Introduction and Paul's Story of Bishop Interviews

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 821

Guest [00:00:00] Sa.

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is November 7, 2017, and

Guest [00:00:40] we

John Dehlin [00:00:41] are beginning a mini series on inappropriate interviews about sexuality with Mormon leadership. Sam Young, who is known by many in the Mormon Stories circle, he did a recent interview on Mormon Stories probably a year ago. He started a petition that has over a thousand signatures calling on the Mormon Church to cease any interview with youth and I would even say adults. That is inappropriate in terms of how it discusses things like masturbation and sexuality.

John Dehlin [00:01:18] I put out a call recently to ask people to share their stories of inappropriate interviews with bishops and mission presidents and stake presidents. And I've gotten flooded with people telling really horrific stories. And so what I want to do is just feature a bunch of those stories. They're not going to be multi hour interviews. I'm expecting them to be shorter interviews, but each one is going to just tell different stories of Mormon Church leaders asking kind of egregious, inappropriate questions in related to sexuality so that we can help encourage the Mormon Church to stop this practice that damages so many youth.

John Dehlin [00:02:01] So today for our interview, we have with us Paul Van Orden, who has courageously volunteered to be the first to tell his story. So, Paul Van Orden, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Paul Van Orden [00:02:14] Thanks for having me, John.

John Dehlin [00:02:15] All right, so we're not going to be digging deeply into your story, but why don't we just start. Tell us just a tiny bit about your upbringing in the church, maybe before we jump into your experience with the interviews.

Paul Van Orden [00:02:32] Born and raised in the church, my dad's side joined the church back in New York, Nauvoo time. So they've been, came across the plains. My mom's parents, one came from Germany, one came from Ireland, met at a church function. And again, my whole family on both sides, born and raised in the church, did the whole thing growing up. 12 years old, 8 years old, baptism raised, was gonna go. I went on a mission to the MTC at least and came home. That's a whole nother story. But got married in the temple, had two kids. And then about eight years ago when I started my faith journey and stepped away a year or two after that. And then my, my wife about five years ago, a few years after me, three years after me.

John Dehlin [00:03:19] Okay, that gives us a background. So tell us if you don't mind, just let's jump in and tell us your first sort of interactions with church leadership around, you know, sexuality, masturbation, whatever your topics might be.

Paul Van Orden [00:03:37] Yeah, so again, a pretty Grew up pretty much super churchy. Didn't know much about anything besides the church and rest. Respect to alcohol, drugs, sex. Went to Churchill Junior High. I think it was about the first week of junior high, I had an interview with my bishop, and I was getting close to turning to 14, and he asked me about Master, and I had no idea what it was. And he didn't get too deep into it, from what I remember. But the next day, I asked some friends at school, like, hey, what is this? Like, you know, tell me more about this. And I kind of got laughed off that.

Paul Van Orden [00:04:15] Like, you didn't know what this was. You haven't done that? Oh, yeah, this is great. And you can do this. And within a few days, I'd seen my first Playboy from one of the guys at school that had it in his locker. And, you know, I wanted to do it at that point, so I wanted to go figure it out. So in the next few days, I went and figured out for the first time. So that's the beginning.

John Dehlin [00:04:36] Real quick, Paul, can you tilt your video camera so you're kind of shown a little bit more directly? That's perfect. Yeah. So one of the first issues that you highlight is the fact that the church incessantly talking about things like masturbation and pornography, whether it's in the meetings or in these private interviews, they're so often introducing the problem that they say they're trying to stop. And so they literally are giving kids the idea to do the thing they don't want the kids to do. So that's problem one I'm hearing, Is that right?

Paul Van Orden [00:05:10] Yeah, absolutely. I literally had no idea what it was until I was asked about it in an interview.

John Dehlin [00:05:15] Okay, and you were how old again? Around 14.

Paul Van Orden [00:05:20] I said I was in, you know, seventh grade, so I think I was 14.

John Dehlin [00:05:23] Okay. All right. So. So you try it. And then how did you feel once you tried it after having the bishop ask you about it? How did it make you feel at the time?

Paul Van Orden [00:05:35] So then it was, you know, the next three, four years of my life. It was basically. I thought it was the worst thing I could do. And it was such a crutch from that point on because every interview was about it more and more and how bad it was. And it literally was a constant fight on, like, how unworthy I am. I'm going to hell. This is, you know, there's nothing I can do about this. And I would make promises back and forth and I couldn't keep them. And it just was such a big mind. Can't use that word. Mind. Mess with my mind.

John Dehlin [00:06:08] A mind.

Paul Van Orden [00:06:10] Yes, a mind. Fetch.

John Dehlin [00:06:13] Okay, so do you remember, you know, after you had done it, you know, some of the times that the bishop actually interviewed you and asked you about it? Can you talk about what those exchanges were like?

Paul Van Orden [00:06:26] Yeah, you know, so I remember I switched bishops kind of in the midst of this when I was probably 15, 16. I had the bishop through my. Through my missionary view. And the first bishop was actually my next door neighbor. Great guy, you know, love him to death, but then just ask kind of basic questions. The next one, another good guy, you know, know his family well, still know, but he got a little bit more detailed, like, well, how often? What do you do? How long? What are you looking at? What are you watching? Do you like it? Does it feel good? You know, and then it was after.

Paul Van Orden [00:06:56] That was like, well, this is why it's bad. And I just remember the guilt trip. A guilt trip, and I would just go home feeling so dirty and unworthy and how easy, evil I was. And I must be the worst person in the world. I'm the only one that can't figure this out.

John Dehlin [00:07:11] So you remember feeling a lot of private guilt and shame around this?

Paul Van Orden [00:07:17] Oh, so much. And I say, okay, this is the last time. I'm done with this. Like, I single whole handedly blamed myself for the University of Utah losing the 1998 national championship because I masturbated the night before. Right after I promised God I was never going to do it again.

John Dehlin [00:07:32] Now, how did you make that connection between that and the football game?

Paul Van Orden [00:07:36] I don't know, to go back on. I just, I just was like, hey, look, God, if I don't masturbate ever again, Utah, because I'm such a big ute sports fan, always have been. My family is. I fly back to Utah a couple times a year for games, but I just had this thing that, okay, if I give God this, he's gonna gift me the national championship, you know, And. And so I single handedly blamed us losing the national championship. I remember balling after the game was over in my bed. This is my fault. I could have. We could have won if it wasn't for me.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] Okay, so how did this guilt and shame play out in your life as you kept trying to change and you

Paul Van Orden [00:08:17] couldn't change, you know, so for a while I just thought, I can't change. And I kind of, you know, I didn't really drift away from church. I still went, but it was kind of like, hey, I can never be that that person that can do this and go on a mission and be worthy and get married in the temple. You know, it was till I had a friend that said, you know, you can just lie about that. Right. And I never put two and two together, like, okay, you know, and then it kind of got easier, like, hey, if I don't tell him, then I'm not going to get the guilt trip.

John Dehlin [00:08:48] Okay, so now we've found two other things. So the church introduces the idea that then it heaps this massive amount of guilt and shame on their youth or young adults or adults that causes them to feel tormented for what's very normal behavior. And then the third thing is they basically teach their youth to lie. Absolutely. Because you feel like you won't be able to go on a mission, you won't be able to get married, you won't be able to pass the sacraments, you won't be able to attend the temple if you're honest. And so you. So your religion's basically teaching you to lie, in effect, because the stakes were so high. Is that right? Why would you lie? Why wouldn't what? Why would you lie?

Paul Van Orden [00:09:30] Absolutely. Yeah, the stakes were high. And even to this day, you know, I have probably, you know, a bunch of friends, probably 60, 70% of them straight up lied. And, you know, they're still active today, but they lied so they could get married in the temple. So they couldn't, you know, have that guilt of, you know, the last second up, you gotta have a civil wedding because of this, A, B or C. So they lied about it, you know, and it just created that, you know, lying culture. I'd say again, more than 70% of my friends weren't worthy by church standards to get married in the temple or go on their mission.

John Dehlin [00:10:00] And so that's another thing where the. Where liars are rewarded and then the ones who are honest, they're the ones who get punished.

Paul Van Orden [00:10:08] Correct. And that again, another story. But that's the reason why I got sent home from the mtc, because I did become honest finally.

Sent Home Early from a Mission

John Dehlin [00:10:15] Okay, so talk about that. So you go to the mtc and what happens?

Paul Van Orden [00:10:19] Go to MTC called the Tonga. And so between when I got my call and when I went to the MTC was the. When the Higher Standards General Conference happened, if you remember that.

John Dehlin [00:10:30] The raising the bar thing.

Paul Van Orden [00:10:31] The raise the bar.

John Dehlin [00:10:32] So had you lied to become a missionary then? Did you get asked that question?

Paul Van Orden [00:10:38] So I had told everything, but not in super detail, you know, and I had had premarital sex, but it was Years before, but I'd come clean and all that. But when they gave us the speech the day we got into the MTC about raising the bar, was there anything else you needed to talk to?

Paul Van Orden [00:10:54] I said, hey, I've said everything, but maybe I wasn't thorough enough with you guys. And so then they actually kind of re interviewed me at the mtc, sent me back to the dorm, stayed another night. Next day they called me back and they talked to me and they said, well, we don't know about this raising the bar thing, so let's make some calls. So I sat in the office there at MTC for three, four hours. Then they called me and they had my stake president on the phone, someone from the general authorities. And then they said, well, we're just going to send you home. We're not going to release you at first, but we're just going to send you home and then we'll figure out what to do. And then I went home, met with the bishop, met with stake president, and

John Dehlin [00:11:32] they sent you home for which thing?

Paul Van Orden [00:11:36] For kind of culminating everything, but more the premarital sex that I'd had it only with one person, but more than a couple times.

John Dehlin [00:11:46] What were the issues

Paul Van Orden [00:11:49] again? Masturbation and then premarital sex that I. That I confessed to it before I went, but that I had had it for a period of time, more than just a few times or whatever. I had had a girlfriend and we had been a long term thing and I confessed to it, but just not how much I did it. And they asked every question, how many times did I. Did I orgasm? I mean, it was the craziest interview.

John Dehlin [00:12:11] What details did they ask? Tell all the details. They asked.

Paul Van Orden [00:12:15] So yeah, I mean, so they asked. I remember talking to state president. They said, did you orgasm? Did you. Oh, did I lose you?

John Dehlin [00:12:22] No, you're.

Paul Van Orden [00:12:23] There you go. How many times did you orgasm? Did you orgasm inside of her? How often? You know all these questions. And so then they decided to send me home for a few days, went home with. And then they released me normally. And then I got a letter saying that I. Due to the new church standards and raising the bar, we don't feel you're fit to serve a mission in this standard, we'd like you to serve in other ways. If you'd like to reapply in a year's time, feel free to do so. Talk to your stake president.

John Dehlin [00:12:55] What's it like to get sent home early from your mission? What does that do?

Paul Van Orden [00:13:00] So it's kind of interesting. My oldest Brother came home from his mission for anxiety reason, and he took it really hard. It pushed him away from the church. I have a different personality. Like, I mean, I don't get offended. I don't give. Like, I'll go to church, you say, he came home. I'll flip him the bird for all I care. So it didn't bother me as much like, I had seen it in it, but it caused my parents, and especially my dad, like, a lot of shame. Like, oh, I had one kid come home and now another. This is. It just. It hurt him to the core.

John Dehlin [00:13:28] So you're saying you didn't mind so much?

Paul Van Orden [00:13:30] Again, in my personality, I just. I just brushed stuff off, so it really didn't bother me.

John Dehlin [00:13:35] Did you remain active in the church after that?

Paul Van Orden [00:13:37] Yeah, I was dating my girlfriend, not the person I had premarital sex with, and she was active. And again, we ended up getting married in the temple about two and a half years later. But for a time, her parents banned her from seeing me. I could only write for her is what they said for the next two years since I came home from my mission. But she finally pushed through that and we worked it out, and her parents, about three, four months, finally let me see her again, and we ended up getting married, like I said, about two years down the road after that in the temple.

John Dehlin [00:14:06] Okay. Any other experiences with church leadership around, you know, talking about sexuality?

Paul Van Orden [00:14:13] Same thing, you know, my bishop, I just remember. And again, looking back, it seems so weird. I remember the first time I confessed that I had had premarital sex. And he was like, well, it feels good, right? That was his first response. And I'm like, what? You know, and then he went into more detail, and it just seemed normal at time from the way I was groomed. But just some of the. Like, I can't imagine an adult asking my daughter that, you know, having a daughter now, you know. And one of the stranger interviews I had is before my mission. I met with my stake president, and we were talking, you know, again, I confessed he knew about all this stuff, and he asked if I had oral sex as well.

Paul Van Orden [00:14:51] And I said yes. And he said, can you imagine Jesus having oral sex? And I just, whoa. Kind of like, I don't imagine Jesus having sex until now. And it was really an odd question. No. You know, and he's like, you know, because it's not. It's not of God. That's why you can't picture it. And in or out of marriage, oral sex is against the church, and you can't do that.

Paul Van Orden [00:15:15] Okay. I'd never heard that before. And, oh, geez, that was different. And I went back to my boss at work, who was, you know, my mentor, one of my best friends, you know, like a second dad figure. The next day I went to him and he's like, oh, how'd it go? He's a huge tbm, still super active. I talked to him all the time, but he goes, oh, how'd it go? You know, everything go good? And I was like, he told me, oral sex, you can have oral sex even after you get married. And he's got a more casual. He just kind of laughs always.

Paul Van Orden [00:15:42] Like, well, I've never heard that. If that's true, I'm screwed, because my wife likes that more than normal sex. And so that at least eased me a little bit. Like, okay, I'm not a complete horrible human being because this. This guy who's my mentor and super churchy, you know, he's okay with it.

John Dehlin [00:16:01] And this highlights a couple more of the problems. Number one is these leaders aren't trained to talk about sexuality with adults, let alone children. And then also you get such a wide variety of not only, you know, advice and perspectives, but also punishments. Some bishops and Sikh presidents will say, it's okay to masturbate or, we won't punish you. Other ones are going to take away your temple recommend, not let you take the sacrament for six months.

Paul Van Orden [00:16:28] Absolutely. One of my best friends, he was at a BYU game in Arizona. He was driving back and he, with his fiance got a blow drop from his fiance in the car ride. They both went and told their bishops. The next Sunday, her bishop made her not take the sacrament for six weeks. He was the elders quorum president. The bishop said, don't take it today, but I know you feel bad, so you're good after that.

John Dehlin [00:16:50] Yeah, you get such a. It's called leadership roulette, but you get such a variation. We have a listener named Michael who says, I've been in the church for 30 years. I can't remember a time when I was ever asked directly about masturbation in a worthiness interview. And Michael, I think you're just illustrating our point that there's such variety, sometimes people get asked deeply graphic, offensive in the inappropriate questions as young as 12 years old. And then there are other church leaders who will never do it. But Michael, I hope you're not insinuating that because you had that experience that everyone else is lying. Who has.

John Dehlin [00:17:26] And I tell you, I have over 100 people who have reached out to me to tell me their stories and their graphic. We have bishops and stake presidents asking women did they orgasm, what did it feel like? What sexual positions?

John Dehlin [00:17:40] You know, was there oral, was there anal, was there finger penetration, was there penile penetration? The level of graphicness that I have been receiving from the people who have emailed me is revolting. So Michael, I hope you're not insinuating that just because you had that experience that other people haven't had the experience that they claim any. Paul, anything else you want to share about your experiences?

Detailed Questioning and Lasting Guilt

Paul Van Orden [00:18:09] No, just like on that same point I remember very detailed interviews like when I first, when I was probably 16, 17, when I touched a girl's boobs, was it over the clothes? Was it under the clothes? Did you do that? I mean it was super detailed. Always from the age of 15 to 19. It was literally reliving the situation in every detail. With that bishop, what'd you do? How'd you like it? Over the clothes, under the clothes? Were your clothes on? Did you dry hump? Did you do it with your clothes on? I mean in my case it was always about as detailed. It could be after the age of 15 with that bishop and what do

John Dehlin [00:18:42] you think is wrong with a leader asking a youth or a young adult or even an adult that level of sort of graphic questions?

Paul Van Orden [00:18:52] I think there's a lot of wrong with it, especially with a child. These are untrained professionals and like I said looking back like, like I have an 11 year old daughter now, thank God we're not in the church, but she'd be turning 12 in January and if she came home and even my wife, my wife said she wasn't ever asked these questions until our marriage interview. So good for her bishops and stake presidents that she wasn't asked these questions. But I mean if my daughter got asked that by a male, 45 year old male in a closed door room and was asking those questions, there's, I mean that is you know, just that sexual assault in my opinion.

John Dehlin [00:19:29] Yeah. Joe writes, I was asked many times pre mission and post mission about it. Even during my mission. I was even asked about it after I was married. Rick writes, my stake president had the talk with our Aaronic priesthood group. He brought an actual pistol and played Russian roulette saying that masturbation was the same thing as Russian roulette. So just some feedback from our listeners. Really quickly. Paul, to close your story, were there any serious or significant short, medium or long term effects to these experiences as a child and as a young adult? What's the harm. What's been the harm to you, you

Paul Van Orden [00:20:08] know, for so many years? The guilt and conditioning. Like, when I would do it, you know, when I was first married and went through the temple, you know, we're married, and then I, you know, I look at some, you know, some type of porn and masturbate, you know, and hide it from your wife, and you just felt so guilty. And, you know, just sexuality is. There's such a guilt placed on it that it's. It was kind of hard on, like, your marriage and sex life until you break away from that. Like, it's just. There was so much guilt. And I'm sure, you see women. I've had friends that.

Paul Van Orden [00:20:39] Women friends that have divorced men because of it, they can't figure it out. You know, it's just. It's just this guilt. And even though I've been away from the church for eight years, like, they're still always in the back of the head. It doesn't have to be just sexuality, masturbation. But anything that's against the church, even when I have a drink or, you know, you think, you know, for so long, I was conditioned that this is, like, one of the worst things you can do. And it's still there, even though I blow it off nowadays, but it's still always in the back of my head like this. I was conditioned so bad that this was so wrong.

