Institutionalized Sexual Abuse in Mormonism?

[wescape]

As someone who was born and raised in the Morg but left as a teenager, I never experienced "washings and anointings." I have only heard stories. For those of you who have been through this I am curious to hear your thoughts. The stories I have heard make these "holy and sacred endowments" sound like institutionalized sexual abuse.

Wes

[helemon]

As someone who was born and raised in the Morg but left as a teenager, I never experienced "washings and anointings." I have only heard stories. For those of you who have been through this I am curious to hear your thoughts. The stories I have heard make these "holy and sacred endowments" sound like institutionalized sexual abuse.

Wes

It was really rather boring. Yes you are naked under the shield which used to be like a long white poncho that you had to hold closed on the sides when you walked, but the actual ceremony was quite boring. They don't actually touch your loins. They dab you forhead, chin, arm and side, if I remember correctly. It was done by and old guy for the men and a woman for the sisters. Pretty boring. Not sure if there was more to it in the past.

[silverfox]

It was really rather boring. Yes you are naked under the shield which used to be like a long white poncho that you had to hold closed on the sides when you walked, but the actual ceremony was quite boring. They don't actually touch your loins. They dab you forhead, chin, arm and side, if I remember correctly. It was done by and old guy for the men and a woman for the sisters. Pretty boring. Not sure if there was more to it in the past.

My belly was touched. By old ladies. Although I felt very uncomfortable and vulnerable I wouldn't consider it sexual abuse. I hear the ordinances were changed recently. No no one has to walk around nekid under a poncho anymore.

[Born Free]

As someone who was born and raised in the Morg but left as a teenager, I never experienced "washings and anointings." I have only heard stories. For those of you who have been through this I am curious to hear your thoughts. The stories I have heard make these "holy and sacred endowments" sound like institutionalized sexual abuse.

Wes

After all these years, I do recall the strange feeling as one of being naked under a tent and doing wierd s#it with other people close in my personal body space.

I now understand that that process alone would force the mind to process 'reality' differently, which would have the effect of disorienting the mind, and making one more vulnerable to 'programming'.

Little wonder many people felt very uncomfortable!!! That is classic cult stuff.

You don't have to explicitly mess with a persons body to have opened the doors to mess with their mind. You just have rattle their mental stability enough to disorient them.

Daryl

[silverfox]

What I DO consider institutionalized sexual abuse is how leaders ask CHILDREN about masturbation, etc. My boys were asked at age 12, in detail about masturbation. I had no idea at the time what I was subjecting them to in their bishop interviews. Had I known there is NO WAY they would have been allowed to be alone with anyone.

My sons have granted me forgiveness for putting them in that situation.

[why me]

What I DO consider institutionalized sexual abuse is how leaders ask CHILDREN about masturbation, etc. My boys were asked at age 12, in detail about masturbation. I had no idea at the time what I was subjecting them to in their bishop interviews. Had I known there is NO WAY they would have been allowed to be alone with anyone.

My sons have granted me forgiveness for putting them in that situation.
Yea...this whole masturbation thing needs to be put aside. It is sooooo embarrassing for everyone concerned especially if the person is touching the woolly alot. If I were in that situation where I needed to ask that kind of question I think that I would avoid it...couldn't ask such a question to anyone and I could never admit that I am touching the woolly to anyone either. It would be a no win-win for me...

[miss taken]

Wescape, I went through the temple pre 1990, and there is no sex abuse, honest!!! It is all very proper and reverent.

I do believe that the temple ceremony 'used' to be used as a psychological tool. Fear of punishments, fear of Satan are all used to great effect, and are combined with 'if you ever leave this church'.

In that way, I think psychologically, the temple can be quite damaging.

It is also very family orientated, or used to be. Much of the service had to do with husbands and wives, and children, so if you are single, it all seems a little irrelevent to your own life.

Just my experience.

[silverfox]

Yea...this whole masturbation thing needs to be put aside. It is sooooo embarrassing for everyone concerned especially if the person is touching the woolly alot. If I were in that situation where I needed to ask that kind of question I think that I would avoid it...couldn't ask such a question to anyone and I could never admit that I am touching the woolly to anyone either. It would be a no win-win for me...

How do you feel about your daughters being asked this question? Do you think they have been asked or will be asked? I know of many girls who have been and are being asked this during bishop interviews. Sick.

[firefly]

I first went through the temple in the late 80s, and I don't remember the washing/annointing being any more or less weird and disorienting than any other part of the temple ceremony.

Bishop interviews, on the other hand...(shudder)
I still get creeped out just thinking about it.

A 70 year old man sitting alone in a small room with a 12 year old girl, asking her if she masturbates. In what other context would this not look like sexual abuse?

[darkslider]

Personally, I believe this question is rather moot because it all depends on one's point of view.

I have a very close friend who was actually molested during the washing and annointing ceremony.

I have other friends who were not, but feel as though they were.

And, I have still more friends who thought the whole thing was just awe-inspiring.

My personal beef with the washing and annointing ceremony is that the changes made to it not only negate the "Eternal and Unchanging Ordinance of God", but since it is now only done "symbolicly". . . what is the point?

