Some thoughts about the damaging effects of chastity

[david]

On a separate thread some of you speculated about how post-mo dating differs from mo dating. This got me thinking about how unhealthy and dysfunctional the mo dating scene is. Let me explain with an example:

My ca. 25-year-old TBM sis met her "dream" boyfriend about two years ago. Good looking, hooked into the family business, returned missionsary, worthy, bla bla. Of course things quickly progressed to an engagement. Everyone expected this. What's the point in waiting? No stigma here.

Ultimately the pressure to marry was twofold: first, they were in their mid-twenties and unmarried--can you imagine? Boy, are they lucky to have found each other before it was too late!

Secondly, and this is the clincher: making love before marriage was not an option. It is a grievious, heinous, evil sin right up there with murder. Surely not worth risking your eternal salvation for!! Think of all the damage it would do! There are few crimes that match the evil of such an act!

But of course the urge to physically mate is immense and must be dealt with appropriately. Luckily the answer is at hand: get married! Go to the temple quick, before you end up in hell.

This is the pattern that I would say 99% of temple marriages go thru. I did a non-scientific survey in my own family and yup, ALL of the married siblings went thru the same thing (and regret it on some level).

Well, back to my sister. They got married in the temple (you can bet I wasn't there--thank you GA's for depriving me of my god-given right to be at my own sis's wedding!). My folks forked out $20K for the receptions. Sis and hubby bought a house right off the bat and got pregnant. Had the baby. He started screwing around. (Turns out his "testimony" wasn't all that strong. Gee.) Now they've split and she's moved back in with mom and dad and brought the poor baby with her.

Now here's what pisses me off: everyone blames only him. Now granted, my sis didn't deserve the jackass. But noone will acknowledge that the system was flawed and doomed to fail. When people get married within 9-12 months of meeting, you're bound to end up with a lot of misery. How can something so simple be so hard to understand?

Mo dating is like the 220 yard dash. Getting to the finish line is all that matters. After that you get your chance to figure things out.

Non-mo dating is like a hike. The scenery is ever changing (even within a single relationship) and you can go at your own pace. You're not a loser just because you finished the hike later than others did. Those terms don't even make sense! The important thing is to have fun and connect with your companion and the larger world.

[silverfox]

Good stuff!

Vision this....

16 yo TBM girl goes on a date with a fellow classmate. They've know each other a while. They are alone at his house. Things get out of hand. They end up having sex.

She is upset. She calls me......I had sex, oh my gosh! Crying.

Do you like him romantically? Not really. He's just a friend. Are you afraid he used you? No cuz I wanted to do it. (she is crying uncontrollably) Did he force you? (I only ask because she is so upset) No. Did he use force at all? No. Did you want to do it? Yes. But then in the middle of when it was happening I didn't but I didn't know how to tell him.

We talk for over an hour. I calm her down. She is okay. Learn from this experience. You know how you will or won't react now in this situation. It's part of life. It's okay. blah blah blah......

A week later I hear her TBM parents have talked her into thinking it was rape. WHAT? I had specifically asked her over and over. They forced her to file rape charges, put her through vaginal exams (although it was a week later), had her tested for venereal disease, AIDS, pregnancy, etc...the whole works. She is interogated by detectives over and over.

The boy is interogated. Accused. Has to go through hell.

The girl is going through hell.

Both a victim of her TBM parents who refuse, IMO, to accept the fact that their daughter made a "mistake". And the daughter ashamed and incapable in her fragile state to deal with the shame and willing to blame someone else for making a mistake.

The girl has mental issues anyway. She is bipolar. She was a victim of sexual abuse when she was younger and has been in and out of hospitals. I've mentored her for YEARS. And it's always been two steps forward and 20 back with her TBM parents.

I was so upset over this. The girl fell into a fragile state and ended up in the hospital for a month. Suicidal, etc.

It was U G L Y. Nothing came of it, of course. There was no evidence of rape. Both ended up with a bad reputation...him for allegedly forcing himself on her and her for lying and exaggerating.

Really an ugly situation.