John Dehlin [00:21:11] Yeah. And would you say that the church, the way they deal with it, actually makes it more likely that you're going to do these sorts of behaviors, look at pornography, masturbate.

Paul Van Orden [00:21:22] Oh, 100%.

John Dehlin [00:21:24] How does the church's treatment of this issue actually make it more likely or more common?

Paul Van Orden [00:21:30] Yeah, absolutely. There's a national park down towards Zion, and there's this bark that's there. And they put up a sign that said, don't take the bark because it was this rare bark. And as soon as they put up that sign, the bark started going faster than ever. And it's kind of the same. Same thing to me is they. They create this thing as well. Do you do this? This is bad. This is so bad. Don't do it. And if you don't know what it is, you're gonna go look and find out what it is that's so bad. And you want to see and you want to feel and touch something that's forbidden. It just creates that mindset of to try to figure out what it is.

John Dehlin [00:22:07] Yeah, that's right. You. It's kind of like, don't look, don't look behind the door. You're going to make him look behind the door. Matthew writes, I was asked many times and many details. I did not even know what masturbation was until my bishop asked if I did it at age 11. So Matthew was asked at age 11, what's that, Paul?

Paul Van Orden [00:22:30] That's scary. Age 11. I mean, I just can't even imagine my daughter at age 11, my son, that's nine now. They have no clue what that kind of stuff is.

John Dehlin [00:22:38] Yeah. Joey writes, as a missionary, is teaching a 12 year old, less active family. We were trying to prepare him for the priesthood. In one of our lessons, the person was with us repeatedly mentioned that in interviewing him for the priesthood, the bishop would ask about masturbation. I was floored by the mention, as was my companion. We didn't know how to respond, react or redirect. That's another problem is there's just not a standard treatment with the church. And so any old person, any old leader can kind of do or say whatever they want with males or females at almost any age. And it's just sort of an egregious wild west of inappropriate sort of questions to people.

Paul Van Orden [00:23:23] Yeah. And there's no training, you know, you got, like you said, rogue people that ask different way, different punishments, different things, and there's no formal training whatsoever on what questions to ask. It says, ask this and then take it from there. And you're going to get some creepers that take it extremely bad. You're going to get people like Sam Young who never even thought of asking it.

John Dehlin [00:23:43] Yeah. All right, Paul, any final words you want to say before we sort of wrap up your interview?

Paul Van Orden [00:23:48] No, I think you got it all.

Marissa Shares Her Experience of Abuse and Interviews

John Dehlin [00:23:50] All right, Paul. Well, I just want to thank you so much for your willingness to be the first to tell your story. It takes people willing to be courageous and to share difficult things to make things change. Our goal is, along with Sam Young, to get the church to create policies that change this activity, that stop this behavior and that basically stop the church from asking youth, children, and even adults inappropriate questions around sexuality that actually do more harm than good. So, big thanks to Sam Young for his help. Big thanks to you, Paul, for your willingness. And if any of our listeners want to share their stories, we would love to interview as well for Mormon Stories Podcast.

John Dehlin [00:24:36] All right, Paul, thanks so much. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's November 8, 2017. We're broadcasting streaming live from Holiday, Utah, and we're very excited to begin part two of our multi part series on inappropriate interviews regarding sexuality with Mormon leaders. And today, we're going to be interviewing Ann Payne.

John Dehlin [00:25:15] Now, Ann is not her real name, but as you can imagine, there are often risks to both being interviewed by Mormon stories, but also talking about things that are so sensitive. So we're interviewing Ann, but Ann's not her real name. And we're really excited to have people joining us through Facebook Live. We want to invite folks to participate, share comments, questions, concerns, feedback interactively on Facebook because that makes these interviews more interesting. So without any further ado, Ann Payne, welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Guest [00:25:56] Thanks. I'm pretty excited to be here.

John Dehlin [00:25:59] Under the circumstances, a little nervous. All right, so, Ann, why don't we begin? Just give us like a one minute summary of your experience in the church prior to the interviews. You don't have to tell us about where you are now. Let's just focus on kind of a tiny bit of your background so that

Guest [00:26:17] we grew up in the church in Canada, and I've been fairly active most of my life. My activity and my views on Mormonism have been changing for about probably about seven years now. And I'm an avid Mormon stories listener. I'm pretty happy to be on the podcast. I stick around with Mormonism in the hopes that the good that it has brought me can outshine the things that are hard for me.

John Dehlin [00:26:51] So you're still attending?

Guest [00:26:53] I do.

John Dehlin [00:26:54] That is super cool. I'm really happy to have attending members whenever we can get them.

Guest [00:27:01] I think I'm probably one of the most active people in my family, but my ward might consider me less active. I now live in Utah county, so it's. I'm in a weird place.

John Dehlin [00:27:15] Well, we're glad you're joining us. Okay, so why don't you just begin by telling us when you first. When matters of sexuality started coming up for you as a Mormon child or youth. And we'll go from there.

Guest [00:27:32] Okay. I think I'll start by talking about the interview that didn't happen. When I was very young, really young preschool age, I was repeatedly molested by a male babysitter who was lds. And it was a repeated thing. And I don't think I told anyone about it because I was so little, but it's, you know, quite imprinted on me.

Guest [00:27:55] And as the years went on, it turns out I found out years and years later, well, this guy, this kid showed up when I was about 12 or 13 at our house with his parents because they were good family friends of my family.

Guest [00:28:09] Even though we hadn't seen him for a while and apparently he was like on his way on a mission or something and I was like, why is this dude here? I knew who he was. I still remember him.

Guest [00:28:21] And years later in my adulthood, I became aware that the bishop actually knew what had happened. And actually my father knew about it as well. And they just decided not to ever address it. They decided that it was so much time had passed and I was so young and it didn't matter. And so he got to merrily go on his mission and no interaction happened with me.

Guest [00:28:53] And you know, that was a pretty, You know, those sorts of things affect you most of your life, I think. And in my adulthood, when I realized how I was overlooked and discounted in something so formative for me, that was a pretty hard blow. So that is something.

John Dehlin [00:29:18] So you feel like you were, you were abused at the church. Didn't feel like you were important enough to even make that right or to talk.

Guest [00:29:30] Yeah, that I looked fine as a, you know, as a preteen kid, I must be fine. And I think that that story is fairly common based on my Internet searching, whatever.

John Dehlin [00:29:45] I'm so, so sorry that happened.

Guest [00:29:48] When I was 12, I went for my bishop's interview, you know, as you do when you're 12. And I was just, you know, I was a chubby, prepubescent, like long, super long pigtails, chubby shirt. And it was the 80s, so, you know, I just rode my bike across town to the interview.

Guest [00:30:09] I remember I fell on my bike on the way there and I had a big scrape on my knee. So I get into the interview and it's the summer and I'm sorry, have these pigtails and like my chubby 12 year old tummies. I'm just a little girl, this is. And my little, I remember my little, my cut on my knee. I had like a little piece of toilet paper there I put so it wouldn't bleed, but it was dripping down my knee. And so I am just a kid, this little kid. And I remember going to that interview.

Guest [00:30:36] I mean, I hadn't even started reading Judy Blume books yet. I was really just a little kid. And this dude, this bishop, I mean, he started talking to me about masturbation and what it was and what it entailed. And I even remember him using the word orgasm. And I didn't really know what that was even.

Guest [00:30:57] And that is probably the most inappropriate. I mean, it felt weird at the time, but you know, when you're that age, you don't process these things real.

John Dehlin [00:31:07] How do they, how do they bring it up with the 12 year old girl? Like, how does.

Guest [00:31:10] I don't know, I. Because I had not heard of it before. I remember when I started reading Judy Blume books, I was like, oh, that's what he was talking about. And so of course I just tried it.

John Dehlin [00:31:24] So she. Judy Blume talks about masturbation?

Guest [00:31:26] Yeah. The author, Judy Blume? Yes.

John Dehlin [00:31:30] I didn't know she would have talked about that in her books.

Guest [00:31:32] She does, yeah. I mean, I think it was. Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. I mean there's just. She is. I love Judy Bloom. She was a great author when I was little.

John Dehlin [00:31:42] Okay, so what was, do you remember what it was like to have him asking you about that as a 12 year old girl?

Guest [00:31:47] It was weird. I was sitting there, I remember sitting. I mean, it's just imprint. I was sitting there and looking down at my, you know, my tummy pudging out and looking at my knee where the scab, the thing was still bleeding and I was like, I didn't know what to say. I was just being talked at about this topic that I didn't know anything about and that didn't feel, feel right.

John Dehlin [00:32:09] Okay.

Guest [00:32:11] And I remember it so specifically and I am just appalled. I have kids now and I mean, the first thing I do when I go, the first thing I did when we moved to our new ward is I meet with the bishop and I say, you do not have permission to speak to my kids about sexual things. You may not mention the word masturbation or refer to it. And that kind of gets me blacklisted, I guess. But it's so wrong. I feel like these things in my life as a teenager, as a young adult, I think I had pretty average sexual experimentation for a regular kid and for a Mormon kid who was super active and went to EFY and it was all personal progress to the max.

Guest [00:32:54] It was pretty negative, obviously. I think my history played into it and family of origin stuff, that revolving door through the bishop's office over and over, all of these things lead up to. None of my subsequent bishops were ever inappropriate. I mean they did ask me about sexuality and I confessed and cried and

Paul Van Orden [00:33:16] then blah, blah, blah.

John Dehlin [00:33:18] And did the bishop give you the idea about masturbation by talking about it?

Guest [00:33:23] Yes, in fact, I went home and tried it and then that. Yeah, he did. Uh huh.

John Dehlin [00:33:30] So again they're introducing the problem that they present themselves as desiring to solve.

Guest [00:33:36] Introduced the concept to me. And I personally don't feel like that is a problem, but the church obviously does.

John Dehlin [00:33:41] Or actually we don't know. I guess the Strength of the Youth pamphlet says, don't arouse your passions, but at the same time it doesn't mention mass masturbation specifically. And there are lots of bishops that don't even ask about it. So part of the problem is this wide variability of latitude, right? Yeah, but the point is that you started trying masturbation as a young girl after the bishop gave you the idea. Yeah. Okay, so talk about how this progressed.

Guest [00:34:14] Maybe I should just thank him. I don't know. The point is that my sexuality as a member of the church has never been my own. When some middle aged man introduces something like that to me, it's not mine. And when I am accountable to these people, I feel like. And of course, the history of sexual abuse and the revolving bishopric door, it's never been my own. It's been something that belonged to other people that I had to report to. All the problems in the way young women teach about sexuality, you know, it's saved for your husband. I think becoming an actualized woman, claiming my own sexuality has been a process that was greatly impeded and negatively affected by my interaction with male leaders to whom I felt accountable for that part of my life.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] Sure. So did, did you have any other experiences with the church in regards to sexuality? You said there was a revolving door. You know, were you caught in that cycle of confession?

Guest [00:35:29] Fairly sexually explorative youth and young adult for Mormon standards. And so, you know, I'd have some encounters and then I'd go talk to the bishop and then have some encounters, go talk to the bishop. The thing that I realized over the decades is that my sexual exploration, a lot of it stemmed from the abuse as a child. And I mean family of origin, which I don't want to get into that especially. But there was never a bishop who understood that I needed some help.

Guest [00:36:06] You know, they would help me make a big resolve to never do this again. But there was never anyone who understood the part of me that was broken. And they were the only person I knew to, to go to when I finally, you know, I went to BYU and I found a counselor at byu. She was a miracle worker and really helped me start to work on recovering from my past.

John Dehlin [00:36:39] When you say you were broken, what do you mean?

Guest [00:36:42] I think that early sexual abuse, really repeated sexual molestation is just breaks a part of you inside, you know, and that was my experience. And so I was bringing that to my sexual experiences as A young adult without really knowing and going to bishops for help, feeling like I was, what's the word? I was inadequate. I was the licked cupcake, I was a chewed piece of gum. Help me be better.

Guest [00:37:15] And thankfully my bishops as a young adult and as a teenager, they were all good people and they weren't abusive in any way to me or inappropriate. But at the same time they didn't recognize that I needed help.

Guest [00:37:32] Even when I shared my past with them, it was never something that. It was always something like, I have to repent, I have to change, I have to sing Primary song when I feel sexual and I have to never watch an R rated movie and never wear a tank top. And I have to do this with. Whereas it was a trained mental health provider who helped me address the parts of my heart that really needed, that really needed help.

Guest [00:38:08] It wasn't the bishops and the guilt and the self loathing and the, I don't know, the guilt, I guess, with that revolving door is really heavy to carry. And it's unfortunate that they didn't recognize that they did not have the tools to help, to truly help and that they should have helped me find someone. They were the only person I knew to go to for this thing that was wrong with me.

John Dehlin [00:38:48] So if I were to maybe summarize what I've heard so far, they. When you experience severe significant sexual abuse, they were nowhere to be found in terms of either righting the wrong, punishing the offender, providing you with the help and support you needed. So that was problem one, right?

Guest [00:39:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:13] Then problem two is they introduced you to the problem that they then were punishing you for, which was masturbation in a very age inappropriate way. That's the second thing. Then you're sitting there as an adolescent broken around being a PTSD survivor of sexual abuse and assault and you're stuck in this and you're hearing all these shame based messages around your worth and your value and your sinful nature. So you're caught in this sort of violent, emotionally violent revolving door of feeling broken, of having this trauma of, of being a normal kid involved in normal sexual exploration and experiences. And you're sort of put in this punishing revolving door of guilt and shame and confession and trying to do better. And fortunately you had leaders that weren't abusive or horrible, but that still, it sounds like that was still a very punishing experience for you.

Guest [00:40:26] Had they been abusive or horrible, I probably would have been more aware that I needed something else, which I don't do you know what I mean? Because they were so good to me and loving. You know, I had really good bishops at BYU that didn't kick me out, I guess. You know, I guess they could have kicked me out.

John Dehlin [00:40:46] Yeah, they could have been worse. But, and, but in some ways them being nice probably kept.

Guest [00:40:53] Yeah, they didn't understand how the system, and even their loving approach was actually really damning for me because it kept

John Dehlin [00:41:02] you trapped in the system where you're continually punished.

Guest [00:41:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:06] And then the last things I'm hearing you say is they're ill trained, they're not trained, they're not skilled at dealing with these issues. So them even trying is sort of irresponsible and ethically irresponsible. And then they clearly didn't get you the support you needed either. So not only were they ill equipped and it was wrong for them to even be listening to this sort of thing, they didn't refer you to the help and the support, the clinical help and the support that you needed.

Guest [00:41:42] Yes.

Listener Responses and Reflections on Church Culture

John Dehlin [00:41:44] Anything else we're missing from your story that you would want to share?

Guest [00:41:52] I really loved the. You know, I found people like Jennifer Finlayson Fife and Natasha Hilford Parker. I found them through you and through. And they've just been. That sort of thing has been revolutionary for me in owning and claiming the power, the sexuality that's mine, that belongs to no one to whom I am accountable. I'm only accountable to myself and for embracing that.

Guest [00:42:35] I think that females recognizing and claiming power in any regard, especially sexual, sexually, is pretty detrimental to a patriarchal system. And I sometimes think that this system is perpetuated because of the way that it keeps females in. On a box, on a pedestal in a place that they can be controlled.

Guest [00:43:13] And I think the sexual nature of it is core to finding power and claiming true agency, which I believe is a fundamental gift from heavenly parents and fundamentally Mormon, but not something really sought after, truly, in the patriarchal system that we have. But I just am so grateful for the sources I found through, you know, through your organization that have really helped me. And also a really good therapist. I have a great therapist.

John Dehlin [00:43:51] Oh, I love that. I love that. So, yeah. So shout out to Jennifer Finlayson, 5, to Natasha Alfred Parker, to all the clinicians out there that are making themselves available to not just treat women and abuse survivors and survivors of the church's damaging messages. Not just to sort of treat them as, you know, clinical solutions to solve, but to empower you, to give you your own autonomy, to let you know that your sexual experiences are yours and that Sex is something for you, you to own and to enjoy. That is such important and important messaging.

Guest [00:44:31] Yeah. Thanks for all you do.

John Dehlin [00:44:34] Let's if it's a thank you. This has been a really powerful. These are shorter. My staff was really surprised that I did like a 20 minute interview or a 30 minute interview because normally I do six hours, but yeah, these are shorter. But we've gotten a lot of feedback from listeners. So I'm just going to read a few comments. Is that okay?

Guest [00:44:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:54] So Diane writes, well, John writes, I'm so sorry. People are very touched by your story. Diane writes, sounds familiar about how the men or boys are forgiven and the women or the girls are blamed. Diane says she's not a member anymore, but her religion is love. And I have heard that in several interviews. Let's just say there's a couple that's engaged to get married or want whatever. Oftentimes the female gets a much harsher punishment than the male. And instances of abusers just being let off the hook seem to be rampant within Mormonism. Any comments on that, Anne?

Guest [00:45:36] I know of several stories that are similar. Even worse abuse. I remember as a BYU student, I had been fooling around with some kid and he was a returned missionary. And I remember being feeling so just like it was my fault. And here's this priesthood holder and look what I made him do and look how I have corrupted him and just really taking that on myself, really just instinctively, the first thought was, here's this servant of the Lord who has returned and who has the priesthood and here am I, who just can't seem to get out of this rut and I'm just tarnishing him. And I remember just saying, I can never see you again. And he was like, oh, why? Why? And I remember just internalizing that and feeling so culpable for not only my personal, I don't know what the word is, whatever, and, but also for making him like me.

John Dehlin [00:46:41] Right. And so the. So even amongst the children and youth, a disproportionate percent of the burden of just sexual experimentation. Within Mormonism, not just modesty, but also the sexual exploration seems to fall on the girl, the woman. And that's also ingrained into me, you

Guest [00:47:04] know, just ingrained into me that.

John Dehlin [00:47:06] Yeah, that's a great point. Kelly says, she says something is listed as specific sin in the miracle forgiveness. I'm guessing she means masturbation. Was miracle forgiveness part of your repentance process? And if so, what was that like?

Further Voices on Sexuality and Church Teaching

Guest [00:47:22] You know, I think in high school I was supposed to read some of it. And you know how high school kids are.

John Dehlin [00:47:28] Okay, I don't have a.

