Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is September 16, 2021, and we are very excited for today's episode. Today I have in studio the Natasha Helfer. Hey, Natasha.

Natasha Helfer [00:00:15] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] Welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Natasha Helfer [00:00:17] I'm so glad to be here. It's always fun to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:20] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [00:00:20] Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:00:21] My pleasure. And we have the Carah Burrell. Hey, Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:00:25] Hey. Hey.

John Dehlin [00:00:25] Thanks for being here.

Carah Burrell [00:00:26] I'm so happy. And Natasha, always a pleasure.

Natasha Helfer [00:00:30] I love it. Plus, I get to talk about my favorite topics, which is sad. Do you talk about other feeling? Oh, it's like I talk about other things. This is my favorite.

Carah Burrell [00:00:42] I'm. It's one of my favorites too. And I haven't. We haven't had. I haven't been in an interview with you in this setting yet, so what the heck? I'm excited to hear your. Your thoughts and perspectives and I'm excited

Natasha Helfer [00:00:51] to be here with you, too.

Carah Burrell [00:00:52] The Natasha Helfer in studio, everyone.

Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Series

John Dehlin [00:00:55] All right. Yeah. So we're feeling the love. So just a quick little background. As some of you may know, we have a new series on Mormon Stories podcast called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. We want to give you maybe once a week content focused on healing and growth. It's inspired by the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis podcast that me and Natasha and Margi started a couple years ago. Right now you can go to mormontfaithcrisis.com find over 70 hours of free content, communicating with believing, family and friends, coming out, healthy sexuality, manag, healthy marriage. There's so much good content there. If you are going through a faith crisis and you need support, literally go there right now. Mormonfaithcrisis.com and I am confident that you will get all sorts of support that you need. We were frustrated that people didn't know about this resource and they weren't utilizing it. So we decided we're bringing it back here on the Mormon Stories podcast feed. So whether it's Margi or Natasha or Samantha Shelley or Anthony Miller, we're going to be bringing experts regularly, other coaches and therapists so that we're not just deconstructing the church, we're just giving the church constructive criticism. I say that lightly or kindly. We are also providing content of healing and growth. So if you support this, go to mormonfaithcrisis.com Click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor today. We are super excited for the topic. It's going to be part one in what will become a series on healing from Mormon sexual shame. That is what today's topic is going to be about. If you're an ex Jehovah's Witness, ex Scientologist, ex Jew, ex, you know, evangelical Christian, any of those ex religions, or if you're just like healing from a damaging religious tradition or a damaging upbringing, I think today's feedback is probably going to be relevant for you, but this is just going to be one in a series. We are live streaming so we really welcome people's feedback. Whether you're on Facebook or YouTube, we really want your comments. Carah is going to be monitoring your comments and your feedback both on YouTube and on Facebook. We always welcome super chat donations through YouTube or on Facebook. You can use the Stars feature to provide us with any financial support you want to thank to pay Natasha and pay Carah for their support here. But the last thing I just want to say is a really quick announcement. We have a couple really important announcements we want to share. One is that Natasha Helfer and I are, along with Margi, are doing our next faith crisis retreat. We haven't done a faith crisis retreat since before COVID and I'm super excited to announce October 15th, 16th and 17th, 2021 in Provo. We're going to be doing one of our classic two and a half day retreats. It's super affordable and and it's me and Natasha and Margi for two and a half days, providing you with the content you need to heal and growth in your faith crisis. Right now you can either go to getmormonhelp.com and it's gonna take you to a section on events and then retreats and then you can register or you can go to thrivebeyondreligion.com, click on Events, scroll to the October portion, click on it there and you can register for this event. We wanna fill it up. We have at least 70 slots available. There's probably 20 or 30 slots that are taken right now. If you need to heal and grow from your Mormon faith crisis, please register today and please let people know anything, Natasha, you want to add about that event.

Natasha Helfer [00:04:07] I would say that because we've been a little lax on advertising, I've decided to extend the early Bird special through the end of September. So it was supposed to end yesterday on the 15th. Is today the 16th? I don't even know what day it is, but we are going to extend it. So please take advantage of that. It'll save you a few bucks to be able to come all Right.

John Dehlin [00:04:30] Yeah. So please register that today again. You can go to thrivebeyondreligion.com events or get Mormon Help events retreats and you'll find how to register. I also want to just announce. I'm super excited that Thrive Thrive Day 2021 is is here. We are so excited to announce November 14th in the Salt Palace. We are doing Thrive day. We had 1700 people a couple years ago. We hope to have 2000 or more this year. We're excited to announce a few of our keynote speakers. I'll be there. Natasha will be there. The Carah Burrell or NuanceHoe will be there. And we have Sarah Edmondson, who is an ex NXIVM cult survivor. She's been on the HBO series the Vow. She now has a podcast with her husband called A Little Bit Culty. We just agreed with her today to bring her from Vancouver to speak at Thor Thrive Day 2021. So we're excited to have her. You guys will love her. Her podcast is out. It's exciting. And we also have agreed to bring Lance Allred, former NBA basketball player, the first legally deaf NBL basketball player. We have a podcast with him on Mormon Stories. He has a book out about toxic masculinity. He was raised in Mormon fundamentalist group, the Allred Group, and He has a Ted Talk with over 4 million viewers. Lance Allred, he's an amazing professional public speaker. He'll be at along with me, Natasha, Carah, and lots of other cool people. Please spread the word. Please go register today. You can also register for Thrive 2021 at thrivebeyondreligion.com under Events. And we really want to sell that out. So those are the announcements. Carah, anything else you want to add before we begin?

Thrive Retreat Announcement

Carah Burrell [00:06:19] No, I'm ready to get into it.

Natasha Helfer on Sexuality and Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:06:20] All right, well, Natasha, you're going to be coming on regularly now on Mormon Stories to talk about, to share with us all the many ways that help others. Why don't you go ahead and just let people know who've just never heard of you before? What are your credentials and why are you in any way qualified to talk about Mormonism and sex?

Natasha Helfer [00:06:42] Awesome. All right. I'm a first and foremost licensed marriage and family therapist and have been for almost 25 years now. So I've been doing this for a while and most of my career has been within the context of the Mormon community, whether it's believers, nuanced, progressive members and or post members. I have a lot of experience within this community. And about a decade ago, I went forth and got my Extra training to become a certified sex therapist through the organization asect, which is the American association of Sexual Educators, Counselors and Therapists. And I have also concluded my supervisor training in that as well. So now I supervise other therapists who want to become sex therapists as well. So I have worked significantly within the intersection of faith and sexuality and that's my passion. So I'm all about trying to help people whether they want to stay involved in their church membership, whether they're transitioning. I do a lot of faith transition work. I do a lot of mixed faith family work and marriage work. Um, and I do a lot of the reconstructing work that is part of thriving in post Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:07:59] All right, excellent. Yeah. And we've been working together for probably a decade or more, or at least close to that. And we've run, I don't know, 40 workshops and, or retreats together on some level. And it's just, it's been great. And you've been on Mormon stories many times, so it's great to have you back.

Natasha Helfer [00:08:16] Yeah, it's great to be here. I love being here.

John Dehlin [00:08:19] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [00:08:19] I run a group practice, Symmetry Solutions. It's also where we have the site called getmormonhelp.com so you can find us there.

John Dehlin [00:08:29] All right, so it's no news to Mormons that, that sexual shame is a really significant part of what we have all lived with and experienced. Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people. We cover almost every single long form interview that we do on Mormon stories. We ask about whether sexual shame was some part of our interviewees experience growing up. And almost without question, Kerry, you can tell me if I'm wrong. Almost without question, every single Mormon that we've interviewed have said that sexual shame was a part of their Mormon upbringing. And combined with that, I mean, we've almost sort of gotten to the point where we, we've talked about sexual shame being part of the church's, I don't want to say business model because that's a little bit cynical, but just like somehow it seems to be baked into people's relationship with Mormonism. It's, it's not just a one off. It's almost ubiquitous with the Mormon experience. So where would you want to begin as kind of an introduction, not just to today, but to the series? Can you paint a picture of Mormon sexual shame? Give us a kind of a framework.

Nobody Escapes Mormon Sexual Shame

Natasha Helfer [00:09:50] Okay, so yeah, I would be willing to state maybe a somewhat bold statement that I don't know of anybody who hasn't escaped a sexual Shame story, whether they're Mormon or not here in this country of the United States of America. So I think we come from a puritanical background. Mormonism was definitely affected by puritanical beliefs. And all you need to do is take one course in kind of sexual history to understand the damaging narratives and rhetoric that has permeated pretty much almost every aspect of our society. Whether it's the media, whether it's our school educational systems, whether it's religious cultures. And we as a whole, as a culture are dealing with like what I would like to call a pandemic of sexual shame. And this affects developmental stories and sexuality. It affects people's ability to be authentic within their sexuality. It affects our definitions of what we might consider healthy sexuality and what's accepted and not accepted and how people fit into those parameters or not. There's a huge history of pathologizing sexuality, from homosexuality to nymphomania to, you know, all kinds of things that were seen as perverse or nonconformist with the culture in the moment. Many of those things have shifted over time, both in the psychology field and in church dogma. So the human sexual story is rife with possibility and potential for sexual shame. And I have never worked with anybody who hasn't been affected by it at some level. Even non Mormons, progressive people, people who would consider themselves sexually nuanced or sexually liberal.

John Dehlin [00:11:37] So you're saying it's just, it's way greater than just a Mormon, Mormon problem.

Natasha Helfer [00:11:41] Yes. And then of course we have our quirks in Mormonism and anytime you're coming from a high demand religion, it's usually a more intense. And what would I say, the process of sexual shame is more intense and more prominent in people's ideas of self identity, of relational identity, and of course of spiritual identity.

John Dehlin [00:12:05] Yeah, I'm already looking at the comments and oil stories. I'll just share one. She writes, the sexual shaming of the church and its leaders ruined my life. And that's just super heavy just right off the bat. But I think if we were to just poll our listeners now and they can feel free to comment on Facebook or YouTube, I think we'd find thousands and thousands and thousands of people saying the same thing. So really quickly, most of our listeners are, are questioning Mormons or post Mormons, but just to kind of all level set, maybe just talk a tiny bit about the give an overview of the law of chastity and what that generally what that framework is for kind of those of us who are raised Mormon. If you want sure.

Natasha Helfer [00:12:48] So the law of chastity is a principle within a doctrinal understanding that has to do with standards and behaviors that are deemed acceptable or non acceptable in regards to sexual expression, sexual identity, and sexual relationship. So, in essence, it's fairly simple. It's extremely heteronormative. In Mormonism, it's sex acts and sex thought and sex. Anything sexual is to be kept between a relationship of marriage and that only being credible if it's between what is considered a male and a female person, and only after the ceremony of a wedding. And. And yeah, that's pretty much it. That's the only way that sexuality can be expressed. So it ignores, obviously, the idea that we are sexual creatures from birth to death. It ignores, of course, all the sexual expression of non heteronormative people, and of course, it ignores all the meaning.

John Dehlin [00:13:59] Lgbtq.

Natasha Helfer [00:14:00] Lgbtq. And it also ignores just basic concepts of human sexuality and how our sexual minds work and eroticism. And it also ignores a lot of developmental stages of, you know, your sexuality when you're 10, your sexuality when you're 15, your sexuality when you're 80 and widowed, your sexuality if you haven't married. So sexuality really isn't allowed to exist outside of this very contained body box that the church has deemed righteous.

John Dehlin [00:14:34] Got it. Got it. Okay. So when. It's kind of interesting when I said, let's. When we came up with the topic of Mormon sexual shame, we thought at first, naively, that we would just cover it in one, one episode.

Carah Burrell [00:14:52] But.

John Dehlin [00:14:52] But pretty immediately, what did you discover?

Natasha Helfer [00:14:54] Well, you. You asked me to come up with some bullet points, and I came up with like a thousand. And I thought maybe we should make this into a series, because, like you said, I do think it's a very important topic. I think there are lots of different facets about this topic. I currently run groups talking about healing from sexual shame. And just even in seven weeks, I feel like we can't cover everything that people need to kind of deconstruct or reconstruct for themselves. And it's a. It's a complex matter. And even from your comment, from the first listener that you quoted, for somebody to say, you know, this ruined my life, it's interesting because I think one of the aspects of sexual shame is that sex isn't that important. There shouldn't be that big of a deal that, so what if you don't get to express your sexuality in the ways that you want in this world? You know, that's a very common kind of thought process in religiously conservative communities, which, by the way, I'm going to start calling rcc so I don't have to say that all the time. And so, yeah, a lot of the religions that you mentioned at the onset have similar ideas in regards to their doctrine with sexual relationship and sexual expression. And yet we know through the study of human sexuality that sexuality is an intense part of our identity that actually meets some of those kind of basic needs that make a life worthwhile. And if that expression isn't allowed or supported, it can affect mental health, it can affect relational health, it can affect physical health, and it can affect quality of life to the point of suicidality. So this is a very serious topic. It's not this periphery thing in life, like, oh, well, you know, if you have a good sex life, you're lucky. No, it's. And it's much more than behavior too. I think a lot of times when people think about sexuality, they think about penises and vaginas. But sexuality has a lot to do with your identity just in your gender and how you, whether or not you find romance something that's important. Intimacy, eroticism, sensuality. It's a huge part of who we are as human beings.

John Dehlin [00:17:16] Yeah, it's true. Yeah. As I think about my upbringing as a, as a Mormon, the only way sex was ever mentioned, and it's almost never mentioned, but it was called intimacy as like the, the code word for it. But it's only in the context of like when you're married and when you're having babies and other than that. But that, that just by default structurally ignores just the massive role that sexuality plays in our lives as sexual creatures. Like you said, depression, anxiety, developmental stages, it's huge. So. So given that we're going to try and give an introduction to sexual shame, Mormon sexual shame specifically, and I think this applies to other high demand religious traditions. What are we going to try and tackle today?