A pet theory that I have been tossing around for a while now, is that this is just one more step to admitting that the Mormon Church is nothing more than JADPR*.

Soon they will be doing endowments "symbolically", the priesthood will just be "symbolic" and even baptisms will be done "symbolically."

At least, that is what I am hoping for.


*JAPR = Just Another Damn Protestant Religion

[peter_mary]

Bishop interviews, on the other hand...(shudder)
I still get creeped out just thinking about it.

A 70 year old man sitting alone in a small room with a 12 year old girl, asking her if she masturbates. In what other context would this not look like sexual abuse?

I could not agree more! Funny, but my daughter was interviewed 10 times as frequently by the Bishop than either of my sons ever were. She was literally pestered for details about masturbation and intimate encounters with boyfriends once and often twice a month!

Ironically, she had NO idea what he was talking about with regard to masturbation, and didn't even HAVE a boyfriend until she began to wonder what was wrong with her, what with the Bishop going on about it all the time...

It is absolutely institutionalized sexual harassement at best, and spiritual/physical molestation at worst.

I would jump on a class-action suit for this issue. Grrrr.... Come here, Bishop Judd, :slap: take that, and :slap: that...

Peter_Mary

[noodle]

I could not agree more! Funny, but my daughter was interviewed 10 times as frequently by the Bishop than either of my sons ever were. She was literally pestered for details about masturbation and intimate encounters with boyfriends once and often twice a month!

Peter_Mary
This is just so weird and perverted. I guess that I escaped this craziness having joined as an adult. My daughter quit going when she was about 11. I don't think that she ever had an interview with the bish. I have asked my TBM son about his interviews, but have never gotten a clear answer from him. ::Shiver::

[Born Free]

This is just so weird and perverted. I guess that I escaped this craziness having joined as an adult. My daughter quit going when she was about 11. I don't think that she ever had an interview with the bish. I have asked my TBM son about his interviews, but have never gotten a clear answer from him. ::Shiver::

I had my interviews with my father, who was my Branch President. At the time I thought that was quite OK.

Looking back with the benefit of many years of experience and learning, I now see it as chronically invasive. As if a Priesthood leader asking about masturbation is not problematic enough; add to that the additional layer that he is your Dad. Like most red blooded lads, I gave the monkey a pretty fair spanking (in part fuelled by unhealthy aspects of Mormonism) so I had two choices:

'Fess up and cop one set of consequences (including knowing I was destroying my fathers expectations, which were in turn based in his own unresolved, and immature sexual issues) or,

Lie up, and live with the toxic (self-esteem damage and dissociative) implications of that.

In those days I overlooked that "It's none of your business!" was a perfectly viable option. But then again Mormonism and my nuclear family had coached me well in rubbery boundaries, so why should I see this particular one as a boundary violation.

PM, I have to confess to feeling extreme disgust that a Bishop should focus on a young woman's sexual life as some sort of perverse kick/power trip, for what is not sorted in his life. That is sick s#it! That is how distorted things get when chronologically mature men have no idea that part of real maturity is developing a viable relationship with ones inner feminine. But that is just toooooooooo much for the average MoMale.

How did your daughter survive that level of 'loving' attention?

Daryl

[peter_mary]

PM, I have to confess to feeling extreme disgust that a Bishop should focus on a young woman's sexual life as some sort of perverse kick/power trip, for what is not sorted in his life. That is sick s#it! That is how distorted things get when chronologically mature men have no idea that part of real maturity is developing a viable relationship with ones inner feminine. But that is just toooooooooo much for the average MoMale.

How did your daughter survive that level of 'loving' attention?

Daryl

Suffice it to say that my daughter is no longer a Mormon. She felt then, and feels even more so today, that she was spiritually abused by that Bishop. No, he never touched her, but the invasiveness of his questions, the insistence that she tell him personal things, and the overwhelming power differential between a 15 year old girl and a 60 year old, 6'3" Bishop who is "God's annointed" created a truly hostile dynamic.

What makes ME sick is that at the time, it all made sense to me. I couldn't see it for what it was, because I respected the office of the Bishop. It makes me spitting mad today, but mostly at myself. I was her father, for hell's sake, and I allowed that kind of abuse to happen with full complicity. He was, after all, called of God, with special inspiration.

:Puking

Today, my daughter is a beautiful, healthy, happy, budding little feminist and athiest--the very antithesis of everything she learned in her Young Women's classes and by the example of her Bishop. She is strong, she is in pursuit of her own goals, she refuses to be a baby-making-machine, and she is one year from graduating with a Bachelors degree in Philosophy (with an eye toward Law School). She has learned that the best revenge she can exact upon the institution that nearly broker her (oh the stories I could tell...) is to become stronger than they are, and by being joyful in her life with a gross absence of the Church and the burdens it places on a person.

In the most real sense, she overcame the Church, found herself, and has never looked back. To hell with 'em...

