Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (25 page)

Mormons are also against masturbation. They know it is going to happen, but they dare not say it is O.K. because Jesus said that to even have lustful thoughts is a sin. The leaders also know that they have done it many times in their life, yet they cannot admit it. Instead they talk around it, ignore it or just give inane advice to not do it.

One of the most humorous documents I have seen on the subject comes from Boyd K. Packer, who has held some of the highest positions in the Morman church, including president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In his six-page instruction,
To Young Men Only
, he never uses the
term “masturbation” or “sex” once. This would be hilarious, if it weren’t the actual view of the church. Here is an excerpt:
¹³⁴

I wish to explain something that will help you understand your young manhood and help you develop self-control. When this power begins to form, it might be likened to having a little factory in your body, one designed to produce the product that can generate life.

This little factory moves quietly into operation as a normal and expected pattern of growth and begins to produce the lifegiving substance. It will do so perhaps as long as you live. It works very slowly. That is the way it should be. For the most part, unless you tamper with it, you will hardly be aware that it is working at all.

As you move closer to manhood, this little factory will sometimes produce an oversupply of this substance. The Lord has provided a way for that to be released. It will happen without any help or without any resistance from you. Perhaps, one night you will have a dream. In the course of it the release valve that controls the factory will open and release all that is excess.

The factory and automatic release work on their own schedule. The Lord intended it to be that way. It is to regulate itself. This will not happen very often. You may go a longer period of time, and there will be no need for this to occur. When it does, you should not feel guilty. It is the nature of young manhood and is part of becoming a man.

There is however, something you should not do. Sometimes a young man does not understand. Perhaps he is encouraged by unwise or unworthy companions to tamper with that factory. He might fondle himself and open that release valve. This you shouldn't do, for if you do that, the little factory will speed up. You will then be tempted again and again to release it. You can quickly be subjected to a habit, one that is not worthy, one that will leave you feeling depressed and feeling guilty. Resist that temptation. Do not be guilty of tampering or playing with this
sacred power of creation. Keep it in reserve for the time when it can be righteously employed.

Many fundamentalist churches would probably agree with most of these ideas. This is an attempt to ensure that young Mormon boys feel shame and guilt about their normal sexual urges. DON’T TAMPER WITH THE FACTORY! – a simple but ineffective message.

This is a small sample of religions. A whole book could be devoted to the unique distortions of each cult and denomination, but this will suffice to illustrate the devastating impact of religion on the sex practices and sexuality of millions of people. Next we will take a look at what happens when people leave religion, and religion is no longer in the bedroom.

123
We will discuss this at length in
Chapter 16
.

124
See “Adolescent Sexual Health in Europe and the US,” available online at
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/419?task=view
.

125
General Social Survey, NORC. 1977-2002. Available online at
http://www3.norc.org/GSS+Website/
.

126
From the Guttmacher Institute, “Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients, 2008,” by Rachel K. Jones, Lawrence B. Finer and Susheela Sin. Available online at
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/US-Abortion-Patients.pdf
.

127
Interview with Jamila Bey on 31 October 2011.

128
For excellent analysis, see Sikivu Hutchinson's
Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars
, (2011).

129
White's essay is available online at
http://wordsofwrath.blogspot.com/2008/05/invisibility-of-black-atheist.html
.

130
Cohen, Susan A. “Abortion and Women of Color: The Bigger Picture,” available online at
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/11/3/gpr110302.html
.

131
Available online at
http://atheism.about.com/od/religiousright/ig/Christian-Propaganda-Posters/Pregnancy-Punishment-Sex.htm
.

132
The murder of David Kato is a prime example of religious hatred in Uganda. Legislation was even introduced by a prominent evangelical legislator to make homosexuality punishable by death and failing to report a homosexual as crime punishable by 5 years in prison. Only an international outcry stopped it from passing. See, for example,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/africa/28uganda.html
.

133
See, for example, Lindsay Tanner's “Gay Teen Suicides (And Straight) More Common In Politically Conservative Areas,” at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/18/gay-teen-suicides-and-str_n_850345.html
.

134
This is a pamphlet that is given to every 12-year-old Mormon boy. For the full text, visit
http://www.lds-mormon.com/only.shtml
.

What is the impact on sexuality when people leave religion? How do they benefit or suffer?

