Welcome and Introduction to the Episode

Carah Burrell [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to a special edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host for today, Carah Burrell. And if you'll notice, this is not John De Lynn sitting next to me, Natasha Helfer. Welcome.

Natasha Helfer [00:00:13] Hello, Carah. I'm so glad to be here with you today.

Carah Burrell [00:00:16] We have a very exciting podcast and episode scheduled for today. I want to first let Natasha introduce herself and then I will kind of go through the topic that I thought that we could dive into today. So. So, Natasha, who are you? What do you do? Give everyone a brief snippet about your history.

Natasha Helfer's Background and Professional Work

Natasha Helfer [00:00:34] Okay, so I'm Natasha Helfer. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. I've been practicing for almost 25 years now, the majority of that time being within kind of the Mormon LDS population across a spectrum of what we might call belief or post belief. I work a lot with mixed faith marriages, faith transitions, issues of sexuality, regular things too, like depression, parenting, anxiety issues, et cetera. And let's see, I'm also a certified sex therapist or the organization called asec, the American association for Sexual Educators, Counselors and Therapists. And that's been the case for about a decade now. I am also a supervisor for that association as well. So I supervise and train other therapists who want to become certified in sex therapy and teach with Dr. Stephanie Bueller at the Buehler Institute for in that regard as well. I have four kiddos. I live here now in Utah and run my, my group practice called Symmetry Solutions, which you can also find@getmormonhelp.com and yeah, perfect introduction.

Carah Burrell [00:01:44] We're gonna shoot the breeze for a second.

Natasha Helfer [00:01:46] Oh, we're shooting.

Carah Burrell [00:01:48] What's really great you guys is here in our studio in Holiday Utah, Mormon story studio right here. And then about 20 steps down the hallway that way is Symmetry Solutions. That's us where Natasha hangs out. So it wasn't a big ask. We did a retreat this past weekend for people kind of like post faith crisis retreat that's put on by Natasha and Margi and John. And she did this fabulous. I'm going to repeat this later, but she always has fabulous presentations and this one was kind of about best practices. And what's the name of your. Your presentation that you gave?

Natasha Helfer [00:02:19] Well, my presentation about sexuality. Is that the one you're talking about?

Carah Burrell [00:02:23] Yes.

Natasha Helfer [00:02:23] Which is kind of redefining sexuality after a faith transition and kind of going through. You know, I think sometimes when we grow up in a religious culture, especially a high demand or conservative religious culture, we're oftentimes told a lot of to do's or to not to do's in regards to sex. So don't have premarital sex. Don't touch certain areas of your body, do this, do, don't do that. And I'm actually really much more interested in the principles of sexual health, which. Which is a lot of what I went to school for or, you know, wanted to become a sex therapist to understand healthy sexuality better. And so when you can kind of put sexual principles into the equation, you find out pretty quickly that marital sex does not necessarily equal healthy sex. Right. So because you may or may not be following the principles of healthy sexuality whether you're married or not.

Carah Burrell [00:03:24] And I want to get into. You laid them out in your presentation and I hope you have them memorized. You better definitely have them memorized.

Natasha Helfer [00:03:30] I can sing them during karaoke breakout periods. Like, you know those have you. What are those things called? Like in the middle of a song where you don't have like any words and everything's like. Air guitaring.

Carah Burrell [00:03:41] Yeah, yeah. Instrumental breaks.

Natasha Helfer [00:03:43] Yeah, that's when I can pump out the principles.

Carah Burrell [00:03:45] So while everyone else is like guitar soloing, you're like concepts.

Natasha Helfer [00:03:50] And by the way, just so you know, just so you remember, these are the principles.

Carah Burrell [00:03:54] Okay. Can't believe it. We need to schedule a new karaoke night for that. Yeah. So we did this retreat this past weekend with John, Margi, Natasha. This was the first one I've gone to. They have put on 50 of these already. I cried, I laughed, I cried, I karaoke. And I was just. I love Natasha's presentation. And one of the point points that she made that really stuck with me was that she laid out this. These principles of healthy sexuality and how these principles are so unvalued, I would say, and under practiced within Mormon marriages. And it really kind of blew my mind because I had always just assumed like, even though I feel like my marriage and my. My sex life is just, it's. It's a. Okay. I didn't grow up in internalizing a lot of unhealthy messages. But if these things are not taught the highest value almost in a marriage is what In a Mormon marriage? What like they. They value like virginity on your temple wedding. They value like just the. The values are sometimes just holy or righteous.

Natasha Helfer [00:04:59] Sexuality is probably valued. Like what does that mean?

Carah Burrell [00:05:03] Yeah, and that.

Natasha Helfer [00:05:04] And I think we value, quite frankly, a lot of protectiveness. Like I'm not going to hurt your feelings and you're not going to hurt mine, which right off the bat goes against one of the sexual principles, which is honesty. If I'm not going to hurt your feelings about how show up sexually, I'm probably not going to be very honest with you about my sexuality.

Carah Burrell [00:05:23] Yeah, yeah. And somebody was mentioning that we just. McKay, Spartacus Johnson was an episode that just aired. Just finished airing like an hour ago. And so many things about consent and just issues that deal with porn and shame.

Natasha Helfer [00:05:40] And

Carah Burrell [00:05:43] the part two that's going to be coming out tomorrow is really fascinating because we talk a lot about problems with race and. And Mormonism and LGBTQ issues. And McKay's story is a story of somebody who looked at porn a handful of times and his wife kind of felt like that was grounds to skedaddle out of that marriage. And that me and John were just like, really taken aback at how that almost is the standard Mormon marriage is. Is one spouse policing other sexuality back and forth and having just an unhealthy policing of sexuality and porn, being labeled an addict and all of those ways that drive shame and put people. People deeper and deeper into a hole that they really don't need to be in.

Natasha Helfer [00:06:29] Yeah, yeah. There's lots of things we police from premarital sexual experiences that may or may not have had anything to do with the current partner you're with to things we fantasize about, things that we consume, like erotic visual aids or literature or music or things of that nature. Whether or not we are the higher drive person in the relationship or lower drive person. A lot of different things get policed and monitored because you're rubbing up against things that are uncomfortable and that are different from how you show up sexually. Right. So anytime I'm expected to share myself sexually with somebody which is already a fairly, you know, personal, private, you know, fairly in depth process, and then you're showing up somewhat differently than I am, which I think is every couple. That's fodder for a lot of potential hurt and wounds and miscommunications and misunderstandings, especially when we don't have the comprehensive education needed to understand why those differences might exist that are not about either blaming you or blaming me.

Carah Burrell [00:07:43] Right on. And yes, Alan, we are going to be keeping a list of how many puns we can do. You're rubbing up against things, Natasha.

Natasha Helfer [00:07:53] Oh, no.

Carah Burrell [00:07:53] On the topic of sex, did I

Natasha Helfer [00:07:56] already make some that I don't even. I've probably made all kinds of puns that I'm not even aware of. So that's. I'm pretty good at that.

Carah Burrell [00:08:02] Yeah, I caught it.

Natasha Helfer [00:08:03] That's a hidden talent of mine.

Carah Burrell [00:08:05] Yeah. And so I think we're ready. I just wanted to tell you what we're going to be going over today. And then I want to start off with the healthy principles and have that kind of lead into our discussion. So I came across this YouTube channel right over here. I don't know if it's pronounced quick or cwc. I'm going to go with quick. And he's a real big fan of the papyrus font, but we won't make fun of him about that. His name is Greg Matson and He runs a YouTube channel and, you know, discussing a myriad of different things. And a couple weeks ago, I came across this video. Natasha Helfer, Disciplinary Council explained. And I am always really fascinated about anything that has to do with people within the church not grappling with how harm is quite ubiquitous in some people's lives, how best practices are not practiced within the church, let's say, and also how those things change. And kind of people just close their eyes and put their fingers in the air. And they enjoy a lot of the benefits of people like Natasha who have been excommunicated or Sam Young or various other people. John de Lynn Belle Real. The list goes on and on. And they act like they can just benefit from the changes of a healthier Mormonism without asking where those things come from. And I'm just kind of interested in the larger topics and issues of what Natasha stands for and what she would like to see, what she stood for before she was excommunicated and still does now. And I wanted to go kind of like point by point to some of his accusations about her. What's the word? Instincts. Her intent.

Natasha Helfer [00:09:54] My intent.

Carah Burrell [00:09:54] Her intent for what she does as a sexual health therapist. What's your title exactly? I don't want to get it wrong.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:02] No, yeah. I'm a. I'm a sex therapist.

Carah Burrell [00:10:04] A sex therapist. So we're gonna get into that. And so to lay the groundwork, I would love for Natasha just to explain in karaoke. Hit it, John. Guitar solo.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:16] There's a. There's a song that we've done in the past. It's. Oh, who's the guy who used to sing on Wham? Yeah. George Michael. And what song does he do that. That we've done?

Carah Burrell [00:10:31] Wake me up before you go.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:33] I want your sex.

Carah Burrell [00:10:34] Really?

Natasha Helfer [00:10:35] I want your sex. Yeah. And there's this long, like, instrumental. What did you call it?

Carah Burrell [00:10:43] Instrumental Break.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:43] Yeah, break. And that's where I'm like. And don't forget about consent. Non coercion. Protect yourself against unwanted pregnancy.

Carah Burrell [00:10:53] Let's talk about sex, baby. Let's talk about consent and unwanted pregnancy.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:57] And you want to make sure you have honesty and honest values and for sure mutual pleasure.

Carah Burrell [00:11:04] And I'm sorry if, Natasha, if those, if you're against that Greg Madsen of Seawick show, please tell us this. This. He, he'll, he'll talk about his criticisms and we can talk about that. But I'm on board with all of that. And I just wanted to read Alan Mount's comment that also said you're getting highlighted twice. Alan, we're so lucky to work with Natasha in the mixed faith space. Her expertise on sexuality is invaluable to mixed faith marriages. That is the host of Marriage on a Type Rope podcast.

Natasha Helfer [00:11:35] I love working with mixed faith couples.

Carah Burrell [00:11:37] Yeah. And I also just want to say at the top of the show that we are streaming to Facebook and YouTube right now and love how John's just like Gerardo is giving us lighting recommendations from afar. Thank you, Gerardo. That I should just mention at the top of the show that we are doing this live. And so we're going to try and keep it tight. I have lots of clips queued up. We're not gonna be watching the whole 46 minute YouTube episode. But if you have comments, I'll try to read them on air. And if you want to throw us some cashew, there's a button at the bottom on YouTube called a super chat. And we will try. I don't want to say for sure, but we will try our very, very best to make sure that we can read your comment on air and see that. And if you want to support Mormon Stories podcast, this is completely 100% donor funded. So your donations mean a lot. And donating through MormonStories.org is a great place to do that. But also through YouTube is. It's pretty easy that way too. Okay, so without further to do what are some of the. The basic principles of healthy that constitutes healthy.