Peter_Mary

[noodle]

I'm sorry, but I can't seem to get past this. Guess I was pretty ignorant of what was going on in the bishop's office and with bishop's interviews. Was there a "standard" set of questions that the COB prescribed for such interviews, like the temple interview questions?

mamajama

[silverfox]

Bishops also ask in detail about "sins" that have been committed. I confessed at age 19 once to some light "petting". I could not BELIEVE the detailed questions he asked. Was it under the bra or over the bra? Was your partner aroused? Did he have an erection? blah blah blah Did either of you reach orgasm?

I am NOT exaggerating. I was humiliated. I have had this experience with several bishops not just one.

I need to comment on something - some here have mentioned that LOCAL leadership seems to get away with a lot, that maybe the CHURCH leaders at COB, icluding Hinkley, shouldn't be blamed for so much.

BULL$HIT!!!! I don't believe for a MINUTE that COB/Hinkley isn't aware of what goes on. I am sure they receive complaints. I have sent in complaints about specific leaders. Nothing was ever done. I have been in leadership positions where I was aware of the mishandling of abuse - nothing was ever done. In fact, most of the questionable bishops and stake prez's I've ever had concerns about were in their positions for what seemed prolonged amounts of time.

With all the allegations of abuse and the cases that are continually being publicized I would think COB would put into place something to avoid such incidents. Group Primary. No members allowed to be alone with children. No children in members' homes, etc, etc. There is a lot the church can do to help control potential abuse. Period. Period. Period.

I find it ironic how so many TBMs have no problem allowing their children to go into a stranger's home or into an office with a strange male (or any male for that matter) just because they are a member and have been called to be a leader. I'm guilty of it. I've done it.

There are way too many ways to at least TRY to avoid potential abuse. Instead I have only witnessed leaders enabling it.

Ridiculous. I don't buy that poor ol' Hinkley hasn't a clue what goes on". Not for a second.

[peter_mary]

I'm sorry, but I can't seem to get past this. Guess I was pretty ignorant of what was going on in the bishop's office and with bishop's interviews. Was there a "standard" set of questions that the COB prescribed for such interviews, like the temple interview questions?

mamajama

No, Mamajama, there are no standard questions. But Bishops ARE supposed to be inquiring about the sexual indiscretions of the youth, and since they all just assume that they are masturbating, that just always comes up.

I know that when I was in the Bishopric, the 2nd counselor and I conducted the mid-year interviews with the youth (I did the Teachers/Mia-Maids, he did the Deacons/Beehives, and the Bishop did the Laurels/Priests). The Bishop made it clear that we were not to be bashful about what we asked the kids, because we needed to be "watchmen" for the kingdom. "The salvation of these kids" was being left in our "capable hands."

Well, I don't know what the 2nd Counselor was asking those kids, but I sure as hell wasn't talking to them about that kind of crap! I just couldn't do it! It felt SO wrong!

Now don't get me wrong...there are good Bishops and there are bad Bishops, and I know that there are many, many good Bishops who are genuinely trying hard to help guide the youth of their wards to a place of living congruent with the standards they profess to believe in.

But there are those bad apples out there that are getting off on talking with the YW about these kinds of things. Hell, not just the YW, but adult women, too. I've talked to people who have had Stake Presidents or Bishops who insist on having the pretty women recount their "moral indescretions" in great detail. One young woman who ended up seeking counseling with my wife asked if it was "normal for the Bishop to ask her to repeat the details of her sexual encounter with her boyfriend every time he interviewed her"...which was WEEKLY while she was working through her repentence process.

Hello!? Is that necessary? No, I didn't think so, either.

Peter_Mary

[noodle]

No, Mamajama, there are no standard questions. But Bishops ARE supposed to be inquiring about the sexual indiscretions of the youth, and since they all just assume that they are masturbating, that just always comes up.

Peter_Mary

Hmmmm...inquiring about the sexual indiscretions of the youth. That still just amazes me. Wouldn't that be the parents' job? Guess that's religion gone bad (IMO), and it ain't just the Mormons.

silverfox
Bishops also ask in detail about "sins" that have been committed. I confessed at age 19 once to some light "petting". I could not BELIEVE the detailed questions he asked. Was it under the bra or over the bra? Was your partner aroused? Did he have an erection? blah blah blah Did either of you reach orgasm?

What a pervert...the dude was getting off on this discussion. The real "sexual indiscretions" were those of the bish. You know, I really wonder how I would have handled a similar situation had I grown up Mo. I was so intimidated by perceived authority when I was in my teens.

mamajama

[silverfox]

What a pervert...the dude was getting off on this discussion. The real "sexual indiscretions" were those of the bish. You know, I really wonder how I would have handled a similar situation had I grown up Mo. I was so intimidated by perceived authority when I was in my teens.

mamajama

I did not grow up Mo but I was also intimidated by authority in my teens. This was not the ONLY bish who interviewed me this way.

When an older male member made inappriate sexual contact with me and I reported it, the same bish mentioned above gave me a lecture about "confessing the sins of others". WHAT????? I found out there were other victims who were ignored as well. Most of us were converts who had rented a room from the ol' guy and his wife. Oh, let me mention the bish arranged for us to live there.