Natasha Helfer [00:18:07] Yeah, so I think a lot of my approach, really dealing with almost anything that would come across my therapy office. Is that a first big piece in healing from whatever it is you're bringing to my table, whether it's depression or anxiety or wondering if you have a personality disorder or if you're partnered with somebody with a personality disorder or whatever, is a bit of psychoeducation understanding. Well, what are we looking for? What are the symptoms? What's causing some of these issues? Because if you don't understand where the issue is coming from or even what the issue is, then how are you supposed to fix it? Right. So that's why there's like, diagnostic criteria for every mental health disorder out there. You know, you have to meet a certain list of things that would be considered problematic that we have agreed as a governing board or problematic, and they're causing unhealth or unwellness in a person's life. So if we're going to heal from something, I think we need to understand what we're healing from. And so I would like to spend today focused mainly on the messages that we should be aware of that probably had an impact on our sexual identities and development. So it's, it's a bit of a heavy part of the process sometimes. You know, when you, when you go in for therapy, part of what's in my informed consent is that sometimes therapy doesn't feel great. You don't always walk out of every therapy session feeling like, woohoo, I feel so much better. Sometimes you feel kind of worse before you feel better. Today's kind of like that we're going to feel kind of crummy because we're going to talk about all the crumminess we were probably affected by.

John Dehlin [00:19:53] Absolutely. I love this comment from Jeffrey R. Holland. It's not the Jeffrey R. Holland, but it's someone who on YouTube uses the name Jeffrey R. Holland and he writes, quote, intimacy, quote, sexual relations. Right. Etc. I chuckle at all the euphemisms for sex within Mormonism. Can't help but imagine someone saying those words with a whisper voice every time as the cherry on top. He says, can you relate to what, what Jeffrey Holland is saying?

Natasha Helfer [00:20:25] Yeah, for sure. I mean, sexuality has a long history of being taboo, you know, so to say the word sex, oh my goodness. You know, I. Anything that has to do with sex has oftentimes been hidden. Even people who were pregnant for a long time were hidden away in homes and fired from jobs because, my goodness, we can't be around somebody who's had sex so visibly because now we have a baby in tow. So the history of using euphemisms isn't unique to Mormonism, and yet in Mormonism, we excel at it.

John Dehlin [00:21:00] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [00:21:01] Yes, absolutely.

Sources of Mormon Sexual Shame Overview

John Dehlin [00:21:02] Okay. Okay. So today's gonna be the sources of sexual. Of Mormon sexual shame, is that right?

Carah Burrell [00:21:08] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:21:08] And by identifying the sources, then we, you know, there's this kind of, this idea, if you name it, you can tame it kind of thing. If we can name the sources of sexual shame, then we can then identify what they are and then target them for our own healing. Is that, is that the, is that the hypothesis here?

Natasha Helfer [00:21:26] That's the Hypothesis.

John Dehlin [00:21:27] Okay.

Natasha Helfer [00:21:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:28] So as. So Natasha's got a list of like a thousand, but she's going to try and narrow it down to five or six or seven or whatever we can do in an hour. So what we want to do is if you guys, as listeners and viewers on YouTube or Facebook, want to mention your sources of shame or as Natasha mentioned, some of them, give your own examples. We would love to read some of your feedback or commentary on the air because that'll add color and other perspectives to what we're talking about.

Natasha Helfer [00:21:59] Can I also say something just from the get go, because this is like my project for the next 10 to 15 years.

Carah Burrell [00:22:05] Years.

Natasha Helfer [00:22:05] And I do plan on writing about this. If you wouldn't mind. On the comments, if you put just permission. If you just say permission, that means that I am welcome to use your comment in a book you write in a quote and research, etc, whatever projects I'm going to be working on. And then you can put permission n if you want me to use your name or permission A, if you want me to use it anonymously.

John Dehlin [00:22:30] All right.

Carah Burrell [00:22:31] And can I also just add that a couple days ago on Instagram and Facebook as well? I think, John, you reached out and you asked for people's stories.

John Dehlin [00:22:38] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:22:38] Dealt with like, abuse and things within the church.

John Dehlin [00:22:41] Absolutely.

Carah Burrell [00:22:41] And so I just had a comment come in that said that they commented on one of your posts sharing a story of sexual shame in the church and how the male leadership was treated better than she was treated and so many years later that they are still dealing with it all. And I think the overarching theme of this is not just, you know, you're having problems within sexual shame, but it's so much to do with just the system. John, I know you don't like technically using the word the, the business model of the church, but there is so much of that that is ingrained into, like, the systemic abuse culture of the church and so many things that are very difficult. And so up front, we're going to have a pretty heavy trigger warning for deconstructing a lot of crap right now. So thank you for everyone who commented on John's post and everyone who just came from our livestream a few minutes ago talking about the Boy Scouts of America. So we're dealing with some heavy topics today at Mormon Stories. So thanks everyone for joining us.

John Dehlin [00:23:35] Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Karen. Thanks, Laura Arnold, for, for that comment. She's posting it publicly, so that's a courageous thing.

Carah Burrell [00:23:43] Right?

Lack of Sex Education and Euphemistic Language

John Dehlin [00:23:43] All right, so what's first on our list? Natasha?

Natasha Helfer [00:23:45] Helfer okay, so first on my list, source of Mormon sexual shame, is what I would call fear based, adolescent based, non comprehensive sexual education, which actually mirrors the American public school system.

John Dehlin [00:24:01] So it's bad education, bad education.

Natasha Helfer [00:24:04] It's fear based, it's fear based. So basically they're going to tell you everything that can go wrong. Which of course there are some scary things about sexuality. Unwanted pregnancy, STIs are a reality that we need to, you know, think about and teach about. And yet when that is the emphasis and the focus of all the sexual education that is happening, we miss the intense opportunity, especially at such a young developmental age, to start teaching about pleasure, consent and, you know, happiness in regards to sexuality. So it's, it's very fear based. It's usually adolescent based. We typically only sexually educate people when we don't want them to be sexual, which is when they're teens. That happens both at church and at school. And it's not comprehensive, so it's reproductive focused. So for example, the United States system will not mention the word clitoris in most public school settings because that is a non reproductive organ. And yet it is an incredibly important organ to understand if you're going to have mutual pleasure and bridge the orgasm gap that we currently have between male bodies and female bodies in this country in regards to sexual pleasure. So that's a huge problem. You know, it leads to this kind of ideas that sex is dirty, sex is bad, sex is scary, sex is, you know, this thing that you're going to somehow find out about in some future time. You're not getting a lot of really information about it. And the statistics of this kind of education are dire. So anytime you have fear based, kind of abstinence based sexual education, you have higher rates of unwanted pregnancy, especially in the teenage years, you have higher rates of STIs, you have higher rates of sexual exploitation, sexual assault and sexual coercion. And yeah, we're not doing well statistically.

John Dehlin [00:26:05] Yeah. And it's so ironic sometimes when, you know, you want to give, like Carol likes to say, a best faith interpretation of what let's just say a religion wants to do. Let's just all agree that religions want there to be low teen pregnancy, low STIs. And let's even really stretch and say they want people to have happy, healthy sex lives, you know, under the right format. It sounds like what you're saying is the way that Mormonism and the way other conservative religions approach sexuality, they, they are taking approaches that actually conflict against their own best interests in Other words, basing it all on fear, basing it all on shame, focusing only on marital sex within wedlock, not talking about consent, not talking about healthy sexuality, positive messages. You're saying that that might even lead. You're saying the evidence suggests that that leads to more STIs, more teen pregnancy, and again, lower sex, lower sexual health, lower sexual satisfaction, which is all against what the religion would want for its own people.

Natasha Helfer [00:27:16] That's exactly right. And it comes. It is ironic and it's somewhat tragic really. And it's. And it is kind of the problem is, is that they don't want people to be sexual at all. It's kind of like a zero sum game. So you don't want people to be sexual at all until these parameters have been met, like heterosexual marriage. Therefore, you're pitting people against their own natural drive, their own natural body, their net, their own natural state. So when you have an organization or a church or a community or a family, pitting a natural state of human experience against the standards that those humans are expected to live by, yeah, you're going to have a lot of problems. And like I mentioned before, it's. It's almost like the church expects an asexual presentation until a certain ceremony has taken place, and then for that presentation to magically, you know, turn into sexual expression, happy and healthy and loving without any preparation or any exploration. And we just know that that really isn't realistic nor very probable.

John Dehlin [00:28:33] And addressing this idea of the church not wanting premarital sex to happen and it being based on a fear that if you talk about sex, kids are gonna have unhealthy sex more. Again, you've told us before, that's not what happens. If you go to the Unitarian Universalists that have an amazing sex ed program called OWL or our whole lives, I think you'll find less, not only less teenage pregnancy and less transmission of STIs, you might even find less unhealthy premarital sex. Right. Once there's healthy sex education and healthier marital sex. Right, right.

Natasha Helfer [00:29:15] And yeah, so this idea that if we talk about it, we're giving permission is a fallacy that is really upsetting. And a lot of parents feel that way. A lot of parents are very anxious about their. The idea that their kids could be sexual. The church is anxious, of course, about anything sexual. And also it's not just the Unitarian Church, but even some European countries where they do have comprehensive sexual education. They're beating us on all of these statistics. However, they are not. Not sexual. See that's why I'd mentioned the zero sum game. So they are, you know, the youth in some of these European countries are waiting to have penis and vagina sex or penis and anus sex. They're having it at much later times of life. They are using more protective sexual measures, but they are still being sexual. They're still grinding up against each other. They're still mutually masturbating each other. They're still, you know, having some type of sexual exploration that is less risky, that doesn't lead to some of these consequences that allows for exploration and sexual developmental journeys. But it's not a zero sum game. So that's what we need to face. Yes, they are avoiding some of these riskier issues, but they're not not having people be sexual. And that's what we don't allow for at all. It is a zero sum game for us. You're not allowed to be sexual at all, except for maybe holding hands, maybe some French kissing, But, you know, the whole petting thing is you're really not supposed to be touching erogenous zones. You're not supposed to be touching female breasts. You're not supposed to be touching genitalia. And European kids are doing that, Unitarian kids are doing that. And yet they're not having the types of consequences to the riskier types of sex that typically youth and religiously conservative cultures do engage in.

Carah Burrell [00:31:08] Because I will hear sometimes people say that they did not even know how babies are made. Because if you start that conversation and then, I don't know, two teenagers in a Christian home in Nebraska start grinding up against each other and one goes slips in, the other hold, then the baby's made. And there are some people who didn't even realize that's how, oh, I'm a father now. I'm a mother now. I've heard stories like that, Right. Where the education is so, so painfully bad that you can literally have. The worst case scenario almost is that you become a, a really young parent without even realizing that that's the consequence of that action. Right. Like the, the education, it's completely not even in the equation in some of these households.

Natasha Helfer [00:31:49] Yeah. And if you're not allowed to be a sexual person, you're not allowed to prepare for sexual experiences. So then you may find yourself in a, in a situation where you're deciding in the moment to be sexual and you're not prepared. You don't have a condom, you don't have the education, you don't have the preparational skills to even advocate for yourself. In that situation, whether or not you're prepared to have that experience or not. So it leads to higher levels of date rape, it leads to higher levels of coercion. And even when it is consensual, people are just unprepared to know what they're consenting to and whether or not those kinds of issues can happen.

John Dehlin [00:32:24] Yeah, and I'll just say I've been feeling for a long, long time, why doesn't the Mormon Church have a Sunday school lesson on consent for youth, for adults? How amazing would that be if they could just teach everybody about what consent is, what it isn't, what it means, how it could protect people. Just that. Just that that lesson alone could prevent how many sexual assaults or rapes within Mormonism. And also, I'll never forget when I worked for mit, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I'm back in Boston with a bunch of never Mormons, people from all around the world who are professors at major universities. A professor from a community college in California told me that she was counseling some, some Mormon youth, some female Mormon youth, let's just say Mormon young women who joked about the fact that they would have anal sex with their boyfriends who were about to go on missions because anal sex wasn't real sex. Not knowing that there are potential health implications for unprotected anal sex, but because there was no sex education, you know, they weren't protected. And it just, it speaks to this idea that the Mormon Church thinks that by not talking about, about it, you're somehow solving a problem, but by not talking about it, Mormon youth are still having sex. They're doing docking, they're doing, you know, anal sex. They're doing all sorts of potentially worse types of sex than, than, again, like the healthy, normative kind of sexuality that you might see in a, in a developed European country. Does that, does any of that make sense, Natasha? Do you see that?

Natasha Helfer [00:34:06] Absolutely. And again, not, not that there's anything wrong with anal sex, but if your impetus for having anal sex is because you're trying to avoid vaginal sex, which might be a more normative developmental stage for a female body to go through, that's not necessarily a healthy framework. Right. So, plus, you know, in order to have good pleasurable anal sex, that takes quite a bit of education. I mean, just having good pleasurable vaginal sex takes a lot of education. So as far as what it takes to be properly aroused, properly lubricated, you know, probably properly protected. So, yes, this is the high risk types of engagement of behaviors, the loophole type of sex. The or the kids who do conform completely and are somewhat act somewhat asexually shut down aspects of their sexuality and then have a very hard time later when they are married to reawaken that potential for sexual desire and arousal.