Guest [00:47:31] And you know, I remember reading a little bit about his view of women in the workplace and I was like, whatever, this is not for me. I just, you know, I've always been a feminist in my heart from the time I was pretty young. And when I read that, I was like, this obviously isn't for me. So it wasn't a real big influence.

John Dehlin [00:47:50] You dodged that bullet.

Guest [00:47:51] Yeah. Thank goodness.

John Dehlin [00:47:53] Kelly writes that the bishops are not trained. That's absolutely true. We brag that we have an unpaid clergy. Many people argue that they would rather have a paid clergy where they were trained and professionals at what they do instead of just winging it at nights and on weekends without any training and actual competence. So I don't know that we should always brag as a church that our clergy is untrained and unpaid. I think they should be paid and they should be trained to be professionals.

Guest [00:48:26] I think that means there should be men and women who are trained. I really.

John Dehlin [00:48:29] Women. Yeah, women. Right.

Guest [00:48:32] You know, I still don't think that sexual probing and talking about masturbation is good for either gender to pursue with kids, but. Or with adults. But if there are matters of sexuality or personal things that you do want to talk with someone about, I think that having a trained person of either gender would be really nice.

John Dehlin [00:48:53] So if the church is going to talk about sexuality with young girls, have a woman do it, not a man. Yeah, love that. Love that. Larry writes. So much damage done from well meaning but completely incompetent bishops. Vanessa writes, love hearing from this amazing woman. I agree. You are amazing, Anne. Vanessa says she knows you. She says this is powerful and heartbreaking. Huge problem in the Mormon Church is that we never get to own our sexuality and to feel enormous shame over normal sexuality. Love from Spokane. So that's Vanessa. Do you want to shout out to Melissa?

Guest [00:49:34] Hi, Vanessa. Thanks. I love you.

John Dehlin [00:49:38] Melissa writes, I was sexually abused as a child and I never told anyone because I felt like it was my fault. Add to this being given a copy of that talk by McKay at 12 and I thought I was not redeemable because I had not fought even unto death. I don't know what she's talking about, but apparently there's some article where it's

Guest [00:49:58] better to fight unto death than to be sexually abused. You know, I have a friend who has a story in her genealogy from the Mormon colonies of her great, great abuela or whatever, who Pancho Villa came and they were storming and blah, blah, blah. The story is that he was going to rape her as a child, but her mother said, I would. I will kill her here before I let you take her virtue. And I remember this woman, my friend, telling the story to the young women. And I was like, wait a minute. What does that teach us about sexual assault survivors? What does that say about me? You know, those sorts of stories are pretty damaging. It reminds me of, yeah, it's better to fight to the death than to allow yourself to be deflowered or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Yeah. Super damaging stuff. And I'm grateful for Elizabeth Smart, who's been coming out lately and talking about that stuff.

Guest [00:50:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:56] Because a lot of that affected her. So let's drop that idea that someone's worth is tied to any sexual experience they've had in any way. Right.

Guest [00:51:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:09] Amy writes, in general, this is all very abusive. I think we agree, Amy. That's why we're doing it. Jenna wants to know if you talked about the abuse and your abuse. I think you've not chosen to talk about details about that. And I don't even want to go there.

Guest [00:51:24] Well, I mean, I talked about that I was sexually repeatedly molested as a very young child by an LDS male babysitter. So that's all I want to say about that.

John Dehlin [00:51:33] That's fine. I don't want to dig there. David writes, one of the problems is that bishops are called and expected to fulfill their role without any or very little training. Often their training is from what they observed bishops doing when they were youth. That's so true as people ask how. Like I've heard about people where the bishop, like, asks a young woman to text him every day to let him know if she masturbated or not. That is a totally awful thing to do.

Guest [00:52:01] But they can masturbate thinking about it?

Paul Van Orden [00:52:04] No.

John Dehlin [00:52:05] But also, I think bishops learn from other bishops, and it's what was done to them. And so there's this weird verbal, unwritten order of things that gets passed down from bishop to bishop or from stake president to bishop. And they need to codify this in some type of manual so that there are standards and rules and guidelines that are explicit. Because letting bishops sort of shoot from the hip is causing all sorts of damage. Right.

Guest [00:52:33] I don't understand. I'm fairly new to Utah, and there's such strict regulations on what you can teach about sexuality in the schools. The people as a culture, as a whole, the Mormon people don't want anyone teaching their kids about sexuality outside of the family. But yet we send our kids into these closed offices where the main topic is sexuality and you have no idea what's being said or what the experience of the person is. There's no curriculum. And it's such a juxtaposition to see this. Don't tell my kids about anything. Don't say anything. Oh, except go ahead and ask them how often they touch themselves and who they kiss and where they got it makes no sense to me.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] And there's no discussion about consent and what consent is and how to give it and how, you know, to respect it and when consent is even possible versus not, you know, the Unitarian Universalists have like a nationally, internationally acclaimed curriculum to talk about sexuality with their youth. And the church needs to sort of enter the 21st century and come up with a curriculum.

Guest [00:53:38] The Boy Scouts require some kind of sexual predator training for youth and kids every single year, which I applaud and I want my boy to go to. Where is that for the young women? Why don't our young women trainer people get that? Why don't our young women have an official lessons like unto what the Scouts receive every year about bodies and permission and consent? I mean, that's because the Boy Scouts of America has that standard. The church has to do it. But there's nothing equal in the Engelman's program for the leaders or for the girls.

John Dehlin [00:54:16] And the church needs to get serious about this. Joyce writes, patriarchy is damaging to everyone. We agree, Joyce. TC writes, I grew up in the Presbyterian tradition and my church would have handled this the same way. Blame or fix the victim.

Guest [00:54:32] Yeah, I think. I bet that's true. I'd be interested to know about that, but I bet that's true.

John Dehlin [00:54:40] Let's see. Ryan says sexual education has no place in the bishop's office. I think that's amen. I love that. TC writes, unpaid clergy can avoid accountability for the otherwise professional opinions they're asked to provide. That's a really interesting thing that maybe Courtney McConkie wants the clergy unpaid and untrained because then the church is less liable, I guess, in lawsuits. That's really distorted. Tom writes, when I suggested the women's leaders in the ward handle the yearly interview with the young women, you'd think I had suggested killing puppies during the sacrament. Yeah, yeah. Why is it just disgusting or outrageous to a Mormon male leader to have women having these conversations with girls?

Guest [00:55:39] Because then the women might figure out their power.

John Dehlin [00:55:43] Yeah. This is where patriarchy is just corrosive on every level.

Guest [00:55:47] Power and control in having someone be Sexually accountable. And I think that, you know, the vows you make in the temple are pretty explicitly female follows male. Female vows to male. I don't think that giving women that kind of power falls in line with patriarchy or. And I think patriarchy in general is scared of that kind of power and agency that comes from females.

John Dehlin [00:56:21] John writes, it's about control and dominance. And I don't think intentionally, but maybe subconsciously, that's exactly what it's about. Jennifer says she's asked these questions to a bishop even as recently as a week ago, and I think that's great. Those who are in the church, please wield your influence to try and make the church experience safer for our youth. Whatever way you can speak up, whatever way you can influence it, I think that's really powerful. All right, well, we've had great participation. We have over 100 people joining us. Ann, I expected you to be brilliant, but you were even more brilliant than I expected. Any final thoughts or comments or recommendations you have for the church or its leaders as you. As you close your very important story?

Recommendations and Closing Part One

Guest [00:57:10] Oh, I have a lot of recommendations for the church, but none of them matter, really. But I am pretty adamant that I speak to every single counselor or bishop who requests an interview with my kids, that they do not talk about masturbation. And every time there's an interview, approach them, they have to contact me first. And I say, you may not discuss masturbation. You may not approach specific sexuality. I consider that abusive. I am the custodial parent, and I consider that to be sexual abuse. And FYI, that provides kind of a black mark on your record. You get blacklisted, and no one asked you to speak at church if you do that. But I feel like that's a step I can take to help my kids since we're still here. We're still Mormon, more or less.

John Dehlin [00:58:00] And so parents. So parents, protect your kids. Is rule of the law.

Guest [00:58:04] Advocate for them regardless of the social cost. And I asked the topic of every fireside. My kids don't do those much anyway. But any bishop's fireside or any. Inquire about the topics, find out what they're teaching. If you're going to participate in lds, things like that, be well informed about what's happening.

John Dehlin [00:58:29] Love it.

Guest [00:58:29] Really nice and not like assertive like I am, you could probably become a leader and influence even more. But assertive people, women like me, don't usually get to be in influential positions. That's okay.

John Dehlin [00:58:45] Yeah. It's to the church's loss. All right. Anything else you want to share?

Guest [00:58:51] I'm just so honored, and I think you're doing really good work, and I appreciate everything you do.

John Dehlin [00:58:58] Thank you. Thank you. Let's have you back.

Guest [00:59:01] My story is common, and speaking out is a really powerful tool, no matter how scary it is.

John Dehlin [00:59:11] Well, you're brilliant and so gracious, so thank you.

Guest [00:59:15] Thanks, John.

Part Two Opens with Anna's Story

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 822

Paul Van Orden [00:00:00] Sa.

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is November 8, 2017, and we are continuing our coverage on Mormon stories of inappropriate interviews with Mormon leadership about matters of sexuality.

John Dehlin [00:00:50] This is now the third interview in our series. We've interviewed Paul and we interviewed. I think she went by the name Ann in the interview. Sometimes we have to do these interviews anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the issues involved.

John Dehlin [00:01:09] But we're now continuing that series and we're so excited to be doing this again. To remind people, this is following up Bishop Sam Young's petition that he started. Sam Young as a childhood friend of mine. He and my dad were business partners a long time ago. But Sam Young, former Mormon Bishop, has now created a petition for people to sign to try and get the Mormon Church to stop interviewing 12 year olds and teenagers, girls and boys alone in a closed room, about matters of sexuality, shaming people over masturbation and pornography and sexual experimentation for a number of reasons. And we're laying out those reasons in this series of interviews.

John Dehlin [00:02:01] And we just want to encourage everyone to sign the petition if you can share it and do all you can to be a spokesperson in your wards and stakes and to protect your children so that we do all that we can to prevent these sorts of abuses from going on.

John Dehlin [00:02:19] But now we are doing part three in our interview and we're really excited to have with us Anna. Anna is going to be talking about her relationship and she's also going to be speaking on behalf of Tyler, which is the name she's using for her husband, to talk about their experiences dealing with Mormon leadership over private interviews dealing with sexuality.

John Dehlin [00:02:54] So I want to thank everyone for joining us live on Facebook Live. We really do want to encourage everyone to please make comments and questions because it makes these interviews more interesting to have them be a little bit interactive.

John Dehlin [00:03:10] So we want to welcome everyone who's joined us so far. We've got a good audience already building. And without any further ado, I want to welcome Anna to Mormon Source Podcast. And Anna, you've decided not to use video for this interview, is that right?

Guest [00:03:26] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:03:27] Tell us why.

Guest [00:03:30] I have some family members that are still very involved in the church and close friends and just kind of want to keep the video portion out of it.

John Dehlin [00:03:45] That's fine. No, that's great. So we totally understand, and these are. These are totally sensitive issues. So we're just grateful that you're willing to be with us. And we'll just ask our listeners to please forgive us that you don't have full video, but you get full audio. And just understand that sometimes we're going to have to not show video just for the sake of sensitivity.

Guest [00:04:09] Yes. Thank you for allowing me to do that. I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [00:04:12] Of course. All right, so why don't you begin by just telling us just a bit about your Mormon story, just so that we get a sense. You don't have to tell us about anything past the interviews. Just give us a sense for your history and upbringing in the church, if you'd like to.

Devout Upbringing and Confessing to a Bishop

Guest [00:04:28] Okay. I grew up in a very religious LDS family. We went to church every Sunday. We were always in the front row. My dad was on bishoprics. We had pictures of Joseph Smith and Jesus in the house, and we read scriptures every night. Anyway, it was super religious. I. My story goes back to when I was 23, newly engaged, and trying to get worthy to go to the temple to be married. And Tyler and I had had some transgressions that we needed to see a bishop for.

John Dehlin [00:05:16] Now. We're calling those transgressions now?

Guest [00:05:19] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:05:20] Maybe what I would want to call them is normal and sometimes even healthy sexual exploration and experimentation. Do you want to. Do you want to speak to that point at all? Like, whether or not you think it was healthy, whether or not you think that it's even damaging for them to be referred to as transgressions?

Guest [00:05:38] I think it was totally healthy and totally normal.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] Okay, so. So when you say transgressions, it's how the church referred to as the church lingo? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right, perfect.

Guest [00:05:52] So when we were dating, I was living in an apartment, and so was he. We were. We would go to church here and there, but mostly inactive kind of hopping wards and things like that. And I knew once we got engaged that I would be moving home until we got married. And so I went to this bishop in a home ward because I knew eventually I would be there.

Guest [00:06:21] This bishop, I. My. We had been in a ward when I was much. When I was younger, like a child, we had been in a ward with him. So he knew me at a young age. He knew my parents very well, and he knew my sister really well because it was actually my sister's ward. So.

Guest [00:06:42] So he knew my family super well. So one thing I want to say is I never had never done anything serious enough to go confess to a bishop before. It was my first time. I had no idea what to even really expect. So I just kind of wanted to lay that out before I get into the whole interview that I had with him.

John Dehlin [00:07:10] What makes you feel like you want to say that? Just curious. Just get a curiosity.

Guest [00:07:14] Because I didn't know, because obviously something inappropriate happened, and my interaction with him was really awful, and I didn't know at the time that some of the things he said were really not appropriate and totally wrong and really abusive, actually.

John Dehlin [00:07:35] Mm. Okay. So you were just new to the whole game.

Guest [00:07:39] I was. Huh. And I didn't. I. Like I said I was going in. Didn't know how any of this was gonna go. Didn't really have any friends or any family that I had talked to before that had been through a confession or repentance process. So I didn't really know what to expect other than, you know, you're not gonna be able to take the sacrament. That's about all I knew.

John Dehlin [00:07:59] Yeah. Yeah.

Guest [00:08:00] So, okay, so I met with him, and Tyler went with me.

John Dehlin [00:08:06] Now, this was you guys getting ready to get married in the temple, and.

Guest [00:08:09] Yes. So, yeah, it was to go in and confess and repent and, you know, get married in the temple, and Tyler went with me. He. I don't. We didn't know at the time if we could go in together, and I don't know if that's something that they allow, but he wouldn't let him come in.

Guest [00:08:32] So I went in alone, and I just pretty much said, we have broken the law of chastity, and we've, you know, been touching underneath clothes. And so then I don't really know how we got to this point, but then he started asking me a bunch of questions, details. So, you know, know, he. He asked if, you know, we had masturbated each other.

Guest [00:08:58] He asked if I touched myself when Tyler was there or if he wasn't there. He asked if we had oral sex. He asked if I just received or if I reciprocated. So, you know, I'm answering all these questions, and so this is like, how

John Dehlin [00:09:19] are you feeling about these questions as he's asking you?

Guest [00:09:22] I feel like I want to crawl in a hole and die.

John Dehlin [00:09:25] Why?

Guest [00:09:26] I think my face was beet red. I just. I don't think I knew really what to expect. I wasn't sure if I could just get away with, you know, saying, well, we've broken this law of chastity, and we've.

Paul Van Orden [00:09:41] I don't.

Guest [00:09:41] I guess I tried to put it as mildly as I could, you know, to him, like, we've been touching without clothes on. And, you know, for him to really get into the details of it, I was I think I was. I was shocked, Sean. So I'm answering these questions, and he proceeds to say, did you climax? And I answered. And, you know, he said, did you climax every time you had sexual interaction? And I just. I just wanted to die. When he asked me that, I. It felt so wrong at the time. And I was thinking in my head, well, if I did, is it more of a sin if I did? So that was. That was super uncomfortable. Did you.

John Dehlin [00:10:38] Did you get the feel? And you would only be speculating, but did you get the feeling that he was just doing his job, that these were questions he had been asked to ask, or that maybe in some way he was actually getting gratification out of your answers?

Guest [00:10:56] I think he was getting gratification, and I think he was getting gratification off the fact that I was so uncomfortable. He could tell that I was uncomfortable with the way I was speaking and the things I was doing physically. I was shrinking in my chair. I was red in the face. I really do think that he was getting off on that, so to speak.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] Okay. That must have felt really bizarre to have a trusted priesthood leader making you feel that way.

Guest [00:11:29] Yeah. Yeah, it was devastating, actually, because what

John Dehlin [00:11:34] difference does it make if you climaxed or not? If you gave or received, Is any of that necessary in the repentance process? Would any outcome change? Right, right. What possibly could the Lord need him to know that detailed information for?

Guest [00:11:54] Right, right. Yeah, exactly. And he. He proceeded to ask me how Tyler and I had learned how to do all these things together. He. He asked me if we had watched porn, pornography. And, you know, he waited for me to answer, like, how did you. How did you guys even learn about these things? And I. I was baffled. I didn't even. Like, you don't. I mean, you don't leave junior high without knowing what certain things are, you know, And. And I think that's even what I said to him. I. You know, and honestly, it's. It's a natural thing now. I know that now. It's not like you're looking things up online to do together.

Differing Bishop Responses and Marital Impact

John Dehlin [00:12:40] Like, that would be bad. Like, to educate yourself would be a terrible thing. Right?

Guest [00:12:45] Yeah. Yep. And he did ask me if it was all Tyler's idea. It was all him. And I said no. And I took, you know, my responsibility for it. So that kind of was the confession aspect of it. And then he kind of went into the whole chastising part of the discussion we had. He proceeded to tell me that he'd known my family for years, he knew My parents knew that we were righteous, faithful family. And he, for word, for word, said, how did you fall this far? How did you get this low?

John Dehlin [00:13:34] How did that make you feel?

Guest [00:13:36] I felt awful. I felt awful to begin with before even going in there, and then just to be hit in the face with this. It was unbearable, really. He. He went on to ask about Tyler, his background, his family, his religious background.

Guest [00:14:01] Tyler did not go on a mission. And when I told him that, he. He said, he is going to be a bad father. He's going to be a bad husband, you know, for that reason. And I. I said, well, Tyler's father is a convert to the church. You know, he didn't go on a mission. He's served in many callings, including branch president. And he is a wonderful father.

