The Erotic in LDS Lit Part IV: The Sex Talk

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If you fear, fear not. If you fear not, fear.
---J. Reuben Clark

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A few years past between our marriage and the birth of the Big O. I knew my parents were anxious for us to produce and I was waiting for them to ask us when we would finally be having a baby so I could make some snide answer, such as "How should I know? I'm still waiting for my sex talk!"

This isn't entirely fair. One morning in the car, my father and I had this conversation:

Dad: So I heard on the radio about this girl, and her grandma had promised her a new car when she graduated from high school if she was still a virgin. So she told her boyfriend they could only have anal sex.

(awkward silence)

Dad: Did you know that having anal sex doesn't mean you're still a virgin?

Me: Um. Yes.

Dad: Good.

So that was my sex talk. That was it. No anal sex, son.

For the record, this is not the Church-sanctioned manner of sex talkery. Not even close, in fact. Listen to this:

"Intimacy does not occur in a vacuum, isolated from other human relationships, from values, or from our perceptions of ourselves and others. It is only one part—although a very important part—of our relationships with others. To understand intimacy properly, we must understand the proper nature of the family and of our relationships with others and the values that influence those relationships. We must understand our true roles with regard to each other. Teaching human intimacy to our children is only one of many ways in which we help them to prepare for eternal life. But it is a very important responsibility we have toward our children." (from the peculiarly generic-sounding A Parent’s Guide, which is all about giving the sex talk to your kids, from the time they're babies to the time they're adults)

This book is careful to point out that you don't tell four-year-olds what you tell sixteen-year-olds. And a fairly explicit explanation of where babies come from is followed up by instructions to

"Be cautious to keep your own bodies and intimate sexual relations private. Children do not need to see or hear details of your private sexual life. They see and hear enough in the normal course of family life. They may feel threatened if a parent becomes too descriptive. Children usually learn subtly and cumulatively from ordinary daily contacts. There is much good that comes from drawing a veil between the children and yourself regarding private, intimate life. This is not a veil of fear or disgust, but one by which the body and its functions are robed in modesty and honor."

Right. I think we can all agree that at some point kids should know what penises and vaginas do together. But knowing about Mom's and Dad's? Not so good.

Before we got married, Lady Steed and I read The Act of Marriage, which was an excellent book and no doubt saved us from some painful/embarrassing moments in our early weeks and months. How did it do this? By being pretty danged explicit and direct. This was a good thing: we were two virgins about to get married. This was useful information.

The Act of Marriage was at the time (and still is?) highly recommended at BYU to people heading towards marriage. Marriage-prep classes had it as an optional text (for those engaged or married), for instance.

I suspect the success of that book on BYU campus was the impetus for Between Husband & Wife, a similar volume from a Mormon press.

It's hard for me to compare these two books. I read Act of Marriage almost ten years ago as a virgin, shortly before my own marriage. Between Husband & Wife I have only read parts of, and only recently. (Incidentally, another Mormon intro-to-sex-type book is And They Were Not Ashamed, which I like more already, just for its excellent title.) But I don't really need to compare them, either. My point here is that it's good to be explicit in the appropriate circumstances. Talk about the clitoris, yes, thank you. Be direct.

I don't want to suggest that most people within the Church fail to recognize that knowledge is good, but sometimes you have to wonder. I believe there are plenty of people who would view books like those listed above as pornographic. And they're not entirely wrong: it is all about sex, yes; a "porn reader" could read a book like this for masturbatory purposes, yes. But to then suggest that makes the books inherently evil or their authors depraved is not, I hope, a leap we are willing to make.

Silly says she found Act of Marriage to have little applicability to her personally, but I don't think she would then argue that reading books like that was damaging or unhelpful.

Frankly, we are force-fed so much bad information, that it's almost irresponsible not to read an intelligent, spiritual book, just to get one's facts straight before the honeymoon.

I know this sort of practical nonfiction is not often considered part of "literature," but I still think we need to laud and recommend books that celebrate the holy in marital intimacy and deliver information that can make the difference between pain/nervousness/disaster and a calm, loving comfort in those first nights together.