Is Masturbation A Sin?
Is Masturbation A Sin?
In-depth and detailed history of masturbation in the LDS Church: https://www.danielaburgess.com/blog/2018/01/dont-touch-addressing-sexual-taboos-in.html
Misinterpretation of Lust: https://www.jasonstaples.com/bible/most-misinterpreted-bible-passages-1-matthew-527-28/
LDS Medical Historian Lester Bush observed that church in;
“The late 1920s and most of the 1930s saw a more explicit “sex education” in church lessons, to a degree not matched before or since. As one invited speaker explained to a general conference of the Relief Society, adults needed to realize that “you and I have been brought up in a generation where we just could not talk about sex. Not so our youngsters. They are talking and thinking about sex as frankly as anything else, and so far as I can discover, as wholesomely. Official [church] manuals advised members to purchase secular works on the subject-specific titles were suggested--and that the expression of sexual interests ‘should be guided and directed, not inhibited.’ An apogee (in the Mormon context) was reached in lessons which warned against creating emotional problems in adolescent children by an ‘unintelligent’ over response to the discovery that they practiced masturbation.” Health and Medicine among the Latter-day Saints: Science, Sense, and Scripture by Lester E. Bush, Jr pg. 144
3The Lester Bush quote above comes from the Relief Society Mag 1932 pages 89-93, the who section is absolutely amazing https://archive.org/details/reliefsocietymag19reli/page/n101/mode/2up?q=sex
“Rhetoric from the pulpit at Church conferences has changed over time on the issue of sexual immorality. Very little was said about this topic in the Church’s first century . . . American society began its own transformation in sexual values . . . in the post-World War II baby boomers. The value of chastity was cast aside in favor of sexual liberation. LDS Church leaders reacted by emphasizing more often and more strongly from the pulpit the value of chastity.” —E. G. Swedin Swedin, E. G. (2003). Healing souls: Psychotherapy in the Latter-day Saint community. University of Illinois Press. pg 155-6
LDS Church Relief Society President Amy Lyman Brown Health article on not overreacting to masturbation which can be found at my site: https://www.danielaburgess.com/blog/2018/09/the-unintelligent-parent.html or here: Relief Society Magazine: Guide Lessons For April 1927 Lesson IV Social Service (Fourth Week in April).
