I think beastie and I both were in agreement that lack of prior experience is not necessarily an indicator of anything. When you mix in lack of experience with lack of masturbation, shame of ones sexual drive, shame of sexual thoughts, shame of exploring their own body, and have a partner that is the same boat as you -- THEN there are going to be problems.
1. What does masturbation have to do with the expression of sexual love to one's husband or wife in adulthood?
2. The Church does not teach shame of one's sexual drive.
3. The Church does not teach shame regarding sexual thoughts per se. It teaches that those thoughts are to be controlled and channeled into the proper areas of human life at the proper time and for the proper reasons. Control of sexual thoughts, like control of other kinds of thought processes, are a part of the self discipline and self mastery required, in concert with Christ, in becoming more like him (he is "The Master").
4. "Exploring One's body" is forbidden by God as a matter of the proper control and channeling of human sexuality. This is more retro sixties sexual revolution psychobabble that explains and clarifies little except certain ideological assumptions inherant in the statement. Mormon's aren't shamed by their sexuality. Its just that, unlike many secular people, who do not no how to control or restrain it, Mormons understand that sex is not only natural, but ultimately divine in nature, and hence, to be handled with care.
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After a lifetime in the Church, I'm aware of no such sexual disinterest, generally, among the LDS married population.
Perhaps, Coggins, you're not the man they come to? ;) Gotta say, I've been informed of quite a bit of sexual dysfunction from men and women -- and have observed it as well.
Oh goody, more stories. You're probably right, and if you had read my post you would have seen that I said that I wouldn't be surprised if sexual dysfunction is probably about as rife among members as among the general population. You're claims for the origins of such dysfunction, however, are ideological, not scientific.
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As the Church teaches that sexual expression is an emotional and romantic bonding agent between a man and woman, I see no reason to think that most married LDS would "lose interest" in it. I would imagine that sexual problems are perhaps as common among modern LDS as among the general population, though I wouldn't be surprised to find out that among the more spiritually mature in the Church, they are, as with most other social pathologies, in a greater degree of abeyance than in the general population.
You have GOT to be kidding. Do you think most people confess masturbating or french kissing to an old dude in their Church? GET WITH IT COGGINS!
Seventies sexual revolution verbiage again. Nothing to see here.
Sexual expression is taught in the form of shame as well -- not just as a romantic bond between women and men.
The problem now appears to be, as usual, that you know next to nothing, and probably less than nothing about LDS doctrine and philosophy, at least regarding these issues. Sexual immorality-all sexual expression outside of the bonds of marriage, are taught to be a transgression of God's commandments and counsel regarding these matters. Hence, we should feel shame when be break the commandments of God, in the sexual or any other area. This is pedestrian, at best.
Are women and men allowed to explore their bodies in private before sharing with each other? HOW in the world would a man know how to please a woman if the woman does not even know what she likes, what feels good, what is stimulating to her?
Well I'll tell you Hef, its called love, respect, and concern for the happiness and fulfillment of the other. its called communication Hef, something many moderns, with their fifty percent divorce rates, know how to do with their sexual organs but not with their hearts or minds. The very idea that loving physical communication between two adults cannot be entered into in adulthood without some kind of coaching or practice-as if it each man and woman were so utterly physically different from one another that each person's sexuality was the equivalent of a spinning of sexual pleasure out of whole cloth, is utterly laughable. The commonality of sexual experience, over thousands of years of human history, is precisely its salient feature.
I do not find it at all strange to believe that two people who love and respect each other enough to have made a lifetime (or eternal) bond between them can "explore their bodies" together for the first time without to much undue discomfort. Oh, but I forgot Hef, sex is all about technique; its all about performance. Its all about taking pleasure from another. Oh, yes, well, in that modern case, any sex that doesn't meet the Madison Avenue/Hollywood/Hustler performance guarantee is just a botch; not worth having. All sex must be great sex. All sex must be Playboy centerfold sex. All sex must be Hollywood sex in which everything happens spontaneously in a perfectly choreographed erotic dance in which each movement and gesture melds perfectly with every other (all in soft reddish tones set to a Hair Metal power balled)
And then the alarm rings Hef.
[/quote]Seriously-- how Coggins? If a woman knows NOT the sexual gratification that can come from sexual interludes what is in it for her? This is just a set up for disaster. You have a man, most likely that would be eager and willing to help his partner enjoy sex... you have a woman that doesn't even recognize how pleasurable sex can be -- the intimacy and erotic nature of it -- and then you throw into the mix that thinking about it and figuring out what feels good on oneself is not only discouraged but a SIN then that's a big ole bugaboo in the bedroom.
You know...Hef...it just occurred to me that not knowing, not directly, even if one has masturbated somewhat, how pleasurable-and bonding-sex can be, with the one who is the love of one's life, can be a very, very erotically charged aspect of coming together for the first time and not knowing what to expect in all particulars. Keep in mind, social secularist liberals such as yourself have been pining away for decades that sex is natural. Well, then let's be logically consistent. If its natural, then it will be natural at 20 or 25 years of age if one is a virgin or at 17 or 18 if one has been promiscuous since the age of 12. If its natural, then it will come naturally, at whatever point it comes.
You're entire philosophy is inconsistent. You claim sex to be natural and in the same breath claim that without extensive prior technical sexual experience sexual disaster will inevitably befall the couple who marry as virgins. Humbug. There's not a shred of evidence to support the idea and its not even justifiable logically. You treat sex as a matter of technical performance while at the same time calling it "natural" (but this is all an ideological exercise intended to use natural as a club to beat traditional Judeo/Christian moral concepts, which are thought to be "unnatural" (I suppose this is the ultimate consequence of taking Darwin to his final logical end; man is just another animal and his "natural" proclivities should not be controlled or delimited because they stand in the way of human appetite satiation in this area)).
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Sexual problems in a marriage can arises for any number of reasons, but lack of prior, premarital technical experience isn't one of them, at least, not in and of itself.
Agreed! It's all the other crap the LDS Church teaches that causes the problems!
You have, as of yet, provided not a single reason to believe that sexual problems, inside or outside of the Church, have anything in particular to do with a lack of sexual technique or performance capacity as a proximate causal condition. The Church teaches the control, disciplen, and mastery of the human passions and desires, the flight from which since the sixties has created vast social pathologies that may be well beyond remedial measures.
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Our society's obsession with sexual performance and technique, above and beyond it's relevance as an expression of mature, committed love in a relationship that is larger than just the two individuals, is here on display in the reptile house of post sixties and seventies Oprahculture.
Oh sheesh. Yanno what Coggins? Bad sex/no sex == crappy marriage. And that's just the truth of it. Go stick your head back in the sand.
A victim of the Oprahculture is among us. Thanks for sharing.