Guest [00:14:30] And he said, well, he needs to consider himself lucky then, because I think he was just trying to say, like, men that don't go on missions, it's almost impossible for them to be good husbands and good fathers. So not only is he getting into this private stuff, he's also attacking my fiance at this point and his. And his family, really.

Guest [00:15:04] So then he moves on to, well, how do you know he's the right one for you? How do you know he's the right one to be married to is a really important decision. And said, well, you know, he's my best friend. We've known each other for years.

Guest [00:15:21] And then I think I was. I think I was feeling pressure. I think I said, I prayed about it, even though I probably didn't. And he said, well, it's impossible for you to know that it's the right decision for you because you. The spirit has left you entirely. You don't have the spirit with you at all. So, You know, and then he.

John Dehlin [00:15:50] I just hate this idea that if you don't act a certain way, that if there's a God, he's gonna withdraw the support that you need when you need it most, you know?

Guest [00:16:00] Right, right. And that's. That's the whole thing. Like, I had been taught my entire life about repentance and the atonement and never done anything. And then I'm going in there and thinking with what he's saying, none of this applies to me. How I've been doing this, everything right, my entire life, and how does this not apply to me? That's how I was feeling. So he kind of moved on to what I'm going to call his punishment phase.

John Dehlin [00:16:35] Okay.

Guest [00:16:35] Because he didn't talk of. There was no talk of forgiveness. There was no talk of Christ's love for me, making mistakes, Nothing. There was nothing like that. He refused to give me a timeline on when we could possibly, you know, move forward and go to the temple. He. One of the things he made me do is he made me move out of my apartment immediately. So the next day I moved out of my apartment and moved home.

John Dehlin [00:17:11] And that's like real exceeding your boundaries. Yeah, I mean, that's really messing with your life at that point.

Guest [00:17:21] And you have to understand that I came from a family where you don't criticize a bishop. You don't, you don't talk badly about bishops. It's wrong.

John Dehlin [00:17:36] Yeah, no, no evil. Speaking of, the Lord's anointed.

Guest [00:17:39] Right, Exactly. Yeah. So he also wanted us to take a break. He only wanted. He set rules and said we could only see each other once a week and we could only call each other every other day. And at this point, I, you know, we've been, we. At this point, we'd actually been dating for a year.

John Dehlin [00:17:57] And you're how old? You're 23.

Guest [00:18:00] Yeah, yeah. And you know, you're engaged and you're seeing each other all the time. And so it was just. At this point I'm thinking, this is crazy. But he's the bishop, so I'm gonna do what he asks.

John Dehlin [00:18:15] He speaks for God, right?

Guest [00:18:17] Yeah, yeah. So of course we have follow up interviews, you know, because he has to see how we're doing. And I, you know, after the initial interview, I went into the other ones feeling really positive because we were doing well. And every time I would go in, he would break me down somehow and I would leave sobbing, crying. The first thing he would ask me in follow up interviews is, have you messed up yet? What have you done wrong? Even though we hadn't done anything wrong, he refused to move forward and let us set a wedding date even though we had been, quote, transgression free. Eventually, actually, Tyler's bishop said we could set a date. And I told my bishop that and he, I mean, he just like flipped out. He said, well, I'm gonna get his bishop on the phone and just make sure that Tyler's being completely honest with everything that happened.

John Dehlin [00:19:29] And I mean, that's just a perfect illustration of the lack of inspiration that you could have. Two different bishops totally giving completely different experiences and then coming to totally different conclusions. If, where's. If they're supposed to be inspired by God, why aren't they in sync? Why do they have to get on the phone call and try and Persuade each other.

Guest [00:19:52] Right, right. And that. You bring up a good point, because that was a little hard for me because I was having such a different experience than Tyler was. His was positive. His was. And I didn't. I wasn't angry about it. I wasn't angry at Tyler for it. I just. I could not wrap my head around it.

Paul Van Orden [00:20:11] I couldn't. So.

John Dehlin [00:20:14] And I just have to say that without exception so far, the female always gets it worse than the male in front of these ecclesiastical leaders.

Guest [00:20:26] Really?

John Dehlin [00:20:27] Oh, like I've even heard it where the woman gets excommunicated and the male barely gets disfellowshipped. And they were both in the adulterous relationship. Like, that's an extreme. But. But without fail, somehow the patriarchy. And it makes sense. The patriarchy shames and mistreats the woman far greater than the man. Yeah.

Guest [00:20:50] Wow.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] Sorry. Keep going.

Guest [00:20:52] No, you're fine. So, you know, we were finally able to set a date and, you know, he just made a comment like, you have one screw up and this. This entire deal is off the table. You're done. You know, and just really negative from the beginning to the end, you know, nothing positive. And honestly, I really do feel like he was trying to break us up for some reason, which backfired on him a little bit because I think it only brought us closer, Taylor and I.

John Dehlin [00:21:29] Sure.

Guest [00:21:29] So anyway, the follow up interviews continued and they were always so negative. And I hadn't been doing anything wrong and I just. I gave up. I gave up, you know, because, you know, it is hard. It is hard to not do those things when you're engaged. And I gave up. I just didn't care anymore. And pretty much I lied to the bishop and told him I hadn't done anything wrong on follow up interviews so that I could get as far away from him as possible. There was one point where I met with a stake president where I wanted to tell him kind of everything that had happened, but I. I was too afraid.

John Dehlin [00:22:22] Are you saying that you. You just felt like he wasn't gonna believe you no matter what, no matter how good you were. So you stopped trying to be, quote, good?

Guest [00:22:31] Pretty much.

John Dehlin [00:22:32] And then just went back to the behavior you were engaging in and just lied about it? Is that what you said?

Guest [00:22:38] I was just. I was. I felt like I was getting in trouble. Almost like. Like he was my dad or something. Like I was getting in trouble for not even doing anything wrong, for being good. And so when we did mess up again, I was like, there's no way I'M going to tell you, there's no way. I'm not going to go through that again.

John Dehlin [00:22:57] So they, again, they set up the system where lying is the outcome.

Guest [00:23:00] Yeah, yeah, well, and I do take responsibility for that, but I just. We just, we just wanted to do what we had to do to get away from. From him and move. So we did end up getting married in the temple. We lied to get there. And pretty much from that point on, it started a faith crisis for me. I struggled for four months after we got married about how I was treated and why. I know bishops are people, I know they mess up, but the way everything had went down, I felt like the atonement had failed me, like it didn't apply to me. So that just led to me asking these questions that I've never asked myself before. And ultimately I've left the church. I don't believe in the church any longer.

John Dehlin [00:24:05] So was this experience a part of your loss of faith in the church?

Guest [00:24:11] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] Tell me how that worked for you.

Guest [00:24:15] He's so the way this bishop treated me is not the reason I left the. What happened? As I grew up, I, like I said, I grew up in a super religious family, but I never really took the time to think, do I really believe this? Do I really. I just always said it. I know I did all the right things. I read my Book of Mormon, I prayed, but I never really sat down and thought, do I really, you know, believe all this? So I think this, this experience just made me really take a step back and think. I really, you know, believe in this. And then I started hearing things, you know, from various places about Joseph Smith and his history of things. And that really, that really threw me for a loop. That one was hard.

Paul Van Orden [00:25:04] So.

John Dehlin [00:25:05] So when you're being raked over the coals about sexuality and then you find out what Joseph Smith did.

Guest [00:25:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:25:12] Yeah.

Guest [00:25:14] So. And like I said, I mean, we had a huge picture of Joseph Smith in my house growing up, and, you know, he's put on a pedestal in the church.

Paul Van Orden [00:25:24] So

Guest [00:25:28] I, after we were married, for the first little while, I tried, I tried internally to, to go. Want to go back to church. Because, I mean, we went to the temple. We never went. We never went back. We never went back to church. But I, inside, I was feeling really guilty and I thought, well, you know, we should go back and talk to our bishop. But I just could not get myself to go back in and talk to another bishop. I had trust issues. I did.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] Yeah. Well, it makes sense.

Guest [00:26:00] So I just. The Whole process made me feel violated, really. And humiliated and ashamed. So it's. Right now I still look back on it and I get a little bit angry at myself for. I was young, you know, I. I did. I should have. I shouldn't have put up with that.

Paul Van Orden [00:26:28] Whatever.

Guest [00:26:29] Whatever he was asking me to do, you know, the person I am now, I would have gotten up and walked out. So I do.

John Dehlin [00:26:38] Okay. That explains your disclaimer at the beginning. It sounds like you have shame that you allowed yourself to be treated this way.

Guest [00:26:45] Yeah, I do. I really do. So I felt like I was a coward for not just sticking up for myself and for Tyler and also for just, you know, saying, screw it. I don't care what anybody. I don't care what my family or friends think about me not getting married in the temple. I'm just gonna go do my own thing. I just. I just wish I hadn't been. I wish I hadn't cared so much what people thought.

John Dehlin [00:27:18] Hmm. I hate the idea that you're blaming yourself for any of this, honestly.

Guest [00:27:26] Well, I just think that there's things that you're taught when you're young in the way you're raised in some families, you know, like. Like I said, you don't criticize a bishop or, know, have a different view, really.

Paul Van Orden [00:27:45] So,

Guest [00:27:49] anyway, I'm not. It caused the faith crisis, and then I just ended up. You know, I haven't. I haven't been active in the church at all since we. Since all of that. So.

John Dehlin [00:28:05] How's Tyler been as a husband?

Guest [00:28:07] He's the same. We're in the same. We're in the same boat.

John Dehlin [00:28:12] But, I mean, the bishop predicting that he would not be a good husband

Guest [00:28:15] or father, well, he was completely wrong, of course. He's a fantastic father and a wonderful husband. I knew he would be. And, you know, going on a mission does not determine in any way who you are or shape you as a person of who you're going to be in the future.

John Dehlin [00:28:36] Right.

Guest [00:28:36] I mean, we've heard story, opposite stories of people going on missions and doing horrible things, so.

John Dehlin [00:28:46] Yeah. How do you have a sense for how those experiences have affected you as an adult? Or do you even. I don't. You know, I don't want to force anything there, but sometimes these types of experiences can have personal ramifications to your own mental health, to your own sense of empowerment or sexuality, and then they can also affect the. The marriage, frankly.

Guest [00:29:14] Yeah. And I think you're right. I do think that that was. That was hard because after we Got married. I was, I was, you know, like we're gonna, we're gonna read scriptures every day, we're gonna go back to church and, and Tyler was not really on that same page. So that did cause some, some rift there. I just remember being done with that whole experience and thinking I will never ever let anybody treat me or make me feel like that again, ever. So, I mean, it just made me feel sad.

John Dehlin [00:29:57] Yeah. Anything else about your story you want to tell before we kind of wrap up with some summaries or conclusions?

Guest [00:30:07] No, just other than I don't know enough about church processes now to know what they are doing in interviews like this. I don't know if it's still just the bishop, but I would hope they would change that. They need to have somebody else in the room and I would, I would love to see them bring a female in, you know, just to have another view in the room.

Guest [00:30:36] But I do realize that it is going to be a mindset because there are people out there that are going to think, well, he's the bishop and I'm not going to say anything because what he says goes and I'm not going to, I'm not going to say anything. So I do hope that there is going to be change with that. I would. But I do know that in all cases it's not going to be helpful. But I would hope that there would be some, that having another person in

Paul Van Orden [00:31:03] the room would, would help people.

John Dehlin [00:31:06] Absolutely. If not just a woman like we talked about this last episode. Ideally these sorts of things just wouldn't be in the domain of spirituality and religion, number one, because often these issues are created by religion and then second, they're made worse by the way religion handles these issues. But also bishops and mission presidents aren't trained to deal with this kind of stuff. They're not mental health professionals and they often make it. They not only create the problem and exacerbate it, they make it worse.

John Dehlin [00:31:42] And so for all those reasons, let's just have them not talk about this stuff and talk about, you know, personal spirituality and health and mental health and well being and those sorts of things. But if they do still have them, then by all means have women counseling women.

John Dehlin [00:32:02] And not 40, 50 year old bishops alone with 20 year old women or 12 year old girls or 12 year old boys or 30 year old men.

Guest [00:32:15] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:32:15] That's just, it's just inappropriate and egregious and damaging.

Guest [00:32:20] And I just think there's just a balance, an unbalance. They, they give bishops a lot of Power. They give them a lot of ability to, to decide where they want to go with things. And I don't think that's that. I just think it's unbalanced.

John Dehlin [00:32:37] Yeah, it is.

Listener Comments and Abstinence-Only Teaching

Paul Van Orden [00:32:39] So.

John Dehlin [00:32:41] So as you're thinking of any final things you want to say, I'll just read some comments from our listeners. Sean notes that it's ironic the way that your husband was treated for not serving a mission, because President Monson, President Uchtdorf and President Eyring all never served missions. So that's Sean's point of view. Barry says some bishops are out of control. The one in his ward is out of control. Plus his uncle never served a mission and he is a bishop at this time. So that's. Thanks. Thanks to Barry. Jordan says, this interview is making me sick. How horrible. Sorry, Jordan. It is not fun to listen to. Aubrey says, God is my judge. She's basically saying, no, no man should be able to. To judge anyone's worth.

Paul Van Orden [00:33:35] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:33:37] Chad writes, bishops judge based on their upbringing experiences in education. Their answers are as varied as their personalities. They may pray and hope to provide sound advice, but generally they feel they know what counsel to provide based upon their opinions and the church handbook. And yeah, in a lack of training, Chad, I would add, and, and just sort of like this unwritten order of things based on how they were treated by bishops and stake presidents, how they were trained verbally by bishops and stake presidents. And it's just this hodgepodge that needs to be regulated because it's when bishops go rogue or when they just go off their own script, the results can be disastrous. Right.

Guest [00:34:23] Yeah. It was almost like. It was almost like, I'm going to throw this at her and see if she'll do it kind of thing. It really was a control, a power trip. That's what I think.

John Dehlin [00:34:35] Yeah. And having more people in the room, at a minimum, can help reduce that power dynamic.

Guest [00:34:40] Exactly. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] Joyce notes how ironic it is for the church leaders to be calling you a liar when the church lied to its members for centuries. I guess at least over a century. That's Joyce's point. Hannah writes, anna could be me. Her story is very similar to mine. So we have. Oh, and Hillary writes, I had a similar experience. She also writes, God bless you, Anna.

Guest [00:35:08] So, and that's, that's why I did this, because I, I know there's other people out there and I, I just want people to know they're not alone.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] Yeah, that's totally, that's totally so important. That's one of the main benefits of these podcasts, people keep coming back because it helps them know they're not alone and they're not crazy. Right?

Guest [00:35:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:32] Ashley writes, so many turds I know that served missions and so many wonderful people that I didn't. That I know who didn't serve missions. So shout out to Ashley. She's a former Mormon Stories interviewee. Angela writes, I would never let my children meet with anyone in authority like that without someone else in the room. And that's something that came out in our last interview that. Protect your children. Never let your children, never let yourself be alone with any Mormon leader behind closed doors. Just don't. It's not safe. You know, I've even received reports in this series of bishops sexually molesting and abusing women. So, you know, that's the worst case scenario. But it, you know, it's just not safe.

Guest [00:36:26] Do you. So do they. Have they changed things now with minors?

John Dehlin [00:36:31] No. Bishops are still asking 12 year old girls if they masturbate in 2006 by themselves in a room by themselves. Boys too. Yep.

Guest [00:36:42] Thought that had changed.

John Dehlin [00:36:43] No. And also missionaries. The church has just come out. There's a leaked memo on Mormon leaks where the church is trying to raise the bar again because they're having so many missionaries come home. And so they're asking bishops to get more and more explicit when they talk to prospective missionaries, boys and girls, about what they've done sexually and not. So the memo, and I'll need to read this in an upcoming episode, but the memo actually says get as much. Something to the effect of get as much detail as you possibly can. So the church is even encouraging more detail and more scrutiny.

Guest [00:37:20] You know, I don't understand that.

John Dehlin [00:37:22] Yeah, I don't either. I think they think that if they can, they're trying to weed people out. So by getting as much detail as they can, I think they're in a way nudging bishops to turn more missionaries away. And because they're having missionaries return home in droves, you know, and it's a huge problem in terms of management and expense for the church.

Paul Van Orden [00:37:43] Gotcha.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] Yeah. Let's see. Any other final comments? Let's see. Oh, Ashley says you learn in young women's the licked cupcake or the chewed gum metaphors. Did you, did you have any of those sorts of metaphors affecting you in terms of your beliefs about yourself?

Guest [00:38:10] I think so, because I had those same lessons growing up. You know, my. I remember in high school, I think prom was coming up and my leader had told a story about or just said that, you know, having bare shoulders or a bare back would, you know, really make whoever is your date really uncomfortable.

Paul Van Orden [00:38:33] And

Guest [00:38:35] so I have putting on the

John Dehlin [00:38:38] woman to keep a boy's thoughts pure in his hands, where they should be.

Guest [00:38:43] And I have huge issues with that one because that not just let's put all the responsibility on the woman, you know. So, yeah, I would definitely say that that has had some effect on me, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:38:58] Yeah. Yeah. Joey writes, leaders like this are essentially absolute monarchs within their sphere of influence. That's true. Too much power. No checks. No checks on the power.

Guest [00:39:11] Right, Exactly. That's exactly it.

John Dehlin [00:39:13] And if you go to a stake president, you know, he's just as likely to turn you back to the bishop. Right.

Guest [00:39:19] And that's what I was afraid of. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:21] And you were scared.

Paul Van Orden [00:39:22] I was.

John Dehlin [00:39:23] You didn't. There's no recourse. There's no process for you to get due. Due treatment.

Guest [00:39:28] Right, right. I. Well, I didn't. I didn't want to lie. I wanted to tell the truth. I just. I didn't know how to get the help that I was looking for.

John Dehlin [00:39:41] Right. Abraham writes, I had three bishops growing up, and all three had wildly different punishments for the same sin. Thanks, Abraham. And that just shows how arbitrary this ecclesiastical bishop roulette is. You can get a bishop that punishes you for a year, and you can get a bishop that lets you off with not even a slap on the wrist. And it just totally is random, you know?

