD

[smac97]

2 hours ago, BlueDreams said:

Finally read the whole of the article so I feel I can respond more. I think it's important to note what subsection of news and social this pops up on.

Yes, that is important.  Not sure this matters as much to casual readers, though.  They'll take the rumor/innuendo as established fact because they "read it online" somewhere.

2 hours ago, BlueDreams said:

This is both depending on how one views religious communities. Some view us as straight-laced. I remember a high school friend being shocked that I admitted to even having sexual urges as a teen because I was "mormon"....like religion magically turns off sexual development and its effects.

When I was in the Army I met more than one person who was curious about my life as a Latter-day Saint.  I remember one fellow being flummoxed at the idea that Latter-day Saints voluntarily abstain from sex outside of marriage.  He seemed to think that the only options were A) acting on sexual urges, or B) not having sexual urges.

2 hours ago, BlueDreams said:

Quote

Yep.  The popular approach to sex being both meaningless (such as when someone wants to excuse/justify/rationalize one-night stands, "hook-ups," "sex work," etc.) and meaningful (sexual abuse is particularly and uniquely awful, etc.) is pretty weird.

Not necessarily. It's usually more that the meanings they were told it meant based on religious/parental/abstinence only lessons come to not be super true unless you treat sex as something more special. So sex itself becomes just another thing you may do...over time there may be values that you personally find that are similar to more conservative ones.  But there are still usually things that are considered bad because sex is being used in a way that harms or controls others in ways most view as bad.  "meaningless" sex doesn't mean value-guided sex, in other words. You can still practice basic human decency around people's bodies while still not subscribing greater meaning out of the experience beyond seeking pleasure.

I guess my thinking on this point is influenced by how the law treats sexual assault as compared to other "species" of assault.  It is bad for a man to physically assault a woman (a punch to the gut, for examples), but considerably worse to sexually assault a woman.  Many forms of sexual assault do not even involve the use or threat of force, and yet they are still typically construed as being worse than assault that does.

2 hours ago, BlueDreams said:

Very little that I haven't already said. Only thing I could add is that I mentioned I was a little relieved that I'd waited till marriage to have certain sexual experiences.

Same here, for both practical reasons (such as those you raise) and religious ones.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Meadowchik]

5 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

How terrifying for her family- how awful for her, the level of shame she felt, and desperation- 

where is she now? Still married? 

I wish I knew...I've tried to look her up a few times over the years with no luck.

[jkwilliams]

7 hours ago, bluebell said:

One of my student ward bishops once gave a talk at church about how anything that caused a "rising of the loins" (one of his favorite phrases when talking about sex) was a sin.  I didn't even know what to do with that so I ignored it (and felt bad for the men since I guessed that happened often and not in any kind of a sinful way).

When we were first married, the bishop of our BYU married student ward called a special priesthood meeting with closed doors and men guarding the doors so no one would come in. People were speculating about Jackson County, but it was more mundane. First, he wanted to let us now how outrageous it was that some of the brethren were still masturbating despite having wives. But he really got worked up when discussing a pernicious practice in the ward. He got red-faced and almost foaming at the mouth when telling us how horrified he was that some men were purchasing lingerie for their wives. “We do not want the precious daughters of our Heavenly Father to dress up like Hollywood hookers!” He was practically screaming. It was the most bizarre meeting I ever attended. 

[Tacenda]

33 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

When we were first married, the bishop of our BYU married student ward called a special priesthood meeting with closed doors and men guarding the doors so no one would come in. People were speculating about Jackson County, but it was more mundane. First, he wanted to let us now how outrageous it was that some of the brethren were still masturbating despite having wives. But he really got worked up when discussing a pernicious practice in the ward. He got red-faced and almost foaming at the mouth when telling us how horrified he was that some men were purchasing lingerie for their wives. “We do not want the precious daughters of our Heavenly Father to dress up like Hollywood hookers!” He was practically screaming. It was the most bizarre meeting I ever attended. 

To the bold...one of the things that has me upset is the mindset against masturbation and then it's up to the wives to take care of their husbands all.the.time. Instead of men feeling it's okay to take care of themselves. And especially when in women's older years they are having a hard time with sex not hurting. And even the women don't like their husbands to masturbate because of the stigma over it being bad. 

Also, funnily an old neighbor from a previous ward told told my husband while sleeping in a tent at a scout camp, all about his loving to buy lingerie for his wife, he didn't get the memo apparently.

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Tacenda

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

To the bold...one of the things that has me upset is the mindset against masturbation and then it's up to the wives to take care of their husbands all.the.time. Instead of men feeling it's okay to take care of themselves. And especially when in women's older years they are having a hard time with sex not hurting. And even the women don't like their husbands to masturbate because of the stigma over it being bad. 

Also, funnily an old neighbor from a previous ward told told my husband while sleeping in a tent at a scout camp, all about his loving to buy lingerie for his wife, he didn't get the memo apparently.

 

Yep, the message was that it was the wife’s duty to meet the husband’s needs. When I told my wife about the meeting she said it was a good thing that she was the one who bought the lingerie. To this day, I can’t imagine what business it is of a bishop to determine what people wear in the bedroom. So bizarre. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

16 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

To the bold...one of the things that has me upset is the mindset against masturbation and then it's up to the wives to take care of their husbands all.the.time. Instead of men feeling it's okay to take care of themselves. And especially when in women's older years they are having a hard time with sex not hurting.

Thanks for once again making me grateful to be single! 

[jkwilliams]

20 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Thanks for once again making me grateful to be single! 

Any day being married to the love of your life beats the heck out of the best day of being single. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Any day being married to the love of your life beats the heck out of the best day of being single. 

Sure. 

Is it your intention to try to make me feel sad and lonely?

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Hamba Tuhan said:

Sure. 

Is it your intention to try to make me feel sad and lonely?

I’m just saying you’ll find when you marry that you’ll have much more to be grateful for. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

I’m just saying you’ll find when you marry that you’ll have much more to be grateful for. 

Right. 

If I actually do marry in the next life, I hope I don't don't automatically begin patronising single people who have much less to be grateful for ...

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Right. 

If I actually do marry in the next life, I hope I don't don't automatically begin patronising single people who have much less to be grateful for ...

I wasn’t patronizing you at all. You said you were grateful to be single, which I think is wrongheaded. Sorry if I offended. 😔

[SeekingUnderstanding]

36 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Right. 

If I actually do marry in the next life, I hope I don't don't automatically begin patronising single people who have much less to be grateful for ...

Help me understand. You told Tacenda her trials made you glad to be single. And that’s not patronizing? 

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Help me understand. You told Tacenda her trials made you glad to be single. And that’s not patronizing? 

I was trying to respond in a positive way, but I guess I said it wrong. 

[Tacenda]

6 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Help me understand. You told Tacenda her trials made you glad to be single. And that’s not patronizing? 

I guess I had it coming to me, lol. But it made me giggle I wasn't offended.