Chastity

The updated ‘For the Strength of Youth’ manual provides an encouragingly clear guide for parents to follow, reminding me of how my mom taught me.

Tammy Uzelac Hall explains why “virtue” is less about chastity or modesty and more about the power we receive though covenants.

When Elder Vai Sikahema was a boy, he kept the law of chastity out of respect for his mother. Then it turned into a desire to obey God’s commandments. Now, as a father, Elder Sikahema finds new gratitude in the blessing it was to his children.

The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that sex is meant to be holy, beautiful, and unifying within the bonds of matrimony.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a series of powerful videos about overcoming pornography, supporting loved ones with a pornography problem, and finding healing from pornography or betrayal trauma. We will be highlighting these valuable resources over the ensuing weeks.

Editor's note: This article was previously published in January 2016.

President Howard W. Hunter taught that “tenderness and respect—never selfishness—must be the guiding principles in the intimate relationship between husband and wife. Each partner must be considerate and sensitive to the other’s needs and desires.”

Note: This article contains a frank, though not crass, discussion of intimacy. If your marital intimacy is struggling because of pornography or infidelity, please sign up for my online course, free for LDS Living readers.

Often, in my field of mental health counseling, I am asked by parents, “How do I teach my children about sex as well as morality?” to which I respond, “You don’t.” To such a statement I usually get bewildered looks. I quickly reply, “You teach them healthy sexuality, which is morality.”

One of the vital truths of the restored gospel is that “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” (D&C 88:15) and that when the spirit and body are separated, men and women “cannot receive a fulness of joy” (D&C 93:34). In this simple truth, we discover a key to help our children avoid the trap of sexual fragmentation and the foundation for helping them eventually develop sexual wholeness in marriage. This doctrine of the soul teaches us that all sexual experiences in this life affect both our bodies and our spirits. It also teaches us that our spirits are the source of our emotions and thoughts, and that in order to have true sexual fulfillment we need to appreciate how they are enmeshed with the physical reactions of our bodies.

For several years now, we have collected hundreds of personal stories from young adults in the Church telling us how they were taught about sexuality. We are particularly intrigued by how frequently we are told by young people that their parents and Church leaders used object lessons to teach them about the law of chastity. Much can be learned from understanding the metaphors and messages that are intentionally—and unintentionally—expressed in these types of lessons.

Here are some suggestions to help LDS couples build a solid foundation in their sexual relationship from the start of their marriage.

Chastity—it's a crucial topic in the Church, one which parents and Church leaders agonize over, pray about, and grapple with when teaching youth. But chastity and abstinence are only one small part of a much larger picture in Heavenly Father's eternal plan, one influenced by powerful principles such as virtue, modesty, and the sanctity of sexual intimacy. So the next time you sit down to discuss chastity with someone you love, keep these ideas and principles in mind as they will help provide context and the reasons behind sexual purity.

For the past 15 years, I have been involved in counseling individuals, couples, and families. In each of these settings, my life has been greatly blessed as I have marveled at the capacity of the immortal spirit to heal, develop, change, grow, and lead. During this time, I have observed several reoccurring themes that have been expressed by both individuals and couples. One critical reoccurring theme I wish to talk about is the topic of sexual intimacy.

"Chastity, as a way of practicing care, doesn’t purge or deny this hunger. You are chaste when you are full of life, and you are full of life when you are faithful to the hungers that root it."

If I were teaching this lesson, I might begin by pouring water into several different shaped containers and asking class members to comment on what we can learn from that activity about the qualities of water. Someone will probably say that water takes the shape of its environment. If you then ask for words that describe water, you might get words like these: flimsy, unsound, mercurial, capricious, changeable, wobbly, fickle, erratic, unreliable, undependable, vacillating, untrustworthy, variable, mutable, impermanent, unsteady, uncertain, transitory, ephemeral, inconsistent, precarious, and unstable. I am amazed at how many words the English language has to describe this rather undesirable characteristic. But this lesson will require us to think about them because we are going to talk about three people who were much like water (one was even compared to water), and one young man who was as unlike water as it is possible to be.

Masturbation is a sensitive and often controversial topic, even among members of the LDS Church. Although the term “masturbation” hasn’t formally been used in a general conference talk since the 1970s, there are current Church publications that clearly teach that masturbation isn’t necessary and is even considered sinful.[i] Armed with these official statements on the dangers of masturbation, many parents can still feel unsure how to discuss this subject with their children. Some may wonder if it’s even worth addressing at all.

Sexuality and chastity are sensitive subjects, and the Book of Mormon gives very few hints about how Book of Mormon peoples understood them. You might recall Jacob’s sermon about how “many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds” due to whoredoms and wickedness (Jacob 2:35), or Alma’s talk with his son Corianton about forsaking a mission to pursue “the harlot Isabel” (Alma 39:3), or the terrible violence described in Moroni 9:9.

I have in my files a Gary Larson cartoon showing a man lying in bed having a dream. In the dream he sees knights clothed in iron armor and wielding iron swords and engaged in fierce combat. But this man—the man who is dreaming—is also in the battle, holding a wooden sword, a garbage can lid rather than a shield, and dressed in his birthday suit. The caption for the cartoon is: COMMON MEDIEVAL NIGHTMARE.

While President of BYU, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a devotional entitled, “Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments.” Within this address, he talks about the sanctity of physical intimacy. More specifically, he tells Latter-day Saints three reasons why sexual purity is so crucial to our salvation: it affects our souls, it is a sacred symbol, and it is a sacrament.

There’s a word within the Church that we use frequently—one I think too often goes misunderstood: virtue.

Recently, in an interview with Broadly, Elizabeth Smart shared some of the unintentional but devastating and potentially crippling side effects that can result from the way Mormon culture addresses chastity.

The Mormon Channel recently shared this powerful video on Facebook that explains simply and clearly why thinking about chastity in terms of limits (i.e. having a "how far can I go" mentality) is so dangerous.

Chastity: it's a sacred law we are blessed to follow. However, it's a difficult law, not just when we're young and our bodies are filled with new hormones. Chastity is difficult especially as single saints grow older, especially now that the world characterizes us as sad, naive, or even comical. But it's more than worth the sacrifice.

It's important to note that a woman's virtue reaches far beyond her dress or chastity. It is a way of living. It's also important to note that even those who have made mistakes can be pure through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, for His love and sacrifice cover all sins.

Caution: The following article provides quotes and accounts from Elizabeth Smart's life that some readers may find disturbing.

I was once asked if I would ever consider posing for Playboy magazine.

Sexuality. I know it’s a word that we don’t address head-on in Mormon culture that often, but I’ve found it to be a central part of fully understanding and living the gospel.

Children speak about the dangers of pornography and how to react to it in a video posted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.