Summary: Mormonism, like most religions, has many teachings about sex and intimacy. But, like everything else, teachings interact with persons, each with her or his own temperaments and autobiographies. As a result, the same teaching can strike each of us differently. For some, messages about embodied Gods, male and female, is incredibly empowering, even a help to them in developing positive attitudes toward their own sexuality. For others, the same teaching (and all its extensions) can trigger negative reactions as they imagine lives of eternal sex and childbearing, or find other extensions of the teaching problematic and disempowering. For some people, the Law of Chastity becomes an important element in their value system, leading them to take a healthy look at and make empowering choices regarding their sexual desires and actions. For others, it becomes a burden, something imposed upon them, and they end up making choices about sexual practice out of fear--fear of God, parents, church leaders--and as attempts to please others. Name the topic, and we Mormons, like everyone else, can end up in all sorts of emotional and spiritual spaces regarding sexuality: many positive, but many quite confused and inhibiting to intimacy in general, and/or an enjoyable and empowering sex life. In this two-part episode, a wonderful panel of marriage and family counselors who also have certifications in and/or a great deal of experience with sex therapy--Natasha Helfer Parker, Shannon Hickman, Kristin Hodson, and Kristin Marie Bennion--join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for a terrific discussion of the issues surrounding sex that are quite common in Mormonism, and among the general public. But, as the title of the episode suggests, the main focus is on the sex-positive messaging that exists in Mormonism, and how we can better include it in our own thinking about and experiences of desire and physical intimacy. How can we create a gospel-based value system that incorporates LDS teachings about the goodness of our bodies, and that sex is not just about procreation but also pleasure and connection and relational intimacy? How do we incorporate and find the proper balance between messaging about the spiritual aspects of human sexuality and the intense and bodily driven emotions and activities that are a key element of sexual fulfillment? The panelists also address LDS teachings about pornography, as well as finding healthy ways to integrate our sexual pasts with our present sex lives--everything from the messaging we grew up with and absorbed into our views about ourselves and our bodies, to guilt over past sexual experimentation, to healing from unwanted sexual advances, even abuse.