Six Principles of Sexual Health

Natasha Helfer [00:12:46] So the six principles of sexual health, which this is kind of coming from the World Health association, but it's also coming from the work of Doug Brown, Harvey and Michael Vigorito, who are people in the sex therapy field who have really worked around this issue of trying to find commonality even among sex therapists. But also in the wake of like the whole movement of so many people thinking that there is such a thing as sex addiction or porn addiction, they've really tried to think about this in more sex positive, healthy ways. And so their work has a lot to do with figuring out your own values, figuring out, you know, what your sexual, how your sexuality is showing up and what you want it to look like, and making sure that you're not feeling out of control in regards to this human behavior, as I think, you know, many of us would not want to feel out of control with many of our human behaviors like, you know, eating, spending money, sleeping, watching Netflix, et cetera. All the things, right, that we behaviorally may, may struggle with. So, so they're the ones that have really done a lot of work with these six princ. And I just want to put a plug for my podcast, Mormon Sex Info, that Doug Braun Harvey, who is nationally and internationally acclaimed, gave us, the Mormon community, a gift of about 10 hours of his free time of podcasting with me on every single one of these principles. And I think that it's just an invaluable listen if you're willing to go there and hear him speak about these things. So the principles are what? One, Consent, you know, is everybody who is involved in the sexual activity wanting to be involved and consenting to be involved. And you would think that that's a simple thing. And yet because of a lot of different feelings and expectations and pressures and ideas about how we should show up sexually, Consent isn't always easy. It isn't always easy and it's especially not necessarily easy in a long term marriage where maybe, um, there is sometimes less than enthusiastic consent or duty or obligatory sex happening by a lower libido partner, et cetera. The second principle is non exploitation or coercion, which I think again, you would think that's an easy concept, right? Don't exploit people. And yet there's so many things that can happen in power differentials, including patriarchal power differentials, including marital differentiation differentials and power where one person can use that power whether, whether meaning to or not, in ways that can be harmful to a sexual relationship. So that happens whether it's guilting or stonewalling or pouting or using kind of sexuality as a threat and or as a bargaining chip per se in regards to a long term relationship. The third one is unwanted pregnancies and STI is protecting part from those things. Again, in many marriages I have seen that not be the case, whether it's through issues of infidelity with STIs and or not being very honest about family planning, people not being honest about whether or not they're getting a vasectomy, people not being honest about whether or not they're using certain types of birth control correctly and not being honest with each other about the number of children they want to have, when they want to have them, et cetera. Number four principle is honesty, which I think I touched on earlier. It's hard to be honest not only with a sexual partner, but even with ourselves, when we are not necessarily allowed permission to explore ourselves, to know ourselves, to understand kind of sexuality from a comprehensive perspective. And when you're expected to kind of fit within some very non flexible and even rigid parameters that I think, you know, we, I can comfortably say our LDS tradition kind of has some, some of those parameters where you can only really show up sexually in, in certain ways and be considered righteous. So that leads to a lot of secrecy, a lot of not knowing oneself, a lot of, you know, kind of even potentially duplicitous type of lifestyles, et cetera. That can lead to a lot of betrayal and, and harm for both an individual and a partner. And then the fifth principle would be shared values. So are the people who are engaging in a sexual activity valuing something similar? So whether you value monogamy or non monogamy, or whether you value trust and stability, or whether you value adventure and playfulness, whether you value creativity, or maybe a type of sexual play, like soft tantric, maybe more eye gazing type things, whether you value more, you know, power differentials and sexuality play, or like BDSM or fantasy role play or whatever those things are, do you share those values in a way that make the experience doable and sustainable for, for the partners involved? And then number six principle is mutual pleasure, which again, you would think would be an easy one. Right? Don't we all want to have pleasure when we're having sex?

Carah Burrell [00:18:27] That's number six.

Natasha Helfer [00:18:28] That's number six. And that's. And yet here in the United States of America, we still have a 70%, you know, rate of orgasm for female bodies versus 100% rate towards males. You know, if you're going to have like a percentage. So there's an orgasm gap that is happening between female and male bodies. It is a bit of a travesty. And it's not that people have to necessarily come together and it's not necessarily even that pleasure always has to mean orgasm. But what this really is talking about is are we prioritizing the pleasure of the partners involved and are the people who are involved, you know, getting the pleasure that they want and able to communicate about that and getting the time and space for that to be prioritized in whatever encounter it is that we're discussing?

Carah Burrell [00:19:18] Yeah, and I would Say that the, the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, one of their absolute highest priorities is to have healthy marriages, to have mothers and fathers rearing children that have healthy Christ centered marriages. So can you speak to why these are, these principles seem so common sense to you, me, our listeners, and why these kinds of things are not taught in Sunday school or in the church? Do you have a theory?

Natasha Helfer [00:19:46] Well, I mean, I would go further to say too that not only do we have a lot of really great goals within, I think the Mormon theology of being family and marriage centric, I think that compared to other Christian religions that I'm aware of, we're actually much more sex positive than many other traditions that.

Carah Burrell [00:20:11] Yeah, talk about that. That's interesting.

Natasha Helfer [00:20:12] Yeah, I did. In fact, I did a whole podcast on this with three other LDS sex therapists and we went through all the things that we felt were sex positive from Mormon theology. And so if anybody's interested in that, you can look that up. But I think, you know, just even from the body being something that. And again, whether or not you see these things as literal or whether you believe these things or not, that's not my point right now. My point is these are things that we come from. These are things from our tradition that the body was something that was wanted, that was desired by all of us, that we wanted to come down here and actually experience what it was like to be an embodied person. And a lot of Christian religions actually see the body as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve and as a mortal kind of, you know, object that's just here to tempt you and to make you feel badly and to destroy you, you know, and that will be destroyed through death. So I think that there's something very positive about that. I do think that we are a religion that does not talk about sex only from a procreative standpoint. We do talk about procreation and the importance of that. But we have also have a lot of talks, even from general pulpits that talk about sexuality being something that can be a force for uniting a couple, for, you know, sharing something special and unique and sacred to that relationship. So there's a fairly sex positive approach in that regard as well. And so anyway, those are just kind of two things that come to mind.

Carah Burrell [00:21:48] But again, like LDS theology doesn't have to necessarily butt heads with more like sex positive ideas is kind of what your sounds like. It's, it's more progressive than your traditional Christian theology.

Natasha Helfer [00:22:00] Yeah. And as to your question as to why we have, you know, Such a struggle talking about these, some of these things. I don't think that's a Mormon struggle. I think that's a struggle. You know, I think that's a, that's a general struggle. And we come from a puritanical background here in this country. Mormonism was influenced by that, as were many other Christian religions. We see the purity movement through evangelical USA, you know, starting in the 80s. That's quite oppressive. And, and quite.

Carah Burrell [00:22:28] How would you define, like the puritanical movement in the 80s? I haven't heard that before.

Natasha Helfer [00:22:33] Yeah, so the purity movement was a lot of these things where, you know, you hear and they still happen today, like these purity balls where young women would be taken by their fathers, kind of like on a daddy daughter date.

Carah Burrell [00:22:48] That sounds fun.

Natasha Helfer [00:22:50] And you promise your father that you will not have sex before you're married.

Carah Burrell [00:22:55] That doesn't sound so.

Natasha Helfer [00:22:59] Sorry. You crack me up sometimes. And then. And you sign these kind of like contracts and you wear a ring and kind of. That you're married to Jesus or to your dad until you're kind of, you know, given over to your husband and

Carah Burrell [00:23:16] that your sexuality is not owned by you. You're the last person that owns your sexuality, basically.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:21] Right. And we have that too in Mormonism. But I do feel like the purity movement of the 80s definitely puts a little bit this. Of this more on like a heightened steroid than even Mormonism does.

Carah Burrell [00:23:34] We count ourselves lucky.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:35] Yeah, right.

Carah Burrell [00:23:35] It's not as satisfying.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:36] We're not the only ones with object lessons, and we're not the only ones that, in fact, I remember at a sex therapy conference one time talking about religious people who come from religious cultures. And there was a presentation on that. And so I was there with several of my LDS colleagues and we were so excited to raise our hands about the object lessons, thinking, oh, we're the only ones that had those. And then I was appalled at how horrific some of the other ones were. I was like, I guess we're not the worst ones with the object.

Carah Burrell [00:24:03] Maybe that's our correlated curriculum is actually a good thing because there's other churches that are just like out of left

Natasha Helfer [00:24:10] field, a whole nother level.

Carah Burrell [00:24:11] No oversight, no checks and balances at all.

Natasha Helfer [00:24:14] At all.

Carah Burrell [00:24:15] Right, Right.

Natasha Helfer [00:24:17] That's the purity movement. It's obviously we have abstinence only education for the most part in this country. Even still in the schools systems, we only teach reproductive sexuality. We do not teach pleasure. So these concepts that we're talking about, like when you think about the six principles, only one of Them has to do with reproduction. But when you think about how we've been taught about sexuality, probably 95% of the curriculums, both at church and in public schools has been about reproduction. Which is also why a lot of people still don't know what a clitoris is or where it is because it's not taught.

Carah Burrell [00:24:53] Babies don't come out of there.

Natasha Helfer [00:24:54] It's not a reproductive organ.

Carah Burrell [00:24:57] Yeah, but if you want to reproduce, you will have people lining up if you know where it is.

Natasha Helfer [00:25:03] Reproduction will be much more enjoyable if you are aware of the clitoris.

Carah Burrell [00:25:09] Thanks for putting it that way. Yeah. Because I was just writing down, I was looking over this, your list of six, seven different. Six different. And I have to give the church pretty much I'm like crossing out like there's a failing grade on most of these in my mind. And I'm trying to put back on my Mormon kind of like very conservative brain looking at these things. And I just, I feel like basic bare minimum, like consent and like mutual pleasure. Yes. But like it just doesn't seem like they are that laid out in Mormonism. And I hate to give them kind of a failing grade on a lot of the fronts. Not only what's taught, but actually what is in practice. So you meet with Mormon clients, non Mormon clients all the time. What is your perception of in actual married lives? What, what grade would you give people generally on being able to practice these without them being taught like explicitly?

Natasha Helfer [00:26:07] No, I think that the majority of couples I have seen through my practice, Mormon or not, fail at practicing these six principles in their marriage.

Carah Burrell [00:26:15] And I would say that's an important decide.

Natasha Helfer [00:26:17] Yes, I would say most temple recommend holding pew sitting family, Mormon family raising couples who are generally very nice and very well intentioned and usually love each other very much and are very committed to their marriages, are not following these principles. And you know, the reality is, is that you could have, oh, I don't know, like a college hookup that does follow all these principles. Now a college hookup may not fall into your values and that's fine. But you could have people who see a casual sexual encounter is not going against their values and they're following all of these principles because they are concerned about safe sex. They're making sure they're consensual, there's no coercion, both of them prioritize the pleasure of the other, they're being honest about what they want, that this isn't a committed type of activity. And voila, they have followed all the principles. So this is where I think it's very dangerous, especially as parents, to leave the sexual education to this very simplistic perspective of if you get married to somebody that you love, therefore you will then have good or healthy sex. Those two things really are completely independent of one another. You may, you may have healthy, good sex and you may not. And you will more than likely, especially if you're going to spend 40 plus years with somebody, you're going to have some sexual ups and downs and you're going to have some, some, some challenges to a sexual relationship that most people are ill equipped to know how to handle.

Carah Burrell [00:27:56] So even the best case scenario of a sweet BYU couple getting married in the temple, they love each other, they respect each other. The man is not trying to like lord over the woman. He's not like being a patriarchal prick, as you like to say right there. I know plenty of couples like that that, you know, they, there are some beautiful, wonderful marriages. I think I'm still friends, most of my friends are all still Mormon right now. And I respect them and their husbands. And I'm sure from the things I've heard, things are going well in the bedroom and I think they, they practice a lot of those things. But to have any kind of value that just says because you are, you know, temple, temple, wed, temple recommend holding, you hold your covenants, you pray and read the scriptures together and you love each other very much. Things don't necessarily fall into place with consent, with you being honest about what you want, that you share the same value. Because sometimes I think in my Mormon brain as a wife, I was thinking my highest value is to not have conflict in my home. And that immediately translates into giving your husband sex basically whenever he wants it. And so whether or not you want to tease out that line of, well, whether that's coercion or consent, my highest value of being a Christ like wife is pushed to the forefront, which I'm

Natasha Helfer [00:29:16] sure you do have that, and that will impact you whether your husband is having that expectation or not. Yeah, right.

Carah Burrell [00:29:22] Yeah. So I thank you all for sticking with us because I think this is a super important framework. No, if you want to get me, if you want to, if you want to stare deeply in my eyes.

The Disciplinary Council Letter and Context

Natasha Helfer [00:29:33] I do kind of want to stare deeply into your eyes.

Carah Burrell [00:29:36] The audience wants to as well. So I wanted to set that as kind of the basis of Natasha's beliefs and a lot of the things that she's based her practice around. But you have more controversial beliefs, if you want to call it that, that led to your disciplinary council and eventual excommunication. And you wrote a letter, was addressed, addressed directly to the brethren of the church about why you feel like you were being summoned to that disciplinary council. And do you want to get into more of what the church viewed as a good reason to excommunicate you and your more controversial opinions or. I wouldn't even call it opinions.