Guest [00:40:07] Right. It's totally subjective.

Paul Van Orden [00:40:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:09] And then that, that. And that's just so awful. Plus, plus, again, the encouraging of the lying and all that.

Paul Van Orden [00:40:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:17] Chad says the interviewee should always have someone they choose be in the room during a private interview. I like that idea, Chad.

Guest [00:40:23] Oh, that's what I was hoping for when I took Tyler with me. I was hoping we could go in and kind of do this together and work through it together. But yeah, he. It was a separation from the get go.

John Dehlin [00:40:36] Scott writes, I was late to the podcast, but I too was and felt very much alone when I was interviewed by my bishop at age 70 about my being gay. The whole experience leading up to my excommunication was devastating. Scott, I hope you'll come on Mormon Stories and tell your story if you feel comfortable, because so far I don't have any gay person talking about their experiences with their bishop or stake president or mission president. So, Scott, I welcome you to tell your story and I'm really sorry for the pain you suffered, Scott.

John Dehlin [00:41:07] All right, Angela, Writes, even Elizabeth Smart came out earlier this year about the problem with abstinence only teachings, as well as the way she felt in young women's after she was rescued when they talked like that to the young women. Yeah, all these messaging around, licked cupcake, chewed gum, you know, board with the hammer and the nail and the hole in the board. It just means anybody who's ever had any sexual experimentation ends up feeling like garbage, you know?

Paul Van Orden [00:41:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] Yeah. And then Emily writes, no one wants the rotten apple on the ground. They want the apple up at the top of the tree. She says, complete bs. I always felt like the rotten apple no matter how much I starved myself. Super sad, Emily. Sorry for the pain. And then I'll just add one more. Aaron writes, I had bishops who made me feel like the dirtiest creature alive for masturbating as a teenager and a mission president who basically acted like, no big deal, just keep it under control. So Aaron is totally, again, illustrating the wide variability on this topic. All right, well, this has been super useful. Anna, your story is really powerful and I can't thank you enough for sharing. Do you want to share any final comments or thoughts with our audience before we interview our next person?

Guest [00:42:26] No, just thank you for having me and thank you everyone for listening. And I, you know, this is a cathartic experience for me. You know, I think to talk about it, even though I kind of didn't want to, I felt like it was, you know, the right thing for me to do so.

John Dehlin [00:42:44] Well, bless you, bless you, bless you. Thank you so much.

Guest [00:42:48] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [00:42:49] And I'll just want to thank all our listeners on Facebook Live for giving their comments and questions. The interactivity of this always makes it more interesting. It also provides validation because we know it's easy for people to come on and say, well, you just had one bad bishop or one rogue experience. But every single one of these interviews we've got people saying, me too, me too, me too, or buying was worse. And that helps us get a real sense for the scale and the scope of the problem.

John Dehlin [00:43:15] So thanks to everyone for tuning in. Thanks, Deborah, for joining us. If you have a story about a bishop or stake president or branch president or mission president or whatever, please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com we'd love to share as many of these stories as we can. Hopefully we can get the church to change. But we just want to thank everyone for joining us. Thanks. For those who support Mormon stories, if you love programming like this, Please go to MormonStories.org Become a monthly donor, your donations are tax deductible and they keep the podcast alive and they allow us to do what we do.

John Dehlin [00:43:48] And everybody is saying thank you that you've been wonderful, and I'll just join them and once again saying thanks for sharing such an important topic with us.

Guest [00:43:57] Thank you so much. I really appreciate the support.

John Dehlin [00:43:59] All right, all the best.

Guest [00:44:01] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:44:02] Take care, Anna.

Paul Van Orden [00:44:03] Bye.

Guest [00:44:03] Bye.

John Dehlin [00:44:03] Talk soon. Okay, bye. I am. I'm really excited to be interviewing our fourth person today in this series. Her name is Laura. We've already had, actually, she's going by the name Laura. She's not using a real name and she's not showing her face. And that's intentional because these issues are really sensitive. Sometimes people's emotional or physical well being is at stake. Sometimes jobs or family relationships are at stake. And one of the things we know most about Mormonism is there's a huge potential cost at being open in public, including church discipline, including being ostracized from family, all sorts of reasons. And so Laura is the name this person is going by. And we want to welcome you, Laura, to Mormon Stories podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

Paul Van Orden [00:45:03] Thank you for having me.

A Guest's Account of Boundary Violations by a Bishop

John Dehlin [00:45:05] Do you want to just talk really quickly, explicitly, about why you wouldn't want to use your new or your video image just so that people can understand it very directly?

Paul Van Orden [00:45:15] Well, specifically for me, I just wouldn't want to be recognized and be labeled as an anti Mormon, someone who wants to bring anything down where this is not my intention. My intention is just to bring attention to this specific problem that is has affected me personally and a lot of people I've met who've told me their stories as well.

John Dehlin [00:45:41] So you don't see yourself as an anti Mormon?

Paul Van Orden [00:45:44] No, I do not consider myself as such. A lot of people I love and are dear to me are members, and I wouldn't want them to feel like I'm out to get them at all. So. Okay, I am anonymous.

John Dehlin [00:45:58] Well, we're really grateful that you would come on. All right, so if it's okay to begin with, why don't you just go ahead and share us just a little bit about your background, your story as it relates to your Mormonism up until these interviews started.

Paul Van Orden [00:46:13] Well, I grew up in a church and I was very, very devout, I would say. So I was preparing to be married in the temple at the time. And I'd known this bishop since I was a kid. Grew up in this ward specifically. So, yeah, I guess I was just very, very devout. Everything was very real and I Took everything very, very seriously.

John Dehlin [00:46:44] Okay, so very devout orthodox Mormon girl growing up.

Paul Van Orden [00:46:48] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:46:49] Okay. And then what happened?

Paul Van Orden [00:46:54] Well, in the interview specifically.

John Dehlin [00:47:00] So is this. Nothing had happened. You're just being interviewed. What type of interview is it?

Paul Van Orden [00:47:06] Well, I'd done a previous interview with him as far as just letting him know that I was engaged and looking to get a. I recommend to be. To be sealed and get my endowments out and all that. So we had already done that interview, and so he was aware that that was my intention. And being young and obviously very into my fiance at the time, you could say that we slipped up.

John Dehlin [00:47:34] Okay.

Paul Van Orden [00:47:35] And so we both knew that we would have to confess. So he went first. He had a pretty good experience with his bishop, and that kind of gave me a little bit of courage to finally go in and see mine. So when I went in there, he was like, oh, this is unusual because you just came to see me. We'd already talked about everything, so you must be in here to confess something. And I just confirmed essentially that's what I was there to do. And he assumed what it was.

John Dehlin [00:48:17] What do you mean? What do you mean he assumed.

Paul Van Orden [00:48:19] He assumed that we had been having sex.

John Dehlin [00:48:22] Okay.

Paul Van Orden [00:48:24] So he kind of launched into his interrogation, essentially, and was trying to get some information out of me, very graphically asking me if I'd orgasmed, if we done anal, if we'd done oral, if he had fingered me, or just very, very graphically trying to get some information out of me. And by his approach, it became very, very difficult for me to even speak at that point. I was mortified.

John Dehlin [00:48:55] And what's that like to have someone in an ecclesiastical position asking you such graphic questions?

Paul Van Orden [00:49:08] Are there words for it? I. I couldn't even. I still don't even know what that's. How to describe that. It's mortifying. That's a decent word, I guess. But, I mean, I've known this man since I was a child, you know, so. Which added an extra layer of embarrassment, I suppose, and then also being unsure of what these kind of interviews ever were like. I mean, I'd never had to confess anything like that before, so.

Paul Van Orden [00:49:44] And I'd never been asked before in previous interviews with other bishops, so it was. It was shocking. And so I didn't. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't have any words. I was just bawling at that point.

Paul Van Orden [00:50:00] And he kept pressing me, kept pressing me. And I may have given him some shrugs and nods along the way, and he kind of took my. My reaction as an admission of everything, I suppose, because he then eventually he let me go after giving me a little stern talking too, about how he believed my marriage would fail and he didn't approve of my fiance and let me go after telling me I needed to go home and read. I don't remember which scriptures they were, specifically the Strength of Youth pamphlet and the Miracle of Forgiveness, which I did, I went home and read everything and internalized everything.

John Dehlin [00:50:52] How was the miracle of forgiveness for you as something to read?

Paul Van Orden [00:50:55] I mean, I wasn't. I wasn't really thinking too much about it. I just kind of read through. Wasn't it didn't. That specifically. Didn't impact me. I was just trying to get through it at that point.

John Dehlin [00:51:12] Okay, so were there, was there more to the story or was that the basic story that you kind of wanted to tell?

Paul Van Orden [00:51:21] Well, I did want to mention that eventually I was able to move my records into my fiance's ward and work with his bishop at that point. And his bishop was great, very understanding and helped us get ready and everything.

Paul Van Orden [00:51:45] And once we were able to, we sent out our invitations for the wedding and we specifically sent a few to people in my old ward, first counselor, to be exact. And he had told the bishop and he showed him the invitation, like, look who's getting married, you know, and he, the bishop then told him that I was not actually worthy to be in the temple and that I must have lied to get my recommend, and that he went and told others in the ward that I had sent invitations out to that that was the case and that my wedding was going to be cancelled.

Paul Van Orden [00:52:24] It eventually got back to my mom who told me about what was going on, and we talked to my fiance's bishop about it and he had gotten a call as well from the bishop saying that I had been. I must have been lying to him to get the recommend. He had said that was not the case. He knew everything and he gave us our recommends in good faith, you know, it was all worked out and he, my fiance's bishop, felt it was very, very inappropriate and reached out to the stake president about it and kind of got him into some trouble, which I was grateful for because I felt like he had my back, you know, so.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] And that's so telling that you've got bishops fighting over what the right answer is, right?

Paul Van Orden [00:53:18] Oh, yeah, I think so. I think that some of them are so, so convinced that they have to, you know, follow the letter of the law, you know, just everything in the handbook or possibly whatever they've been told. In trainings with other people with bad ideas as well. It's just. It's all very messy.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] Yeah, yeah. Some of the comments that are coming in, I'll just share a few. Amy writes, thanks for sharing your story. I agree this is something that's probably very hard to share and so thank you for being willing to share something so painful. Richard writes, why do Mormons feel so afraid of their church? That's a really good question. Did you feel pretty.

Paul Van Orden [00:54:11] I think it's so much afraid of the church as it is afraid of the consequences that's been drilled into your head since very young. And I was this, this was difficult for me because I was. I felt like a fraud for really long after this because I had thought, I felt like maybe he was right, maybe I wasn't worthy, maybe God didn't even consider me married, you know, that I was basically just parading around and faking it. And it felt it was very, very difficult because of the. The eternal consequences, I guess, Right?

John Dehlin [00:54:57] Yeah. The shame in the self loathing and the guilt can be really severe, right?

Paul Van Orden [00:55:02] Oh, yeah, yeah. It took some time to unravel that for sure.

John Dehlin [00:55:09] Melissa calls it mental violation. Becky says, yep, yep, yep. It's awful. Becky says, laura, you're doing a great job describing that horrific experience. Melissa writes, I'm so sorry. For anyone who reads the Miracle of Forgiveness, I should add that there are members of the Kimball family who are fighting to get that book taken out of print.

Paul Van Orden [00:55:32] I've heard that.

John Dehlin [00:55:33] Yeah. We're talking about descendants of Spencer W. Kimball who feel like their grandfather, great grandfather, or great great grandfather's book was damaging. And they're asking the church to stop printing it. And for good reason. Heather writes, when you start crying in the interview, they think it's because you feel guilty about what you've done and not because you were mortified. Do you want to add anything to that?

Paul Van Orden [00:56:02] Oh, yeah. That's something that I've heard time and time again from others who've felt like they could share their stories with me is that they even thought it themselves that I must be feeling this way because I did something wrong. And so, and we're talking like really horrible stories, like girls going in feeling like they have to confess to being raped and internalizing the guilt and being told that they are guilty. That's. That's just evil.

John Dehlin [00:56:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And then of course, Melissa writes, so much for confidentiality. So you kind of think when you're going to the bishop that maybe he'll be respecting your Confidentiality. But it sounds like if your bishop doesn't like you or what you're doing, that the bishop can just run around and tell whoever he wants what's going on.

Paul Van Orden [00:56:56] As far as I know, there's nothing legally stopping him from doing so. It's just like a. You assume it really.

John Dehlin [00:57:05] Yeah.

Paul Van Orden [00:57:05] There's no reason to think that for sure.

John Dehlin [00:57:07] Yeah. Okay. Any. Anything else you want to tell about the story itself?

Audience Questions and Closing Part Two

Paul Van Orden [00:57:14] I think that's pretty much it.

John Dehlin [00:57:15] How did this affect your faith in the church?

Paul Van Orden [00:57:18] Oh, it definitely contributed to my eventually leaving amongst a lot of other things, but it kind of.

John Dehlin [00:57:26] How did it contribute? Did it contribute?

Paul Van Orden [00:57:27] Well, it set me on the path of just like, really seeing that they could be wrong and, you know, which led to other things like, oh, well, well, if one bishop can go rogue, then how many other times have even higher up, you know, prophets gone rogue and said things like the miracle of forgiveness? You know, some things that are just like, so obviously wrong. I just started seeing them, you know, it's hard to unsee once you go down that road.

John Dehlin [00:58:00] Totally. Has it affected your life since then? Have there been scars that you've. Has all this trauma, the sexual related trauma, kind of had its own scars in your life?

Paul Van Orden [00:58:15] Well, it impacted earlier on in my marriage feeling like when I was intimate with my husband, even when we were married, it felt wrong and dirty and it was really difficult. Took years to kind of not feel that way anymore. But leaving the church did really, really help me to leave a lot of that behind. And now I'm not. It doesn't bother me so much. It just bothers me for the sake of others, if that makes sense. I just, you know, it's just one story of mine amongst many others that hopefully by sharing can, you know, make a difference.

John Dehlin [00:58:58] Yeah, like all this guilt and shame just really can spoil the beautiful gift that healthy sexuality can be in someone's life. Even if we're talking about consensual marital intimacy, these years of trauma and guilt and shame and transgression can just so pollute and sour something that just.

Paul Van Orden [00:59:27] You just. You can't just turn it off. You know, that sort of thing that's instilled in you since very young and then going through, you know, something possibly traumatizing, you don't just shake that off and go, well, I'm married now. Everything's hunky dory. It just doesn't happen. You carry with those. You carry those with you for a long, long time.

John Dehlin [00:59:48] Yeah, you do. And what I love is the Fact that. Well, I mean, life can be so hard. Right. Why do we have to take some of the things that are just ambiguously positive, like healthy sexuality? Why do we have to spoil those very things that are just unambiguous goods? You know what I mean? And instead of sex just being this wonderful, healthy thing between a married couple, it's now something that you're traumatized over. And instead of just enjoying, you have to spend a good portion of your married life healing and recovering from the way you've been treated over the issue.

Paul Van Orden [01:00:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:00:39] And then all that's in a religious context where supposedly you're dealing with God's desires and wills for you.

Paul Van Orden [01:00:47] Yes. There are eternal consequences of it, you know.

John Dehlin [01:00:52] Yeah. Yeah. It's so hard. And then I just. I love. I just love how radical it should be. Just normal, but radical. This idea of it's not for women. It's not just about managing the boy's passions or limiting what the boy can do or behaving in a way that is appropriate, given that men or men, boys will be boys. What about just the idea that women should be empowered about their sexuality, that sex can be a healthy, powerful thing for a woman, and that men shouldn't be the brokers of the filters or the commentators on a woman's own sexuality?

Paul Van Orden [01:01:42] Yeah, but when you have a leadership that's made entirely up of men, you know, they're not telling each other that. You need women to bring that to the discussion.

John Dehlin [01:01:53] It's kind of like, as long as there's a patriarchy, we're gonna have to deal with this type of stuff, right?

Paul Van Orden [01:01:59] It seems so, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:01] Joyce asks, how were you affected by the temple ceremony? Laura?

Paul Van Orden [01:02:05] Oh, that's a very. That's a whole story in and of itself. It was. It was also very traumatizing. The first time going through getting my endowments out, I was very, very close to not going the next week to be sealed. If that kind of conveys how.

John Dehlin [01:02:24] What was disturbing without you having to say anything, you're uncomfortable saying what was hard about it? What was disturbing?

Paul Van Orden [01:02:33] Well, the implications. Because growing up, I'd always been told, you know, God loves you, you know, you're. You're equal. And men and women, you know, it's just like, maybe you have different roles or whatever, but I'd always kind of been a little bit of a feminist growing up.

Paul Van Orden [01:02:52] So whenever I heard a lot of the sexist things and felt excluded from a lot of things in the church growing up, I kind of became fixated on the temple as sort of like a one day, one day I'll get like pure doctrine, you know? No, none of that.

Paul Van Orden [01:03:14] The ideas of men mingled in scripture, you know, where just thought I'd. I'd finally be vindicated. And then going through it was basically felt like a confirmation that a lot of the ideas, these sexist things that I'd grown up experiencing and being angry about, it felt like they were. They were the ones being vindicated. They were the ones and all along they were right. And I just had to accept that I was secondary. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:49] Yeah. And that's got to be devastating to women who are fighting to see themselves as equals in a largely patriarchal male world, right?

Paul Van Orden [01:03:59] Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [01:04:00] Yeah. Great question, Joyce. Mike writes, worried about my granddaughters and grandsons being subjected to this. And honestly, I love the Mormon Church in lots of ways, but I think people should be worried about their children and grandchildren. I was a counselor at Utah State University Counseling center, and the number of college students and returned missionaries that spent over a decade tormented over sexual shame and guilt, porn and masturbation, being called addicts and going to 12 step programs just for masturbating once every three weeks was really good. Just disgusting and egregious. And not to mention the church teaching people to lie and. And all that stuff. I see this as every bit of it, as an epidemic is the LGBT crisis in the church. It's just stuff that we don't talk about. And so I'm really glad that we're talking about it now.

Paul Van Orden [01:04:59] I completely agree.

