In this episode, John and Carah sit down with therapist Natasha Helfer to discuss a few of the negative messages people raised in religious conservative community may have been conditioned to believe about sex.
Show notes:
- Natasha’s website
- Happy Healthy Sexuality FB Group for Mormon Women
- Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters – and How to Get It by Laurie Mintz
- Natasha’s Mormon Stories interview about her own story
- John and Natasha Ms episode on a new approach to masturbation and porn
- Ghost of Eternal Polygamy by Carol Lynn Pearson
- Happy Healthy Sexuality FB Group for Mormon Women
4 Responses
There is one category of people in the Mormon community who are almost never shamed for their sexual proclivities, and that is Priesthood leaders who like children. The history of the religion is rife with examples of child sexual predators who are protected at all costs by the church and its members.
Hi John,
In relation to your comments about husbands and wives creating spirit children through the act of sexual intercourse in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom, I just listened to RFM address this topic on Mormonism Live. I believe he quoted the King Follett sermon where JS states that God never had power to create our spirits as they have existed eternally. The rationale is that if spirt has no end, then nor does it have a beginning. He argued that this is one way to justify eternal unions other than heterosexual, seeing as how the male/female sex act is not required to create spirit children. Hence, it becomes more plausible that Heavenly Mother(s) is/are not required to be eternally impregnated in order to populate her world with billions of children. It was a really great episode.
SHAWNG, great comment – I wanted to bring up that same thing after listening to both this and that recent Mormonism Live episode. But still, as John said, the idea of spirits being created through a heterosexual sex act between exalted beings is something we have all been taught in the church. I’d be very curious about the source of this widely taught idea, as well as the reasons we, as a church, seem to be collectively ignoring what Joseph taught when speaking at King Follet’s funeral that contradict it. I mean, I don’t see any way to argue that Joseph did not clearly teach there that all of our spirits are co-eternal with Heavenly Father, and that therefore He cannot literally be the father of our spirits. He also clearly taught there that our relationship with God was not because He created our spirits but because He was more advanced in intelligence and designed the plan of salvation and created the earth and our mortal bodies to help our spirits advance to His same. higher level of intelligence. So I see no room there in that teaching to believe ur spirits were created by Heavenly Father through sex or any other process. Why then does the church teach this?
First, thank you for this series. I believe much understanding and good will come from it. Thank you, Natasha Helfer.
I am not sure of the best way to contact anyone at Mormon Stories, so I’ll post here. There was a study done not to long ago at the University of Utah called ‘The Religious Brain Project’. There were some fantastic findings from it that for me helped shed light on why religions are so obsessed with sexuality and more so with controlling it. For me, understanding the motivations behind religious attitudes and what they had to gain from it helped me lose much of my shame and guilt about my own sexuality and human sexuality in general. My husband was one of the lead investigators on that project. I’m sure he would be willing to come on the podcast and explain their findings if Mormon Stories is interested. Thank you again for your great work.