3 Mormons: What is the Law of Chastity?

[Third Hour]

What is the Law of Chastity? The 3 Mormons tackle the hard questions about three principles of the Law of Chastity: sex, porn, and masturbation. The 3 Mormons talk start with the idea that “waiting to have sex until you're married is too hard” is a bad mentality and is just not true. We are children of God, and because of that we can utilize many tools God has given us to overcome those sexual pressures and maintain pure thoughts. Christ died for us, and through him we can overcome anything. We as human beings have the sacred ability to procreate, and it should be treated as a sacred power. All 3 recognize that pornography is evil thing in all forms (soft pornography included) and leads to addiction. When someone you know is struggling with an addiction to pornography, the best thing you can do is support them and let them know that there is always hope for them no matter what. The best thing we can do is avoid...

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[MrShorty]

The beard episode on 3 Mormons seemed to follow closely on the heels of curious mormon's beard thread here, and this episode comes a month after SilentOne's thread on the law of chastity -- Are the 3 Mormons taking topic ideas from the forum ?

Since I usually am not impressed with how we tackle sex and chastity in the Church, I thought I would comment on this episode. I recognize that it is only a 10-15 minute recording, so topics cannot be covered thoroughly.

I liked that they seemed fairly comfortable and "real" about the topic. They called it "intense" at the end (and the topic usually is), but they were able to talk about sex without a lot of hemming and hawing.

I liked that they thoroughly rejected any of the "damaged/used goods" analogies for sex. We have been rejecting them for at least 20-30 years, when The New Era ran an article rejecting the nail in a board analogy, but these analogies still stay alive in our culture. I think part of this is that they are also prevalent in broader Christian culture and keep trickling into our little corner of Christianity.

As usual, it seems that our dialog around chastity is always geared towards singles/youth, and this discussion seemed to aim towards the same audience. As an adult (married, divorced, widow/widower), I find discussions at this level less than helpful. I also think there might be some things in here that are less helpful, even for youth.

I took exception to the "there is not such thing as too prudish" idea that was presented. I think there is such a thing as too prudish, though it might be called something like "Good Girl Syndrome" in the Church. Looking back on years in a sexless marriage, I can see how the idea that "prudish is good" contributed to those years of frustration. Abstinence is good, but prudishness is not. There is probably room to expand the discussion to talk about how prudishness and abstinence overlap and don't overlap. Ultimately, I would hope that we learn how to have these discussions in a way that really help us grow and develop our sexuality in the way that God wants us to grow it.

These three seem fully invested in the idea of porn/sex as addiction. Where the secular psychological community is trending away from this view, I worry that we will lose credibility with our youth (and lose effectiveness in dealing with sexual challenges and compulsions) if we don't at least acknowledge the existence of the other side of this debate (I know that most who adopt a porn/sex as addiction model as a foregone conclusion tend to lose credibility in my eyes). In some ways, I thought that the pizza example that was brought up is a good example of how overusing the addiction model can trivialize it.

I also took exception to the idea of regrets. I think sexual regrets are a lot more nuanced than we tend to acknowledge. Sure there are those who regret sexual activity before marriage, or wish that they had been more restrained when they were younger. For myself, I often regret that I did not know enough to do more to grow and develop my sexuality. Perhaps if I had been more aware of the challenges that come from a sexless marriage, I would have been more proactive in avoiding/preventing it (but I believed "you can't be too prudish" -- see comments a couple of paragraphs up). I recently read a history of St. Augustine and found it very interesting how his sexual regrets shaped and molded a couple of thousand years of Christian attitudes towards sex and celibacy. While they talked about how one should avoid sexual activity because you will likely regret that activity when you are with your (future) spouse, I could not help but think of those in 2nd marriages and wondered how they view those kinds of sexual regrets.

There's probably more I could say. All in all, it was an ok episode, especially considering their time limits. I liked that they were not overly shy about things. It also seemed that they over simplified some of the issues (as we tend to do when talking to youth). I still think that there is room in our dialog in the Church to improve our dialog around issues of chastity and sexuality.