Natasha Helfer [00:30:13] Yeah. So again, I wouldn't say these are my beliefs and I wouldn't say these are my opinions.

Carah Burrell [00:30:19] Yeah. What would you call them?

Natasha Helfer [00:30:20] I have gone to school and I have read research and I have an understanding of sexual health and sexual behavior. And I, you know, I brought that understanding and that education back to my community and to my clients. So this is. This is not Sexuality by Natasha Helfer. This is sexuality by a body of, of research and over a century, really now of studying human sexuality and what we. What our best knowledge and best standards of care are at this point.

Carah Burrell [00:30:52] Right. So I take back saying controversial opinion because that's what they want them. That's what they want to call them more.

Natasha Helfer [00:30:58] Yeah, but it is controversial because your

Carah Burrell [00:31:00] stances, what you push for, what you advocate for.

Natasha Helfer [00:31:04] Well, I don't think it's even me. I think that the tension between religious belief, you know, religious ideology, dogma, whatever you want to call that, and science has always been intention. That's been a controversial, if you want to call it that relationship for ever since we were talking about whether or not the world is flat, whether or not the sun goes round and round, you know, on a variety of topics. It's affected the discourse on race, it's affected the discourse on gender. It's affected the discourse on so many aspects of, of human life. And so that's. That's not my issue. That's not even the Mormon Church's issue. That's. That's a global kind of natural thing that we've been observing for. For a long time. So, yeah, that's, that's what I would say about that. So my, my. Yeah, these are not beliefs and opinions. These are, these are best sexual health understandings and best standards of care that I'm aware of because of my study in human sexuality and in human psychology

Carah Burrell [00:32:15] and to the criticism that somebody might say, well, since these are not the. What's the other type of science called? The old, like, you know, something in a beaker. I'm not very smart.

Natasha Helfer [00:32:25] You guys are. Hard science maybe versus soft science or. I don't know.

Carah Burrell [00:32:28] But if you're talking in the psychological, like in the Psychology field and things are constantly in their minds. Maybe somebody could argue that things are changing and we're observing and things get political and people's ideologies get shoved in the center of this, and it's too much to do with holding to an ideology than actually best practice and what is true and to be proven scientifically. Does that make sense?

Natasha Helfer [00:32:57] Yeah, well, so, I mean, the science. So science in general, it has not been a perfected form from its beginning. At the same time, science does rely on the scientific method. So it does have a method of accountability. And so therefore, if something is happening in the scientific fields that will not hold up over time, we usually figure that out. Theology and ideology doesn't necessarily have that accountability structure. And things have changed dramatically in most theologies and ideologies as well. So that's not necessarily an argument that can be given to one side of the spectrum and not offered to the other. But yeah, so this. So, and psychology has made mistakes. I mean, conversion therapy, for example, came from the psychology field, but it has been disproven through the scientific method. Right. That you can't shock somebody's genitals and have their sexual orientation change. So that's. That is now something that I think we're all fairly comfortable saying. We, you know, it's science. And I do have a bachelor's of science from Brigham Young University in psychology and I have a master's degree in marriage and family therapy science. So, yes, it's not the same, maybe as, you know, chemical equation, but it is science. And we use evidence based practice and we use research based practice that follows the scientific methods.

Carah Burrell [00:34:28] Oh, perfect. So thanks for explaining that. I'm sorry my question was so fumbled. Forgive me, audience. I was not a psychology major at Brigham Young University. I was a UVU dropout. No shade to uvu, though. So I just wanted to read a couple super chats and shout out to Chris, go bike. Thank you so much for sticking around. And Chris, this is my cousin Christian. He's had a really hard week, so sending some love to you, Christian. And he said, we all need to work to get healthier in all the areas of our life. Thank you. And mental health advocacy all the way on that. And Mark Fuentes said, aloha, Natasha. I'm a big fan of the puns. Do you find couples where neurodivergence is present to be a separate or distinct challenge?

Natasha Helfer [00:35:18] Yes, absolutely, Absolutely. As anything from being, you know, on the autism spectrum to having ADHD will affect your sexual, you know, behavior and your Sexual eroticism and your communication and how a partner responds to you. So all of those things are definitely things that are things that we're trained in. In. In regards to a sex therapy training practice.

Carah Burrell [00:35:47] Yeah. And as neuro. Neurodivergence becomes more and more studied and explained, it's just another way of being a human in this world and experiencing sexuality. And yeah, those things definitely intertwine.

Natasha Helfer [00:35:58] And we're very excited about a lot of the research that's coming out here recently in that. In that scope.

Carah Burrell [00:36:04] All right, so would you mind if we. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that already, but I'm still learning. This is John's job. So I'm going to go ahead and jump in and I'm going to go ahead and start with our first clip. And the only thing I really need to introduce on this clip is to say that kind of going back to what we were just talking about, he's just going to describe her pitting her profession against the church. So.

Natasha Helfer [00:36:31] And just so everybody knows, I haven't had time to look at this. So, yeah, these are fresh eyes.

Carah Burrell [00:36:36] This is a fresh reaction. Again, this is called Natasha Helfer disciplinary council explained.

Natasha Helfer [00:36:42] Oh, so he's explaining it to me.

Carah Burrell [00:36:43] That's explaining it back to you. And I wanted you to explain it back to him.

Natasha Helfer [00:36:47] Okay, so we'll do some mutual explanations here.

Carah Burrell [00:36:50] Yeah, we'll do some things that are mutually pleasurable for everyone. That's Natasha's favorite joke. All right, so this is on the. I don't know if it's pronounced Seawick or the quick show. We're going to call it the papyrus font show. Let me go ahead and share the screen and. All right, take it away.

Charges of Pitting Profession Against the Church

Speaker C [00:37:07] Statement that she made on that. She says the reason I'm being called to such a meeting. The reasons I'm being called to such a meeting all have to do with the fact that I am a mental health professional and certified sex therapist. Okay. So what she's doing here is she's pitting specifically her profession against the church. And this is very. A very conscious effort by her to do this. And she does this over and over again.

Natasha Helfer [00:37:34] Okay,

Carah Burrell [00:37:36] reactions to that. A conscious effort that you are pitting your profession against the church.

Natasha Helfer [00:37:42] So you had asked me earlier about the letter and I forgot to mention that. So I was not. I did not send a letter to the church. The church sent me a letter. Well, let me just review this briefly. So I had been contacted by my stake president in Kansas and my bishop in Kansas, which Really were not, in my view, were not my stake president bishop anymore, because I had not lived there for a while. But they had contacted me and started questioning me on a Sunday through like a zoom call. And I had asked them, I said, well, because the questioning was starting to be about my stances on, in regards to things like gay marriage and how I talk about things on my blogs and my podcast. And I was like, okay, well, that's. That's my professional work. So if you want to talk to me about my professional work, first of all, I appreciate not doing that on a Sunday. And second of all, would you mind just putting down, in kind of written format, some of the concerns that you're having so that I can be prepared to come back and have a discussion with you on these things? So it was their letter that. And I've shared that letter somewhere. I could probably share links to all this at some point. But I shared that letter with the public. And the main things that they said that they were concerned about had everything to do with my positions and things that I had written on my professional blog posts or things I had said on my professional podcasts and my positions as a sex therapist. So one of them was my support for gay marriage. One of them was my support for normative sexual developmental behavior, such as masturbation, which we know is normative. And the Pediatric association has been saying that since the 1940s and 50s. And my discussions about how viewing pornography should not be considered necessarily addiction, but that can be looked at more from a values perspective. And there's just different ways to go about solving those kinds of problems than descending people to a addiction treatment centers that are not effective and that have, have. There's no shown proven efficacy that those kinds of centers work, and there's no even diagnosis officially of sex addiction to begin with. So. And there's a lot of research showing that people like the Mormon community are vulnerable to these types of treatment approaches because of their more conservative values around some of this material. So I've always had a much different approach to helping couples navigate and talk about their issues around things that have to do with their values, not issues that have to do with whether or not one of them is sick. Which is what the addiction model would convey, is that somebody is sick, somebody has a disease.

Carah Burrell [00:40:38] And I thought you were going to say about their values, because you say that a lot, that if somebody comes in and they are lds, doesn't matter what religion they are, that it is part of your ethics as a counselor to fall in line with not trying to what, pull them out of their religion. Not implant your ideas, your ideology, what's going on in, you know, the religion of your head, of what you think they should be following. That it's up to you that you, you train your, your people who work in your, in, in cemetery solutions as well on that kind of principle. Right. To respect people's religion and that it's not about pulling them out. So I thought you were going to say that it's about their values, not yours.

Natasha Helfer [00:41:18] Correct.

Carah Burrell [00:41:19] Which is.

Natasha Helfer [00:41:19] That's exactly right. So it's not. I mean, my job as a mental health practitioner is to basically offer psychoeducation. So it is my job to offer research or statistics or best practice. You know, it is my job to offer that. And then it's my job to understand people's values and their ideas about what they want. Self determined. Right. To help them understand what it is that they're hoping to get out of our sessions and what their goals are for coming to see somebody like me. And, and then. Yes, and then, you know, develop a treatment plan that is in accordance with all of us. Right. I'm not going to develop a treatment plan that my, the couple or individual in front of me is, is in disagreement with. So that's, and it would be absolutely unethical for me as a mental health professional to encourage anybody to join a religion, leave a religion, leave a marriage, get married. You know, any type of decision that has to do with a self determined type of approach has to be honored by a mental health professional.

Carah Burrell [00:42:28] So.

Natasha Helfer [00:42:29] Yeah, so, so anyway, so when he says that I pitted the church or my, my profession against the church, I guess my thought is, no, I, I didn't do that. In a sense, the church, when they sent me the letter, showed me that, you know, the best practices and, and positions that I would have as a sex therapist are not incongruent in their mind with being a member of my church. So the pitting was, was theirs. And I do believe that they have in a lot of ways pitted themselves against good sexual health practice, for example, just LGBTQ plus issues. Is very, very clear that the church has pitted themselves against what the basics of what we know about LGBTQ +health. We're not even talking about complexities, we're talking about the basics. So that's not my doing. And yes, I did intentionally bring attention to that. I, I don't have any qualms with talking about that. I think that's important. I think it's important for us to Recognize that when we have a science and a place where people need to go for help and a profession that that does help people live a better quality of life and a religion that is not allowing for that science to go forth, that that should be brought to attention. So, for example, if I belong to a religion where they did not believe in blood transfusions, I would probably be talking about that, you know, that what do I want to call that tension between my faith and something that science has to offer that is currently not being allowed due to the current theological understandings of the. Of the people practice practicing that religion at the time.

Carah Burrell [00:44:25] And so what's going on in your brain as you are probably going throughout school, starting to realize that the science that you're being taught does not match up with your religious beliefs. What goes on inside your head then? Do you feel like you had to pick one or the other? Do you feel like they were congruent?

Natasha Helfer [00:44:42] No, this was right from the, right from the get go. I had a lot of cognitive dissonance that I had to face. Even at BYU Psychology, even in the BYU Psychology department. It started, you know, like understanding mental health issues and what types of things treat mental health issues, what kind of things cause mental health issues.

Carah Burrell [00:45:07] Is prayer one of them?

Natasha Helfer [00:45:08] Prayer was not necessarily one of the time. For some people, prayer actually can be a tool that's helpful for their mental health, but by no means is that a cure. All right. For, for things like that. So it's right.

Carah Burrell [00:45:21] I have heard the bat. I have heard that depression is, you know, caused by you're not reading your scriptures enough, you're not praying enough, you're not close enough to the spirit, or else you'd be able to have that taken away from you.

Natasha Helfer [00:45:32] And I would hear things like that in my wards as I was, you know, attending just as a congregant and being also a mental health professional. So yes, I was usually one of those people in Relief Society or Gospel Doctrine class raising my hand and gently trying to share some clinical knowledge that would help people feel like those were not spiritual faults, you know, or that, that you don't have clinical depression because you're a sinner. And you know, back when I was going back to school in the, in the 90s, in the early 90s, believe it or not, that was a thing. So this is where I think sometimes we forget where we come from.