John Dehlin [00:35:03] Yeah, when I think of just all the time that's wasted for, you know, there's so much boredom in Mormon seminary institute, Sunday school, priesthood, relief society. There's so much repetition and boredom. What if the Mormon church were to develop a cutting edge sexual education program for its youth and adults so that there was less bad stuff and way more good stuff? How transformative that could be. So we want to be about positive solutions on Mormon stories podcast Mormon Church, Step up your game on healthy sex education. I, I think it's a win, win for everyone. I think that's what you're saying.

Natasha Helfer [00:35:37] Well, and I would be very cautious because most programs that the church has developed are not trauma informed nor run by professional people who are, you know, in a sense have the credentials to back up the authority that is, that develops what's in those programs. So I would agree with certain, certain criteria that I would want that to be a trauma informed course. I would want that to be a course developed by sex therapy professionals, sex educator professionals. And then maybe yes, because I can see a lot of potential for disaster if the church develops a program on sexuality that's run by plumbers, electricians and beauty parlor people.

John Dehlin [00:36:24] So in other words, hire Natasha Helfer to help you with your.

Carah Burrell [00:36:28] In other words, whatever we're about to get into. Right. Like all of the things that we might have learned in the church. So pretty much probably listen to the rest of what Natasha's about to say and cut those things. Just bare minimum, just stop saying the things that we're about to get into. Probably like developing a course maybe one day, but baby steps, baby steps. Just stop saying some of these things.

Natasha Helfer [00:36:47] Start in your own home.

John Dehlin [00:36:48] So what else, anything else about education? Are we ready to go to the next step?

Natasha Helfer [00:36:51] Ready to go to the next step?

John Dehlin [00:36:52] Okay, so number one's education. What's number two?

Natasha Helfer [00:36:54] Okay, so number two is this whole idea of the natural man is an enemy to God. So in this particular context, what we're really talking about is, is pleasure is an enemy to God. And this is interesting. Just even in American culture, we're not very good in regards to pleasure being an important part of life. Or in fact, pleasure is oftentimes seen as hedonistic. Hedonistic, lazy, attributable to weakness that people just don't really have good work ethic, et cetera. So this is an American history.

John Dehlin [00:37:32] It's a Calvinist, right? Isn't it kind of the old John Calvin? Like. Like, beat yourself on the back, punish yourself. Ashes and sackcloth. Like, it's just very Calvinistic.

Carah Burrell [00:37:43] Or like they invented graham crackers to stop people from masturbating or cornflakes or whatever. Eat a bowl of cornflakes and just, like, grit your teeth, make it through.

Natasha Helfer [00:37:52] That's right. That's right. That's the history that we have in this country. And so, in a sense, we're developing a distrust of self when it comes to sexual desire and arousal. When you really think about how dangerous that is, that you cannot trust your own body, your own mind to know what's best for your own sexuality, that is dangerous. That is pitting yourself against yourself as an enemy in this very important aspect of your own identity, which is your sexuality. So to me, that is a huge, you know, huge thing. So if something turns me on that isn't, you know, okay, then that must mean it's this. It's from this. This distrusting source. And, And. And kind of along with this, what. What ends up happening, which kind of leads to. My next bullet point is that external authority is more important than internal authority, which, again, is a very dangerous concept when it comes to trauma, informed care and sexuality. But we kind of have these two voyeurs in this dilemma of being immortal here in human world. You have this God who knows you, who think, who knows what you're thinking about, who can see you, kind of like a perpetual Santa Claus that can tell whether or not you're a good boy or a bad boy and good girl or bad girl. And then you have Satan, who also has control over your mind, who can insert thoughts into your mind, who can put in temptations. So you have your own brain and your own ideas and thoughts coming from this context of two male figures, very much external authorities, both with a lot of power. One of them fairly scary, one of them kind of loving, kind of disciplinarian, kind of disappointing, kind of okay with you infiltrating your ideas about your erotic development and what you're thinking about sexually.

Distrust of Self and External Authority

John Dehlin [00:39:51] So what I hear you saying is that, like with this natural man, you're your own worst enemy sexually. That you're. You're. You're taught to distrust yourself and to devalue yourself as a sexual agent. And two other people are put into your sexuality. This heavenly, white, heavenly father, bearded man, and then Satan. And so already this is just a really unhealthy mix of self loathing and then other people being the authorities over you two white men basically. And that just sounds, you're basically saying that's a mess.

Natasha Helfer [00:40:29] Oh yeah, that's a huge mess. Because then you're never, if you can't trust yourself as far as what you're turned on by, what your boundaries should be, what you are attracted to or not attracted to, I mean, just think about the implications for a gay man or a lesbian woman. You know, if I can't trust that my attraction for a same sex partner is real or that, that it's me, it's coming from this outer evil source. Yeah, that's gonna really mess you up, you know, in regards to internalizing the sexual shame that we're talking about. And of course this leads to this external authority issue that not only do we have a white bearded man up in the sky, but we have representatives of the white bearded man right in the office that we go into to answer questions from a very early age where we are not taught proper boundaries about our sexual privacy, our sexual right to our own sexual identity and ideas. And we are expected to just answer questions about our sexual behavior, about what we think about, about who we are attracted to, about what we're doing in ways that quite frankly classify as grooming behaviors. And although I, I don't believe that most priesthood leaders in the church are pedophiles or predators, for those who are, this is ample opportunity to have access to an entirely vulnerable population who has not been taught that it's okay to say that's none of your business, just something as simple as that. We're not taught to say something as simple as that. And even if it's not your bishop or your stake president, who's your predator, if you have that kind of upbringing where you just completely outsource your authority to external authority, whatever predators may be in your environment, which we know are very apt to be in your family and or community circles, you're going to be more vulnerable to those people.

Carah Burrell [00:42:31] So on that topic, I had a question come in that I wanted to ask you, Natasha. So Maddie was asking about her husband has been going to therapy to help with his childhood sexual trauma. One of my parents is saying therapy is stupid and we need to go to the bishop. How do you navigate that? Because obviously in the church everybody knows you're apparently, you know, your business and your parents want what's best for you. And if they, they think that, that, that external authority with the bishop or that white bearded man, that should be the best authority. Authority. Nothing, nothing that a therapist can, can offer you could possibly be better than that. So do you have, do you have that problem within your practice? And how would you, what advice would you give to somebody trying to navigate that?

Natasha Helfer [00:43:14] Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the unfortunate kind of consequences of being in RCCs is that whoever God is deemed to be and whoever is deemed to represent God is going to be offered authority that really hasn't been earned in the social science or medical fields. It's only been earned through this theological lens. And when I train a therapist in working with people who come from RCCs, I tell them you have to be careful because you're not going to trump these people's idea of God or whoever their ecclesiastical leaders are that are basically representing God. So it's this dance, even in the therapy world of trying to understand people's values and their ideas and where they're coming from, while also trying to psychoeducate on realities that have to do that are backed up by research and evidence based work. And it is interesting, and this was a big part of kind of my own faith journey as a Mormon woman, is that my Mormonism and my professional training were in conflict with one another on numerous occasions. And that's something that's difficult to sit with, right? That cognitive dissonance that I had to sit with. And yes. So this boundaried issue is there's always somebody in Mormonism that has more authority than you, right? Whether it's your patriarch, whether it's your bishop, whether it's your matriarch, whether it's your, your God, whether it's your stake president. And so when you cannot have a space of internal authority that is truly yours from a sexual and gender identity perspective, that is extremely harmful because as we've mentioned before, the box is very small that you can fit in. So there are tons and tons of people who don't fit in that very limited box that the church deems appropriate.

John Dehlin [00:45:10] So I guess the flip of that is becoming your. I mean, I'm guessing the solution is going to be becoming your own sexual authority. Giving yourself permission to pay attention to what drives you, your yums, your yucks, as you like to say, what, what you're attracted to, what you're not, what things work for you and what things don't. Getting God, getting Satan, getting your bishop, even getting your parents out of your metaphorical bedroom and learning. That's probably one of the big things you do, especially for women, but also youth. Just probably not youth, but just learning to become your own sexual authority. It sounds almost blasphemous saying it as someone who was raised Mormon. That sounds almost radical.

Natasha Helfer [00:45:54] Right? Well, and it's in essence at the heart of what I was excommunicated for. Right. Is that my, my professional authority was challenging the church's authority. And so that is where we were incompatible and the church made it clear that we were incompatible by excommunicating my membership. So that is a problem and that's not something that we're going to be able to solve. And so this is where people have to learn how to set boundaries with other entities that are not going to be very pleasantly accepting of those boundaries. It's very common, for example, in our Mormon culture to have, have a potential father in law ask a potential groom whether or not he looks at pornography and whether or not he masturbates and whether or not he should be doing that in preparation to being married to his daughter. That is a completely inappropriate boundary that's being crossed. And the self autonomy of both an individual and the adult couple themselves that if they want to have that conversation, that's up to them. But it's not the role of a parental figure to come in and basically act as a patriarch or an interviewer of any person's sexual history.

John Dehlin [00:47:04] I love it. Okay, so what's next on the list?

Natasha Helfer [00:47:10] Okay, maybe one other thing I would say, since we mentioned the voyeuristic Satan is that oftentimes, because it's talked about, that these ideas that would make you uncomfortable come from Satan. All sexual discomfort then is deemed as coming from Satan. And there's no understanding that actually sexual discomfort is a normal part of sexual exploration. And I always try to bring up the example that even simple things like your first kiss, your first French kiss, even maybe the first time you had righteous marital sex, they were probably uncomfortable because they were new and they were novel. You hadn't ever done them before. And so discomfort is actually a very normal, normal part of sexual exploration. But if you've got this story that, oh no, I feel uncomfortable, therefore, especially if it, whatever I feel uncomfortable about doesn't fit this very rigid box, therefore it must come from Satan. Again, you're ignoring tons and tons of erotic and sensual potential that are part of your natural drive.

John Dehlin [00:48:14] Yeah, and this goes back to. If you've been taught your whole life that sex is bad, there will be sexual potential acts or behaviors that will just seem uncomfortable or weird or scary that aren't necessarily bad or weird or scary. That's just the fear and the conditioning that you've been living with forever. And that could really limit your ability to have a nice sexual experience with. With you.

Natasha Helfer [00:48:40] Exactly, exactly. Things like different sexual positions, things like using a sex toy, things like using erotic materials or pornography to help with stimulation, things like anal sex, things like exploring fantasy, all of those things are not really supported by this sacred, righteous idea of what holy sex looks like. And because you're uncomfortable with them, then they must come from Satan. So then either we shame ourselves or we shame our partners who may have some of those interests as being, you know, not worthy.

John Dehlin [00:49:12] And of course, we can't forget that the Mormon church actually issued a memo in the early 80s when Spencer Beckham was prophet, forbidding oral sex in marriage. And they had to retract. They had to retract that memo within a year of issuing it because there was such an outcry. But that legacy of oral sex being forbidden, which it's not, but there's a perception that it's forbidden, can lead to negative associations where a partner may say, I'm uncomfortable with that because my parents or grandparents or bishop made it sound like that was unholy or impure, that association, just like all the associations. You're saying discomfort, fear does not equate to bad. It could just be conditioning.

Natasha Helfer [00:49:55] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:49:55] Yeah. Okay.

Sex as Unholy and the Purity Culture

Natasha Helfer [00:49:56] And let's just go right into that next bullet point then, which is holy and sacred sex, which, you know, who

John Dehlin [00:50:03] gets to find out, that's the next. That's the next source of Mormon sexual shame.

Natasha Helfer [00:50:08] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:50:09] The idea that, okay, that sex is.

Natasha Helfer [00:50:11] Is supposed to be holy and sacred, which, you know, could potentially have some value. There are beautiful aspects of sex there. People can think about sexuality in spiritual ways. People can think about a sexual experience as sacred. There's nothing inherently wrong with those words, but those words are weaponized oftentimes in ways where who gets to decide what is holy or unholy? And your example of oral sex is exactly on point. This is, of course, the huge discussion we're having currently in regards to homoerotic sexuality. Right. And, and, and, you know, seeing that as unholy or unrighteous. Well, who gets to decide that? Why is that the rule? And, and this shows up, of course, usually when what I tend to notice is that whatever you're comfortable with is what that person deems holy. And that's not a good measurement stick. Right. So we've got kind of these arbitrary definitions that don't fit Everybody's erotic templates or orientation templates and then they can be used as weapons within relationships or weapons against yourself. And also set you up for a lot of unrealistic expectations. Because when you think about the words holy, sacred, most of us, if we had to do a brainstorming list around those words, we think of halos and angels and heaven and white and pure. And you know, the reality of the sex act is not very in line with that. You know, there's a lot of grunting and moaning and you know, like, oh, faces, you know, fluids all over the place. There's like, yeah, there's like queefness. There's like, oh, I've got to go to the bathroom in the middle of things. I mean, it's not this like, oh, always moment. And people, I think sometimes can have some really unrealistic expectations of what it means to have righteous sex. And if it is a little bit more pump and grind and dirty, I want to grab your hair or I want to grab your. It's like, oh, I shouldn't want to do those things. And so they, they, they repress a lot of their sexual energy. Even in just moaning. I mean, I can't tell you how many people have told me, yeah, I don't feel comfortable sighing and moaning. That seems like irreverent or that seems like too much or embarrassing when in reality like, oh, you know, the, oh my God is said so much in sex because the expression is actually a wonderful arousal desire tool that we're all trying to fit into this little holy box. Not helpful, is there? Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:52:58] Is that like just a stigmatized thing? Because I'm trying to think back to my Mormon brain and I think it, it's almost like a stigma that, oh, only like porn stars or like only like R rated movies only like only like would like do those things or would say those things or scream or whatever. And you're like, I'm not one of those girls. So it's, Is there like just a stigma around why a lot of Mormon women have to grow out of that?

