Mormon Quotes

Masturbation

Spencer W. Kimball
Masturbation is the introduction of the more serious sin of exhibitionism and the gross sin of homosexuality.
Spencer W. Kimball, Love vs Lust
Spencer W. Kimball
Immorality [aforementioned: petting, premarital sex, adultery, homosexuality and masturbation] brings generally a guilt deep and lasting. These guilt complexes are the stuff of which mental breakdowns come; they are the building blocks of suicide, the fabric of distorted personalities and the wounds that scar and decapitate individuals or families.
Spencer W. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball, 1974 address
Spencer W. Kimball
It [masturbation] too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation -- practiced with another person of the same sex -- and thence into total homosexuality.
Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 78
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: Never touch the intimate parts of your body expect during normal toilet processes.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time consuming for you to remove those clothes. By the time you started to remove protective clothing, you would have sufficiently controlled your thinking that the temptation would leave you.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: Put wholesome thoughts into your mind at all times. Read good books ‑‑ Church books ‑‑ scriptures ‑‑ sermons of the brethren. Make a daily habit of reading at least one chapter of scripture, preferable from one of the four gospels in the New Testament, or the Book of Mormon. The four gospels ‑‑ Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ‑‑ above anything else in the Bible can be helpful because of their uplifting qualities.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: If the temptation seems overpowering while you are in bed, get out of bed and go into the kitchen and fix yourself a snack, even if it is in the middle of the night, and even if you are not hungry, and despite of your fears of gaining weight. The purpose behind this suggestion is that you GET YOUR MIND ON SOMETHING ELSE. You change the subject of your thoughts, so to speak.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes‑‑just long enough to bathe and dry and dress AND THEN GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM into a room where you will have some member of your family present.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, YOU MUST BREAK OFF THEIR FRIENDSHIP. Never associate with other people having the same weakness. Don't suppose that two of you will quit together, you never will. You must get away from people of that kind. Just to be in their presence will keep your problem foremost in your mind. The problem must be taken OUT OF YOUR MIND for that is where it really exists. Your mind must be on other and more wholesome things.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Mark E. Petersen
Overcoming masturbation: Never read pornographic material. Never read about your problem. Keep it out of your mind. Remember‑‑"first a thought, then an act." The thought pattern must be changed. You must not allow this problem to remain in your mind. When you accomplish that, you soon will be free of the act.
Mark E. Petersen, Overcoming Masturbation: A Guide to Self Control
Boyd K. Packer
There is; however, something you should not do. Sometimes a young man does not understand. Perhaps he is encouraged by unwise or unworthy companions to tamper with that factory. He might fondle himself and open that release valve. This you shouldn't do, for if you do that, the little factory will speed up. You will then be tempted again and again to release it. You can quickly be subjected to a habit, one that is not worthy, one that will leave you feeling depressed and feeling guilty. Resist that temptation. Do not be guilty of tampering or playing with this sacred power of creation. Keep it in reserve for the time when it can be righteously employed.
Boyd K. Packer, 1976 General Conference, speech entitled To Young Men Only
Marion G. Romney
Morality in general and chastity particularly are outmoded. Man—so our children are told—is an animal, the product of biological evolution; his generative powers are not sacred and God‑given for the purpose of bringing God's spirit children into mortality, and therefore to be exercised within the limits divinely prescribed, as the gospel teaches, but they are playthings to be exploited and prostituted for the gratification of sensual and lustful desires. Courage, honesty, loyalty, patriotism, law and order—these and other elements of the divine nature are no longer revered as virtues.
Marion G. Romney, Home Teaching and Family Home Evening (Marion G. Romney, 1969 Annual General Conference, Improvement Era)
Vern Bullough
Obviously, members of the society would take exception to the attempts of the LDS Church to claim scientific backing for their stand on masturbation; their science is about 80 years out of date, and it was questionable even 80 years ago.
Vern Bullough, Dr. Vern Bullough of State University College at Buffalo, New York
Kip Eliason
I know immorality is a very serious sin. I really want to repent and be free of this terrible and degrading burden of masturbation. I am willing to do anything I have to do, even excommunication, to be able to repent and be free of this sin. I would rather go to hell and suffer there than be unworthy.
Kip Eliason, Journal of Kip Eliason
Jack Annon
It is my firm professional opinion, based upon information that I have at hand, that the LDS Church attempted to teach very stringent and difficult standards to a boy who was vulnerable to emotional conflicts, and that the counseling was inadequate and appears to have contributed to the boy's suicidal ideations.
Jack Annon, Affirmation, Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy, April 1986
Jack Annon
Based upon my review of even a limited amount of literature and on documentation specifically pertaining to Kip Eliason, it appears clear that the LDS Church promoted and engaged in behavior‑modification counseling in the specific areas of masturbation.
Jack Annon, Affirmation, Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy, April 1986
Jack Annon
It is my professional opinion that the LDS Church has gone a step beyond propounding a certain viewpoint that masturbation is a sin, and has actually instructed its leaders, teachers and bishops to provide counseling and to utilize behavior‑modification skills that can have very dangerous and adverse effects.