John Dehlin [01:05:04] Misty writes, I'm 40 years old and still working through the shame of having a child at 15 in the church. I'm so sorry, Misty. My. Our heart goes out to you. Thank you for sharing. Becky writes, it's awful what they do to girls. I was convinced I was going to hell, would never be forgiven. I spent years with the mental torment imposed on me.

John Dehlin [01:05:27] And then she says she finally found Jesus. So good for you, Becky. If Jesus has helped you, good for you. Ashley writes, my bishop at my singles ward pulled myself and my roommates into his office at different times and announced what each of us were doing. It was his way of holding us accountable. That's incredibly disgusting and a terrible breach of confidentiality. Ashley, I'm so sorry you had that experience.

John Dehlin [01:05:56] Melissa writes that it's important for women to know that they can say no. And that's true. There's such thing as marital rape and consent applies to marriage as much as it applies to the dating world. And that's. Thank you, Melissa.

Paul Van Orden [01:06:12] I Think there's kind of a culture in the church where you kind of. You'll say yes to date with almost anyone. You can make a marriage work as long as everyone you know, as long as you have the church in common. So there's kind of like a, an obligation to, to try anyone on, basically. And so you may end up in situations that you otherwise would never have agreed to or you feel like, you know, this meekness is such a virtue and naivety being a virtue that you just, you don't know how to stand up for yourself.

John Dehlin [01:06:48] Yeah. Meekness becomes the weapon they use against you. Right. Your meekness, your meekness that they nurture and encourage becomes the weapon they use against you. Joyce writes the temple in 1974 was their first step out of the church. That's true for a lot of people. Joyce, true for Melissa writes that she wanted to leave the temple during the endowment session but felt like she couldn't. And that is another abusive situation that they.

John Dehlin [01:07:18] You don't know what you're getting into. And then all of a sudden you have to, you know, you get one chance before they tell you what you're committing to. You get one chance to leave, and then all of a sudden you're swearing your entire life and money and time and everything to the church. And that's just.

John Dehlin [01:07:36] It's an abusive setup, plain and simple. Mary writes, the problem with bringing women into the confession interviews is that they would likely be church broke and possibly have a healthy attitude about sex besides being in position second to the bishop, if that makes sense. Oh, so they're talking about, I think Mary's basically saying, just bringing women into,

Paul Van Orden [01:08:01] like a Relief Society president, for instance, to be there during an interview.

John Dehlin [01:08:05] Yeah, they could be just as abusive and even worse. Right. What if, what if you bring. Yeah, what if you. What if you bring a woman in and she's totally like on the bishop's side, how would that feel? Right.

Paul Van Orden [01:08:17] Yeah, it could be worse.

John Dehlin [01:08:19] If the bishop's being abusive, then it's just like, worse. Yeah, that's a great point, Mary. Bringing women in the interview isn't enough. Yeah, it needs to be a trusted

Paul Van Orden [01:08:28] person, really needs to be a professionally trained person, and they just shouldn't ask those things, especially of minors. It just shouldn't be part of the discussion at all.

John Dehlin [01:08:38] Totally, totally agree. Well, Lara, this is a heart wrenching story, and I can't tell you how thankful I am for your being willing to share it. Is there anything else you want to share with us before we wrap up this interview?

Paul Van Orden [01:08:53] No, that's it. I think you're doing a great job, and I'm really glad that Sam Young has been bringing this up as well.

John Dehlin [01:09:01] Yeah. So everybody, please go and sign the petition if you haven't. Sam wants to get it up to 10,000. I think that's very ambitious, but I think it's a noble effort.

Paul Van Orden [01:09:13] So how many are on Reddit right now?

John Dehlin [01:09:18] How many signatures so far? Yeah, I think it's over 2,000. So we're getting there.

Paul Van Orden [01:09:25] Yeah. Well, how many people are on Reddit? On ex Mormon?

John Dehlin [01:09:31] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like 30 or 40 or 50,000, something like that.

Paul Van Orden [01:09:34] Yeah, we could get that easy.

John Dehlin [01:09:36] We should. We should be able to get it.

Paul Van Orden [01:09:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:38] So come on, everybody, go sign it. But more importantly, speak up at your local bishop, stake president, mission president. Protect yourself, protect your children. Don't let someone you love be interviewed by a Mormon bishop or stake president or mission president about matters of sexuality without support there.

Paul Van Orden [01:09:58] Can I just say one thing, please, especially.

John Dehlin [01:10:01] Yeah.

Paul Van Orden [01:10:02] This is really, really important for current members to be doing, because as ex Mormons, we kind of get the shaft. Like, well, you're just trying to take it down or do anything you can to harm the church, which is not true. That's not at all what the goal here is. It's to protect people. And I think current members have a bit more weight to throw around in that regard. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:28] And that's super true. So everyone speak up, protect yourselves, protect their loved ones, sign the petition, speak out, share this podcast, whatever you have to do. Catherine writes, thank you. So many people are telling you. Melissa writes, thank you, Laura. Richard writes, thanks for a great interview, Laura. Lots of people are just very grateful that you would speak up. So thank you for the.

Guest [01:10:53] That.

John Dehlin [01:10:54] And I want to thank all our listeners for joining us and for providing questions and comments, because that makes these interviews more rich and interactive. Thanks for everyone who supports the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories. If you value this stuff, please support us and donate, because that is what keeps all this alive. And if you have a story you want to share about inappropriate interviews with bishops or stake presidents or mission president Presidents or whoever, mormonstoriesmail.com you can email us and we'll do our best to share it. And please always give us your feedback, because we really depend on it. All right, Laura, you're awesome.

Paul Van Orden [01:11:34] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:11:34] Thanks so much for joining us.

Paul Van Orden [01:11:37] Okay, bye.

John Dehlin [01:11:38] And thanks everyone else for joining us. And we're gonna just. We're gonna keep doing these. We've got two or three more so just stay tuned on Mormon Stories Podcast Facebook page. We've got at least two or three more coming in the next two hours. So join us back again soon for another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody. Sure. Love you. And stay tuned.

Part Three Opens with Maile and Ryan's Backgrounds

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 823

Paul Van Orden [00:00:00] Sa.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is November 8, 2017, and we are relentlessly tackling this issue of inappropriate interviews with Mormon leaders about matters of sexuality. We've been wanting to do this for a long time, but the impetus, I'm happy to say, is my former colleague from Houston, Sam Young. Bishop Sam Young, who decided to start a petition to petition the Mormon Church to no longer allow 12 year old girls or 12 year old boys to sit alone with grown men being grilled about their masturbation habits or pornography use or sexuality because it's harmful and damaging.

John Dehlin [00:01:23] And so we're super grateful to Bishop Sam for leading the charge on this. We want to encourage everybody to sign the petition, but we've already interviewed four different people about their stories, and we are now interviewing a fifth.

John Dehlin [00:01:44] These are going to just be stories about people's interviews with Mormon bishops, mission presidents, stake presidents on matters of sexuality. And it's our first couple to join us together. We have Miley and Ryan Waite, who are using their real full names and they're using video. So we're really. That's really courageous and bold. So I want to welcome you both to Mormon Stories Podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Ryan Waite [00:02:15] Yeah, the only, the only courageous thing about it is that we don't look our best and we're in an ugly basement right now.

John Dehlin [00:02:22] So that makes it more courageous.

Ryan Waite [00:02:25] Yes. But thanks for having us on.

Paul Van Orden [00:02:28] Yeah, thank you so much.

Ryan Waite [00:02:30] We actually, both, you know, we both have left the church, and that's a story for another time. But there's definitely something objectively that we feel strongly about with the church that we feel, not from a doctrine standpoint that would be better improved with the church, would be the interviews with bishops, with minors, and inappropriately talking about sexual intimacy. So we definitely appreciate your endeavor in capturing these stories and helping, you know, move this, this petition along.

John Dehlin [00:03:03] I'm super honored. It's my pleasure. And it's only possible because people like you are willing to be courageous and talk about difficult things. Right? This isn't easy stuff to talk about, right?

Paul Van Orden [00:03:13] No, not at all.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] You don't wake up saying, I want to talk about this stuff today on the Internet in front of tens of thousands of people, right?

Ryan Waite [00:03:24] No.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Okay. Why don't we start with you, Maile? Just talk about your background in the church up until the interviews, and then, Ryan, we'll have you talk about your background in the church up into the interviews, and then we'll just kind of Switch between you as you both kind of tell the story. Is that okay?

Paul Van Orden [00:03:44] Yeah. So I was born and raised in the church. Very diligent, faithful member. I never had like a super strong testimony, but I followed everything to a T. Just the picture of like a perfect daughter. Never gave my parents any trouble. So anyway, my first interview was actually when I was 8, I think alone was, you know, when we had the baptism interview. But after that, you know, I think it was yearly. And then when I was 12, every time I got a temple recommend or anything is when these one on one conversations started. But yeah, up until that point, you know, nothing inappropriate happened. And so I won't say the story yet, but.

John Dehlin [00:04:27] All right, so devout, active, committed member of the church from a committed family.

Paul Van Orden [00:04:34] Yeah. Right now I'm 23, so. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:38] How about you, Ryan? Just tell us a bit about your Mormon background.

Ryan Waite [00:04:43] Yeah, definitely, definitely devout Mormon until. Well, yeah, so grew up very Mormon, went on a mission, went to Sydney, Australia, went left in about almost a year, out into the mission from about 12 to 16. I was very. Read my scriptures every day, wrote my journal almost every day. Practice, preach my gospel every day. And I'm not joking, ask my mom or brother. Yeah, so I was pretty, pretty devout. And then we met actually at BYU in an acting class. We had to have the fun experience of still going to BYU after we got married, but not in a temple, but not being non Mormons. So that was a very interesting experience. So we both went to byu, we got married, but we didn't get married in the temple, but then we still stayed at byu.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] Oh, and that was a very.

Ryan Waite [00:05:51] I don't know anybody else really, that's experienced.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] I'm guessing that's gonna be part of the story, is that right?

Ryan Waite [00:05:58] No, it's not.

Paul Van Orden [00:05:59] Not at all. That's another story for another time.

John Dehlin [00:06:04] All right, well, you've got us, You've got us intrigued, but we won't dig. Okay, so Ryan, very, very orthodox, committed in your background as well.

Ryan Waite [00:06:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:16] All right, so who, who wants to start telling their experiences with Mormon leaders in their interviews? What would be best for the narrative? You guys know the story best.

Paul Van Orden [00:06:26] You probably. I think yours happened earlier, mine didn't happen until I was 17. So let's start with your earliest experience.

Ryan Waite [00:06:34] So, and I hope you know all the. Sorry. I hope all the viewers are open

Guest [00:06:39] and

Ryan Waite [00:06:41] not, not offended by genuine frankness. So I'm just gonna just, just say it how it was.

John Dehlin [00:06:48] Lay it out there, brother. Lay it out there.

Ryan Waite [00:06:50] I started masturbating at probably around 7 or 8 years old, I remember I got baptized, but I didn't really know it was bad, but then I started feeling bad about it. Remember I told my dad I was about 8 or 9. I was telling my dad I was confessing already.

John Dehlin [00:07:07] What do you do with that word meant at age 9?

Ryan Waite [00:07:11] I didn't know what that word meant, but I knew what I was doing was wrong.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] Touching yourself down there is bad kind of thing.

Ryan Waite [00:07:18] Yes. Yeah, so. So that stopped for a while. And then when I was about 10 or 11, I started up again. And I knew what the word was, you know, at 10 or 11. So I talked to my dad about it. And I think after a while with my daddy, probably felt awkward knowing, you know, from our. My baptismal age time when I confessed them, he probably, he. He told me, hey, this is something you should talk to your bishop about.

Ryan Waite [00:07:43] And my dad's awesome, by the way, if anyone's listening. I mean, the best guy ever. But, you know, that's just kind of how you're brought up in the church is thinking, this is something you should talk to the bishop about. So soon after that, I coincidentally had a bishop interview soon after that, and I told my bishop. And what was so uncomfortable or kind of weird about it was I was about 11 and I.

Ryan Waite [00:08:08] I had to go into like, pretty significant detail about. And, you know, it wasn't like a. Boys. I won't go into specific detail here, you know, but it wasn't like the regular masturbation story. So it was pretty embarrassing for me to tell him in detail, you know, what was happening. And, you know, looking back, you know, I'm upset kind of that the bishop was put in that situation to where a minor is telling him, you know, explicit, you know, sexual intimacies. So then.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] Can I just pause for a second? You make such a good point, because so far that's not been brought up. Almost the way that we talk about this is like, these bishops are at fault and, you know, to some extent they're complicit. But really, it's the system that sets this situation.

Ryan Waite [00:08:55] Yeah, no, it's totally the system. Totally the system. I even still respect my bishops. I really. Maybe that first one didn't. I don't know. Anyway, I should be careful, I'm saying. But I really like both of them. And it was actually after I was a minor when I had a lot of disagreements with bishops. But anyway, so when I was about 14, it started up again, and I was really, really guilt. Felt guilty because this is when I was in the heart of the most believing of Mormonism. And it felt awful, and I struggled.

Ryan Waite [00:09:27] And when I was about 15, I had the yearly interview and I interviewed with my bishop. I told him what was going on. And so for about a year and a half, I kept meeting with him about once or twice a month. And I could not, no matter what I did, fasting, you know, running, no matter what I could. I couldn't get past, like, a week. And it's just. I don't know, I was a hormonal kid, I guess, growing up. But normal. Yeah, normal. And I guess probably the only honest young man telling the bishop.

Ryan Waite [00:09:59] And so at 16, what happened was, you know, it was time for me to become a priest. And it. And it never. I wasn't able to become a priest. And the reason why was because of the whole masturbation thing actually had nothing to do with pornography. It was completely masturbation.

John Dehlin [00:10:16] Oh, my God.

Ryan Waite [00:10:16] And, yeah, and I could not stop. And I told him, you know, I told him, like, how many times I had to do it or did it. And, you know, the count. And it was hard for me because most of the religious people, you know, and the priests, they know your age in the ward, you know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:10:33] Absolutely.

Ryan Waite [00:10:34] And so they ask me, you know, like, why are you not a priest? We all know you're 16. Why, you know, and so, you know, everyone in the ward knows what's going on pretty much. So six months after a priest, people began asking questions. But I never lied to the bishop. And finally, I remember I asked him what counted, you know, as a masturbation. And, you know, he said, what do you mean? And. Because, you know, I was kind of giving these logistics, but, you know, sometimes it's not in my mind. It wasn't so black and white. And I was like, well, sometimes, you know, I'd start, and then I'd feel guilty and I'd want to, you know, I stopped. You know, does that count? And then I remember we went into, like, details, like what counted? And basically we came to the conclusion that it only counted if you ejaculated.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] Okay.

Ryan Waite [00:11:23] That was the conversations I was having in a closed door as a minor with my bishop.

John Dehlin [00:11:28] Yes. That's where he.

Ryan and Maile Describe Their Interview Experiences

Ryan Waite [00:11:30] Yeah, yeah, so. And like I said, I don't. He's not a perverted weirdo. It's just, you know how it is.

John Dehlin [00:11:38] System.

Ryan Waite [00:11:38] Yes, the system. And it's a system for both of us, me being a person where I just. I like to be honest. And as Transparent. And I just want to move ahead and get past things. And so I never, you know, like to bullshit or kind of, you know, run around the corners that were not lie, whatever you want to call it. And so yeah, so the, that happened and then kind of had an awkward moment from that because I was in the priests quorum and they were all basically, you know, you have the quorum before you break up into your priest, deacon and teachers, you know, settings.

Ryan Waite [00:12:11] You kind of all meet together, right? And so we were meeting together and basically it's like they just publicly were like, ryan, why aren't you becoming a priest? Why aren't you becoming a priest? Do you just not want to become one? And got really awkward. I remember I broke down crying and ran away from the church back to my home. And anyway, so that was probably in

John Dehlin [00:12:32] that incredibly shaming, right?

Ryan Waite [00:12:34] Yeah, yeah, it was pretty bad. And so there's that. And then after that. So that's, that's my main complaint personally with this whole thing is the minors. You know, after you're 18, I, you can do whatever the hell you want, whether you're the person going into the office or you know, like, I don't. It still has some vulnerabilities and I feel bad for people, but that was, that's my main complaint. But I will say though that after I was 18, I had some really pretty bad experiences with sexual conversations with my bishops, specifically around masturbation. And I'll just say one, I know I'm blabbing on, but I, I had basically an, an investigation, I don't know if you want to call it, when I was trying to apply for a mission or not apply, it's the word apply.

Ryan Waite [00:13:27] I get my papers and for the mission and you know, the bishops over it. And so I was being, you know, I became an elder and then when I went to apply for the mission, the bishop, this was in Colorado, this was a different bishop.

Ryan Waite [00:13:41] And he, I told him that I, you know, masturbated and he basically went to three of my previous bishops to talk about my transgressions and to get a timeline of how often I did it and to see if I lied before I became an elder.

Ryan Waite [00:13:59] And then he came to the conclusion that I did. And then he delayed me six months to go on a mission. Six months to go on a mission delayed me when I was already on the line. I was trying to figure out my life. And I remember I broke down completely after that. That I was really upset because I was like, man, your, your Son's probably doing it right now at your home.

John Dehlin [00:14:23] As we're speaking, as you're talking to me, as you're telling me, don't think that I'm.

Ryan Waite [00:14:30] And, and so that one was really, really difficult.

John Dehlin [00:14:35] And you know, in some sense that's neat that you had enough self efficacy to have that thought instead of just purely internalizing your shame. It's neat that at some point you're like, you know what? I'm probably not the only one.

Paul Van Orden [00:14:51] That's true.

John Dehlin [00:14:52] No.

Ryan Waite [00:14:52] And to be honest, I do remember one, One time in an interview with that second bishop where we were trying to figure out what counted. I remember he was saying that he's like, you know, you're the most valiant of, you know, all the young men. You go to church, you're always Preparing the sacrament 30 minutes early, you're reading scriptures, you know that. He's like, and I'm pretty sure. He said, I'm pretty sure you're probably the only one being honest about this subject.