Natasha Helfer [00:53:23] Well, absolutely. I mean, it's so interesting that. Yes, I mean, erotic materials rated our movies. Pornography does show moaning. Because there's a lot of things that happen in porn that maybe is not realistic. There's a lot of things that happen in porn that are very realistic. They're very normative. I mean, most of porn is like, like, you know, blowjobs and penises and vaginas and anal sex and people having climaxes.

Carah Burrell [00:53:51] I mean, who is doing that important to me is the lights are always bright and on. That's what I say.

Natasha Helfer [00:53:59] Yeah. So of course. And so then if you see that the only people who have permission for those erotic types of aspects of humanity are sluts, whores, porn stars, sex workers, all of these terms that we use to denigrate certain types of people and even professions. Yeah. You're gonna have a lot of limits imposed upon you, because I'm not that kind of girl. Which is, you know, the huge purity culture movement that, you know, I don't want to be pornified. I don't want to be objectified, when in reality, those are very normal aspects of having a good sex life. You know, in a sense, an orgasm is using the same part of your brain that a sneeze is. So when you try to contain a sneeze and be quiet with your sneeze, usually it's not as satisfying, and usually it causes other issues like, oh, now I have to cough because I tried to contain my sneeze. But a good ah chew is helpful. Just like a good. Oh, my God. Is helpful. Right?

John Dehlin [00:55:06] You're reminding me of the Meg Ryan scene When Harry Met Sally.

Natasha Helfer [00:55:09] Yes, yes, yes. That is very normal.

Carah Burrell [00:55:15] If you like the redheaded version of it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:17] Gary, you're probably too young to have seen When Harry Met Sally.

Natasha Helfer [00:55:20] I gotta get my hair kind of like this. Like. Okay, sorry.

Carah Burrell [00:55:24] Yeah, I'll get you a sandwich, too, and a pickle.

Natasha Helfer [00:55:26] Thank you.

Carah Burrell [00:55:27] I need one. I'm trying to not have, like, f. Ref references. That was literally just me trying to pretend we're at a diner so you can recreate the scene. Yeah, yeah, I've seen that scene, John. I can admit to it. That's the. I've gone down the dark holes of the Internet and I have gone. Watched that scene. Yes, indeed.

John Dehlin [00:55:45] I'll just say in seriousness, Natasha, just to kind of echo what you're saying, I. And this is personal disclosure a tiny bit. I. I never realized how turned on I am by my sexual partner making noise.

Carah Burrell [00:55:57] I was about to say. I was about to ask that. I was like. Because don't men want to hear that? I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:56:01] For me, I found that. And I don't. You know, I'm just. Let's be vulnerable. We can. We need to learn to not be afraid to talk about sex and healthy sexuality. I am turned on when I feel like my partner is turned on by me. And if my partner is quiet and muffling and suppressing those feelings, she's probably like, you Said she's probably not enjoying it as she naturally would like the sneeze. But then I'm also not enjoying as. As much because I don't feel like she's at all into it with me. And so, yeah, this, this idea of, you know, priesthood sacred temple sex really is really probably is. Is doing a lot of carnage in. In Mormon marriages and relationships.

Natasha Helfer [00:56:49] Absolutely. And that's not a male or female thing. That's a people thing. I mean, having stimulus, having that snowball effect that. That pleasure begets pleasure. Right. Like if. I mean, it's like gift giving. If you give a gift and somebody's like, oh, my goodness, I love it. You feel good. It makes you, you know, so it's this reciprocal, cyclical part of desire that's very natural. So we want to hear the sighs, the moans, the dirty talk, the sweet talk, the romantic talk, whatever those styles are of yours. That's part of the sexual expression that is so important and successful. Satisfactory, mutual pleasure, sexual experience.

John Dehlin [00:57:30] Yeah. Love it. Smiling, care. Anything else you want to say?

Carah Burrell [00:57:35] I am being so.

John Dehlin [00:57:37] You're using self restraint. You want to make a thousand sex jokes.

Carah Burrell [00:57:43] I am trying so hard to be restrained right now. Okay, I'll say the joke that's on my mind as you're like, Natasha's like, it's like a gift that you want to give to your partner. And I'm just thinking about my neighbors are like, thanks for the gift, Karen Aaron. Appreciate that. But we can hear you from over here anyway.

Natasha Helfer [00:58:00] Yeah, it's good. It's good that we know when other people are having sex, even our kids. Like, not that we want to totally put it in their faces, but it's not a bad thing if your kids are like, hearing some. It's like, oh, yikes.

Carah Burrell [00:58:13] I have a Pavlovian response to when I smell massage oil from the one my parents grew up. I could hear it down. I could smell it down the hallway. I can smell their massage oil down the hallway. And I'm like, zoop. And walk the other way. But I'm like, happy for you guys. You know, to this day, if I smell that massage oil in my house.

Natasha Helfer [00:58:30] That's right.

Carah Burrell [00:58:31] Like Satan, get away.

John Dehlin [00:58:34] Yeah. So it's not bad for kids to know their parents are sexual. That's probably healthy.

Natasha Helfer [00:58:38] Yes. Because you're role modeling that. That's an important part of your life. Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:58:43] Okay.

Natasha Helfer [00:58:44] Okay. So the next bullet point I have is the purity value of virginity so that we actually equate a person's worth. We actually use these words. Your worthiness status is equated to things that have happened to your body, either consensually, really, or non consensually. Because even though I think most people would agree that we wouldn't say somebody who was raped was unworthy, people who are raped or sexually assaulted, especially when their children and teenagers, do not have the developmental capacity many times to understand the difference. So they will see themselves as damaged goods and unworthy, regardless of whatever their body went through was consensual or not. And this is extremely problematic when people see themselves as unworthy because of how they sexually show up.

John Dehlin [00:59:42] Up.

Natasha Helfer [00:59:43] And of course, this has huge implications for the LGBTQ community.

John Dehlin [00:59:48] Yeah, interesting. So. So virginity culture of, like, you're either pure or you're not. The whole licked cupcake analogy, the. The nail in the board, the Snickers bar that gets passed around and manhandled, all of that stuff is. Is counterproductive and harmful.

Carah Burrell [01:00:10] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [01:00:10] And it goes right into these object lessons that many of us have heard in one way or another. And. And again, they're not unique to Mormonism. And most of these object lessons, what they're teaching is that there's something now unredeemable about you. There's something that you can't ever get back. Even the concept of losing your virginity, it's a loss, A loss instead of something to celebrate or to see as a passage into an adult ritual or, you know, something more posited in a. In a sex positive way. So I. I've even talked to people, people who've been raised as female in the church who did wait until after marriage to have sex. And they will say, yeah, even though it was okay, I still felt this loss of identity and my virtuousness, my purity, because now I still felt sullied or dirty by this act that I had been kind of programmed to see as not equated with my worth. Boy, that is problematic. Yeah, that is really problematic and super internalized.

John Dehlin [01:01:20] Yeah, I love it. Powerful. Okay. Gotta get rid of that.

Carah Burrell [01:01:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:27] Virginity. Virginity culture altogether.

Natasha Helfer [01:01:30] Yeah. And going along with that, again, people who are raised as girls or women definitely are pitted kind of in this Madonna whore complex. It's a lot of either ors. Either you're too sexy, too sensual, too provocative, or, you know, you're kind of this virginous, submissive, lovely, quiet Reverend Madonna. And so we have our own kind of implications of this in Mormonism, and both are very limiting narratives of what a female caricature is. And also interrupts a lot of female eroticism and fantasy about themselves and how they can show up kind of back to that. Oh, if I show up in this way, I'm too sexual, I'm too slutty. You know, I'm the vixen versus, you know, this kind of pure model that really isn't very sexual at all. In fact, the whole idea of the Madonna is that somehow she turned into a mother without even having to have sex. Right. So it's an impossible kind of role model that we can't ever even live up to. That has higher implications in evangelical culture than Mormonism, but it still permeates our culture at large and permeates Mormonism as well.

John Dehlin [01:02:49] So this idea, Carah, do you relate to that at all in your Mormon upbringing? To what Natasha said?

Carah Burrell [01:02:55] I am one of the least relatable people on this subject. I know I'm probably not gonna have a lot to say this because I'm reading comments because I am a weirdo. And I have, I had, I had all of the bad things happen to me and none of the trauma. I don't know what happened. I escaped it. And I'm a healthy, happy person from the day I got married until now. And I have had no issues sin from my, like, sexual molestation growing up. Pretty much. I escaped a lot of, a lot of stuff. And I have a very healthy, happy sex life my entire marriage. So I, my commentary is not gonna be very relatable, and I feel terrible. But that's just my story, and that's what I own. But I, I. It took me a long time to deconstruct that. That was abnormal. And that's not a lot of the normal messaging that I got. Cause I was raised by feminist leaders and I had. I, I'm the 1% of the 1% that maybe had a good experience.

John Dehlin [01:03:51] Sure.

Natasha Helfer [01:03:52] Well, at the same time, though, I would challenge a little bit of that. I'm actually really glad you mentioned this, because not everybody who has traumatic things happen to them necessarily has traumatic consequences. So those people are perfectly normal too. Right. And if it ain't broken, don't worry about fixing it is great. And actually, that's a wonderful thing that you weren't necessarily deeply affected by some of these things that happened. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. People are very resilient. People are very adaptive. And there's tons of people who have lived through all kinds of traumatic experiences that flourish and thrive and do well in all areas of their life. So by no means do we want to correlate trauma with dysfunction. Sometimes dysfunction can make sense through a trauma lens, sometimes it doesn't. Not everybody who has dysfunction necessarily has events that they felt were traumatic. So it's kind of a mixture of things. And so I'm actually really glad you talked about that because we want to make room, room for all presentations here. This is just an overview of some of the messages that I'm inviting people to consider as to whether or not they feel have had an impact in their life. But not everybody was affected the same. And I actually think that, quite frankly, when I think about people who go through faith transitions and who struggle, sometimes the people who struggle the most are the people who took it most seriously, which sometimes has to do with your personality. Sometimes it has to do with a mental health component. Like maybe you lean towards OCD or anxiety components. The kids who kind of were able to like roll their eyes and say, I don't know what this person's talking about when they were 18, they're out a lot of times those people don't carry a lot of this internalized sexual shame or don't have as hard of a time of leaving even a high demand religion. So. So, yeah, I'm glad there's room for everybody.

Carah Burrell [01:05:46] And yeah, when I was deconstructing Mormonism, I was in a Facebook group for, if you know, the HHS one. It's called Healthy Happy Sexuality. I think you're in that group, right, Natasha? Yeah. I don't know what your opinions are.

John Dehlin [01:05:59] Put that in the show notes.

Carah Burrell [01:06:00] Yeah, it's got a, it's got a really robust group. There's a couple LDS sex groups that I was in and some are better than others. So I thought that one was really good and like, leaned toward the progressive side. And in that group, I got to read the whole myriad of different experiences from, you know, people who had the worst lessons possible and some people who are like, I don't know what you're talking about. I had great lessons and people who had just a lot more like feminist leanings towards the way that they viewed the church and sexuality and people like me in the day that were a lot more conservative and were like handing out some not so good advice. Advice. But so I. It was in that group that I started to realize how, how wide and varied Mormon women's upbringing and the message that they, that they got and what they internalized and what they were using in their marriage now and what they needed to ditch or what they needed to adapt to. And what I really love about that group and what a lot of Mormon women are capable of is they, they, they. They know when something's not right and they know where to get help. And, and there are so many good resources, especially in that group and through other ones. I'm sure that Natasha will go into. And I really encourage people to have empathy that people come from different places and are taught different messages. And I had to grow up, quite honestly, as my deconstruction for Mormonism and through what the things that I went through, I had to be more empathetic, that I had a good experience and I needed to go into what my conditioning was. That's a lot different than other people. And to see people as products of their conditioning. And if we can just deconstruct the harmful messages and uplift the good ones, as we're all, whether in the church or out of the church.

John Dehlin [01:07:35] So if you'll do me a favor, share that link in the show notes. So, Natasha, the, the, the mo. The last point, I want to make sure we captured that last point. It was about the Madonna. What was it?

Madonna Complex and Gender Expectations

Natasha Helfer [01:07:46] Yeah, the Madonna complex.

John Dehlin [01:07:48] The Madonna whore complex.

Natasha Helfer [01:07:49] Typically what it's called in kind of social science circle circles.

John Dehlin [01:07:52] Okay, so you're either pure or you're a. Is it basically a false dichotomy? Is that.

Natasha Helfer [01:07:59] Yeah, because typically most of us have a little bit of both within ourselves.

John Dehlin [01:08:05] We're all whores. We're all mad.

Natasha Helfer [01:08:07] Yeah, we're all. We all have kind of aspects of ourselves that are more kind of, you know, what would be considered clean cut or traditional. And the aspects of us that are erotic and more sensual and the more flexibility we have within those different components of ourselves, better. Anytime you have a polarized idea that it's an either or more limitations, there will be.

John Dehlin [01:08:28] So the idea is, let's allow that we can be all the things. We can be whores, we can be Madonnas, we can be studs, we can be passive, submissive. Allow for a fluidity of, let's just say, sexual expressions or identities.

Natasha Helfer [01:08:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:08:45] And that will allow for just better experiences overall.

Natasha Helfer [01:08:48] Yeah. And the Madonna complex also comes with the motherhood complex, that somehow, if you're a mother, that somehow desexualizes you, that somehow that becomes a matron type of space that you're now responsible for small children. So the idea that you could be sensual and a mother aren't very correlated, both in Mormonism and in our overall culture. I remember one day Demi Moore went on some. I don't know if it was vogue or Cosmo or something kind of nude when she was pregnant. It was a very kind of, you know, what would be considered maybe today a somewhat okay picture to take. It was a huge dilemma.

John Dehlin [01:09:24] Yeah, I remember that she was nude but dinky, but pregnant.