Carah Burrell [00:46:15] Right.

Natasha Helfer [00:46:15] It's not so much a thing now. Like now we hear a lot of actually good ideas about treating depression and going to go see a Professional at church. You can hear those things. I've heard those things at church in the last like five to 10 years, but 20 to 30 years ago, not so much. And 40 years ago, 50 years ago, people, you know, leaders in the church were calling psychiatrists enemies to, to the church's work.

Carah Burrell [00:46:45] I think that's in like Mormon doctrine, right, that like the whole field of psychology is. Yeah, it's maybe got some good ideas, but don't you dare act like this has any more truth than this gospel that's being revealed. So yeah, that's some dangerous territory.

Natasha Helfer [00:47:02] Yeah, but yeah, no, the cognitive distance has been real and I've had to do a lot, a lot of my flexibility and nuance and my ability to look at my, my own personal religious beliefs shifted throughout my journey as a mental health professional. I still found great value in my Mormonism and in my, in my beliefs and in my kind of nuancing of things that was of great value to me. And yet that looked very different than my like 18 year old testimony. My, you know, my 45 year old testimony is very different from my 25 year old testimony.

Carah Burrell [00:47:39] Are you saying that time adds maturity and you've grown and learned some lessons? People are, people are madman. Natasha, that you are a counselor and apparently you're not looking at me. I'm not taking offense at it. Camera's up there, not over here. I know. If we snuggle, is that fair enough? Let's talk like this. We're gal palling.

Natasha Helfer [00:47:59] If we were in my office, but then I feel like I'm supposed to be looking at the audience.

Carah Burrell [00:48:02] You don't have to look anywhere but these, these brown eyes. So. Because it sounds like you're saying that it's not that you pitted yourself against the church, it's something as basic as saying that the earth is round and somebody else is saying the earth is flat and it's them making an, an assertion that is not in line with what's provable.

Natasha Helfer [00:48:23] Right. And then saying that I'm pitting that against the church and like, well, that's not, it really has nothing to do with the church. It just, just.

Carah Burrell [00:48:29] Oh, there's your eyes.

Natasha Helfer [00:48:34] It's like the church just has its own positions that don't happen to be aligned with good sexual health and information. Our current, our best, our best information in human sexuality.

Carah Burrell [00:48:49] So yeah, all right, we have some more clips to get through. We'll get through all of them. Don't you worry your pretty little heads, everyone. I just, we'll probably go through these clips a little bit quicker. These are such. This is so important, though, honestly, I want to have as much baseline of who Natasha is, what she believes in, what she advocates for, and. And then get into these clips here. Okay. All right. Don't worry. I have them all totally queued up because I'm a professional.

Masturbation, Church Teaching, and Therapeutic Views

Speaker C [00:49:15] Right. About 10 years ago, I think it was 10 years ago, maybe a little bit longer, she wrote a blog that was basically saying, look, this is fine, especially for kids, talking about masturbation a sin. Right. It's not a sin. So this was. This was something that's kind of her first foray into kind of going against the church and the doctrine of the church. Right. And what does it have to do with. And this is the important issue here,

Carah Burrell [00:49:42] is that your first four way. Did masturbation pop your cherry?

Natasha Helfer [00:49:45] I'm just kidding.

Carah Burrell [00:49:46] Sorry, I'm gonna get fired. Was that your first four way?

Natasha Helfer [00:49:51] Yes.

Carah Burrell [00:49:52] Really? Okay.

Natasha Helfer [00:49:52] Masturbation vlog he's referring to was probably the first time that I had written something that I knew was probably in direct opposition to what church leaders would say. Yes, that was over.

Carah Burrell [00:50:04] It was kind of what you already covered, or was there something else that

Natasha Helfer [00:50:07] I was just basically saying that masturbation is a normative human behavior. It crosses culture and space and time. And if we. I was kind of talking about some of the dangers that happen when we take normal human behavior that's normative and actually part of human sexual development and make that a quote, unquote sin. If we decide that's a sin, the effects that that can have. And I've seen those effects many, many, you know, so, so many times in my office, as have many other LDs Mental health professionals in regards to sexual shame, self loathing, you know, considering yourself broken. And this happens at a typically very young age, a very young, impressionable age, which is usually about 11 to 13, especially since this is the age when most adolescents or pre adolescents in our culture are going in for their first bishops interviews and. And starting to have their first maturation discussions at home, even with their parents. And their parents are explaining that touching your own body is something that God would be, you know, unhappy with you about. And not to mention that, but we also teach that God is all knowing and all seeing. And so then, as these young minds are thinking about these behaviors and being watched by, you know, a heavenly parent, it interferes with their spiritual development, with their ability to feel close to heavenly Father at times or their, you know, whatever they would call their God and. And it interferes with a lot of their identity development.

Carah Burrell [00:51:46] Yeah. And it, everything to me always comes back to the nature of God. And it's in those adolescent years where you're really developing who your heavenly father is. And now that I think back to it, it really just felt like I was always in the principal's office because if that's something that you kind of struggle with and you're not telling him on, but you kind of feel like you're constantly praying and feeling like you're in the doghouse and you just never feel like you're good enough. Because you mentioned it's a normative, completely cross culturally, it's. What would you compare it to? And if you could say something else, I don't want to quite say like it's like getting your period. But is it something close to that, that it is?

Natasha Helfer [00:52:21] Well, I would say that the closest thing, it's, it's like, it's, it's like eating. I mean, it's, it's a drive. It's a human drive.

Carah Burrell [00:52:28] A human drive.

Natasha Helfer [00:52:28] It's, it's something that, you know, most kids figure out at some point and they're, whether they're toddlers or young kids or adolescents, that this helps them fall asleep, this helps them stress relief, this helps them cope or feel good in their bodies. And we take something that is actually a very healthy part of being a human and being able to self soothe and turn it into something they shouldn't be doing. And then because it is a drive and an appetite, it happens repetitively. So when you ask somebody to stop something that's happening to them repetitively, that begins this toxic kind of shaming, internalized shame.

Carah Burrell [00:53:10] Especially if it's a coping mechanism for stress or whatever else. If you're feeling stressed because you're not supposed to be doing it.

Natasha Helfer [00:53:16] A lot of people think of the word coping mechanism as a negative. And it's not. We're all supposed to have coping mechanisms. We're all supposed to learn how to cope and self soothe. And whether that's sucking your thumb or reading a book at night or

Speaker C [00:53:32] you

Natasha Helfer [00:53:32] know, twirling your hair, some people twirl their hair or you know, there's all kinds of ways that we use our bodies to self soothe and self touch and touching your genitals and masturbating is most definitely a very effective way to do that.

Carah Burrell [00:53:47] Is there any outside of religion? Is there besides just bridling your passions in all different ways, is there any secular reason to like completely give up to, to, to forward an idea that masturbation is bad and should be curtailed.

Natasha Helfer [00:54:04] No.

Carah Burrell [00:54:05] Really?

Natasha Helfer [00:54:06] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:54:06] Can't think of. Can't think of a single one. I've tried to come up with them before. I have, like, what would you do? Questions with my sister and.

Natasha Helfer [00:54:14] Well, as a behavior in general. No, I mean, any behavior can be done in ways that is. That can be unhealthy or that can be done. I mean, you can, you can eat in unhealthy ways. But I feel like the question you just asked me is, is eating unhealthy ever?

Carah Burrell [00:54:32] Right?

Natasha Helfer [00:54:33] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:54:34] Yeah. And the. You want to know my reason? The one I could come up with, my sister, actually, it wasn't a secular reason, it was a religious reason. And it's really creepy. I haven't ever said this out loud. Now that I think about it, it was because the only reason I could ever think of when I was Mormon, the masturbation would be wrong. That I told myself, even though I didn't believe this, still masturbated the whole time that I was Mormon. TMI for everyone. I didn't think that there was anything wrong with it, but I had to. I had to think, what is Mormon God's idea of why it was wrong? And it was because God doesn't want me to own my body and my sexuality that he lent me this body, this earth. Life is at his loan. And I need to always be falling in line with what he has given me. So if I don't understand it, too bad, Carah, I still need to fall in line because this is not my body. My sexuality will be owned by my husband. Literally. These are thoughts that went through my head. And if I get into this tricky territory where I think that I can pleasure myself at any given time, that is not God's will. So that's kind of how my Mormon brain made sense of it. It's a. If that's the way that you believe, good luck.

Natasha Helfer [00:55:39] Well, and that's just one of many, many meaning ruts that I would say people fall into to explain why they would be at odds and at war, in essence, with an aspect of themselves at war.

Carah Burrell [00:55:54] That's so interesting the way you put that. At war with aspects of themselves, like eating something that you have a drive to do and you're. You are, you know, constantly balancing the way that you view God, your worth before him, and something that you feel completely driven to do. Yeah, that's interesting.

Natasha Helfer [00:56:11] Yeah. And I've seen, you know, so I mean, I wrote this book post after probably, you know, I don't know what number, but definitely in the 50s, if not hundreds of adolescents who were self harming because of this particular thing. They felt so guilty and so badly. And I just, you know, I really had that moment where I was like, do I just continue to stay quiet to the harm that I'm seeing on a fairly regular basis almost daily, or do I start speaking and becoming an advocate for sexual health within my community as well? Which is a difficult choice to make, you know, as a therapist, you know, am I gonna be public with sexual health advocacy? But I felt like really, it became, it started becoming an. Feeling unethical for me to stay silent. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:57:08] And if you don't mind, I just saw this comment come up if you want to speak to this. Joe Blow said masturbation is also triggered by molestation. And then guilt and shade add upon issues. That's my take on my childhood constant confusion and fear teaching.

Natasha Helfer [00:57:23] Yeah. And I'm not so sure that I would say masturbation is triggered.

Carah Burrell [00:57:28] I mean, some, in some people, yeah,

Natasha Helfer [00:57:29] I would say masturbation is a wonderful way to cope with, you know, molestation, sexual abuse, and, and that's. But yes, that just breaks my heart in, in regards to. Not only are you dealing with sexual trauma that nobody's knowing how to talk about or get, you know, people resources for, but then you're adding this kind of sexual guilt and shame on top of it and wondering if you've done something wrong or if there's something wrong with you or if you asked for it or if you had any type of pleasure with it or. It's just, it's so complex and it's so heartbreaking.

Carah Burrell [00:58:07] Yeah. Because it sounds like what you're saying is. So let's say that you are masturbating at age 11 or whatever and you are being taught by your church leaders that that's wrong, but that is your coping mechanism. It's all you've known since you were abused, maybe as a child. And now you don't know how to separate your coping mechanism from this sin that you're supposedly committing. And being told that you are even more of a sinner when you're already grappling with all of the abuse and there's no healthy way to talk about that. It's just a don't do it. It's just a straight up don't do it. We're not going to talk about what happened or how to find healthier coping mechanisms. It's a don't do it. And then the More that you're told, don't do it. The more you're stressed, the more you end up do it. And this concludes Carah Burrell's Lifetime biography. Okay, so let me. That was a really good discussion. I hope you all enjoyed that. We are only on the second clip. And this is so valuable, though. I hope everyone's loving this as much as I am.

Pornography: Addiction Model Versus Values Model

Speaker C [00:59:14] Free. The stances on sexually explicit materials, Pornography. I have been educating on the difference between a values model and an addiction model. So basically, for her, under certain circumstances, pornography is fine and healthy. Erotic images and other things are fine and healthy. Again, what are we talking about? We're talking about the law of chastity. And. And it's not just something that she's even talking about in private with her clients. Right. She's out there very strongly as a proponent of these things, very public about them. Number four.

Natasha Helfer [00:59:55] Are you just say that.

Carah Burrell [00:59:57] That you are a component of pornography?