Ryan Waite [00:15:21] So it was, you know, I don't know what to take from that. But yeah. And then. This isn't hearsay. I asked my sister this morning, this will be my final comment on the story I know I'm going on. I asked her if it was okay to share this story, and she said it was. I called her this morning. So I promise, and this isn't hearsay, it's. I remembered I called her and just to make sure it was true, that first bishop that I was talking about, he brought her in for her yearly interview when she was about 14. And in the middle of the interview, he told her hi. He said, kelly, I have. I probably shouldn't have used her name.

Paul Van Orden [00:16:00] You said you asked.

Ryan Waite [00:16:00] Yeah, that is.

Guest [00:16:02] So.

Paul Van Orden [00:16:02] It's fine.

Ryan Waite [00:16:02] So anyway, she said, he says, I have. The spirit is telling me that you have something to tell me. And so she's like, no, no. He's like, no, the spirit's telling me that you need to confess something. And she's like, no, there's nothing. And he said, have you had trouble with touching yourself? He said that on his own with a closed door with a minor girl asking her to bring that up, saying it was the spirit. And even if it was, and you know, the system, it's just, that's something. And she said, no, she's not. And I was telling, she was telling me, she's like, no, I didn't, I didn't. She barely even knew what that term was, that age. And so that, that was pretty. I Didn't. I didn't know that till this morning, by the way. Currently, you and Allie didn't. Anyway.

John Dehlin [00:16:52] Yeah, that's just. You want to think that that's just super rare and uncommon, but I'm hearing it from all over. Right?

Ryan Waite [00:16:59] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:01] 12, 13, 14 year old girls with a 50 year old man in a closed, in a room with a closed door asking them if they touch themselves and then the. How do you touch yourself? Where do you touch yourself? How often do you touch yourself? How far do the fingers. You know, just gross details. Right? Yeah, yeah. I'm so sorry that that is happening and that's what this series is all about. So, Ryan, just really quickly, what's it like? Is it try, you know, adolescence is hard in and of itself. Like, take out all the stuff you just told us. Adolescence is brutal. What was it like for you always feeling intense shame and guilt that you believed came from God? What was that like for you as a developing adolescent?

Ryan Waite [00:17:55] You know, I don't know. I suffer pretty badly from depression, anxiety and I don't know, you know, it's kind of chicken or the egg type thing, you know, did church influence it or was it already there? I don't know. But I do know that definitely being in the church, growing up with that guilt, especially with that part, definitely enhanced the issues that I deal with.

Ryan Waite [00:18:16] People I've noticed that tend to have a perfectionist attitude and take things not, not with a grain of salt like I did growing up, tend to leave the church because they're vulnerable to that guilt and shame and overwhelming of that anxiety that they feel of constantly, constantly going this cycle. You know, it's like for me with the masturbation, it was, oh my gosh, I hate myself.

Ryan Waite [00:18:42] Why? Why did I do that? Why am I so weak? Why I'm the only one struggling with that? Oh my gosh, I need something to make me feel better. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna push out as long as I can without doing it. And then finally everything just breaks down. You do it and then it just, it's a downward spiral. A downward spiral. And it's a shame that I went through that with adolescent. I, you know, and it definitely seeped down the road because, you know, I left the mission early because I couldn't handle it emotionally and mentally and, you know, became rather suicidal and essentially didn't, I don't think I realized at the time, but didn't believe in the church.

Ryan Waite [00:19:22] So I think, you know, that's definitely stuff that translated over. But yeah, that guilt and shame was hard to carry every day, especially without the hindsight that I know now.

John Dehlin [00:19:34] I'm so sorry. All right, well, Maile, it's your turn.

Paul Van Orden [00:19:42] Yeah, I actually am glad. Well, not glad for everyone involved, but I'm glad you said that you've heard other people of this happening to them. Because honestly, even though Ryan has had that perspective of like, oh, I can't be the only one, I feel like as a girl who is about to say what I'm about to say, I feel completely alone in that. So shame has continued on. Even though I have become self aware and realized that it's ridiculous that I went to those interviews and spoke with a bishop, I still feel that something was wrong with me because it's not normal for girls to masturbate.

Paul Van Orden [00:20:19] So that's kind of like. I still am very embarrassed. I've never said this out loud. I don't like speaking about these things, but it's important that I do because I already said it to an old man behind closed doors at an age where the only person I wanted to talk to was my mom. And I didn't even tell her these things because it's too personal.

Paul Van Orden [00:20:42] So, you know, that's my only experience. I didn't talk to my bishops growing up like Ryan did. I lied my way through every interview. Felt very, very shamed because of that as well. Because I'm. Every time I went to the temple for baptisms for the dead, I felt that I wasn't supposed to be there because I wasn't worthy to be there. But I really, really did not want to confess that I was curious about my body at a young age.

Paul Van Orden [00:21:13] So, yeah, so I struggled with that guilt for about five years about from age 12 to 17. I lied. And then finally it became too much. I was like, I'm not going to be saved. My family is not going to be together forever if we're not all worthy. So I need to just do this. It's just a moment. So I plucked up the courage. I'm about as nervous now saying this on Facebook as I was back then, just because it's such a. It's such an uncomfortable topic for me. But I. You know, all through sacrament, I was just like, I've got to do this. I talked my.

Paul Van Orden [00:21:53] I talked in my head to myself, just like giving myself a pep talk for about three hours. And then after church, I finally plucked up the courage to talk to my bishop. So I pulled him into the room. I asked him. I pulled him aside and asked If I could talk to him for a little bit. And he just. Disclaimer. Was also a great man.

Paul Van Orden [00:22:13] I was really good friends with his daughter and felt very comfortable around him. But anyway, so went into his office and I confessed that I had a problem with masturbation. Problem being that even though I don't think it's maybe normal. Well, it's probably normal for girls to do it, but I don't feel that it's normal. But I only did it, like, maybe a few times a week maybe, and never with pornography. But that was the first question my bishop asked me was, you know, he got really red and uncomfortable about me bringing it up. But he's like, well, do you do it with pornography? And I said, no, I've never seen it.

Paul Van Orden [00:22:53] He said, well, you know, like, what did he say next? He said, how often do you do it? So I told him, like, maybe a couple times a week. And then the next thing, he was silent for about a minute and just kind of thinking through it. And I just felt such shame. And then he was like, well, maybe you can try taking a cold shower.

Paul Van Orden [00:23:17] That might help. And then I said, okay. And he's like, you know, and just try not to put yourself in that position. So if you're feeling tempted to do that, either go take a cold shower or you can, you know, just be around people instead of being in your room alone or wherever it is you do it. And so then he told me that I should probably hold off on taking sacrament for about a month until I could kind of prove to myself and to, you know, to God that I could kind of stop myself from doing that. So for the next month or so, I didn't take sacrament.

John Dehlin [00:23:55] And that's such a shaming thing because everybody, you feel. Even if they're not, it seemed. It feels like everyone knows, and a lot of people do pay attention and especially your own parents and family, right?

Paul Van Orden [00:24:07] Oh, yeah. And so what?

Ryan Waite [00:24:08] Yeah, I mean, your dad's handing you,

Paul Van Orden [00:24:10] and you just, you know, you just.

Ryan Waite [00:24:12] Why aren't you taking this?

Paul Van Orden [00:24:13] Exactly. So my parents were really understanding. I love my parents and great people. And so my mom would just kind of be like, miley, is there anything you want to tell me? You know, like, you can always talk to me. But it was this unspoken rule in our family, and I guess in the church in general, that as long as you tell this old guy that happens to be in the boundaries where you live, it's okay to not tell your parents and just tell him instead.

Paul Van Orden [00:24:38] And so that was Kind of the unspoken thing is like, no, I'm not going to talk to you about it. Don't worry. I'm. I already am talking to the bishop about it, so. And that's how uncomfortable I was. I didn't want to tell my mom, and so it was a very uncomfortable process. But, yeah, that's my only experience. And so I feel like sometimes I'm like, oh, well, other people had it way worse. But the fact that I had that conversation at all under the age of 18 is the part that frustrates me. My brother's 12, and the fact that he's probably having these conversations right now just like, makes me infuriated.

John Dehlin [00:25:13] Yeah, absolutely. It's happening everywhere. Yeah. So is that, does that, Is that kind of the story or were there other things?

Paul Van Orden [00:25:26] That's the. I mean, we've heard accounts of other people, but we won't speak for them. But, yeah, we've just noticed this trend as we've started talking to our friends. And so, yeah, that's it. I'm sure there are worse stories, but those are our stories.

Effects on Mental Health and Relationships

John Dehlin [00:25:40] How

Ryan Waite [00:25:43] I was gonna say that we were speaking with her mom. Her mom's very, very into the church and we were speaking with her mom. And I just remember saying that, you know, saying that, you know, it's a possibility that, you know, you know, you have family members that are minors that are, you know, even your son that is discussing it. And I remember even from her perspective, she was like, that's, you know, that doesn't feel right. So, you know, this is from an objective standpoint, you know, even kind of like almost the BYU instance with the honor code, having people, you know, having to have the honor code know if you've been raped, you know, I mean, with that whole policy that had to be changed and that was if I'm just objectively, objectively that needs to be changed. So that's just something I hope that can be taken seriously by active members. And.

John Dehlin [00:26:36] Yeah, real quick, what did these messages. Are you guys comfortable sharing how these messages have affected you in adulthood? It's a sensitive thing and sometimes there is no effect because people just heal and move on. But other times these things impact us as adults and even as married adults. Is there anything in your cases that's worth sharing in that regard?

Paul Van Orden [00:27:05] I mean, I also struggle from severe anxiety and depression. Just this perfectionist attitude of your entire eternal existence is affected by these decisions you make as a 12 year old. Just that idea of like, you know, you have to be perfect and that's at least what I got from all of these conversations with my bishops was you're really shamed if you happen to mess up. Not ostracized necessarily, but there's a sense of ostracism when you can't go on temple trips if you're not worthy, or those kinds of things that make you feel like it's all or nothing. You either need to be perfect or you're not saved. And so that has kind of carried over in just this perfectionist attitude that I have. I am very hard on myself when I make mistakes, and that could just be other things as well. But, yeah, I struggle a ton with that all or nothing thinking.

Ryan Waite [00:28:05] I think for me, it's finally, probably the last couple years, two to three years, I've been able to overcome that sense of guilt. If something happens in that area, this just doesn't matter to me anymore. But it used to. Even when I did not believe in the Church, I would. I would shame myself from habit. So that continued. But I've been it. I don't. That doesn't continue anymore.

John Dehlin [00:28:32] How did all this affect your relationship with the Church? Was there a tie?

Ryan Waite [00:28:39] No, it's actually something that I didn't realize was pretty messed up until maybe even a year ago. That's the funny thing is, like, for me, I mean, I have a lot of gripes, you know, with the church and its culture and its doctrine, but I didn't really think about it until I remember we were watching Spotlight and.

John Dehlin [00:29:02] Great movie. Amazing. Yeah, everyone should see that movie.

Guest [00:29:08] Movie.

John Dehlin [00:29:08] Yeah.

Ryan Waite [00:29:08] And by the way, I'm not, you know, equivalent to that Spotlight.

Paul Van Orden [00:29:13] It's not, but it could easily turn out that way.

Ryan Waite [00:29:16] But that's what I'm saying is it's. It's. It's rampant vulnerability where it's just, you know, if you. If you took your side. I remember when I was in there, I was like, man, that was the first time I looked at it. And I was like, I've spoken about this personal element of my life, masturbation to about seven or eight bishops, and two of them were from when I was between 10 or 11 to 18.

Ryan Waite [00:29:47] And when I finally. I thought about that and like I said, when Spotlight came out, that was when I started thinking of it. And that. That's when it affected me. But to be honest, that's just how part of the system it is. It didn't affect me growing up. The shame did, obviously, and the shame eventually. But that has more of to do with the doctrine than the actual interviews. Themselves, I guess they do make the decision, you know, that they're making the decision based on that. But.

Paul Van Orden [00:30:16] Yeah, yeah, I. I think it was every interview, not just the ones that had sexual matter discussed, because there was only that one. I've always had an issue with just this idea that this one man kind of holds power over the ward and over my life. I think it is the patriarchy that got to me mostly from those interviews. But yeah, the shame and just depression of walking into church and being there every Sunday is what eventually led me to leave. So just all of that guilt combined is why I left.

John Dehlin [00:30:53] Got it. Yeah. Well, it's so I know the church doesn't want to cause people to leave and stop believing. And in addition to all the ways that these practices are harming the actual members, it seems like the church is harming itself by treating its own members in ways that make them want to leave.

Ryan Waite [00:31:15] Yeah, I totally agree.

Paul Van Orden [00:31:16] Totally agree. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:17] Which makes these interviews a win win. It's kind of like everybody benefits.

Paul Van Orden [00:31:22] That's.

Ryan Waite [00:31:22] That's what I mean when I say that objective thing. Just like the BYU instance with, you know, those rape scenarios where, you know, they'd have to go to honor code and it would make it so that they wouldn't want to talk to the police if something like that occurred. It's just, to me, it's a win win. Yeah. And almost, to be quite honest, John, I. I actually think this whole thing made it more of a problem, whatever you want to call it is. But in my memory, it was a problem than it would have been. Right. Like if I wasn't going to the bishop. If I wasn't, it wouldn't have been on my mind all the time. It wouldn't have been this pressing thing. So it's funny how I think it actually made it worse, the actual of it.

Paul Van Orden [00:32:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:11] And I don't think the church intends. Obviously doesn't intend to create the illness that then lifts itself up to. To be the cure of. Right.

Ryan Waite [00:32:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:22] But part of the tragedy all this is the church's own policies are what are exacerbating the problem the church claims to be wanting to solve.

Paul Van Orden [00:32:32] Yeah. I think for me, solution that I can see my parents and brother implementing, who are all active members of the church, is just having them present in those meetings. If they still find it important to have those interviews with the bishop, great. But I think that the parents need to be there. It just protects everyone involved. It makes it a more loving space where the bishop won't ask those questions. In front of the parents. I can't see that happening. So I think that would be my like suggestion to the church.

Policy Recommendations and Listener Discussion

Ryan Waite [00:33:06] I would just recommend the church have a strict, strict policy. Just like with other strict policies they've come under scrutiny with. You know, like with primary and Sunday school, you can't have a single man. This should be the same way with the bishop. Bishops should not be allowed to discuss sexual activity with minors, period. Nothing judging. It's not some anti Mormon rhetoric, it's just common sense. The door needs to be open or a parent needs to be there. If not, then they can't do one on one interviews with the bishop alone and talk about sexual activity.

John Dehlin [00:33:42] Absolutely, absolutely. Let me read a couple comments from our listeners. Aubrey writes, the system makes good men mimic predators. And that's true. It's sad, but it's true.

Ryan Waite [00:33:57] Mimics a good way because, you know, they're not predators. Most of them, you know, some are, but.

John Dehlin [00:34:02] But most aren't. Right?

Paul Van Orden [00:34:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:05] Yeah. Joyce says, my dad was my bishop and he never asked me crazy questions. And I'll say, good for you, Joyce. I'm glad that was your experience. I'm sure that's a lot of people's experience, but it's also not a lot of people's experience. Susan writes, it's not the spirit of God that prompts conversations like some bishops instigate with young teens. Despicable. Chars writes, the Stanford prison experiment comes to mind how the uniform suits and the authority of these men makes them do and say things they would never do if they weren't bishop, stake president or those in positions of power.

Ryan Waite [00:34:45] And that's a great on both sides, honestly. I mean, would I just randomly go in a room alone with a guy and tell him about myself as a minor? You know, it's like, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:57] Would any man ever walk up to a 12 year old girl and ask her if she masturbates in any universe? Right. Yeah. But yet somehow religion makes that okay, right?

Ryan Waite [00:35:10] Yeah. And that's a protected right, so we can't argue.

John Dehlin [00:35:13] Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah. That's when religion fights for non discrimination, it's basically fighting for the right to do things like this. Right?

Ryan Waite [00:35:24] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] Catherine is writing to you, Maile here for you. Girl, you did nothing wrong. I can't imagine what you're going through. What you went through, what LDS church does, how it makes girls, women and boys men feel is atrocious. Strong words from Kathryn.

Paul Van Orden [00:35:42] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:35:43] Also offering support. Susan writes, shame, self loathing and fear are the consequences of these interviews, the none of these are born of God. So what is the source exactly? That's a really good question. Melissa writes, do cold showers help anyone?

Paul Van Orden [00:36:01] That's a really good question.

John Dehlin [00:36:04] And my thought was if anyone needs a cold shower, it's the bishop who needed the cold shower.

Paul Van Orden [00:36:10] Seriously.

John Dehlin [00:36:11] I know. Good comment from Melissa. Aubrey writes, she's so right about thinking you don't have to talk to your parents and that the bishop is a suitable substitute. I'm not sure what Aubrey means by that, but.

Paul Van Orden [00:36:29] Well, just that substitute of instead of me talking to my parents.

John Dehlin [00:36:33] Right, yeah, yeah. Kids should talk to their parents first, not the bishop first. Right? Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. If your parents are safe, I guess is the only exception to that. Joyce writes, where do the scriptures say that masturbation is a sin? I think there might be some Old Testament verses about spilling your seed or something to that effect. Honestly, that's how it's described.

Paul Van Orden [00:37:01] That's crazy.

John Dehlin [00:37:02] Yeah. In fact, in my interview with Tovah, the former Orthodox Jew, she mentioned that as being part of Jewish law and she referenced some sort of Old Testament scripture about spilling your seed. Jamie Hannis Handy, who we love, says we set the rule. They could only ask, do you keep the law of chastity? And only on a temple recommend interview. That's a really good suggestion. So just like, just like adults are asked, do you obey the word of wisdom? And the adults get to interpret it?

John Dehlin [00:37:37] Why not set the rule for youth and adults? Do you keep the law of chastity? And the youth get to answer it in however they want. And maybe they're only doing this in a temple recommend interview, not just in their day to day lives. Right.

John Dehlin [00:37:55] I think that's a great suggestion by Jamie Hannis Handy. All right, well, guys, your story is so moving, so important, so courageous. Let me give each of you a chance to make some final points. We'll go with you, Ryan. First, any final comments or points you want to make?

Ryan Waite [00:38:14] No, I think that's everything. I think I made all them. It's just something that needs to end. I think we're 2017, 2018. It's probably time to take a step back and look at it, whether you're Mormon or not Mormon or anti or X or whatever the hell you are. And it's something that needs to change.