Natasha Helfer [01:09:26] She was sexualizing her baby. She was, you know, non. Consensually exposing her baby to sexual ideas. I mean, there was just a lot of, of that shaming primarily coming from other women because as women we're taught to micromanage each other's sexuality. So. Yeah. So going back to. So maybe if you were raised as a male, there is kind of that stud slash weak kind of dichotomy. So on the one hand, you're expected to kind of be the one who's the aggressor, the initiator, the one who asks the person to get married, the one who initiates sex, the one. One who's going to turn on the female body. Right. And kind of this heteronormative story like

John Dehlin [01:10:07] Fabio and the Harlequin Romance.

Natasha Helfer [01:10:09] Yeah, he's gonna come in rough.

John Dehlin [01:10:11] But I remember James Bond. Like I, I thought it'd be fun to show a James Bond movie to my daughter Clara. So we picked Goldfinger and there was a character named Pussy Galore. And that's another story. But, but you know, there's this moment in the James Bond movie where he just like grabs the girl and kisses her, pushes her up against the wall and kisses her. And I guess in the early 60s that was okay, that's super rapey, you know, by 2021 standards that a man without consent can just grab a woman, put her up against the wall and force kiss her. And she, you know, it's always like she starts out resisting and then she likes lets go and melts. Yeah, but, but I mean, that was kind of maybe conditioning men that they needed to be forceful and that's what it was to be a man.

Natasha Helfer [01:11:01] It's also conditioning women that they can't want sex too much. They've got to resist it because otherwise they would be too hoary. And so they've got to resist it. I don't really want it, but then of course I do. So, yeah, the messages for consent and this disaster of, you know, patriarchal kinds of roles with sexuality is a mess again, both in our media and in our religious circles.

Carah Burrell [01:11:24] I'm famous on this podcast for mentioning my role play. So Google consensual non consent, everyone. That's all I have to say about that.

Natasha Helfer [01:11:32] Let's have it.

John Dehlin [01:11:33] Let's add a link on that.

Carah Burrell [01:11:34] Oh, I'll bring some links. I'll drop some links. Just.

Natasha Helfer [01:11:37] So the other side of the people who are raised as men is that they're weak. That if they see your porn shoulders or if they are, you know, somewhat provoked sexually by some. Some presence that, oh, my goodness, I can't control myself. I can't. You know, I'm just going to fall into this temptress's lair and somehow not have any control over my sexuality. And both the Madonna whore complex and also the stud weakling complex lead to what I call rape culture and modesty rhetoric and how we micromanage in particular female bodies, bodies, and their clothing to, in essence, follow through with this idea that Eve tempted mankind. And people should know that that comes not from the Mormon story of Eve, but the typical Christian story of Eve. The evangelical doctrine that Eve ruined it for mankind. You know, their doctrine, evangelical Christianity believes that we should have all actually stayed in the garden of Eden and that we would have all had this wonderful experience there. And so a woman basically was the downfall of humankind. So that's where that all kind of originates from. And, of course, this modesty rhetoric makes it into our legal system, it makes it into our cultural systems, it makes it into our media systems where female bodies are responsible for male sexual accountability. And that leads to this horrific kind of rape culture mentality that affects to this day, it affects what happens in legal courts.

John Dehlin [01:13:16] All right, this is good. All right, this is good so far. I'm loving this. Thanks, Natasha. And, Carah, it's great to have you as well.

Carah Burrell [01:13:25] I'm gonna stop talking. I feel like I'm gonna regret everything when I'm done.

John Dehlin [01:13:28] No, people love you. We just. We all know that people love Carah.

Natasha Helfer [01:13:31] So that's just really regret nothing.

Carah Burrell [01:13:34] Nausea's over here. Just like, oversharing. John's over here talking about, like, I love when. And I'm like, what else can I share? And I'm like, let's share less actually, car. Let's actually reflect and shut up. Okay, sorry. Continue.

John Dehlin [01:13:48] All right, Natasha, what's next?

Pathologizing Normal Sexual Behavior

Natasha Helfer [01:13:49] All right, so the next thing I want to talk about is how we cine is what I would consider normal human behavior. So starting from self touch, typically masturbation, we make that to be something that is sinful and shouldn't be happening when it's something that we know that throughout culture, throughout human race, throughout socioeconomic society, it's ubiquitous throughout the human story. Male, females, females touch themselves.

John Dehlin [01:14:18] Male, female, all ages, babies in the womb, infants for tens of Thousands of years, if not longer. There's like, like other than like sleep and food and water, like there, it'd be hard to find something. Masturbation is even more ubiquitous than sex itself because they're, you know, so I mean, it would be hard to find a more universal human experience than self pleasure. And yet it's like the worst thing ever in Mormonism.

Natasha Helfer [01:14:53] Yeah. And from next to murder. Yeah. Emily Nagoski's term is from womb to tomb. That's the spectrum for which humans are sexual beings. And they actually have ultrasounds where you can see a fetus, in a sense, managing their genitalia. And it's not just religion that does this, in fact, of cinephizing. Sometimes mental health traditions have also done this. For example, it's seen as abnormal if you're using masturbation to cope with stress. And I'm like, well, of course you're using masturbation to cope with stress. Like that's an actually healthy way to cope with stress. As are 500 other coping mechanisms that you could use to deal with stress that we wouldn't necessarily pathologize. Right. So if you're like, well, I play Tetris to manage stress, you know, playing Tetris isn't a sin, but masturbation is. So that's that we sinifies that. And of course we cinephise any sexual exploration, like I had talked about earlier in regards to sexual exploration. So it's normal to have crushes and be interested and to start exploring, kissing and dating, you know, pretty much from puberty on. And all of that is kind of shut down either through age restrictions and. Or group restrictions, you know, you can only go out in groups until again, that marital vow. So if you really do it the. The Mormon way, which would be to really only kind of peck or possibly French kiss prior to getting naked the next, you know, in two hours with each other and have piv sex. You've missed an entire realm of foreplay and getting to know each other that is more normative and a sexual exploratory journey. And we really rob our youth and our young adults from those kinds of exploration experiences. So we cinephiles, that. We cinephiles, of course, being turned on by erotic materials. We cinephise fantasy because, you know, by the thoughts you will be condemned. We cinephize being attracted to people other than our spouse. We. We cinefize all kinds of normative human sexual expressions and, you know, a lot of the things that are normative don't fall in line with, with kind of standards of RCCs. Again, religiously conservative communities.

John Dehlin [01:17:20] Yeah. Or I like to say high demand religions.

Natasha Helfer [01:17:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:17:23] We try and avoid saying the word cult on this program.

Carah Burrell [01:17:26] Okay,

Natasha Helfer [01:17:29] so that's, that's a problem. I think also we need to think about.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] Well, by the way, I. Tell me if it's true. This comes up a lot in sexual dysfunction within marriages. There's all this focus on like, like, because it's like nothing unless you're like having the actual penis and vagina sex that leads to hopefully an orgasm as soon as possible, usually just for the man. There can be a lot of pressure associated with that always being the, the goal or the, the thing you're driving towards. No pun intended. And as I understand it, sexual dysfunction, when there's too much of a focus on orgasm or climax, that can lead to sexual dysfunction. Whereas if, if you're willing to just lie there together and touch each other and be sensual without necessarily driving towards that, that obvious ultimate conclusion, you're, you know, that can make it. So there's. That can aid in better sexual health and sometimes less. 6. Sexual dysfunction. Am I getting that right? I'm kind of speaking clumsily. This isn't my area.

Natasha Helfer [01:18:38] Yeah, that's. That's correct. I mean, probably the top two things I'm doing in sex therapy is trying to diversify what we consider successful sex. So instead of like you're saying orgasm, erection, lubrication and or piv, penis and vagina sex, we want to consider sex much wider than that. You know, it's beautiful.

Carah Burrell [01:18:56] I love that.

Natasha Helfer [01:18:57] Yeah. Things that are considered foreplay. Dr. Mintz, who wrote Becoming Clitoris, she's like, that's not, not foreplay. That's outer sex. There's intercourse and there's outer course and they're all sex. So forget this idea that the foreplay. Oh, I guess we have to spend 10 minutes on foreplay before we get to the real thing, which is the penis entering the vagina and a heteronormative marriage that no, everything that's happening is part of sex. And lesbians are having the best sex and there's no penises involved. So, you know, this idea that somehow a penis entering a vagina is sex is something that I think we all want to get away from. That's a type of sex. That's intercourse. And there's 500 other ways to be sexual. And you can have sexual satisfaction without necessarily reaching orgasm. Although most people do want to reach orgasm. And you Want to prioritize that but not pressurize it because then you fall into performance anxiety issues. And you also want to redefine what's considered sexy. So, you know, the media, for example, really says you have to look a certain way, you have to be a certain age, you have to be a certain. You have to present in a certain way to be deemed sexy. We want to really diversify that as well. So we're diversifying sexy and we're diversifying sex in basic sex therapy.

John Dehlin [01:20:20] And it just gives people more options. More options, more fun, more enjoyment, more

Natasha Helfer [01:20:25] ability to see themselves as successful instead of, again, limiting themselves into either church boxes or media boxes.

John Dehlin [01:20:31] That's so big.

Carah Burrell [01:20:32] I'll tell my husband tonight that we high fived earlier today and that was a success. I'm redefining. We've diversified.

Natasha Helfer [01:20:39] We had skin to skin contact, baby. All right.

Carah Burrell [01:20:43] We've diversified.

Natasha Helfer [01:20:44] That's right. I do want to touch really fast too. Back on kind of male and female gender roles, because in Mormonism we do have such a focus on traditional gender roles.

John Dehlin [01:20:55] Is this the next point?

Natasha Helfer [01:20:56] Yes, that's a very.

John Dehlin [01:20:58] So traditional gender role.

Natasha Helfer [01:20:59] Traditional gender role.

John Dehlin [01:21:01] Are you saying that hasn't been good for us?

Natasha Helfer [01:21:03] That has not been good for us.

John Dehlin [01:21:05] Why is that? How is that?

Natasha Helfer [01:21:06] Well, because you, again, limit people, right? So a high libido female may not feel comfortable initiating because. Because ladies don't initiate. Ladies aren't aggressive. Right. These are kind of some of the messages that we've grown up with. You may have a low libido male body who is feeling detrimental about himself because I'm supposed to want sex all the time, but I don't. And what does that mean about me?

John Dehlin [01:21:30] And more shame, right?

Natasha Helfer [01:21:31] A lot of shame. And so again, it just limits people and it polarizes people because again, most of us have what would be considered stereotypical feminine traits and masculine traits traits, and we like to kind of gender bend, in a sense, if you want to call it that, in regards to our own presentation. Sometimes. Sometimes I like to feel aggressive and domineering. Sometimes I do like to play the submissive. Oh, take me roll. You know, those are all stereotypes about what we have deemed to mean feminine or masculine, when in a reality, it's just a huge diverse human spectrum. So limiting those, you know, roles and what it means to be a woman, a comforter, a caretaker, a quiet, a kind, a loving person. Well, what if I want to say, fuck me now and take me and I'm gonna like whip your ass? Well, that doesn't really fit with my role as a female bought, embodied person.

Carah Burrell [01:22:33] Right?

John Dehlin [01:22:34] Yeah. Yeah. All right. The patriarchy fails us again.

Natasha Helfer [01:22:40] Patriarchy fails us again. Yes, there is that.

John Dehlin [01:22:45] And maybe in other episodes we can talk about the antidote to all of these.

Marriage Pressure, Polygamy, and Body Shame

Natasha Helfer [01:22:49] Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. I think the resistance of divorce is a message that is problematic for sexual lives. So because a lot of people, not everybody, and I want to be very careful because I think especially in post Mormonism, we like to have this story that we marry too young. We married when we were stupid, therefore my current marriage is not the marriage I would have had. And I think it's much more complex than that. And at times that's true. So sometimes we do marry sexually incompatible people, but the church doesn't really allow for that to be a good enough reason to not spend your life with somebody in a romantic partnered marriage that oftentimes becomes asexual and ignores the needs of either one or both people within that relationship. So that's, that's a problematic concept. And there's really no options out, you know, because most marriages are monogamous. And so if you're not going to consider a consensual non monogamous approach, if you're not going to allow for pornography or solo sex sex, if you're not going to allow for other expressions of sexual exploration and outsource, if the only person you're allowed to be sexual with is your married partner, then there's a lot of, I think, both feeling stuck and almost both feeling taken hostage by the other. And, and that relates to a lot of these issues of ownership. I think we get a lot of messages in RCCs where it's like your sexuality really is owned by your partner. So if your partner is uncomfortable with your sexuality, you've got to somehow tamper it down or you've got to shift it or change it or just spouses.

John Dehlin [01:24:35] And oftentimes it's females that feel like they have to police their husbands. Did you masturbate? When did you masturbate? Did you look at porn? How often? I think, you know, it's not that I'm necessarily saying I'm pro porn, but. But I think that wreaks all sorts of damage on so many Mormon marriages and probably other conservative religious marriages because, you know, we've talked about this in our retreats a lot. It puts in this case the wife not as the lover, but as like the. The police officer or as the mother policing the sexuality of. In. In this case the husband. That's not sexy, it leads to shame. And doesn't it wreak all sorts of sexual havoc? Isn't that a huge thing you deal with is women policing their husbands sexuality?