Natasha Helfer [01:00:00] Oh, yeah. So, yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:00:01] What is your stance on porn at least while you were in the church? Maybe it's changed, but no, my stances

Natasha Helfer [01:00:06] on porn have not changed. So. So it's. It's so interesting to me that every time I say porn is not an addiction, watching porn is not an addiction, people say, she loves porn or she's a. She's a fan of pornography. Which is not what I'm saying. Right. So I'm saying whether or not you watch sexually explicit materials is something that has to do with your values. You have every right to believe or to feel or think that that is immoral behavior or that that is behavior that doesn't align with your erotic template. It's not something that turns you on or it's something that you do not support or. Or want in your relationship or in your own personal life for a variety of reasons, whether they're religious or cultural or scientific, supposedly. Etc. Sorry, I just knocked over the mic. What the problem is is that I. I, as a religious person, can say I believe this is wrong. As a therapist, I cannot say that I cannot impose my religious values on the world. I have to. I have to look at things like human sexuality, human behavior. There's lots of human behavior out there that I don't personally find distasteful. Right. Or personally don't enjoy or personally actually feel like are against my own personal values or morals. But it is not my job as a therapist to tell people in my office, you can't do that, because I think that's a sin, and I think that that's immoral. But that would be unethical of me.

Carah Burrell [01:01:59] What about though, that, let's say you are like a young woman's leader and you are supposed to teach a lesson on the ills of porn. When you were Mormon, knowing what you know from your background, would you, what would you do in that instance?

Natasha Helfer [01:02:15] Right. So.

Carah Burrell [01:02:15] And I teach the lesson or did you?

Natasha Helfer [01:02:17] I did have to teach us. In fact, they asked me to teach firesides to youth on things like pornography. And I usually took a much more normalizing approach to it. Like these are, these are images that you know, in our religion and our, in our value system, we do not agree that these are things you should be watching. At the same time. That doesn't mean that you're becoming an addict. And if you do find these kinds of things to be things that you're looking at, here's some things maybe you should know about it, right? And here's some things taking an education

Carah Burrell [01:02:51] first kind of approach instead of a just don't look at it. What is the church's normal teaching on porn? If you can think back, what is their standard approach versus your approach to teaching about pornography?

Natasha Helfer [01:03:02] I think the church's standard approach is a lot of provocative language. It's evil, it's perverse, it's immoral, it's at the throes of society's end. It's, you know, the world's going to kind of come apart, it seems, because pornography exists. And if you watch it, it's going to be the end of your family and your marriage and your relationships and everybody that you love will be doomed and gloomed.

Carah Burrell [01:03:25] And what about just like the spirit will leave your home, you're, you lose the priesthood, you.

Natasha Helfer [01:03:30] All of those things very fear based

Carah Burrell [01:03:32] and some really scary ones too. Like I was saying with McKay, Spartacus Johnson's episode that came out today and tomorrow, the episode is I think titled like Mormon Wife Divorcing Me over Porn. And as people can listen to that story tomorrow, it is, it is scary how fast people were labeling him an addiction and people ready just to give up all hope on a handful of porn watching sessions. Which is, it's really frightening to me how dehumanizing. Like, it's almost like porn has this, this special element within Mormonism, Christianity, whatever sphere you want to talk about that as soon as you know somebody has been watching it, it's like they're infected, they are icky. They watch the most perverse thing in the world. If they're able to watch that, they're going to go out and like abuse children. Next. And McKay tells a story tomorrow everyone should turn, tune in and listen to it. And the things that his in laws were saying about him are some of the most horrible things I've ever said about like, oh, what's next? This outrageous slippery slope fallacy that I'm sure you've heard all of. Yeah, just the worst things possible and imaginable. Just because somebody is a casual watcher of pornography and you can, you can think that it's explicit and you can think that it's over sexualizing or dehumanizing or objectifying and you can think all of those things. And I won't judge people who, because that's, that's so conditioned into our kind of like conservative Christian American culture, puritanical culture. So I understand why people would think those things, but it doesn't make any logical sense to dehumanize the porn watcher like they are the worst people in the world. So I'm, I'm glad that you spoke earlier about the firesides and things and trying to say this is actually normal, but let's talk about the pros and cons, right?

Natasha Helfer [01:05:18] And you don't, you don't, it doesn't have to. You could, you can have values that don't support porn viewing. That's, that's fine, right? I mean, nobody needs to watch porn to have a healthy sex life. It can be part of a healthy sex life.

Carah Burrell [01:05:33] It can be part of a healthy sex life.

Natasha Helfer [01:05:36] It doesn't have to be. So, so I mean, it's just kind of one of those things that I think that we have villainized to such a level that we've given it more power than it deserves. And to, and to your point with this marriage, self fulfilling prophecies are a thing, right? So if you tell somebody enough times that something is going to happen or something is true about them, we tend to believe those things. And so a lot of these responses that we have to porn are learned. And what I started noticing is that first of all, because, you know, people started coming in to see me about porn issues, especially in marriages very early on, you know, like early 2000s as the Internet was just starting. And so I was grappling with, trying to help couples understand what this was about and how to manage it. So I was from a very early stage trying to find information that would be helpful to Mormons. And what I started finding is that this fear based rhetoric was actually making matters worse than improving things in relationships. For both the quote unquote, porn User and the spouse.

Carah Burrell [01:06:45] And the fear you mentioned is like, I'm going to leave you or, you know, taking my family's eternal salvation.

Natasha Helfer [01:06:51] First of all, everything's on the line. The betrayal that a spouse feels is much more heightened.

Carah Burrell [01:06:55] Right, right.

Natasha Helfer [01:06:56] When you tell the spouse that, that's the response they should have. And also, and if, especially if you're telling the spouse that, that the only way that they can protect their children or their future salvation or whatever is to leave the marriage. So this wasn't a very marriage friendly approach either, that the church was taking that which concerns me because I try to be as marriage friendly as possible when appropriate. And. And then what we were also finding pretty quickly is that this wasn't affecting everybody the same. So if you didn't have these types of values around pornography, your marriage was fine. So how is that fair? How is it that the people that thought married, you know, who cares if my spouse looks at porn or who cares if we look at it together? We think it's super fun and it actually enhances our sex life. So people who weren't necessarily coming from religiously conservative backgrounds, they were fine when it came to this issue, which is not true of like cocaine. Yeah, right. It doesn't really matter if you believe cocaine is a sin or not.

Carah Burrell [01:08:02] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [01:08:03] It's going to kind of affect you the same way.

Carah Burrell [01:08:05] Like your conditioning, your perception of the forbidden fruit heightens the potency of the fruit.

Natasha Helfer [01:08:11] It heightens the potency, it heightens the distress, it heightens the reactions, it heightens the anxiety of everybody involved. The boundary breaching here is a disaster. Right. So because like in most of these, a lot of these, it's like everybody knows about it now. The bishop knows about it, our parents know about it, the kids know about it. Everybody knows about somebody's quote unquote, porn usage, which is actually a very private, you know, personal thing.

Carah Burrell [01:08:37] I was just about doing that line, should I not?

Natasha Helfer [01:08:40] I just, I just saw so many. I mean, you know, by the fruits you shall know them. I'm a big believer of that scripture. I think that's the right on. I think that's the scientific method of the Bible. So I was like, the fruits are not adding up here.

Carah Burrell [01:08:54] You know, and you're saying the method of getting people, if you don't want them to look at porn.

Natasha Helfer [01:08:59] And this has nothing to do with whether or not I, Natasha Helfer, look at porn like porn, don't like porn. How I feel about porn. I've actually never really spoken much about my Own personal views about porn.

Carah Burrell [01:09:09] Until. Especially publicly, let's get into it. Just kidding.

Natasha Helfer [01:09:13] Especially publicly. Because I don't want my own personal bias to infiltrate people's ideas, which is kind of what he's, that's what he's kind of accusing me of, is that I'm public. Well, yes, I am public. About education.

Carah Burrell [01:09:27] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [01:09:27] Education isn't private. Education is it? Isn't values based for the most part. Education is, you know, at least I try to have it be research based.

Carah Burrell [01:09:37] Yeah. And I am going to be. I, I want somebody else. I'm only going to say this because I want somebody else to comment. If this happened to you too. So I, in my entire basic Mormon life, ever looking at actual like, like porn porn, like people really, really getting it on. Maybe once, twice, three times. Maybe in the, I've been married 13 years in the 10 years that I was Mormon out of my marriage, maybe three times. And each time I, I think I got in a, I was like in a trance and I, I, I psychoanalyzed myself because I actually have other Mormon friends, other Mormon women friends of mine who had the same thing, and they were actually getting in this shame cycle of looking at porn, talking to their, their husbands and their bishop way more than me. And I was quite shocked. And I was like, whoa, I didn't know women struggle with that whatsoever. And I was kind of talking through this with, with one of them. And I realized what the problem was is because once the thought occurred to me in my head that I should log on to a website, I already felt like I had sinned. I was already in the doghouse by having that thought. And so I went forward with it. And if I'm going to watch one video, then I'm going to watch a second and a third and, and I'm already crap in God's eyes now. So what? And then I'm going to go until I physically can't take it anymore and it's at like a saturation level. Then I'm going to close the laptop. And then I would go in the bathroom and I would go throw up because I would feel so physically I couldn't repent hard enough. You know what I mean? You've heard of people like this. It's like you are physically ill by what you saw, what you did. Nothing to do with like, no sex, no masturbation, whatever. Just a weird trance of like, wanting to know what's out there. And, and the second that I lost my faith in the Mormon gospel, recognize the truth claims are not adding up anymore. And I was able to kind of look at porn in a way where, okay, there's good, there's bad, there's ways people are. There's moral ways to produce porn, there's immoral ways. And I was like, oh, it's not necessarily porn that's immoral. It's my perception raised in this household. And once it kind of took away the power. I have never in my life ever had a desire to really look at porn. I've tried. I would just rather. I would rather go do it than look at it. I don't. It doesn't do anything for me, to be honest. Um, and people have tried to send me things. Stop it. Not interested. I've given up. No, just kidding.

Natasha Helfer [01:11:56] Yes.

Carah Burrell [01:11:57] I'm not actually kidding. But the point is, you have to. That has to be fascinating. Right? Like, I didn't recognize that that would happen in my own brain. But like, once I. Once it took away its power, once it took away that forbidden fruit, and I. I didn't care for it anymore.

Natasha Helfer [01:12:11] Yeah, Anxiety feedback loops are real and they drive behavior for sure. And I will also just try to normalize for those out there that do enjoy and that do find it stimulating and that do. It does help their, you know, their ability to be sexual. And for, you know, for a lot of female bodies that struggle with an orgasmia, finding stimulating material is one. One of the ways that they can attempt to try to, you know, get into a psychological headspace that is stimulated enough to reach orgasm. So for a lot of people, it's actually useful. So again, I'm, you know, when I'm talking to couples, I'm talking about what's edifying your relationship versus what's detracting from your relationship. Relationship and pornography, like a lot of things can do both. You know, it can edify for some people, a relationship, and it can detract from a relationship.

Carah Burrell [01:13:05] You're sleeping on that food being used. You don't need to hit up the buffet 16 times just because you're staying at Caesar's palace and it's. You've got a free pass.

Natasha Helfer [01:13:13] Right.

Carah Burrell [01:13:13] It doesn't mean that you don't have self control and you're seeing if it's edifying you and actually the best thing that you want to engage in. I think people just kind of assume if you don't have a religious blanket or religious reason to do these things, that you'll just go through deep end and indulge, indulge, indulge. But I still have many values that are tied to what's healthiest for my marriage with my husband Aaron.

Natasha Helfer [01:13:34] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:13:34] And that's something I learned within Mormonism. I want to have a healthy marriage. I want to have good communication. All of those values are still intact.

Natasha Helfer [01:13:40] So yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:13:44] So if, if anyone's just joining us, we are going through a video. Natasha, what time do you have to run by the way?

Natasha Helfer [01:13:52] I probably have to run at the latest 5:45.

Carah Burrell [01:13:55] Oh beautiful. Okay.

Natasha Helfer [01:13:57] I think I'm good.

Carah Burrell [01:13:58] So we're going over.

Natasha Helfer [01:14:01] You want to go carrot?