John Dehlin [00:38:35] All right, well, Maile, you're gonna get the last word then. Anything you want to add?

Paul Van Orden [00:38:40] I was just watching your TED Talk, that one about, you know, being an ally to others and how you don't want to be on the wrong side of history. And I think this is definitely one of those moments where that's why I'm sharing this story. It's uncomfortable, but I'd rather be on the right side of history and help move change forward and be an ally for those that are still in the church. Children who have no say in it, they need an ally.

John Dehlin [00:39:05] They do. And thank you guys for being allies. And thanks to all our listeners for being allies. You guys gave a great story. So thank you.

Paul Van Orden [00:39:16] Thank you, thank you.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] Carla writes, my uncle was my bishop, I think, and he was about 12 when he asked her if she masturbated. So that's another 12 year old girl being asked by their uncle bishop if they masturbate. Jamie writes, just because just having parents in the room doesn't mean this problem goes away. And that's a really good point. Just having women in the room doesn't solve the problem. And just having parents in the room, because sometimes Jamie says bishops will ask probing questions in front of parents and also sometimes parents will be even more harsh and strict than the bishop. So Jamie makes a really good point that just having parents alone or women doesn't solve the problem.

Paul Van Orden [00:39:58] That is a good point.

Ryan Waite [00:39:59] Yeah. No, it doesn't solve the problem.

John Dehlin [00:40:01] Bridger. Yeah, it can be. Bridger writes. Bridger goes even deeper. And she writes, it's is. I think it's a female. Maybe it's a male, but looks like it's a male. Bridger writes, the whole worthiness concept is the problem and that's actually going deeper. Tying someone's worthiness to sexuality at all is maybe even a more serious problem.

Paul Van Orden [00:40:26] Definitely.

John Dehlin [00:40:28] Thank you. Well, Ryan and Maile, we love you guys. Thank you so much for joining us.

Paul Van Orden [00:40:33] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:40:34] You guys are awesome. I hope to meet you guys in person real soon.

Ryan Waite [00:40:38] That'd be great. That'd be great.

Paul Van Orden [00:40:39] Thanks, John.

Ryan Waite [00:40:40] Have a good day.

John Dehlin [00:40:41] And all our listeners, thank you for joining us. Thanks to all the comments and questions on Facebook Live. It makes these interviews more interesting, more interactive. Thanks to everyone who supports the Open Stories foundation, who donates, who supports us. Please like us on Facebook, our podcast page. Please give us positive reviews on itunes or on Facebook. Please let people know about this stuff. It all helps. And thanks to everyone who supports us because it makes all this possible. Please donate to the Open Stories foundation or Mormon Stories if you want to keep this stuff alone life. All right, everybody, take care and we'll. We're gonna start up another couple more interviews before today's. Over, so just check right back on the Mormon Stories podcast page. We've got. We've got at least one or two more of these interviews to go. So thanks, everybody. Take care and we'll talk soon.

Ryan Waite [00:41:31] See ya.

John Dehlin [00:41:31] See you guys. So today we have a more brief interview we're going to have with Ryan Flake, and Ryan is going to talk to us about his experiences. Ryan, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Guest [00:41:58] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] So why don't you just jump in, tell us a bit about your Mormon upbringing. That would give us a tiny bit about your background before you talk about your actual experiences.

Guest [00:42:09] All right. Well, sixth generation member of the church, born and raised. Spent most of my life in Arizona, baptized at 8, went on a mission at 19. It's about all that we have time for. Before I go on a little bit further, I did an interview with Natasha Helford Parker on Mormon mental health episodes 99 and 100 that I talk about more of my story. So y' all can go take a look at that.

Final Guest Reflects on Sexuality, Mission, and Identity

John Dehlin [00:42:34] Well, I'm sorry we have to rush you, but dinner is coming, so I apologize. So why don't you jump in, just give us an overview of your experience.

Guest [00:42:44] Okay. Well, I use. I use humor to make myself feel a little bit better. So it's not that I'm taking these things lightly. But here's just. Just to illustrate how much, how naive I was growing up about sexual matters.

Guest [00:43:00] I have a story. I went over to my friend's house. I saw a newspaper clipping. There was kind of a man and a woman, kind of. There was like a nude photo from the back. You couldn't see anything. But I didn't understand the mechanics of sex. And so when I saw that the woman's left breast was going into a man's armpit, I thought that that's how sex happened. So I call that the boob pitting story.

Guest [00:43:23] So that was when I was like 13. My first kind of interaction with pornography, or I guess exposure was when I was 13. I was on the National Boy Scout Jamboree in 2001. And over the next two or three years, I had kind of minimal contact with it. And I can't remember during that period whether or not I had any bishops interviews that broached the topics of masturbation or pornography. But I do remember one when I was 15.

Guest [00:43:56] This was kind of in the heyday of all the pornography talks in the LDS Church, mid-2000s, when every other conference talk was about pornography. Well, my bishop got into the rhythm of asking nearly every Youth right out of the gate. When was the last time you looked at pornography and do you masturbate? When was the last time you masturbated? So just right off the bat, they're assuming guilt and kind of feeding into that shame. So my bishop asks me if I had been masturbating. And I didn't know what that was. I didn't understand the mechanics of it. I mostly had seen still images of naked women and maybe a random video of a man and a woman having sex.

Guest [00:44:42] And so I didn't understand that friction was friction. So, yeah, I'm not too bright. So in that interview, he asks me if I had ever masturbated, and I said no. And he was a bit puzzled and went on to explain how that kind of works.

Guest [00:45:01] And he said that, you know, it's when you pleasure yourself, it's when you make yourself feel good. And then he trotted out the For Strength of Youth pamphlet quote about arousing passions in your own body. And that kind of gave me the idea to try it. And so I already had enough guilt and shame over pornography as it was. And kind of him introducing me to something else that I did not get into by myself, that really.

Guest [00:45:32] It really made me feel horrible because he was the one who told me about it. And so then I took that information and used it. And I knew it was a sin at that point. So I went from zero to sinning a lot in my mind, really, really fast.

Guest [00:45:49] And for, you know, two or three years, I was pretty okay with compartmentalizing it. There was. There was some, you know, depression during that time. But when I was about 17 or 18, I just cold turkey decided to try to give it up. And I was successful, mostly because I hadn't had too many bishops interviews at that point. They were. That were asking those questions that I felt that I needed to really answer. So, straight up, I lied for about two or three years just to kind of quell my own anxiety a bit. But then that all kind of changed when I. When I got into the mtc, and this is where it started getting bad for me.

Guest [00:46:32] I entered the MTC on January 31st of 2007, and a couple days later, the branch presidency, my MTC branch presidency, had a meeting at the end of the class with, you know, brother and sister missionaries together and said, oh, by the way, sins of masturbation need to be confessed, not just prayed about.

Guest [00:46:57] And they said, we're gonna stay here after class, and anybody can come talk to us about it. I was a Zone leader in the mtc. And so I, you know, really took it upon myself to confess to it because I had done it two or three days prior for the first time in months.

Guest [00:47:16] And just because of the stress of the MTC and whatnot, that was my coping mechanism. I just fell back on the old ways. And so I went in, and it was essentially pretty well surmised by everyone else who was in the building at that point. For those who were sticking around after hours, seemingly.

Guest [00:47:36] So that really kind of gave me a complex and got that shame cycle in my mind that really just introduced depression later on in my mission. My first mission president, I served in South America. He was very good at being a facilitator for our experience.

Guest [00:47:58] And when I came to him, I still remember the day was October 10, 2007. I'll never forget it. I called him just in tears, asking, you know, if I could talk to him. And. I expressed what was going on and what I had done. And instead of being angry, instead of talking about sin, he said, we're gonna refresh the page. Or in Spanish, refrescara pajina.

Guest [00:48:32] So, like, that's what we did. He just said, don't worry about it. Just don't think. Just try not to think about it. And if it happens, if it comes to you, you know, here are some. Maybe some skills to deal with it. And I really appreciated that. That carried me for about a. About a year.

John Dehlin [00:48:48] So that's a good response, right?

Ryan Waite [00:48:49] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:48:50] Don't worry about it. Just do your best. And.

Guest [00:48:53] Yes. And that's one of the things I want to highlight, is that that's great.

John Dehlin [00:48:58] We need good stories.

Ryan Waite [00:49:00] Yeah.

Guest [00:49:00] Yeah. Most of my interactions with leadership have been positive. Some have not been, and. But that first mission president was great. My second mission president, not so much. Instead, he had me recite scriptures 100 times in a row, and out of the goodness of his heart, I believe.

John Dehlin [00:49:18] Literally. Are you joking?

Guest [00:49:20] No, literally. He would have me recite a certain scripture 100 times in a row to get the thought of masturbation out of my mind.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] To yourself or to him? To yourself.

Guest [00:49:30] We would have almost nightly calls. I would call him once or. Sorry, every other day for, like, three or four weeks. And that, like, that was. That represented a time commitment on his end. I understand that, but it was just too much of a focus on it, and I have anxiety as it is. So that just really kicked it into gear.

John Dehlin [00:49:51] Yeah.

Guest [00:49:52] Ended up making me kind of act out. Not sexually, but missionarily. I started doing more and More risky things as a missionary to try to prove to God that I was worthy enough for him to just take my sexual feeling away. And so, like, I would stop semi trucks on the highway and give them, give the bewildered drivers a copy of

Ryan Waite [00:50:16] the Book of Mormon.

Guest [00:50:18] I would like, preach Dan Jones style in dangerous slums. And so it was reckless behavior because

John Dehlin [00:50:26] your kind of anxiety and even depression was so high you weren't acting in a way that valued your life.

Guest [00:50:33] Absolutely. I believed in magic, so I wanted God to just magic all of my feelings away. And I ended up seeing a mission psychologist about it. And it really hurt me because there are rumors in the, in the mission that, you know, I was going home early and all that. I didn't end up going home early. I ended up finishing up my mission, you know, mostly focusing on building homes. And I tried not to be a jerk, but yeah, that really, that really kind of changed my perception and it became a secret thing for me. It became the only secret I ever had. And on.

Guest [00:51:13] In my exit interview with that same mission president, I brought up to him that I thought that I would never be able to love a woman the right way because I had looked at pornography because I had masturbated several times.

Guest [00:51:27] And you know, he didn't do hardly anything to refute that. And that killed me. I. That really, really made me down spirited or unspirited, I guess. And so I came up with a goal to get married, like as soon as possible after my mission. And we set goals to date within three weeks and whatever, which I hit. And I ended up getting married within 10 months of getting home and I remain married. Great, great marriage. It's wonderful. We've had our ups and downs, but that's something that, you know, I just wanted to get married at all costs, mostly because of my interactions with my leadership and them telling me that essentially I needed to, otherwise I would, you know, turn into a 20 something that's not married.

Guest [00:52:18] You know, the trope. So I get home from my mission and go to byu and here's. Here's a good interaction, semi good interaction. Number two, I had a stake president interview me to be an elders quorum president. And at the time I was not looking at pornography, but I was masturbating probably once or twice a month, maybe once.

Guest [00:52:45] And when I, you know, just in tears again, just feeling like I just had to continuously just bring up this awful thing about me, he looks at me and he's like, well, do you look at porn? Like, no, I have in the Past, but I don't anymore. And he's like, okay. Like, I got the feeling that they had so many problems finding returned missionaries to be other scorn presidents that weren't masturbating and looking at porn. So I guess I was the lesser of evils. So, so, yeah, and. And then, you know, married life. I got married a couple months later. And how are we on time?

John Dehlin [00:53:26] Go ahead and kind of finish the crucial parts of the story.

Guest [00:53:29] Crucial parts. So skip ahead a couple years. And I confess to my bishop about looking at porn and masturbating about once a month. That's about my threshold, or it was at that time. And so he doesn't really ask me any questions. He just asks for my temple recommend and tells me to go to the addiction recovery program. So that's, that's the, the Natasha interview that, that it really focuses on that.

John Dehlin [00:53:59] And so that 12 step program where you call yourself an addict and you talk about yourself in terms of sobriety.

Guest [00:54:06] Yeah, yeah. And it was. I had a lot of high hopes at the beginning, even though I was unsure about it. But I, you know, I hoped because I was. I was doing the program. I was trying to go to the temple once a week.

Guest [00:54:22] Living in Northern Virginia at the time, just running myself ragged, trying to do everything I needed to do. And after about six weeks of it, I realized that it couldn't. It can't help me because there's no mentorship, there's no real help other than reading Packer quotes about, you know, studying the gospel versus human behavior and just. Just this. The same stuff that you would get in it. Essentially, it's preach my gospel just watered down a little bit and written in the third person. That's what the addiction recovery manual is, in my view. And so I started making plans to castrate myself or to find some sort of pill or doctor or whatever.

Guest [00:55:12] Luckily, I was, you know, not very wealthy at the time, and I did not really have access to do that. And my wife knew really very little. She knew I was going to the program. She knew I was there. She did not know my internal struggles.

Guest [00:55:28] And so at that point, I started making. I started making plans to. To do that to myself because I just didn't want to feel it anymore. I did not want to be a sexual being. I wanted to be in my mind, I wanted to be a robot. I just wanted to just kind of live life that way and not have any feeling.

Guest [00:55:52] Luckily, I found Mormon Stories podcast in December of 2012, and, you know, everything changed after that. I Found community. I found Natasha and Jennifer Finlayson Fife, you know, sex therapists that know what's going on and know the difference between addiction and somebody just using something to cope and different modalities there. So essentially, you know, that's. That was my story up until about January 2013.

Guest [00:56:28] I did not have many interactions with bishops after that. I realized that by disclosing that information, they had power over me. And I also realized that it's none of their business. So I started talking to people on the Internet, Mormon stories, podcast, community and whatnot. And just hearing the stories that we've heard today and just hearing people around in the Phoenix area, bishops, stake presidents that I knew that mean well, but they are not trained. They like has been said in other interviews today. They pick up on old ideas that are kind of just word of mouth. They're not in any manual. They're just kind of inheriting what the bishop before them did.

Guest [00:57:16] And I know many of them asking those questions were very uncomfortable. At this point. I work with LGBTQ youth as my side job and I'm more trained than any bishop there is other than those who are, you know, licensed clinical psychologists or social workers or whatnot. And that scares me because I feel like I don't know very much.

Guest [00:57:43] And so I don't know if the last question that you told me that answer was what I think the church could do to fix this. Number one, stop asking those questions. Number two, allow people to have other people in the interviews. Parents, guardians, somebody like has been said earlier today that the interviewee chooses also the vocabulary around that. It's not worthiness interviews, it's faithfulness.

Guest [00:58:17] And then the third thing would be for us, if those things don't change the culture. You know, some people might get mad at this, but we might try to go a little Mike Norton and start giving recording devices to young kids.

Guest [00:58:35] If that's what. It's what's got to happen for it to change. That's what's got to happen. And I know we can talk about well meaning people, you know, six ways to Sunday, but at the end of the day, this is wrong, it is damaging.

Guest [00:58:53] It is not promoting health, it is promoting secrecy. It's promoting shame cycle and it's also taking power away from parents. There is no reason at all why sexual education should happen in a bishop's office. Zero. I know we're prude as Mormons.

Guest [00:59:10] I mean, my sex talk was, you know, not very long. It included don't look at porn and keep it in your Pants till marriage. So I did not have the tools. We need to tell parents there needs to be something in the church that says, hey, comprehensive sex education is a thing. Even if you want to do abstinence only, at least that's something. It's more than a lot of my friends got. So, yeah, that's basically it.

John Dehlin [00:59:39] You know, hearing you say that you thought about castrating yourself. Can you talk about that just really briefly? Like that almost sounds too extreme to believe. And yet I've heard that before. And if anyone will remember the book the Backslider, Levi Peterson actually writes about that sort of thing. So is that something you could just talk about really quickly?

Guest [01:00:05] Yeah, because luckily I don't have much to tell about it. It was about a month or two of planning and Internet searches, writing letters that I never sent to my wife about why I would want to do that, trying to figure out how to tell her that we would not have any more biological children. There was a lot of Mormon things that I was going to give up by getting rid of this part of myself. It was hard.

John Dehlin [01:00:41] But what was your logic in doing that? You already said it, but I just want you to say it one more time.

Guest [01:00:47] My logic in wanting to do that was so that I never had to worry about that ever again. Again, I might not understand the mechanics of everything. And I know that, you know, testes do more than just that and there might be some sort of ghost effect, I don't know. But that was as a 25 year old person. That was my logic and reasoning. And because I don't have medical training, or I didn't at the time, any medical training at all. No sex ed training whatsoever, other than very rudimentary, you know, where things go. Luckily, I was able to get that through listening to podcasts and researching a little bit. I wish I had had that information sooner, then I wouldn't have ever planned to do that. And yeah, you said that. I'm not the only one you've heard that from. Yeah, there. There are dozens of us. Dozens, John.

Ryan Waite [01:01:42] More than that.

Guest [01:01:43] There are many people who have thought about doing this and it's completely unnecessary. Masturbation is normal. It is something that we do. We are human beings. We evolve this way and we need to stop beating that part of us down with a stick.

John Dehlin [01:01:58] Absolutely. Well, Ryan Flake, it's really courageous for you to share that story with us. It's kind of jarring. I actually didn't know that that was part of your story and I just really appreciate you being willing to share your story because it's the only way things get better.

Guest [01:02:18] So thanks.

John Dehlin [01:02:20] Thank you so much, Ryan. Maybe we'll have you back to tell more of that story. But for now, you've been a really important part of this series. So I just want to thank you so much, Ryan Flake.

Guest [01:02:32] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:02:34] All right, please stay in touch, will ya?

Guest [01:02:36] Will do.

Closing Reflections and Eighth Interview Preview

John Dehlin [01:02:37] All right, everyone, we're running out of time. I've got one more interview. It'll be our eighth for the day. I've got one more interview for this story, so please stay tuned. And thanks to everyone for joining us for this epic seven or eight part series on inappropriate interviews with Mormon bishops around sexuality. Thanks for the support, everybody, and we'll see you again in just a few minutes. Take care. Thanks again, Ryan.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.