2008-09-10

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.

19 comments:

  1. I actually found The Act of Marriage to be very good preparation in that it helped me feel more comfortable with what would/could happen. I liked how explicit it was and it helped me know what questions to ask and not to be ashamed. It made for good expectations conversation when we were engaged.

    there are only a few points I can think of that I felt were not quite accurate for me.

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  2. Sorry, the fruit of my loins needed me, but I wanted to say more.

    I grew up in a very Mormon place where we had absolutely no sex ed in school (in some ways I'm grateful for that, but in others I'm not). I too am still waiting for the sex talk from my parents. Matt's sex talk from his dad came after we already had sex (we had a whole afternoon of being married before we had our reception that evening)...but ya gotta give it to him for trying.

    By Jr. High I knew it was sperm from men and eggs from women that created babies, but I couldn't figure out how the sperm got into the woman. All I knew about penises was that they were kind of floppy and that boys peed with them, so I didn't understand how it physically worked. I didn't know about erections or ejaculation.

    Even in High School I was a little hazy on the subject. In college I found that many of my friends were in the same boat and we actually got out one of their anatomy books to help demystify it all.

    I really think "the sex talk" should actually be a series of talks starting when a child is about 4 or 5. I'm very much an advocate for talking about sex openly because I felt so...in the dark. I think that there are real benefits for kids knowing pure facts from parents. One is that they're not getting their info. from other misinformed kids. Another is it gets them used to talking with you openly and unashamedly so they can ask questions should they have any. Another is that kids feel less self conscious if they know what they're going through is normal (periods, wet dreams, etc.).

    While I never thought that the act of sex was inherently bad, I'd never really considered foreplay or understood what it was. I was glad that one of those books brought it up so we could have a discussion about what bedroom behavior we thought was appropriate and/or what we'd be comfortable with.

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  3. Well, you've met my parents and you know all about their attitude toward sexuality. Try not to think about the slide show incident too much :) On the one hand I think it was good to grow up with parents that treated sex like it was no big deal. My parents also did home birth and so we all knew (and saw) from a young age that babies grow inside mom and eventually come out through her vagina. No big deal. I can't ever remember having one "sex talk" and I don't remember a time when I was unaware of what sex was. I was also a precocious child who read a lot, and my parents didn't really censor movies or books, so I probably got too much knowledge at a young age.

    But, my sister and I were talking once and we both felt like we grew up feeling like sex was more important than it is. Especially from my mom I got the idea that all men think about is sex and that it is the most important thing for them. I'm naturally a fairly modest person, and by the time I got to junior high I was terrified of boys/men. I thought that all they ever wanted me for was my body and that all they were ever thinking about is sex. I felt really uncomfortable around most guys for years, probably even until I got married.

    So I really like the idea of having a "veil of modesty" over what parents do. For example, S-Boogie often wants to join me in the bathroom, but over the last year we've stressed privacy during bathing/bathroom. She still shares the tub with her little brother, but I'm not too worried about that since they are both so young. I know that within a year or two she'll probably start wanting more privacy, and she should be more self-sufficient in the tub. They both know the proper names for things and can both tell you that "boys have penises and girls have vaginas". S-Boogie knows that babies grow inside mommies, but she hasn't asked yet how they get in there. When she asks we'll probably tell her.

    We had a totally normal honeymoon experience--we both knew what to expect and knew what we were doing. But we did buy "Between Husband and Wife" and picked up a few good things from it. One piece of advice that someone gave me and that I'm glad I follwed was to actually discuss things before your wedding night. In the car on the way to the hotel (we were both kind of embarrassed) we talked a little about what we would like to do (ie, getting undressed first, etc) so there weren't any big "surprises" (the person giving the advice had been a virgin married to a much more experience man and they had some trauma because she'd never seen a naked man before and her husband decided to change in the bathroom and jump out to surprise her). This is a long comment, but I concur that there is nothing wrong with advice manuals. Now if we could only get certain patrons of the Orem and Provo libraries to stop thinking that they are smut the world would be a better place.

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  4. [WARNING: the following was written by a clueless virgin in Utah]

    I've thought about this topic a lot, mostly as I bitterly brood over the fact that the vast majority of what I learned about sex was learned by overhearing the crass conversations of my middle-school peers on the school bus.

    Perhaps you married folks can help me out here, but I cannot reconcile within myself the dramatic dichotomy in the Church regarding "adult" things. I mean, sex seems a really tense subject because, unlike most thou-shalt-nots, even though it'd get me excommunicated right now, the days will come when I won't be fully living my faith without it. But it seems ridiculous to me that it should be such a frightening and taboo subject because Temple covenants are the exact same way! I mean, I remember growing up, Mom and Dad would go to the temple fairly regularly, and even though I had no idea what they did there and that I couldn't go do the things they were doing, I understood that one day I would be able to, and I eagerly looked forward to getting my endowment all of my growing-up years. How is it, then, that sex is so horrifying?