Carah Burrell [01:14:02] Oh good. I won't make any more jokes then.

Speaker C [01:14:06] That would fight against that would say what.

Carah Burrell [01:14:07] Okay, so just real quick just to refresh. Anyone who's just joining us, I There's this YouTube channel. His name is Greg Matson and he talks about a lot of church issues and is kind of an apologist in a way about current news issues about the church. And so this is from April and it's entitled Natasha Helfer Disciplinary Council explained. And I thought it would be a good opportunity to have Natasha on here and just kind of go point by point to defend herself and talk about these issues that I think are really misunderstood. So next point.

The Law of Chastity and Diverse Perspectives

Speaker C [01:14:39] So you don't believe, you believe in racism or you believe in homophobia or. No, of course not. There are ways to do this in a Christ like manner to reach across and to help others without having to diminish, demean the leaders of the church and the commandments. Right. It's the commandments and to eliminate the law of chastity. Right. Those are, those are not negotiable. Those are, those are not issues that are negotiable. If you are a covenant path member of the church, those are not issues that are negotiable.

Carah Burrell [01:15:23] So making the claim that the law of chastity, things that are doctrine of the church are non negotiable and I, while you are brewing on your response to that it I then I, I have some harsh words to say. But anyone who thinks any part of the Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints isn't negotiable is ignorant to history because oh, I actually have this pulled up. I am so prepared, I think. Oh yeah. If they take the time to read their own history, they will understand that not a single significant LDS doctrine has gone unchanged throughout the entire history of the church. Gregory Aprons LDS Historian Science versus Dogma Biology challenges the LDS Paradigm.

Natasha Helfer [01:16:08] Oh, that sounds like he's up my alley. I love Greg actually. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:16:13] Yeah. And when I was just Kind of like going over and discussing this with John Dehlin before we started his first instinct, he just told me he's like, non negotiable. He's like, what part? And we went from the Old Testament, starting with Noah sleeping with his daughters, King Solomon and his concubines. Every part of the Bible has prophets who, the law of chastity was negotiable for them because they were the prophet all the way up till Joseph Smith and the way that polygamy was coercive. And it was a lot of things we don't need to get into. But I really feel like that's born out of an ignorance of what the LDS Church from that it claims the canon all the way back to Old Testament till today, it's very negotiable. And even things down to you're talking about birth control and pregnancy. Up until a few years ago, it was from the prophet's mouth that you should not engage in taking birth control. So. And then even Spencer W. Kimball, who put out the memo on oral sex.

Natasha Helfer [01:17:19] Oral sex.

Carah Burrell [01:17:19] And as soon as people made enough of pushback against it, it was rescinded. So that was something that was put forward, signed by the first presidency. I don't know if you could call it policy or doctrine, whatever it is. All I know is that it was something where members felt it was a severe overreach into their bedrooms and what they personally find sexually satisfying, and they took that one back. So I don't know where you're coming at this, Greg Madsen, that there's, there's just nothing to negotiate on these issues. There's plenty of negotiation to be done.

Natasha Helfer [01:17:56] Well, and it's, it's so interesting that it's, it's, it also shows some kind of black and white thinking and some catastrophizing type of, you know, what do you want to call it, like, strategies in regards to how he's pinning this. Because it's so interesting that if you say, look, I, I think that there's room for normative sexual behavior like masturbating for our children, which by the way, a parent's guide of the church actually says that's, that's perfectly fine too. By the way, a Parent's Guide is an old document that was, I think, done in the 90s. It's somewhere on lds.org and it says up until the age of 12 to not make a big deal about your kids touching their own bodies.

Carah Burrell [01:18:44] Then on their 12th birthday, then on their 12th birthday, primary.

Natasha Helfer [01:18:47] Right. But my, my thought Is this idea that somehow we're doing away with the law of chastity, that if we're going to have some, some conversations about healthy sexuality, that that means we don't care about the law of chastity, that the law of chastity just is, is. It's a, It's a zero sum game. And you know what my law of chastity is? Those six principles. Yeah, yeah, right, Those six principles. And, and then I mix it with my values, which for me, that's in a committed relationship. Right. And. But I'm not going to impose that on everybody else, you know, as far as, as far as those things. So I think that actually sexual health principles, sexual health responsibility, sexual health accountability for as. As far as how we treat each other as human beings should definitely be very much what we're talking about. And in fact, if you remain too accentric. So religions are kind of like posited in social sciences. Act centric or relationally centric. If you remain too eccentric, there's way too many loopholes for a lot of disaster. Because like I said, if you, you can be, you can follow all the rules. You can be in a marital bed having not done anything that you should go confess to a bishop about and still be fairly coercive or have some obligatory sex going on, that's not healthy for either partner to be engaging in.

Carah Burrell [01:20:20] Right, right.

Natasha Helfer [01:20:22] But because you're eccentric, you check the box and you're good to go, and off to the celestial kingdom we run. But if you're relationally centric, you have to look at whether or not the acts are actually leading to health and actually leading to the benefit of the parties involved. So it's much more complex to be relationship centric. It's much more, it's much more. It's a, it's a higher invitation to ethics and in my view, morality than to just say, oh, I checked the box, I'm good. I don't have to think anymore as to whether or not I'm actually being harmful or helpful here.

Carah Burrell [01:21:05] I hope everyone is picking that up and taking notes. That's so good, because I, I can think back to when I don't know if you know this about me. We haven't had a long discussion about my life, but I actually spent.

Natasha Helfer [01:21:16] I'm going to go to the other room over there.

Carah Burrell [01:21:17] No, this is, this is important stuff for everybody. No, this is not actually scandalous. This is my Jesus freak phase. For about seven years. I had one foot in Mormonism and one foot in a Very grace centered version of Jesus. And I was listening to only like regular Christian pastors and reading mainstream Christian books. And I fell in love with that spirit of the law type of Jesus, that graceful Jesus, the one that, that he doesn't have his love, you know, conditional on my behavior that I know I'm worthy to go into the temple because I have such a good relationship with God. And whether or not the bishop or stake president thinks that I mark those boxes to go in the temple, I put the higher, the higher law is that I am, you know, thinking about my relationship with Jesus Christ because that, the whole, you know, like the whole way that Christians like to say that, you know, he loves you first so that you love him and you obey him, like that's the way that I centered things. And that takes an, a maturity. I am now not religious anymore. I don't have those principles anymore. But it felt like it took a time, long, long time for me to be able to mature, to get that to that stage. And it sounds like that's something that a lot of Christians, what you're describing, sexually speaking, is what they should be striving for in a relationship with Jesus Christ. At the same time, am I making sense that those are the same types of principles that you're leading first with? Yes, with ethics, with values, with like a sincere heart to do the best by the people around you and by your conscience of what you feel like your God has given you and that he's reading your mind. He knows your intents, your values, that you're not doing it just for the law to check the boxes. You're doing it because that is your value, because you care enough to put

Natasha Helfer [01:22:56] that forward and the situation you're in. You know, like for example, I mean some of the, the, the coolest LDS people I've worked with are people who are coming in together in a heterosexual relationship and they're, they're trying to, to benefit their marriage, right? And they're, they're trying to be flexible in ways that benefit them, but they are in conflict with this idea that somehow I'm going to be doing something wrong. So you know, I'll never forget the first time this LDS woman, I get a little bit emotional, but she told me, you know, they came in together and they were in their 50s. It was the first time after having six children that she had had an orgasm.

Carah Burrell [01:23:38] 50.

Natasha Helfer [01:23:40] And they had looked at some sexually explicit materials together that she enjoyed. And they came in, you know, after having talked with me for months about whether or not they would do this because they felt so torn in their, you know, devotion to their, to their love for the gospel, but also to their devotion to her sexual pleasure and to their sexual relationship as a couple. And they were so empowered in that moment and finding things that would work for them in the, in the space that, that was between husband and wife that really, in my opinion, you know, should have. Nobody else should be in that space between them, you know, as far as what's going to work for them. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:24:32] And you're saying this was like a true blue Mormon couple.

Natasha Helfer [01:24:35] Yeah, yeah, they were, they were both in full. In.

Carah Burrell [01:24:39] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [01:24:40] Temple recommend holding, calling holding. Wonderful. You know, very community service oriented, very loving, very committed to each other, but had not, you know, had tried many types of different types of sex therapy or advice or, you know, and just she really had a lot of issues with her own internalized sexual shame and her inability to understand her own sexual response and her own desire. And once, you know, we talked about whether or not she could give herself permission and if they could give each other permission as a couple to be a little bit more creative in what was going to be stimulating and sensual and erotic for her words that we don't usually hear on Sunday, then all of a sudden they found, they found materials and they weren't, you know, I mean, whatever. They were materials for them, which I would say was kind of on the soft side of, you know, erotic materials. But they were enough for her to feel like, okay, this is something that's turning me on. I'm excited, I'm stimulated, I'm able to join with my husband in ways I haven't done before. Some of this happens even with sex toys. You know, a lot of LDS couples come in feeling like somehow using a sex toy might be something that goes against the law of chastity. And so once they're, even though it's

Carah Burrell [01:26:08] not right, there's no nothing.

Natasha Helfer [01:26:10] But again, who gets to decide what's holy? Right? I mean, that's, that's in the sense. That's what's in the bishop's book. In the bishop's book, it says like, leave the sexual stuff up to a husband and wife. And as long as they're having righteous and holy sexuality, something like that, then they're fine. But who gets to decide that? Who gets to decide what is righteous and holy? And that's a lot of what I do with couples is just sit with those kinds of questions and help them self determine and couple determine what is going to work in their relationship.

Carah Burrell [01:26:44] I love that. I also wanted to read this comment. Holly said it's time to graduate from Childish Lodge. Childish. I can't talk after an hour of podcast from Childish Laws. They had a place at one time. That doesn't mean they are the only way to be moral. Shall we get back into the clips? I'm loving this. Are you guys loving this? I have the luckiest job in the world. All right. Jumping back in to this document and I think this is the one we're

Speaker C [01:27:20] going to go into next supporting here, in her words, publicly, the law of chastity in the church and, and others and the cause of Zion in that case at all. They're, they're, they're, again, they're not, they're not giving any specifics on what she has said and they're talking about the literature that is, that is consistent with her profession. Well, that literature is against the church that they're specifically citing. And there's a lot of literature that goes against what she's saying. By the way, that I've looked at the studies that go against what she's saying. But there are studies that support what she's saying about masturbation and about premarital sex and even open marriages. Right. So more and more of a consensus within her community, within her professional organizations, is that something the church should just automatically go along with? And you know what? It's going that direction. So, so what are we going to see in the future with, with more therapists and, and those that are in, in counseling positions, are they just going to pull from that instead of from the church?

Natasha Helfer [01:28:29] I sure hope so.

Speaker C [01:28:30] It's an issue.

Natasha Helfer [01:28:32] I sure hope that therapists pull from their profession and instead of a church. So a couple things that I would want to go to a Muslim sex therapist that pulled from their religion or from a Catholic sex therapist who pulled from their religion. I would hope to go to a professional sex therapists that pulled from their profession.

Carah Burrell [01:28:49] Yeah. Yeah. Because I know Greg. He's talking to Latter Day Saints in this. He's trying to speak directly to his audience. He's preaching basically to the choir of, hey, we're going to talk down. Natasha Helfer's pitting her profession against the church. So he knows his audience, so feels like we are kind of like coming into his space to tease apart the things that he's saying.

Natasha Helfer [01:29:10] But even that, does he know his audience? Because I feel like lds, at least most LDS people I've grown up with, and I've been an LDS person up Until I guess, April, as far as they're concerned. But we're, a lot of us are very interested in science and medicine and sexual health. And so I mean, I think that most, most Mormons don't want to go to an, an LDS doctor who's going to say something that's different from the medical field, you know, just because of something that's in the scriptures of the Doctrine Covenants. Now granted, I know that with sex that's different and I know that with therapy that's different. There is quite a bit of research to show that actually people do prefer to go to a therapist that is of their cultural or religious leaning because I do think that they are worried about exactly this, that my, my therapist would encourage me or teach me about things that go against my values. And if that's the case, I get it. And again, do you want an echo chamber as your therapist or do you want somebody who's ethically minded and who's going to really educate you about the research and what's out there?