In doing research for this book, I found few authors directly addressing religion’s impact on sexuality and what happens to sex and sexuality when a person leaves religion. As a result, I determined to take a look myself. Amanda Brown, undergraduate at University of Kansas, and I conducted an Internet-based survey of 14,560 secular people in the United States. Most of our respondents were born and raised in a religious environment but have since left religion.
¹³⁵

We examined sex and religion from many different angles. We were most interested in the sexual guilt that people were taught or experienced in their religious training and how their sexual behavior changed once they left religion. We asked, “How would you rate what you were taught: How guilty you felt about sex and its implications on yourself?” We tabulated the results by the denomination in which respondents were raised.
Figure 1
shows that the fundamentalist religions use guilt more than liberal religions. It’s not a surprise, but it is the first time that such data have been collected.

Figure 1

We went on to hypothesize that higher guilt led to poorer communication between parent and child about sex. To measure this, we asked respondents where they had received their sex education. A total of 38.2% of those from the least religious homes said that they got sex education from their parents,
whereas only 13.5% respondents from more fundamentalist homes received parental sex education. In other words, those from the most guilt-based religions received the least amount of information from their parents.

Equally interesting were other sources of sexual information. For example, pornography was an important source of sexual information for 25.2% of the least religious, but the most religious cited it as important 33% of the time. This is part of a pattern that shows the most religious people often do the very thing their religion tells them not to, and they frequently do it at a higher rate than their more secular peers.

Since masturbation is discouraged among many religions, we asked questions about how respondents’ parents treated masturbation in the home. We asked, “Were you shamed or ridiculed by a parent or guardian for masturbatory activities?” A total of 5.5% of those from the most liberal homes said “yes,” while 22.5% of those from the most religious homes said “yes.”

For most questions, we also allowed respondents to make comments. Some of the responses from people raised in religious homes were heartbreaking:

• … being caught masturbating caused me to be beaten until I couldn't stand up
  .
  
• I used to masturbate and then perform the Islamic ritual cleansing and beg Allah for forgiveness. I tried to stop, but my sexual desire was worse when I didn't than when I did. I worried not only about sin, but also about the fact that my mother told me that if I masturbated, I'd have problems with my future husband
  .
  

Those raised in non-religious homes made comments that were very different, even funny:

• My mom found my porn at one point. She informed me she didn't approve and kindly asked me to remove it from her hard drive (and put it on my own, portable, if I felt the need to)
  .
  
• Not shamed exactly, but scolded for absconding with Dad's Playboy/Penthouse magazines
  .
  
• My older sisters and their boyfriends would constantly ask, "Do you play with yourself?" Heck, yeah! Every chance I had
  .
  

We looked at the beginning of sexual behavior in adolescence and found remarkable similarities in four types of behavior, regardless of childhood religious training: masturbation, petting,
¹³⁶
oral sex and intercourse.

As illustrated in
Figure 2
, there is very little difference in the beginning of these behaviors between those raised the most and least religious.

At about age 18, the largest difference appears, but it is only 9% for intercourse and that difference shrinks to 3.9% at age 21. All the sexual messages and guilt taught by religion have little or no effect on actual behavior. While this is just one study, we were careful to examine other studies that looked at similar behavior. For example, the national abstinence-only research funded by the federal government found that teaching children to abstain from sex has almost no effect on actual behavior.
¹³⁷

Figure 2

Christian religions teach that even fantasizing is sinful, so we asked respondents if they felt it was wrong to fantasize sexually about others. A total of 46.1% of those raised most religious said it was wrong compared to 6.2% of the least religious. We also asked, “When you were religious, did you believe it was wrong to discuss or act out fantasies with your partner?” A total of 40% of the most religious said “yes,” compared to 3.9% of the least religious.

Good sexual communication between partners includes the ability to share fantasies and other sexual ideas and desires. We can see from these data that respondents raised in more religious families were far more reluctant to communicate fantasies with their spouses or partners than the less religious. According to some religious leaders, sharing fantasies is sinful for both partners. Evangelicals take the “lust in your heart” idea very seriously.
¹³⁸
This is evidence that religious people communicate far less about sex than the less religious.

We also asked, “How has your sex life changed since leaving religion?”

Figure 3

As reflected in
Figure 3
, the difference was remarkable. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 as the most improved, 54.6% rated an 8, 9 or 10. The comments we received tell a story of great relief and satisfaction.

• “I became comfortable with the idea of being a girl who actively wanted to have sex. I didn't know that was possible.”
  
• “I have sex more frequently. I am less inhibited. I have felt more free to experiment and explore my sexuality.”
  
• “Less embarrassment, more willing to act out fantasies, more comfortable and open about my own sexuality.”
  
• “I find that my wife and I are less inhibited. We talk more openly about sex and regard it now, not as something merely for procreation, but for enjoyment and growing closer to each other.”
  
• “I am more open to new things. I don't feel guilty about getting myself off, watching porn or needing to have sex. I enjoy sex, guilt free.”