I blame her parents. They are as strict and TBM as they come. Not very "warm" people. Very matter of fact, this is how it is type of personalities.

[dogzilla]

And you know what? It's exactly those types of situations that make the real sexual abuse and rape claims disbelieved... or worse, those situations allow the powers that be to blame the victim and not deal with the problems that cause rape and abuse in the first place.

I hear the wolf ate an awful lot of sheep after the village stopped believing that kid.

[free thinker]

Sir

I think you are dead on!! Absolutely correct!!

I have seen myself, or heard about, stories like the one in your family, at least 50 times in my single life as a mormon!! Same story, just different people!!



Gee Baby you look great in that lingerie!! Oops I forgot I was online! Gotta Go!!!! :D

Free Thinker

[taegan]

ahh...chastity....what my other almost named me!

When I joined young womens I quickly became a huge admirer (sp?) of Rachel who was a Laurel. She was a TBM and I thought "perfect" in every way. She was also one of the most popular girls at school. Well a few months later, *gasp* her belly was getting round. Chaos insued! She was forced to leave young womans, but because she wasnt 18 she was refused to be allowed to join Relief Society. She couldnt go to the single adult class...because she was pregnant. They made a huge example of her and totally demoralized her. The bishop gave a talk on chastity and morals that next sunday. She ran out of sacrament meeting in tears.

You'd have thought she murdered her family or something by the way the entire ward treated her. I started skipping my classes on Sundays and hanging out in the bathroom with her (thats pretty uch the only place she could go!) until my parents told me I was a horrible person for hanging around trash. My mother told me that if I EVER got pregnant out of wedlock, she'd send me away, put the baby up for adoption and never let the father of the child see me or the baby. I couldnt believe it! Needless to say, this was a very pivotal point in my beliefs...what happened to "judge not lest you be judged" ? What happened to forgiveness for mistakes? She eventually ran away from home, had the baby, married the father and a few years later she came back to her parents house. She's still married to the father and they are of course.. not mormon anymore.

After I stopped going to church and got kicked out, I started dating around and found the freedom to "heavy petting" (LOL) exciting and quickly moved on to the fun stuff, haha. Sex is a natural part of life. The human body is MADE for sex. Its only natural to experiment with all that stuff. I cant imagine God saying to me when I die, "Well, sorry...you didnt wait until marriage to have sex, you're going to HELL!! SEE YA!!" haha.

I also had a lot of guilt at first when I started messing around with the men I dated because I really did think I was going to hell and that no man would want to marry me because I wasnt a virgin. I cant believe how much the leaders of the church condem yet preach acceptence at the same time. I can name 10 girls off the top of my head that rushed to get married right after high school because they KNEW if they didnt, they'd end up having sex with their boyfriend. 7 of those couples are now divorced.

Hell, my Dh and I got engaged 2 months after meeting and married 5 months after that even though we were already living together and having sex.... because we thought "thats what mormons do!" Meet, date, get engaged, get married in the span of a year. As much as DH and I love eachother, we BOTH agree we should have "dated" eachother more and waited a year or two to get married.

sorry, I'm rambling...I'll stop now, LOL.

[lsands]

Mo dating is like the 220 yard dash. Getting to the finish line is all that matters. After that you get your chance to figure things out.

Non-mo dating is like a hike. The scenery is ever changing (even within a single relationship) and you can go at your own pace. You're not a loser just because you finished the hike later than others did. Those terms don't even make sense! The important thing is to have fun and connect with your companion and the larger world.

What a great analogy! I'm going to remember this one!

Laraine

[nate]

Non-mo dating is like a hike. The scenery is ever changing (even within a single relationship) and you can go at your own pace. You're not a loser just because you finished the hike later than others did. Those terms don't even make sense! The important thing is to have fun and connect with your companion and the larger world.

Great thread!

Of my siblings, 6 of us - out of 12 - are married so far.
3 TBM couples, 2 PostMo couples, and 1 JackMo couple.

There have been no PostMo divorces.
There have been 2 TBM divorces.
The JackMo divorced twice.