Carah Burrell [01:30:17] See, you're so good. Because that's an exactly like, kind of perfect, nuanced take. I think you're right on. Because the first thing that hit me when he said that is it's, it's a fallacious argument of black and white thinking that he says, what are we going to do? Are we going to just adopt everything that these new, you know, progressive Mormon therapists, everything totally sex positive, pro porn? Are we just going to adopt everything that they want and pull nothing to from the church? I don't think anyone is actually saying that. You're saying we're going to take a balanced approach for people's values within the church while also giving them as much information and education as possible.

Natasha Helfer [01:30:59] Correct.

Carah Burrell [01:30:59] And leading with their values.

Natasha Helfer [01:31:01] Yes. And I also think it's interesting how he states that there's all this opposing research.

Mental Health Associations and Professional Standards

Carah Burrell [01:31:07] That's another point I wanted to ask you about.

Natasha Helfer [01:31:09] First of all, there isn't opposing research. There is opposing, how do I say, interpretation of the research. Just like there's opposing interpretation of scripture.

Carah Burrell [01:31:22] So we can go at this all day. Greg, there's interpretations of scripture too.

Natasha Helfer [01:31:26] Exactly. So I would encourage people to. For example, I'm sure he's talking about maybe some of the issues around pornography or whatever, but there is a website now called porn-science.com that I would encourage people to know about. It's interesting as I've talked to many of the neuroscientists who've done a lot of this research. How Frustrated, they are, with entities like, what is it? Porn's the new drug.

Carah Burrell [01:31:55] Fight the new drug.

Natasha Helfer [01:31:56] The what?

Carah Burrell [01:31:56] Fight the new drug.

Natasha Helfer [01:31:57] Fight the new drug. You know, all those things, they'll list all these kinds of people and research, and none of these people that are. That are writing these journal articles are sex therapists. Right. They are other types of therapists. It's kind of like if you tell me, well, yeah, the cardiologists, they're sharing the research about hearts, but there are other people who are talking about the research about hearts.

Carah Burrell [01:32:21] And I'm like, well, they're podiatrists.

Natasha Helfer [01:32:23] Well, they're the podiatrists, so why would I want to listen to the podiatrist's ideas about the heart? Right? The podiatrists are good at the feet, and I would listen to them about the feet. Yeah. And so it's just interesting again, how in mental health, and this is something that I just feel that the public just really needs to be really aware of is understanding. Not everybody's trained equally. Not every mental health professional is trained the same. This is true especially for couples therapy. Lots and lots of therapists are not trained in couples therapy. They're trained primarily in individual therapy. And lots and lots of. Of cup. Lots and lots of. Most therapists are not trained in sexuality. Even myself, who was trained in marriage and family therapy, you would think. I mean, I did have one class in human sexuality, but nowhere near the robustness that I had to do in the. In the two and two and a half years it took me to get my sex therapy accreditation. So it's, you know, you can't just say, well, this therapist says this and that therapist that, and hold them on equal ground. What are their credentials? What are their studies? What are their what. What sources are they citing? Um, and then. And that's a lot to put on you as the public, Right, because you just want to be able to just look somebody up and go. To go see somebody and trust that they're a professional. Uh, and this is why I would encourage everybody to also be aware of asec.org a a s e c t.org because there you can find, just through a zip code, look up any certified sex therapists in your area.

Carah Burrell [01:34:00] Right on. Isn't she amazing? I'll give a round of applause. Yeah, you just. You're so good.

Natasha Helfer [01:34:07] Yep, yep, yep.

Carah Burrell [01:34:07] Everything that. Yes, Greg, no shade against you. I'm sure you're a fabulous guitarist. Your credentials are not in the sex therapy field. A lot of things religious people unfortunately, start off with the presupposition that their leaders speak for God. Boom. That's a point in the ground that's not going to be moved. And so they are going to look for confirming evidence and have a bias that's already in place and find evidence to feed that. So let's all beware of our biases. We all have them.

Natasha Helfer [01:34:37] But this is also why I formed the Mormon Mental Health association, which actually was something that was proposed to me when I was actually invited by the Department of Health and Human Services Services to talk about what kinds of resources there were to help the Mormon community from a mental health perspective. So I was shocked that I was invited to, to go and have a discussion of that sort. And they encouraged me at that point to found something like, like the Mormon Mental Health association so there could be an organization that was secular. There is another association, I think it's called amcap, that is also for Mormon counselors. But in order to belong to that, you have to basically agree to follow the church's stances on things. And that is unethical, unethical practice. So it is important. I'm just as passionate about advocating for sexual health as I am passionate about advocating for ethical mental health services. And whether you're an LDS therapist or not, whether or not you are culturally competent and ethically minded in treating LDS people in your office. So that's, that's another huge issue. And we're about to have our conference on November 12, so plug for that. So any therapists who want help in training and getting CEs for knowing how to be culturally competent in addressing some of these ethical issues, that's what we do at mmha.

Carah Burrell [01:36:09] And I don't mean to pivot this strongly, but this always comes up in my mind when you're talking about anything that can look like from the outside to have a quote, unquote, progressive agenda, whether that's in, you know, college professors or the therapy, like a mental health field, maybe. And I wanted to read David's comment real quick that said, I don't know if you can deconstruct the authority of the prophet. You can deconstruct the authority of a therapist. And my mind goes to, if I'm putting back on my, like, very Jesus freak, conservative, Carah Mormon brain, I would, if things were out of line, because if I'm starting with the position that my church is true and I've deconstructed that, I'm kind of deconstructing where does anyone know anything? And all I know is that different situations, if the church can be co opted, then different mental health fields can be co opted. I'm just not going to trust anything. I'm going to go with my gut. So you were talking earlier about best practices. Can you just speak for just a second about if somebody were to challenge you? Well then you're that and say that your mental health field has been co opted with too many progressive politics. So I don't know what to actually believe.

Natasha Helfer [01:37:20] Right. Well, first of all, I would, I would say yes, by all means, you can deconstruct a therapist and there are systems in place to do something. So you can right now call any state's regulatory board and place a complaint against a therapist that you feel has been unethical or, or done harm or anything along those lines. There are systems in place, governing systems in place to challenge therapists to. And then as a profession, I can't tell you how many times we are arguing among, amongst ourselves and we are challenging each other. You know how you get ahead as a therapist? You challenge the last therapist theory and you write a book about it and

Carah Burrell [01:38:01] you collect your Nobel Prize and you

Natasha Helfer [01:38:03] collect your Nobel Prize and you get, you know, do you get your researchers together? And so the field in of itself is, and this is what, why science does have that accountability factor. Yes. It can make mistakes along the way. It usually autocorrects and it usually has a lot of challenge within it. So that not just one person or one leader have all the, all the power or say. And from governing association boards to ethical boards to regulatory government boards to research boards to university boards, I mean, there are so many challenges along the way. So yes, I mean you can always make the, the, the, the argument for anarchy.

Carah Burrell [01:38:49] Right.

Natasha Helfer [01:38:50] Like you can't trust anything or anybody. I would prefer to trust what is most trustworthy, not what's perfect or what I expect to be perfect. I think it's always good to be consistently challenging our ideas, our thoughts. I've had to autocorrect. I've had to apologize for comments I've made on my blog, especially when I didn't know what I was talking about. I have made a public apology for some comments I've made on anal sex. I've made public apologies for, you know, issues that I didn't, you know, that I had my own personal biases against. And yeah, so by all means, feel free to deconstruct me. I'm not, I'm not worried about that.

Carah Burrell [01:39:29] I think that's, she's not a cult leader. Everybody that's part of her dogma challenge.

Natasha Helfer [01:39:33] Yeah, I'm happy, I'm happy to say when I'm wrong. I'm, I'm not. That's, that's part of my training is, is to have to figure out when we, when we need to say that.

Carah Burrell [01:39:44] Yeah. Because I think you, you value what's healthiest for people. And if you happen to say something that you thought and you assumed and your best data told you was healthy, and if you're corrected, then you switch, like, that's, that's how things get corrected. That's beautiful. Yeah. All right, onto the next clip set.

Shame, Harm, and the Church's Impact on Members

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [01:40:03] Instead of encouraging them to open their mouths, think about what she has said. Is less likely that lay leaders and policymakers of the church will hear diverse insights with potential to benefit the work of the Church. Okay. There's some truth in that, right? There's some truth in that. I doubt that. I don't think that any of, for example, the First Presidency or the twelve Apostles have any background in therapy or counseling or psychology. Maybe they do. I don't know.

Video Clip 1 [01:40:32] They don't.

Video Clip 1 [01:40:33] They may not. So I don't think we have. It would be wise professionals like that

Video Clip 1 [01:40:39] of the church, by the way, they

Video Clip 1 [01:40:40] do do that, but they're not going to say, okay, you know what, Sister Helfer, you're right. We need to get rid of the law of chastity. Let's just get rid of it because we don't want to shame anyone. We don't want anyone to feel bad for natural urges. That's basically what it says. And you know, I would, I would say to Sister Hover, okay, well, what happened to bridal your passions? Right? I, I, it's.

Carah Burrell [01:41:08] So he's saying that you want to get rid of the law of chastity.

Natasha Helfer [01:41:12] Yes. I feel like.

Carah Burrell [01:41:13] Would you mind defining that? The, the law of chastity in Mormon terms is basically no sex outside of marriage. No masturbation, no porn. What else is in that?

Natasha Helfer [01:41:22] And no homosexual behavior. No gender identity exploration. No. Yes. It's not just even behavior. It's, it's actually the current understanding of the law of chastity actually goes against

Carah Burrell [01:41:40] people's various identities, who they are to the fundamental level.

Natasha Helfer [01:41:46] To the fundamental level of who they are.

Carah Burrell [01:41:48] And I'm sorry, but if that's going to come in conflicts because he's going to keep making the argument that if that those two common conflict. If you recognize that you are gay, you still need to choose the law of chastity, still choose the church, still be on the covenant path. What do you think is the healthiest for a Mormon?

Natasha Helfer [01:42:09] Well, I've been, I've been fairly blunt that the current, you know, stance of the LDS Church is not incongruence with a healthy lifestyle for an LGBTQ+ person. That's. I mean, that's just. At this point, we're, we're dangerously close to be considered a hate church by associations that monitor for that.

Carah Burrell [01:42:37] Right.

Natasha Helfer [01:42:38] And I think that we are deserving of that at this point. So you can't pit somebody's identity against God and, and then hide under this whole, oh, what do you mean? We're just going to get rid of the whole law of chastity and, and feel good about yourself, in my view.

Carah Burrell [01:42:57] Hmm. Tough but fair. It's, I mean, it comes down to, again, like a fundamental misunderstand, an ignorance of.

Natasha Helfer [01:43:06] Well, it is a lot of. It assumes a lot of things.

Carah Burrell [01:43:09] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [01:43:09] It assumes, first of all that we know who God is. It assumes that we as a Mormon church have all of the understanding about the law of chastity that we could ever possibly need or desire or want. It assumes that it actually goes against what I consider my most valued Mormon theology, which is we are here to consistently learn that there's going to be ongoing revelation, which automatically for me means we don't have it. All right. Hello. We're people. We make mistakes. It assumes that prophets and leaders are. Are infallible, infallible, fallible. I forget which one.

Carah Burrell [01:43:52] Infallible.

Natasha Helfer [01:43:52] Yeah, that, you know, that they never make mistakes, which we also know is not true. The prophets, many prophets themselves have said that that's not true. So this whole idea that we can't change or shift is for me one of the most anti Mormon teachings that I've ever heard.

Carah Burrell [01:44:09] Yeah. Like I was going back to saying that there's not a single doctrine that hasn't changed.

Natasha Helfer [01:44:13] And thank goodness.

Carah Burrell [01:44:14] And thank goodness for that.

Natasha Helfer [01:44:15] We're better. We're better.