Jack Annon, Affirmation, Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy, April 1986
Peter Bart
Some bishops distribute a handbook that dispenses some unusual recommendations to male students on how to curb their onanistic urge: avoid spicy foods, keep your shower door slightly ajar, and if all else fails, tie your hand to the bedpost... when Playboy magazine declared recently that, based on its survey of major college campuses, BYU had the lowest sexual temperature, the news was greeted with a sense of relief on campus.
Peter Bart, Peter Bart, 'Prigging Out,' Rolling Stone, April 14, 1983, p. 92
Mark A. Taylor
On March 2, 1982, Kip Eliason, age 16, distraught and filled with self‑hate over his inability to stop masturbating, committed suicide. Before asphyxiating himself, Kip left his father a note: "Dear Dad, I love you more than what words can say. If it were possible, I would stay alive for only you, for I really only have you. But it isn't possible. I must first love myself, and I do not. The strange feeling of darkness and self‑hate overpowers all my defenses. I must unfortunately yield to it. This turbulent feeling is only for a few to truly understand. I feel that you do not comprehend the immense feeling of self‑hatred I have. This is the only way I feel that I can relieve myself of these feelings now. Carry on with your life and be happy. I love you more than words can say. —Your son, Kip" Kip Eliason's five‑year struggle to overcome masturbation started at age 11 when his grandmother persuaded him to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints (LDS), whose members are better known as Mormons.
Mark A. Taylor, Affirmation: Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy
Mark A. Taylor
After Kip's death, Eliason moved to Salt Lake City. He was angry and hurt. There he met parents who had stories like his ‑‑ youngsters ending up in mental institutions or worse, committing suicide. Eliason worked through his grief and anger by talking to anyone willing to listen and by going to the library and researching teen suicide and the Mormons. In October 1983 he filed a $26‑million wrongful‑death suit against the Mormon Church, alleging that the Latter‑day Saints went a step further than just providing his son with spiritual, moral and personal guidance when they subjected him to sex‑ and masturbation‑counseling. The suit accuses the church of negligence for providing counseling that fell outside the realm of religious teaching and for not requiring or providing training for its counselors. The suit charges that this counseling, combined with the church's harsh anti‑masturbation indoctrination, were the direct cause of Kip's depression, self‑hate, suicide attempts and eventual death. Moreover, it alleges that the church knew or should have known that its attempts to indoctrinate and provide sexual counseling for Kip were having a severe and adverse reaction on him; yet they continued. The suit charges that this failure to exercise a proper standard of care was negligent. The suit also contends that the Mormon Church subjected Kip to what amounted to an intentional attempt at mind control by using brainwashing techniques under the guise of spiritual teaching.
Mark A. Taylor, Affirmation: Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy
Mark A. Taylor
He loved the Mormon Church — which has 5.5 million members worldwide — and was devoted to its teachings. His father, Eugene Eliason, a non‑Mormon, believes that in some ways the church may have played a substitute‑mother role for the boy. (For clarity, Eugene Eliason will be referred to as Eliason throughout this report; his son will always be called Kip.) Kip was not the kind of youngster you'd think would commit suicide, but when his church told him that he'd find guilt, depression and self‑hate if he masturbated, he believed so. When it said he'd go to hell if he didn't stop, he believed that too. And when he was told that masturbation was a "building block of suicide," he took the church at its word. Kip's death rocked the predominantly Mormon agribusiness community of Boise, Idaho, where he was a high‑school senior at Capital High School. Of course, there were the stories that occasionally filtered through the congregation about young people who, like Kip, committed suicide because they couldn't live up to the church's stringent anti‑sex doctrines. But they were just stories and, if they were true, they didn't happen in Boise; they happened some 300 miles southeast, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Mark A. Taylor, Affirmation: Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy
Mark A. Taylor
On Valentine's Day, February 14, Kip made another attempt to end his life by again drinking a mixture of iodine and alcohol. He was taken to the psychiatric unit of the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where he was diagnosed as suicidal. (The medical facility is a codefendant in the Eliason suit.) Eight days later Kip was released to his father. Eliason recalls picking his son up at the hospital. "He seemed happy to be going home. Before we left, he introduced me to a 16‑year‑old girl he had met there. She had told him she was there for the same reason he was. Kip seemed very taken by his new friend and, when they said goodbye, he took her into his arms and kissed her. I'll never forget it." On March 2, 1982, Kip was home alone while his father made an overnight business trip, About 9 p.m. Eliason called him from his hotel. "Kip seemed all right. I asked him if he'd taken his medicine, and he said he had. I told him I'd be home soon, and that was about it." Sometime after the call, Kip wrote a suicide note. He went to the closed garage, started the family car and went to sleep. Dead at 16, Kip Eliason had but two "vices," masturbation and telling the truth. He was unable to stop masturbating and too honorable to lie.
Mark A. Taylor, Affirmation: Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy
Mark A. Taylor
Kip and countless others have fallen victim to guilt, self‑hate, mental illness and suicide created by their inability to control healthy sexual desires as mandated by the Mormon Church. Making things worse is its amateurish attempts to provide counseling that utilizes powerful behavioral‑modification techniques with inadequate training.
Mark A. Taylor, Affirmation: Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy
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