    See the dichotomy? Somehow, we manage to teach our youth that the temple is beautiful and holy, so sacred that they aren't allowed to experience it until they are older, and yet we instill in them the desire to wait until the time is right and to then go without fear. How is sex any different--in principle, I mean.

    It's just--I feel so robbed. I really do. I understand that there have to be some differences (even I'm not brash enough to propose some sexual equivalent to "I love to see the temple I'm going there some day"), but I think that, whereas no Bishop fears that his Deacons are going to break into the temple late at night to try to experience some perverted endowment, every Bishop in the Church seems to fear that, if the young men realize they have penises, they'll go rape the young women.

    ...

    Hm. Well. Time for me to shut up before I say something really dumb.

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  5. Schmetterling: No need to worry about naive Bishops, I think they're quite aware that young men are well enough acquainted with their penises. =)

    Don't feel robbed. Just get married. =)

    Seriously, though - I think you're unfairly oversimplifying the church's position on sex. I've had plenty of sex lessons at church which pointed out how wonderful sex is. I've never had a lesson which teaches that sex is sinful.

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  6. .

    No, not dumb at all, Schmett. In fact, if you don't mind, I'm going to save my reply for Part VI, wherein I spend more time discussing people's questions and comments.

    But while we're waiting, I want to say that I agree with you (lots) and hope that other people will comment while I'm mulling over what I'm going to say.

    Thanks also, to Celia and Foxy---I appreciate your comments and agree with you too. Particularly about the slide show. (Which is actually a pretty good segue into next week's post....)

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  7. .

    I agree with you, RC. But sometimes we interpret context differently than the actual words justify. Given that Schmett and I share both parentage and premarital prudery, I think a researcher might want to head in that direction.

    I don't blame Church doctrine or policies, but Church (in the general sense that annoys me when people make statements like this) and family culture.

    It's an issue that needs attention. And not in the paranoid, borderline silly, out-to-prove-something way that is generally on display in places like The Visitors' Center.

    I solicit more comments.

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  8. R.C. brings up a good point, which is that our experiences with sex education will vary widely depending on our particular families and the area we grow up in. It is hard to make generalizations about what the "Church" teaches, especially because even official manuals can be very skewed in the presentation. I honestly don't even remember any of the chastity lessons from young women's; I do think it's safe to say that most people growing up in the church get the majority of their attitudes and knowledge about sex from their peers and their family. You could make the argument that the official church position is pro-sex and that sex is sacred, based on the excerpts from the Family Guide and that excellent talk from Elder Holland about ten years ago. But for some reason we can't seem to translate that position into much of the general church culture.

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  9. Foxyj: "But for some reason we can't seem to translate that position into much of the general church culture."

    I agreed with everything you said up to here. What about the idea that sex is beautiful and sacred doesn't translate into church culture? Or in other words, what would Mormon culture have to do differently to convince you that it sees sex as beautiful and sacred?

    We don't talk a lot about sex during church for several very good reasons.
    #1: The church sees sex as a very private and sacred expression of unity between married people. One of the ways we keep things sacred is not to discuss them excessively (e.g.: Heavenly Mother, Temple Rituals).
    #2: The more one thinks about sex outside of marriage, the harder it is to maintain virtue. Sexual thoughts are arousing - there's a positive feedback loop here. There's little purpose in talking up how great sex is to a group of adolescents that aren't supposed to be having it. Mentions of sex at church that I remember from my pre-married phase were very appropriate: sex was placed in context as a gift from God, but we didn't dwell on how mind-blowingly wonderful it is. This seems like the right approach to me.
    #3: The church has to respect diversity of opinion. Sex is a very delicate subject. It can easily divide a ward (e.g. "Is oral sex ok between married people?"). The church has to very carefully decide what issues to discuss, so as not to place stumbling-blocks in each other's way. It's best to leave some subjects implicit.

    I think church culture has a consistently positive, though fairly discreet attitude towards sex. We certainly as a culture don't claim that sex is sinful or "horrifying". I think I need to hear some concrete horror stories from you guys to convince me that we even have a problem here, because I think we have the right approach.

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  10. RC--You're right, I'm not going off my experience here. And it's really hard to define "church culture" because there are so many local variations. I'm mostly going off stories I've heard from other people, some of which may be very outdated or exagerated. In my experience, I have generally seen sex treated with respect and with sacredness. And that's how we'll treat it with our children.