Natasha Helfer [01:25:23] And we teach women to police their husband's sexuality. In Mormonism, that's what we do. That's a learned response. That's not a natural response. That's a learned response. And in many ways, we also teach men to do that to women in regards to how much libido they have or how they show up. And if they. They're showing up too sexual or not sexual enough. Again, it all comes back to this idea that somehow I own your sexuality, you own mine. Instead of the framework being more like, no, I own my own sexuality. I have a right to my own brain, I have a right to my own body, I have a right to my own privacy, and I would like to share some of that sexuality with you in this partnership. That is a very different framing than what we normally get. In fact, this leads to. Even people who've had premarital sex, you know, feel their, their spouses can feel betrayed by them, even though they didn't even know them at the time. Because you should have saved yourself for me. You know, there's, there's so many ways that people monitor and police each other's sexuality in really inappropriate ways that don't lead to eroticism. And egalitarianism at least leads to ownership.

John Dehlin [01:26:34] That's so important.

Natasha Helfer [01:26:35] Possessiveness.

John Dehlin [01:26:36] This is so super important. Yeah, I love it.

Natasha Helfer [01:26:40] And then probably the last thing that I would say in regards to Mormonism, other than, of course, you know, I think I've mentioned this along the way, but it should be its own bullet point is that we're heteronormative only. But then past that bullet point is the Ghost of Polygamy, which is Carolyn Pearson's title to her book. And I think that that is a very unique aspect of Mormon sexuality where we have this kind of understanding that nobody really talks about, nobody really addresses. And yet we have this constant idea that at some point, in some way, in some shape or form, it's not just going to be you and me, baby. Right. And to think that that doesn't affect people who are living in the here and now, even though we don't currently live, supposedly the people principle of polygamy, although I think we do because we have apostles married to more than one woman and talking about those kinds of things, but we don't really consider that from a sexual context. And so there's so many People who are kind of haunted by this idea that, you know, I'm sleeping with you now and I'm sharing my body with you now. But at some point in the future I need to prepare myself to possibly not be your only partner, to have more than one partner if you're the male. That wreaks a lot of havoc that I don't think is ever adequately addressed in any circles other than maybe in Carolyn Pearson's book.

John Dehlin [01:28:05] And we'll add that to our show notes because we did an episode with Carolyn Pearson on the ghost of eternal polygamy. But you know, non Mormons aren't going to get this. By the way that because polygamy is still in Mormon scripture, if you go to Doctrine and covenants section 132, just Google it, we can have that to the show notes too. Polygamy is literally baked into Mormon doctrine. Our two top Mormon officials in the Mormon Church, Russell M. Nelson and D. Oaks, are both sealed to multiple women in the eternities. So they literally are eternal polygamists. And what, what Mormons underestimate and what non Mormons have no idea about is how many women Mormon women are terrorized because they fear that either if they die, their husbands are going to take on another woman or in the afterlife they're going to have to share their husbands with other women. It's terrifying. And so it can lead to massive amounts of income, let's just say anger or frustration or resentment with Mormon women against their male husbands and sometimes even sexual dysfunction as this gets into the brains of Mormon women. And it just sounds almost like fiction. But, but this is reality.

Natasha Helfer [01:29:31] It's anything that we, it's like self fulfilling prophecies. Anything that you believe to be real or potentially real will be affecting, you know, your, our capacity to think through some of these matters for sure.

Carah Burrell [01:29:42] And I, when I think back to my Mormon brain and the way that I thought of it, it's never a good framework to be in a system where you know that at some point something sexually is going to be asked of you that you know for sure you're not going to want to do. And that's what I think is the most unhealthy part that I can identify in my brain growing up is that while I love my husband, at some point if I want to reach it to the highest level of the celestial kingdom, I'm gonna have to agree to something that is disgusting to me that I can't believe I'm gonna. Because while we wanna talk about coercion, In Joseph Smith's day, there's still coercion because you can't reach the highest level of the celestial kingdom without becoming, you know, a polygamous wife to my now earthly husband. And just that is a real mind f that this, this church that I love and that I get the spiritual fulfillment from, but it's gonna ask me to do something where I'm gonna have to share my husband sexually and maybe some other things that I don't know what else God has in plan. Plan for me. But I need to have faith and worship this God that is gonna ask these really uncomfortable things for me. That just sets you up. Like Natasha was saying to not owning your sexuality. It's owned by the church that I was born into from the moment I was a baby. Like, this is the system I was born into.

John Dehlin [01:30:50] Yeah. And if I could. Thank you, Karen. If I could just summarize. Read DNC132. It is still Mormon doctrine that women possibly, if not likely, will be sharing their husbands sexually in the afterlife. Because in Mormonism, the whole purpose of coming to this earth is to obey the commandments so that you can die, be exalted, go to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, become gods and goddesses such that you can then go create your own worlds. And Mormons are taught that. That our spirits are created spiritually by our father and mothers in heaven before those spirits ever come down to inhabit physical bodies on earth. And so this is Mormon doctrine. It sounds almost like Scientology, south park mocked sci fi. But it is all part of Mormonism that once we become exalted gods and goddesses with male, single male God and likely multiple female gods, there will be lots of celestial sex happening to literally create. Because in Mormonism, our bodies are literally resurrected fully into our exalted states as eventually Mormon deity, we'll be using our sexual reproductive body parts as Mormons to create the spirit children. This sounds scientific. Sorry, this sounds like science fiction.

Carah Burrell [01:32:25] Sounds like scientific.

John Dehlin [01:32:26] Yes, it sounds scientific. It also sounds like science fiction. There are going to be progressive and liberal Mormons that are like, that's not Mormon doctrine. That's not what the Mormon teaches. Tell me if I'm wrong. Tell me if this is not what everyone who's grown up Mormon learns and believes that there will be endless celestial sex between male Mormon God and his multiple wives that's going to produce all the spirit children that then will populate the worlds that we all govern. As Mormon deity. Am I making this up?

Natasha Helfer [01:32:58] You're not making it up.

Carah Burrell [01:33:00] Somebody Else already did that.

John Dehlin [01:33:01] Am I exaggerating? What do you mean? Oh, that's good. That's good.

Natasha Helfer [01:33:07] No.

John Dehlin [01:33:08] Natasha, is this real or is this.

Natasha Helfer [01:33:09] No, it is. It is real. I mean, obviously the kind of the ways that we've all been kind of taught in the mainstream church is to ignore this part of Mormon doctrine because it's not something we're currently practicing. Right. And so. But I remember many, many times in my growing up years asking bishops, asking my stake presidents, what do we know about this? What does this mean? I came from convert parents, so I don't have a history really in Mormonism. I was very confused, abused by this doctrine and they would always poo poo it away like, well, we don't live it now. You don't have to worry about it. Those things will be figured out in the eternal, you know, mysteries. And yet it became very apparent that it was very real in real life situations when I started having clients who were dealing with being widowed or divorced, especially female clients, and wanting to remarry in the temple, not being allowed because they were already married or they had to annul that ceiling and oh, the implications were horrific. And then watching men not having to deal with those issues when they were widowed or divorced, it became very apparent, and especially after Carolyn's Pearson's research, that this is something that's living both in the psyche of Mormonism, mainstream Mormonism, and also living, it's actually in the temple ceremonies that we're currently adhering to. And it actually was part of my faith transition journey that when I found out that this is the, this was the marital covenant that I had actually made, non consensually and not knowing is the day that I took off my garments, even though I was active in the church for many years after that, because I felt like a promise had been broken to me, a covenant had been broken to me.

John Dehlin [01:34:53] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [01:34:53] Because I didn't realize that the language in the temple ceremony was polygamous language that I had told my husband I would give myself to him and he had told me that he would receive me like, oh, thank you. And that, you know, I didn't notice that language when I was 23 and didn't know anything about anything. So that was extremely excruciating to sit with that, you know, feeling really bamboozled and feeling like I had been invited to a non consensual ceremony.

John Dehlin [01:35:28] I'm so sorry.

Natasha Helfer [01:35:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:29] It's not just you.

Natasha Helfer [01:35:30] No.

John Dehlin [01:35:32] It's hundreds of thousands or millions of Mormon women throughout time. Yeah. And it Just goes this whole, it's, it's part of this whole. It's just yet another example of this informed consent problem within Mormonism. We've got these embarrassing, sexist, sometimes super damaging doctrines or theology legacies of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and, you know, Calvinistic 19th century Protestant Christianity or 20th century derivations. We've got all that baggage, plus the Doctrine and Covenants, plus like Spencer W. Kimball's miracle of forgiveness and all the cultural norms that are shared generation, generation by bishops and their counselors. We, we, we have all that baggage, but we can't ever say X prophet was wrong or Y prophet was wrong. The church can't ever denounce any of these past teachings or doctrines. And so they're always being passed down generation upon generation. And we're just carrying all this baggage. Mormonism has no real way to correct past errors other than to just hope that they can kind of move in a new direction, kind of pretend that there's not been a change, move in a new direction and hope that none of that, that cultural baggage carries with us generationally. But it's in the scriptures, it's in past utterances and sometimes even current utterances of prophets and apostles. It's passed down by CES instructors, seminary teachers, institute directors, it's parents. It's just passed down multiple generations. And sometimes it feels almost impossible that we can escape all the cultural and doctrinal and theological baggage that we all carry.

Natasha Helfer [01:37:18] Yeah. Yep.

John Dehlin [01:37:19] That's why we need you, Natasha, and

Natasha Helfer [01:37:22] many like me, all of you who are training to be a sex. Sex therapists. There you go.

John Dehlin [01:37:29] And you do that, right? You train people, you train.

Natasha Helfer [01:37:32] And we have more and more both LDs and, and also people who came from LDs backgrounds, ASEC sex therapists. So I'm thrilled about.

John Dehlin [01:37:42] So if you're, you know, psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, lcsw licensed clinical social worker. If you're a therapist of any kind, you can actually reach out to Natasha and she'll train you to be a licensed sex therapist.

Natasha Helfer [01:37:54] Yeah. You find a way to do that. It doesn't have to be through me, but for sure. So the last point. This is the last point. And this one isn't super Mormon, but I do think it has Mormon implications is body image. So this primarily comes from media. Right? Media messages that are body. Bodies are not good enough. Every advertising out there is basically selling you a product telling you that something about your body. Your dick isn't big enough, your tits aren't big enough. They're too big. You're not the right weight, you're not, you've got too many wrinkles, etc. Etc. This, however, mixed in with Mormon perfectionism I think is extremely interesting. What I have seen in regards to, in particular female self body deprecation in the, in the clients that I've seen and also in males. But I think it's, it's more heavily in, in people who identify as female. So if you don't have, you know, because I think in Mormonism especially Mormon women are socialized to be perfect, to be the right kind of mom, to be the right kind of wife, to be the right kind of spiritual person. And that includes this embodiment of being the right, you know, the right, again, not too sexy, but sexy enough, the right size, dressing the right way, et cetera. So that is very detrimental. Even though I do think we have some body positive doctrine in Mormonism that is unique to like evangelical Christianity who sees the body as, you know, immoral. We kind of have a more positive perspective about our bodies and that we wanted our bodies, et cetera. But I still, still see a lot of both body loathing and mixed with that is genital loathing, loathing of your own genitalia, loathing of the partnered genitalia, which has a lot of implications, of course, for sexual pleasure. So that's a whole nother.

John Dehlin [01:39:55] If you, if you hate your own body parts or, or if you feel disgust or loathing of your partners, that's not going to lead to sexual enjoyment. Sexual enjoyment.

Natasha Helfer [01:40:07] Those are pretty important body parts.

Carah Burrell [01:40:08] I remember I had friends at byu. I think it would be. I remember when my friends were attending byu, I went to uvu. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows I didn't get into byu. I was not smart enough anyway, but my friends would tell me that they didn't even, they were like, no, when I get married, I'm not taking off my clothes in front of my husband. Crazy talk. And I'm like, excuse me. Like, that's how I couldn't believe that they're, they're shaming of their ability bodies was that intense that they put it straight to like, oh, I'll get married, I'll have sex. But I think he's not seeing me naked. No way.

John Dehlin [01:40:38] Not to mention the prevalence of eating disorders, bulimia and anorexia and other sorts of things.

Carah Burrell [01:40:44] Right.

Natasha Helfer [01:40:44] A lot of body image issues, which we're actually seeing an uptick for adolescent boys. So there's a lot of body shaming out there, both in teenage culture, media culture, Mormon culture, etc. Now we've even added to that a bit with missionary standards because if you, you have to meet certain BMI requirements and everything that, you know, for some people who are of size or present in different types of bodies or ability of bodies, that has a lot of implications for feeling sexual and feeling sexy and attractive and desirable and worthy of sexual pleasure.

John Dehlin [01:41:22] I love it.

Carah Burrell [01:41:22] It's huge.

Natasha Helfer [01:41:23] Yeah.

Listener Questions and Community Discussion

John Dehlin [01:41:24] So we're, we're about an hour and 40 minutes into this episode. We should probably start wrapping up. I. Carrie, you can look for any comments or questions you want to add. There's a couple that I'll just, I'll start with from our audience. We're really grateful for our robust YouTube and Facebook viewing audience. And I'll just read a comment or two. Telotis basically said Jenna, Genitalia loathing. You could do an entire podcast on this. So there's at least one listener that really resonated with that idea. Oil stories again, has a question. Natasha. How much of a need is there for sex therapists? And I actually know this because my amazing daughter Clara is actually an administrative assistant to two sex therapists here in the Salt Lake area. Clara, there's like a six month, huge, massive waiting list, but. But I should just let you answer it because you actually are one. How much of demand is there for licensed sex therapists in Utah?

