Green Oasis

I stumbled across this series of videos telling the compelling story of believing homosexual Mormons.

Part 1: Go Forward

Part 2: Marriage Hopes and Realities

Part 3: Embracing our Homosexual Children

Update: In a similar vein is Understanding LDS Homosexuality.

I pity the clients who see this therapist who runs frightened from sexually provocative media. Rather than teaching healing and transcendence of fear, he promotes the very same trembling attitudes that lead to addiction. His essay reminds me of the world of fear that I so narrowly escaped. I join Jesus’ skeptics in demanding “Physician, heal thyself”. (Luke 4:23)

With all the discussion of masturbation and porn going on around Mormon related blogs, I thought I would share this gem from a comment on reddit:

I went to the doctor for a checkup the other day. He took one look at me and said “You have to quit masturbating”. I asked “why?”, he said “so I can do the checkup”.

Masturbation and pornography are almost guaranteed to generate lots of debate on the bloggernacle. It doesn’t help when yours truly blathers on.

• Fast Offerings: A Personal History of Masturbation
• Series: Pictures of Pornography and the LDS People
• Pictures of Pornography: JustAGuy
• Advice from the armchair marriage counselor
• The Other M-word

A recent Penny Arcade comic asked a question that comes to me once in a while.

Pictures of naked women used to be somewhat hard to come by. When I was a kid, we would occasionally find an adult magazine which would be quickly passed among the neighborhood kids. The magazine became a deliciously forbidden sacrament for a spontaneous cabal of children learning what it was to be sexually aroused. The shame of our society inflamed our desire in a heady cocktail of sex, guilt, and danger. We would each partake, constantly vigilant to prevent the infidel grownups from desecrating our secret explorations.

Twice in my young life we found treasure troves of nudity: once we found our neighbor’s huge porn stash in his backyard; another time I rescued a trash bag full of 1970s era Playboy magazines from imminent disposal. Through all the guilt of our naughty behavior, we cherished those magazines. We hid them carefully where no grownup was likely to ever go: in the disused, unkempt corners of our neighborhood only the children paid attention to. Every once in a while, we would furtively visit our caches with glances over our shoulders to enjoy the urgency of desire. We were careful because we knew it might be years before we found another opportunity like these.

At other times, we would turn our explorations on each other. Thick bushes provided a place to play “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”. I first saw a naked, in-the-flesh girl (who wasn’t a member of my family) in those bushes. A vacant house provided a chance to play strip tag. The rules were simple: if the person who is “it” touched a piece of your clothing, you had to take it off. I saw my first naked, in-the-flesh, postpubescent girl in that vacant house.

All of this before I was ten years old, knew what “horny” meant, or had discovered masturbation.

The point is that I remember these incidents vividly and fondly because they were 1) forbidden and 2) rare.

Not so anymore. You have to work hard to avoid seeing five vaginae before lunch. I mean people are giving the stuff away for free. I wonder whether the relative ease of getting porn is better or worse.

Would I have preferred a childhood where it was easy to see naked women?

I dreamt last night that I was eating at a restaurant. They served me some chicken that was literally just skin and bone: I peeled the skin off a drumstick and there was nothing but a bone underneath. I was pissed.

(photos via NOTIUN)