    Although on my mission there was an actual fistfight in relief society between two women, both fairly recent converts. One couldn't accept the idea that enjoying sex wasn't sinful and thought the other woman was an evil whore. It was interesting...

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  11. Wow - a fistfight during Relief Society. Pretty intense. =) Makes for a good story.

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  12. I was reading this week's Gospel Principles lesson and I came across this, which reminded me of this discussion. Straight from the manual:

    "A Note to Parents

    This chapter includes some parts that are beyond the maturity of young children. It is best to wait until children are old enough to understand sexual relations and procreation before teaching them these parts of the chapter. Our Church leaders have told us that parents are responsible to teach their children about procreation (the process of conceiving and bearing children). Parents must also teach them the law of chastity.

    Parents can begin teaching children to have proper attitudes toward their bodies when children are very young. Talking to children frankly but reverently and using the correct names for the parts and functions of their bodies will help them grow up without unnecessary embarrassment about their bodies.

    Children are naturally curious. They want to know how their bodies work. They want to know where babies come from. If parents answer all such questions immediately and clearly so children can understand, children will continue to take their questions to their parents. However, if parents answer questions so that children feel embarrassed, rejected, or dissatisfied, they will probably go to someone else with their questions and perhaps get incorrect ideas and improper attitudes.

    It is not wise or necessary, however, to tell children everything at once. Parents need only give them the information they have asked for and can understand. While answering these questions, parents can teach children the importance of respecting their bodies and the bodies of others. Parents should teach children to dress modestly. They should correct the false ideas and vulgar language that children learn from others.

    By the time children reach maturity, parents should have frankly discussed procreation with them. Children should understand that these powers are good and were given to us by the Lord. He expects us to use them within the bounds he has given us.

    Little children come to earth pure and innocent from Heavenly Father. As parents pray for guidance, the Lord will inspire them to teach children at the right time and in the right way. "

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  13. .

    I agree most emphatically with the answering-questions portion of that quotation. And I'm working on discerning how much is the right much.

    Having a four-year-old who wants to grow up to be an obstetrician, these questions come rather frequently.

    (I'm not sure he's ever even met an OB --- we used midwives....

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  14. Wow. I have never heard of a 4 year old wanting to be that before. I mean, sometimes kids get pretty specific, but that's not one I would have expected.

    Of course, this coming from the father of a girl who at 2 years old was telling me "Don't be a hypocrite!" every time I spoke with food in my mouth. We never know, do we?

    Back to the topic, I've got a couple of kids who are at the stage where they can't leave their bodies alone. I guess it's time to start naming names.

    On the premarital side, I actually did have the experience where sex was handled in a very awkward manner in Church lessons. Then there was one wonderful Priest's Quorum instructor who taught it beautifully. He said that when we got there, if we were pure, we would understand in a way we couldn't then comprehend why it was called making love. That has never left me and has helped me much over the years.

    On the other hand, I had a bishop ask me and my (at the time) espoused, if sex itself was bad. I answered that it was not. He came back quickly and forcefully and said that before marriage, sex is bad. I think his exact words were, "For you, it is!"

    For the record, we were not meeting with the bishop in consequence of any transgression. This was, so far as I know, his standard teaching to all engaged couples.

    I was tempted to reply, "well, I know a couple of prophets who would disagree with you on that, Bishop," but I managed to contain myself. Somehow. :)

    As a final personal anecdote, I want to say that my wife and I had a sex talk before we got married, and it helped. It wasn't comprehensive, but she related to me some concerns of hers, and we talked about how we would handle things. This is not the place for the details of that conversation (acutally, conversations), but I will say that it eased the experience, we both knew what to expect, and we had a beautiful and inspiring - I would even say revelatory (in the spiritual sense as well as the physical) - first night together.

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  15. .

    I think not talking about sex with one's espoused pre-wedding is borderline insane. Given our usual (and generally proper) closelippedness on the subject, and the vast array of crappy examples broadcast our way, I don't see how anything other than misunderstanding and disaster could be the result of not chatting beforehand. Being engaged doesn't allow intercourse, but it certainly must allow preparations therefore. If marriage didn't require preparation of all sorts, we wouldn't need engagement.

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  16. Talking to children frankly but reverently...

    I'd replace the word "reverently" with "no-big-deally," just like an arm or a leg or an eyeball.

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  17. Talking to children frankly but reverently...

    I'd replace the word "reverently" with "no-big-deally," just like an arm or a leg or an eyeball.

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  18. .

    I tend to agree with you there. I think that heads off problems more quickly when the issues as remarkable as a carburetor.

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  19. Fuel injection, Theric!

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