Natasha Helfer [01:42:22] There's a huge demand. There's a huge demand. And I think that the need is actually more than what we would actually see even from demand, because I think there's a lot of harm being done by therapists who are not trained in sexuality. You know, I was a marriage and family therapist for over a decade before I started my sex therapy training work. And I can recognize now that I unintentionally caused harm because I had, you know, a lack of sexual education in regards to what I saw as healthy sexuality between, you know, within a marriage. And now I have dramatically different ideas. So I actually think that the training for sex therapy is very, very important. Even if you're not going to go through the whole education process of becoming certified, there are smaller kind of at least weekend or certain types of sex education that you can look for as a professional to become more credentialed in this particular area. I work with Stephanie Bueller at the Bueller Institute and her website is learnsextherapy.com and she has, you know, kind of options for both options for going through the whole certification process and options for kind of lesser intense trainings, but still fairly comprehensive enough so that we as therapists are not continuing to do unnecessary damage in the sexual lives of, of people.

John Dehlin [01:43:45] And I'll just say it. There are Mormon therapists or life coaches, some of them even popular. They kind of build themselves or promote themselves as sex therapists when they're not. And there, there is a real rigorous and important training, like you say, to becoming a licensed sex therapist. Don't use people as sex therapists if they haven't got the licensure. You just, you want an expert. And these people shouldn't be, in my opinion, shouldn't be promoting themselves as well.

Natasha Helfer [01:44:14] And unfortunately, sex therapy is not a regulated profession other than in the state of Florida. So anybody can call themselves a sex therapist without actually having gone through the credentials. And some of the credentials you should be aware of are like CSAT, certified CSAT, sex addiction therapist that is not a sex therapist. And in fact the CSATs have a lot of holes in their sexuality training and, and can cause more harm than, than good and are not always coming from a sex positive perspective. And yeah, so you know, you want to really look for kind of that ASEC certification. That's really the one of the only bodies out there that is a governing body that regulates the type of training that you, that you go through as a professional. There are some Christian sex therapy certifications which are again, really difficult for me because they actually have the same, you know, Christian sex therapy as CST which is like certified sex therapists. So you really have to kind of do your homework to know who's credentialed in which ways.

John Dehlin [01:45:19] Love it. I just really quickly care. I know you got a comment to read. I just want to make a shout out. We have a never Mormon listener in Sweden who's tuned in. It's probably pretty late in Sweden right now, but Sweden. Swedish Lena writes, I'm a Nevermo and I grew up in Sweden where sexuality and nakedness was something to be celebrated. I never felt sexual shame when it came to my sexuality and was encouraged to healthy relationships. And I just want to say that gives us all a vision for what's possible. So thank you. And also just a shout out to all our Nevermo listeners and a shout out to our Swedish listeners. That's all really fun. And to our international viewers and listeners, we love you guys. Thanks for tuning in. That makes me really happy. Carah.

Carah Burrell [01:46:06] Yeah, I wanted to ask a question that Angela posted where she said, do you have any advice for helping a spouse who deals with the sexual shame that they don't fully see that stems from upbringing in the church. So in a mixed face marriage, maybe the wife's out, the husband's still in, and they don't actually want to confront where they're getting some of their negative conditioning from. Perhaps. How would you navigate that?

Natasha Helfer [01:46:30] Yeah, that's. That's really difficult when you feel like you have insight for your partner that your partner isn't necessarily willing or able to discern or see or be influenced by. I mean, that's kind of one of John Gottman women's principles for healthy marriages is to be willing to be influenced by your spouse and be willing to see what your spouse has to say as possibly something that you should be paying attention to. At the end of the day, you can't force anybody, including your own spouse, to see things exactly how you see them. So the things that I would recommend are, of course, if they're willing, maybe some couples counseling or some sign softball approaches to this kind of topic where you're being gentle and loving and respectful and not shaming them about their shame. And also maybe using kind of like sandwich approaches where you insert some difficult feedback between two very soft loving comments. You know, like, honey, I love you so much. You mean the world to me. It makes me sad because I believe that this is something that may be impacting you and I just want to. To be really forthcoming. I think this is an issue for you. I don't have to mention it again, but I don't feel like I would be a good supportive spouse if I didn't, you know, think this was something important to tell you. And I'm only telling you this because I love you so much. I want to have a great sex life with you and, you know, you mean the world to me. That would be kind of a sandwich approach example.

John Dehlin [01:48:01] Love it.

Carah Burrell [01:48:02] I love that. Yeah,

John Dehlin [01:48:04] love it. I do care. You may have other comments or questions. It's probably time to wrap up soon. This is a question that I think maybe can have a quick answer, but there might be other resources you can point people to because I know you've actually put a lot of free resources or very inexpensive resources up. So Kristin Creel writes ideas for teaching healthy sexuality to children when your ex partner has very unhealthy ideas and is vocal about it. So, Natasha, what can you point people to in terms of resources for teaching your kids about healthy sexuality?

Natasha Helfer [01:48:45] Yeah, there's a lot of really great resources out there. I mean, on my website, natashahelford.com, i've got a whole page of resources I've Got a library where I have a whole section on parenting. I actually do a 10 part series webinar on parenting and sexuality for kids. Those are all resources I have. I know Kristen Hodson, who's also a sex therapist here in Utah, also has a lot of parenting resources that you can probably find on her website. I'm guessing that's thehealinggroup.com Braxton Dutson runs the Birds and the Bees podcast which is all about parenting and sexuality. Alvar Nacchio and he writes for Goodness Sex. He has some great TED talks on sexual education of teens. There's a lot of really great resources out there. It's difficult when you have an ex spouse who is going to teach your kids things that you don't agree with, whether that's sexually, politically, religiously, etc. You just have to trust that if you can be respectful and you offer your own perspectives that your kids eventually will lean towards whatever is hopefully healthiest and best for them.

John Dehlin [01:49:58] I love it. Would care.

Carah Burrell [01:50:00] She said. Good advice. I've got three little kids. I am needing all the resources I can get. They love to put their hands down their pants. All I know is to say I just like maybe do what you want. I don't know. I'm still learning on how to talk to my kids about that. Somebody did add to ask her. Mark asked how to deal with my ex wife shaming my 8 year old daughter for exploring her private areas. I'm trying so hard not to shame my daughter. It is so difficult. Clean her hands. Smell and I'm just like what do I do? I don't know.

Natasha Helfer [01:50:27] Yeah, you know it's interesting that even the church has a resource. I believe they still have it called I want to say good parent, some type of parent. The parent guide, the parenting guide that's somewhere hidden in lds.org somewhere. And in that document they actually encourage normalization of body exploration until the age of 12. So I actually found that very helpful except for then I disagreed with them about what they had to say after the age of 12. So if your partner is LDS or believing in that regard or more conservative, that might be a resource that they might be willing to look at.

John Dehlin [01:51:12] Love it. I'm going to read two more comments really quickly. One comment says Lauren Johns writes, any way we could include asexuality in this discussion, like legitimate space for those who identify as asexual. And then Mark Fuentes writes I know someone who is asexual. It is very misunderstood and I'm just gonna echo that. I have A daughter, Clara, who identifies as asexual. And, you know, when you're raised as Mormon, with all this negative messaging around sexuality, your biggest fear. My biggest fear as a dad forever was that my. My kids. My especially my daughters, because, of course, it's worse somehow if a woman has sex than a. Than a young boy or a young man. But my biggest fear as a dad was that my daughters would have premarital sex. And what I was not at all prepared to envision or anticipate was that I could have a child who actually comes out as asexual, which actually doesn't mean that you never eventually have sex or even like sex. But my understanding of asexuality is something that's totally never talked about, totally misunderstood, understood is asexuality is a lack of sexual desire for another person. And when my daughter came out to me, Clara, as asexual, I was like, what? You know, and I didn't understand was scary to me, and I said all the wrong things to Clara. So much so that she actually wrote her own book about asexuality. And the book is called A Little Book of Ace. And this isn't me. Like. Like any other reason than just like, one of the reasons Clara wrote this book is because she couldn't find a good book about asexuality. But asexuality is a thing, and it really impacts people. Can you just really quickly tell our listeners how asexuality comes into play with your clientele or with Mormon marriages or with post Mormon marriages? Because a lack of awareness around asexuality can really wreak havoc in people's individual lives and in their relationships.

Asexuality, Gender Roles, and Closing Thoughts

Natasha Helfer [01:53:23] Yeah, well, just like we have pathologized sexuality, we have also pathologized the lack of sexual interest. And so it's kind of this idea that we've had for a long time, both in the medical community and even the psychological community, that everybody should present as being interested in sex at one way or another. So the asexual community has. Has really garnered a lot of support and education in regards to, wait a minute. Why do I have to be sexual in order to be deemed healthy? And that's a very valid point. And that's why when you think about all the acronyms, lgbtqia, I is intersex, A is asexual. And then there's a plus, because now you have things like aromantic and pansexual. And there's so many ways that people have a right to label and identify their interests without feeling broken or pathologized or wrong somehow. And so there's kind of this been this overarching theme that all humans must want to be sexual. And if you're not, then there must be something wrong with you. And usually that's through the lens of what happened to you. Is there something traumatic? Is there something that you have attachment issues or commitment issues or things that may or may not have anything to do with your history? Why can't I just not be interested in having sex with another person? And so that's a very legitimate, valid label that we currently have. My only concern with the asexual kind of concept is that when we look at the national statistics, about 1%, 1.5% of the national population identifies as asexual. Colloquially, like anecdotally in my practice, especially with female bodies, they come in and ask me if I might think that they are asexual about 30% of the time. That's a very wide difference between a national kind of a statistic and the concern of females.

John Dehlin [01:55:37] You're saying there might be who have

Natasha Helfer [01:55:38] been raised as females.

John Dehlin [01:55:39] There might be a way higher prevalence of asexuality than, than the statistics are showing. Is that what you're saying?

Natasha Helfer [01:55:45] No, I don't think that there's. I think that there is. Because women in particular in our church have not been allowed to consider themselves sexual agents and have sexual intersections authority, they have been pitted into sexual spaces where they don't resonate and they don't have desire. Whether that's in a mixed orientation marriage, whether that's in a marriage where they were never really able to advocate for their own pleasure, whether that's not really understanding their own potential for pleasure. And so that that likelihood that they may consider that as an option, which is fine. I always say, look, if you want to identify as a, that's perfectly fine. At the same time, I think you should be aware that this is a question that comes up a lot more prevalently in a culture that, where we know that all of these sexual shame issues can suppress your sexuality. You know, do you want to look at that? Do you want to just go ahead and consider yourself asexual, or do you want to consider that there's maybe an impact that the suppression of your sexuality has had on your sexual potential.

John Dehlin [01:56:49] That's great.

Natasha Helfer [01:56:50] Are you really naturally asexual? I think some people are naturally asexual. I don't think 30 of Mormon women are naturally asexual.

John Dehlin [01:56:58] Got it. Just really quickly, I, I will also say just about the topic of asexuality Things that I learned from Claire's book are that identify as asexual doesn't mean you don't have a libido. You can have a high libido, meaning you, you for example, self pleasure you. That's really important to you. You like that you can have a high libido, just not sexual desire for another person, for a partner.

Natasha Helfer [01:57:24] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:57:25] And it also, you can also enjoy sex, the active sex as an asexual person, just not necessarily feel attraction for partners. Right. So it doesn't mean you don't have sex. It doesn't mean you don't have a libido. And then I really liked that Clara helps you understand that there are other forms of attraction. There's aesthetic attraction, there's sort of platonic attraction, romantic, romantic attraction. That, that there are other forms of attraction besides just sexuality. And having an understanding of the, the breadth of different types of attraction is really important. Whether you, you identify as, as allosexual, which is kind of normal sexual attraction, or as asexual, or, or something in between. And all those different dimensions of sexuality have spectrums of, of, you know, degrees within them.

Natasha Helfer [01:58:22] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:58:23] So I am going to shout out to Clara her wonderful book A Little Book of Ace and to her TikTok, which is six foot sorrow pod where she actually has a tick tock about asexuality. And I just want to say this is, this again comes back to one of the most damaging things I think, and this is like my brain 100 degree, 180 degree turn from my Mormon upbringing. We're all taught that premarital sex is literally next to murder as the worst possible thing. And I actually now believe that teaching that premarital sex is horrible is one of the worst possible pieces of advice you can give people. Because what if you are asexual but you don't know it it because you never have any sexual experiences with your fiance. So then you enter into a lifelong marriage where you're actually not attracted to your spouse. You should know that before you enter into a lifelong commitment. Or again, if you never get a chance to explore your sexuality. What if you're gay or lesbian but you never had an even chance to figure that out? That's not good for the gay or lesbian partner in a marriage. It's also not good for the straight spouse that wants again a partner that's attracted to them. So it's not that I'm for irresponsible, rampant, you know, thoughtless, careless sexuality. I think there are real risks. But, but Now I've come around to just feel like I would never recommend to my child to enter into a lifelong marriage before they had just explored sexual compatibility with their partner to ensure that they're entering into something that's going to be good for everyone involved.

Natasha Helfer [02:00:02] Yeah, I think what you're really getting at is that most RCCs are very act based. They're very based on certain actions being correct or not correct. Whereas what we really want to move towards is more relationship based or principle based sexuality and ideas. So, and, and we kind of have, have, we have language for this in Mormon tradition. You know, it's like the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. And I think that when we lean towards the spirit of things, the principles of things, the values, that's why I talk about the six principles of sexual health kind of ad nauseam, because that's a basic place where you can really have some good principles without necessarily getting all tied up into whether certain behavior is okay or not.

Carah Burrell [02:00:48] Yeah. I hope we explore that topic more in more of these episodes. That's really interesting.

John Dehlin [02:00:52] We will.

Natasha Helfer [02:00:53] Absolutely will. Yeah. And before we finish, can I just say so, please, I want to go really quickly through some. This is not. None of this has been comprehensive list, by the way, so please tell me what holes you feel I've missed. I definitely don't feel like I spent enough time on transphobia, you know, by erasure, trans erasure, non binary presentations. I mean, when I talk about gender, obviously it implicates people in those spaces, but I don't think I called out enough of the LGBTQ issues in regards to this very heteronormative, you know, space that we've been raised in.

John Dehlin [02:01:31] And gender binary.

Natasha Helfer [02:01:32] Yeah, those are maybe issues that we can talk more about more in the future as well, or have people who are maybe more adept at talking about those than even I am. But what I do want to talk about is that all of this mental messaging, what it leads to. Right. So what are the implications? And in a sense, it's kind of been called good girl or good boy syndrome, which I don't always like the terms boys and girls, but I think we understand what that talks about. But it's, it's kind of this idea that it's, it's hard to turn yourself on. It's hard to really be, you know, in tune with your eroticism. It's difficult then to of course, talk about and communicate about sexual matters with a potential partner or with the partner that you're with with it's very normal to have a lot of inhibitions or embarrassments or awkwardness around sexual matters and then of course, inappropriate guilt or shame around things that shouldn't necessarily have that implication. There can be a lot of discomfort around your body and your genitalia like we talked about. It can show up in an inability to relax and to be pleasure minded in sexual situations. And we know that orgasm, for example, is a type of surrender that actually necessitates a certain amount of relaxation. There's a lot of implications about procreation and reproduction in regards to sexual ideas and roles. Sexuality is oftentimes not seen as important enough to prioritize in a relationship or in a life or in a marriage. There can be an inhibit, limited sexual response. And of course, we talked about kind of holding your partner responsible for your own sexual needs or pleasure or vice versa in this kind of ownership model. So these are just some of the ways that all of the sexual shame stuff might have real day to day, lifelong implications if we don't address these issues. Psychoeducate ourselves, ourselves look into what are the ways that we can really lean into healing from these messages. And that's what I hope we'll touch on next. Yeah, this series, however long it will

John Dehlin [02:03:46] be, I love it. I love it. All right, so Natasha, thank, you know, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much, Natasha, for being willing to share this. You know, you should be getting paid for this. And in fact, in fact, I want to just say to the audience, you know, we need, we want to be able to pay Natasha for just sharing her expertise for free. You know, a really good sex therapist can charge 250 an hour. 300 bucks an hour. 350 an hour. Natasha's sharing her expertise with us for free. And what I want to let you guys know is how you can support Natasha and this series called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast. So what we want you to do is if you valued today, if you want to see Natasha, come back and talk about more about healing from sexual shame and healthy sexuality, along with healthy marriages and healthy relationships and healthy communication. If you want to have us bring Margi back and Anthony Miller and Samantha Shelley and others, please go to MormonFaithCrisis.com right now, click on the donate button and become a monthly donor. We are going to use that money, if you become a monthly donor to pay Carah to be here to help us produce this and to pay people like Natasha and Margi and others for being on this program. And that's a way, you know, Mormon Stories is gonna continue, but we're adding new types of content for you. So if you value healing and growth content on Mormon Stories podcast, please become a monthly donor on the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis podcast. And we will, will continue sharing this content with you in future episodes. So that's really important. So please go do that now. I do want to just go ahead and plug again. Natasha and I, along with Margi, will be doing a retreat for navigating a faith crisis. We will talk about principles of healthy sexuality at this retreat. It's in Provo. It's October 5th, 15th, 16th and 17th. All of these events that we've ever done are rated for 4.9 out of 5. Lives and marriages are transformed, sometimes even saved from these retreats. We've still got, you know, several slots open, but you need to register today. You can go to get MormonHelp getmormonhelp.com events and then go to retreats and you can register. You can also go to to. You can also go to thrivebeyondreligion.com events and you can find this event there. Margi and I, Natasha, would love to see you there. It will help you no matter where you are in your faith journey. I also want to plug the Thrive November, Thrive Day, November 14th at the Salt Palace. We've got Sarah Edmondson of the Vow and of A Little Bit Cold Multi podcast. We've got Lance Allred, we've got Natasha there, me, Carah Burrell, lots of tiktokers, lots of ex Mormon and post Mormon people, authors that you'll love. So please plan on attending that as well. And then Natasha, you've got a lot of resources that you. I want to give you a chance to plug.

Resources, Reflections, and Farewell

Natasha Helfer [02:06:56] Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [02:06:56] You run a whole network.

Natasha Helfer [02:06:57] Yeah, I have a lot of stuff coming up, so bear with me here. So tomorrow I'm going to be the keynote speaker at Sunstone uk And this is actually a free event. So if you want to listen to me talk about reconstructing Zion, we're going to have that as a free event. You do need to register, so you need to go to sunstone symposium.org or whatever their website is. I'm going to be presenting at Thrive for Women on November or sorry, October 2nd. And I'm going to be calling it Vulva Love. So we're going to be talking about all kinds of things to help women in particular be more body positive in regards to their own genitalia. I've developed a course for therapists through the Bueller Institute just recently and how to work with religiously conservative clients. So for those of you who are professionals, that's a great resource. And, and there's going to be subcategories of that that I'm working on as well. I just finished working with conservative clients, working with people coming from conservative religions who are LGBTQ in conjunction with Kimberly Anderson and Colette Dalton. So I'm really excited to release that. You can find all of that@learnsextherapy.com and I've been really focusing on developing a lot of support groups. I've really felt a lot of passion and being able to help help more people in a two hour framework than two individuals. Right. Than I could normally do in my clinical practice. So this is what I have going on so far. I have a seven week religious trauma syndrome group and we're already taking names for the next one that I believe is going to start in November. And it's seven weeks of group support and content to help you get through a faith transition, especially if you're really kind of struggling and you feel like you've had some traumatic implications in regards to your faith transition. I have also developed a Reclaiming female sexual Desire seven week support group. That one's also filling up. I'm doing these right now, but the next groups are filling up and I believe that one's. The next one's also starting in either late October or November. And I've got a group that I'm currently doing also for those who are healing from having been incorrectly diagnosed as a sex or porn addict, because that's not an actual diagnosis. And so either people usually get that diagnosis because they don't fit into the current standards of their church environment and or if they do feel like they have out of control sexual behavior, again, they've been through an ineffective treatment process. So that's really interesting group and I'm really getting a lot of great feedback about that. And again, the next one will start, I believe, in November or December. So those are three groups that I'm currently having. And if you want to be in the next group, call getmormonhelp.com go to the number there, you'll talk to Cindy and she'll get you signed up for the next group and you can pay as you go. Although once you agree to take a slot, you have to agree to take, you know, to pay for the whole seven week course. And it's $60 a pop, which is much cheaper than, you know, kind of a regular session with me, so hopefully I can reach more people and be helpful to more, more folks. I'm also planning the following. So if you're interested in these, I would encourage you to call and get yourself on the waiting list. But I'm planning a support group for post Mormon couples. So marriages where they're both, both going through a faith transition and dealing with the implications of having to kind of redefine and recontract a lot of their marital things, you know, sexuality, gender roles, career decisions, parenting, et cetera. I'm also planning on creating a support group for those who need help recovering from sexual trauma. And I'm also planning to start a support group for the spouses of those people who have been deemed sex or porn addicts and helping them have a different framework that is more effective in treating these kinds of coupled issues. So if you're interested in any of those three groups, even though they're not currently scheduled, please call and put yourself on the waiting list so that as soon as they're scheduled, I'll get you on there.

John Dehlin [02:11:20] They can find you where and they

Natasha Helfer [02:11:22] can find me@getmormonhelp.com your phone number or the phone number's on there. This woman called Cindy will answer. She's great. And she'll get you, she'll get you all the information that you need. And then I'm also doing partnering with the Mounts, Katie and Alan Mount of

Carah Burrell [02:11:40] Marriage on a Tightrope.

Natasha Helfer [02:11:41] Thank you. Marriage on a Tightrope. I'm partnering with them to do a mixed faith seven week support group with content and that's called Workshop on a Tight Roll, which you can find on Thinkific. And we're about to start one next week and then we'll probably have another one starting in 2022, early 2022. So make sure those. So I'm really excited. These are a lot of resources. I'm really excited about each and every one of them. So that's where you can find me. You can also find me@Natashahelfer.com as far as my own personal stuff. And I love being here, John. So thank you.

John Dehlin [02:12:17] You'll come back.

Natasha Helfer [02:12:17] Thanks for having me back. I'll be back.

John Dehlin [02:12:19] Back.

Natasha Helfer [02:12:20] I'll be back. Because you'll let me talk about sex again. All right, well, Caroly, consensually, right?

Carah Burrell [02:12:26] You'll let me talk about sex again Consensually.

Natasha Helfer [02:12:29] I'm like, no, Natasha, I'm not right. I'm not exploiting you. And I hope this is mutually pleasurable. This is Mutually pleasurable.

John Dehlin [02:12:39] I love it.

Carah Burrell [02:12:40] And blushing. Natasha. Goodness.

John Dehlin [02:12:42] So what do you think, Carah? Should we have Natasha back daily? Really?

Carah Burrell [02:12:47] Yeah, I need my daily fix.

John Dehlin [02:12:50] And are you exhausted yet from two live streams back to back?

Carah Burrell [02:12:53] No, live streams are invigorating. If it was too like long format, like interviews maybe, yes. But my McDonald's breakfast held me over for the morning so I'm feeling fine. I love spending time with Natasha. So some good wisdom today. Some good comments. Everybody that joined our earlier livestream in this live stream. Like mark that donated $20, he said. Natasha, thanks. Just wanted to highlight. Thank you Marky Fuentes. So so many people just love hanging out when we do all day live streams like this. I love doing them. I love how many people come. So that was not. I hate when I end on that word anyway.

Natasha Helfer [02:13:32] Well, well, I love ending on that word. Sorry, but you know, I'm. I'm meant to come, I guess.

Carah Burrell [02:13:40] Back to you, John.

Natasha Helfer [02:13:40] You don't have to come.

John Dehlin [02:13:42] Oh my gosh, now I'm blessing you. I'm into it, so. Oh my gosh. Did someone just say that on Mormon Stories podcast? Well, we are talking about something.

Carah Burrell [02:13:53] I definitely said it accidentally.

John Dehlin [02:13:56] So anyway, with that, Natasha, it's so great to have you. We love you. Come back again and again and again.

Natasha Helfer [02:14:05] I'll be here. Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:14:07] And listeners, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks to everyone who commented on YouTube and on Facebook. We love your comments. Thanks to everyone who donates through the super chat feature on YouTube or through the stars feature on Facebook. We really appreciate that. Thanks to Carah. It's always great to have you. This whole thing is better because you're a co host and a partner with me and so I love having you. You. As many people have said, you have breathed new life into Mormon Stories podcast. And by the way, it was doing great already, but it's just doing better. So thank you Carah. It's so great to have you here. Thanks to Gerardo who does the cinematography and the thumbnails and co hosts. Thanks to Brooklyn who does the editing and audio video editing. Thanks to our board that helps keep us on the up and up. Clint and Carrie. And thanks to our donors. If you value this content and want to see it continue. Just generally speaking, if you want to see Mormon Stories Continue, go to MormonStories.org Become a monthly donor. Your donations are tax deductible in the US we're fully financially transparent and all your money goes towards supporting the resources I just mentioned. So please become a monthly donor. Please subscribe to us. Our Tik Tok channel is amazing. Carah manages our TikTok channel. We have over 70,000 now subscribers to our Mormon Stories podcast. Tik Tok channel where we share shorts. Carah, I want to. Carah, I want to start doing, like, videos with you again where we do little shorts. Can we do that or not?

Carah Burrell [02:15:42] Yeah, we've been really busy, but we need to take some time to do that.

John Dehlin [02:15:45] Less busy.

Carah Burrell [02:15:46] That's up to my boss and he's a real hard ass.

John Dehlin [02:15:51] Well, we want to do more original creative content videos, but right now we're sharing shorts there. Check us out at Mormon Stories TikTok. Subscribe to us there on Instagram, on, you know, follow us on Twitter. Subscribe to us and follow us on Facebook on the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook page. Please give us a positive review on the Mormon Stories podcast page because we have haters that are always giving us negative reviews there. And what we really, really, really need. You don't have to pay a penny for this. Please go to itunes or the Apple podcast app and give us positive reviews because we have haters that regularly give us one star reviews there and drag our ratings down. They don't even listen to the podcast. They just hate the fact that we exist and want us to get bad ratings. So we need a mountain of you to give us positive reviews. We are literally one of the top 20 religious themed podcasts in the United States. Did you know that, Natasha?

Natasha Helfer [02:16:44] I think you have told me that. And you are amazing. That's awesome.

John Dehlin [02:16:48] Well, we are. You helped make it happen.

Natasha Helfer [02:16:50] Well, thank you. I think everybody is. Everybody who's on this show.

Carah Burrell [02:16:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:16:53] But just today I was, like, looking up our ranking on Apple podcasts, and we're right up there with Rick Warren and, you know, just all those. All those religious, you know, themed podcasts that you would think are out of our league, we're right up there with them.

Natasha Helfer [02:17:09] So that's a big deal.

John Dehlin [02:17:10] Yeah. So please give us positive reviews so that we look good on Apple podcasts. Yeah. And just keep in touch. Email us@mormonstoriesmail.com we love your feedback and be good to each other and be kind to each other. Have healthy sex. Have lots of healthy sex, if you're into that. If you're not, don't. But stay tuned for more episodes of Mormon Stories podcast in the days, weeks and months ahead. We've just got so much lined up up. Stay tuned for more. It's going to be great. All right, Natasha, you're awesome.

Natasha Helfer [02:17:44] All right, thanks.

John Dehlin [02:17:45] All right. Care. Thanks. So much.

Carah Burrell [02:17:47] Yep. Thanks, John. Thanks, Natasha.

John Dehlin [02:17:49] See you guys soon.