Carah Burrell [01:44:17] Yeah. And it just sounds like it comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how things have changed within Mormonism. Like I was saying it from the beginning, that with enough outside pressure from, let's say the outside in, bottom up, things that were said to be doctrine said that they would not change from things to do with the temple ceremony that were literally restored, to say that these will never change down to things that were taught from the restoration, from Brigham Young all the way up through things that are canonized, the curse of Cain, the very few things that Joseph Smith spent his time revealing with enough social Pressure saying this is who people are and they have a right to exist. The church will change with enough pressure. So it is.

Natasha Helfer [01:45:01] I'm going to call about 30 years

Carah Burrell [01:45:04] at about 30 years behind. Yeah. Greg's going to have another great quote about that. And so it just. I hate to sound like a cliche, but it does come down to, like, what side of history do you want to be on? I know that's a cliche, but people's identities that are.

Natasha Helfer [01:45:18] Yeah, I really think that this is a prime. One of the prime examples of taking the Lord's name in vain really, is to hide behind God for our own bigotry.

Carah Burrell [01:45:32] She said it, I didn't. It's. Anything else you want to say before I move on to the next clip? I mean, that's a mic drop button.

Natasha Helfer [01:45:42] No.

Carah Burrell [01:45:43] All right, I think this is the

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [01:45:50] next one that continues to be a problem and it has been in the past for the church also. It's not like this is something new.

Video Clip 2 [01:45:55] I already do this one.

Video Clip 2 [01:45:57] Right. It is. You have. You have people that have believed in evolution and not believed in evolution. You've got leaders of the church that believe in evolution and others that don't believe in evolution. Those that are more in line with science and others that aren't. But I don't care what the science says. Right. Or the idea that. Because a lot of the science in her field is based off of, well, do I feel any harm from this? Well, you get pause there.

Carah Burrell [01:46:23] Is that true? Just based. That the science in your field is just based off of, do people feel harm? Will you break that down? That's really interesting. And he's saying that, like pejorative, people feel harm. What says. Right. People like taking their lives.

Natasha Helfer [01:46:40] Losers. Yeah, exactly. I mean, all of the wonderful research that has come out, not just through Brene Brown. She's getting a lot of credit for it. There's a lot of good researchers that were doing work before she. But she's done an excellent job of getting the word out and doing research herself on the impact of shame. Right. The impact of shame.

Carah Burrell [01:47:04] So if they need three things to

Natasha Helfer [01:47:06] feel bad about yourself is something so simple. And I do think that a lot of puritanical, religiously conservative culture does kind of use this like, buck up, little camper. You know, you're just supposed to conform and. And obey and do what. What the community needs. Forget your feelings. Forget your feelings, America. Like, we're not a very feelings oriented culture.

Carah Burrell [01:47:31] Yeah. Or I was just going to think that reminds me too of so Many of the ways that the church assumes you can be helped is if you, you know, don't take the sacrament, go to your bishop, repent, pray, read these scriptures more and you, the Spirit will return in your life and you won't have that drive anymore. And that is that like you were saying earlier with porn, like that's just going to drive more and more shame. And these are actually not the best way to root out those types of behaviors. But I digress.

Natasha Helfer [01:47:58] Yeah, and it's not. And again, there's a difference between internalized shame for your identity and feeling bad because you knocked your brother out with a baseball bat, you know, in the backyard when you were 10. There are some things that it's perfectly fine to have negative feelings about. In fact, all the research around resiliency and grit and you know, kind of character is about being able to manage a variety of feelings, including regret, including understanding having a conscious and having those kinds of ethical reactions when we do harm other people. And you know, maybe a good feeling word for that is guilt. And there are times, there's plenty of times I've regretted and I feel perfectly fine with those feelings of regret because I feel like I earned them. What I do not feel fine about is internalized shame. I had and many of the people I've, I've seen had just about just being a sexually driven person.

Carah Burrell [01:49:05] Somebody is different. A pizza driven person.

Natasha Helfer [01:49:08] A pizza driven person.

Carah Burrell [01:49:09] Something a normative.

Natasha Helfer [01:49:12] Right.

Carah Burrell [01:49:12] Because I'm only human. Anything else you wanted to add?

Natasha Helfer [01:49:18] No.

Carah Burrell [01:49:19] Let me just finish up this part of the clip.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [01:49:22] Feel bad, that's part of repentance is you need to feel bad and humbled by making a mistake.

Video Clip 3 [01:49:31] What's the mistake about being born gay?

Video Clip 3 [01:49:33] Well, in therapy, no, they should never feel that in the first place.

Natasha Helfer [01:49:36] That's incorrect. Therapy is not about, that's going to be never feeling bad. There are plenty of people I've sat with from people who have abused their children sexually, physically, neglectfully. There's people who have made all kinds of behavioral choices or fights that they've had with their spouse or name calling or there's. There's plenty of behaviors out there that as a mental health profession we would say are not relationship friendly and we are more than happy to in a non shaming way, call people out on those, challenge them, ask them questions. Again, that are usually self directed. We don't need people to tell you unless you have like really kind of like antisocial personality disorder or some type of sociopathic tendencies or things. But most of Us don't need people to tell us we're bad. Most of us understand when we've hurt somebody and we go in and talk about those things and, and sometimes if we don't have a clear understanding of those things, it's because we were taught that bad things were good, such as corporal punishment. Right. Why do most people spank their kids? Well, because a lot of times the Bible says, you know, don't spare the rod and, or you're going to spoil your child. And you know, as your, as your parents beating you, they're saying this hurts me more than you. And well, in some ways that's, that's a legitimate thing that was happening for a long time because parents believed that in order to do what's best for my child, I need to do something that's uncomfortable for me. It's uncomfortable for my child because that's my best thinking of parenting. Well, we now have tons of research to show that that actually is very harmful and that there are much more effective ways of parenting that, that don't have to cause neither the parent nor the child that type of harm. And so this is how we learn as a societies, as, as peoples and, and hopefully as religious communities. Well said.

Carah Burrell [01:51:36] Let me finish up this clip going

▶ Video Clip 4

Video Clip 4 [01:51:38] forward, especially within this, this profession, this industry. Right. So she brings this up herself. She says the intersection between faith and science is an age old story. And then she brings up the idea again of Galileo. And so she's basically saying I'm on the side of science. Right, you're on the side of medieval religion. And faith is basically how she's positioning that.

Video Clip 4 [01:52:04] Yeah.

Video Clip 4 [01:52:05] When it comes to communication, this is understandable. This part is very understandable. I am bound by ethical and regulatory processes to bias my professional services through my own religious beliefs or background. Right. To do that would be unethical. She said, I don't doubt that. I don't doubt that. Right. It causes undue harm. Okay. That I wonder about and could get my license revoked. That's all very possible.

Carah Burrell [01:52:38] Just a quick pause where he says, I wonder about that. You said that it causes undue harm. He's questioning, does it? Does the law of chastity does being told that you can change your sexuality if you can pray the gateway.

Natasha Helfer [01:52:50] He's, he's so my, my son statement is that if I have my own religious biases and use them in my professional practice, that causes undue harm. That's my statement. He's saying, I wonder about that. I'm like, well, there's no need to wonder. It just does.

Carah Burrell [01:53:07] Okay. Okay.

Natasha Helfer [01:53:08] Yeah, it just does. So there's no wondering.

Speaker C [01:53:15] So she's pitting her professional credentials against the law of chastity and saying that I have to advocate for this.

Carah Burrell [01:53:25] And is that, is that a good representation of what you said?

Natasha Helfer [01:53:30] Well, again, he's saying I'm the one pitting it. We started off this, this conversation by saying, I don't. I don't think I'm the one pinning it. This is just the position I'm in as a mental health professional who also would like to be lds. Right. So that's just, that's a position so many hundreds and thousands of my colleagues are in and even outside of Mormonism.

Speaker C [01:53:49] Right.

Natasha Helfer [01:53:50] So I. The same issue. And in Bible Belt Wichita, with a lot of my colleagues there. So, yeah,

Speaker C [01:53:58] it's not like that. Right. And that doesn't mean that we get rid of. Of, of discipline. It doesn't mean that we get rid of a bishop as the judge in Zion. It doesn't mean that we don't go through a repentance process. Because if you don't have the process of repentance in place, what good is the atonement and therefore what good is Christ? Quite far.

Carah Burrell [01:54:26] So if you don't feel good anymore

Natasha Helfer [01:54:29] and repentance is no good anymore.

Carah Burrell [01:54:31] Yeah, because it's kind of built upon all of this logic that I think we've already broken down when you're talking about shame is not useful, not helpful. And he's acting as though shame is exactly what the atonement is based on. And if that's the type of Christ you worship. I worship. I worshiped a different Christ personally when I was Mormon. You probably did too. If that's the Christ that you worship. He doesn't sound like a real cool God. That's what he bases everything around is,

Natasha Helfer [01:54:56] you know, well, and the principles of repentance, you know, as we learn them in LDS Primary, which by the way, the church itself has said it will not adhere to, but that's beside the point. But the principles that we learned are not bad. You know, they're not. I mean, what are, what are the principles of repentance? You're supposed to kind of recognize that you've done something harmful.

Carah Burrell [01:55:18] Restitution.

Natasha Helfer [01:55:19] You're supposed to kind of be sorry about it. You're supposed to maybe go to the person you've hurt and say, I'm sorry, or try to repair the damage you've caused. And you're supposed to kind of commit to trying not to do this harm again. Right. So I mean that's, those are some basic human principles that I think are fairly well versed in, in kind of human behavior. What's interesting to me is that he's somehow then equating that to a repentance process which in LDS culture has been ritualized.

Carah Burrell [01:55:52] Right.

Natasha Helfer [01:55:52] That, you know, that's been a ritualized process which involves maybe a confession to a bishop. Right. Or a, or it means going through a certain type of, like he said, discipline or punishment. So we're going to decide that you can't pass the sacrament or we were going to decide you can't have this calling or we're going to decide to hold a disciplinary court. And, and, and so those, those are, those are interesting rituals that actually are not, they do not originate from Mormonism. Those are rituals that have been around for a long time. The Catholics have their own version, et cetera. And yet a lot of churches at this point have shifted away from those kinds of traditions and rituals to more maybe member friendly ways of helping people be their best selves, repent, you know, access the atonement, if that's something they believe in and want to access, that that's not necessitated on certain traditions and rituals. And one of my, one of my favorite, one of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon that's repeated on ad nauseam, it feels like, is maybe some of these traditions from our fathers aren't that great.

Carah Burrell [01:57:10] The traditions of their fathers.

Natasha Helfer [01:57:12] Maybe we should be looking at some of those. And yet that we, we always seem to think of that as somewhere else, somewhere in some other sphere. That must be the case. There's no traditions, right. That we must be looking at or liking those scriptures into ourselves. So I, you know, this, this idea somehow, because I'm, I'm saying. Yeah, I, first of all, the excommunication process is brutal. I don't agree with it. I don't think anybody should be put through that. That, that somehow means I don't believe in repentance or the access to an atonement. It's just, it's just doesn't follow my logic. Anyway.

Carah Burrell [01:57:44] Amazingly well said. That is the most articulate response that I've ever heard. Yeah, that's just beautifully said. I have nothing to add. Natasha, Mic drop, one after the other. Moving on. This is probably my favorite clip. It's a little bit long. This is my favorite one. This is what I want to.

Speaker C [01:58:03] Just not like that. Right. And, and that doesn't mean that we get rid of. All right, everyone of faith repentance. This whole idea that we're moving toward in Western culture of victimhood as a value, as a high values, in some cases the highest value is unbelievably damaging to all of us.

Responding to Criticism of Natasha Helfer's Positions

Natasha Helfer [01:58:32] What? What?

Speaker C [01:58:32] And we've got to figure out a way to fight this off.

Natasha Helfer [01:58:35] Where's the research that we're all moving into victimhood?

Carah Burrell [01:58:39] Because you are calling out harm that's being done. Gay people, different people that are on the margins of society. They're saying, hey, I felt victimized when the church did this to me, or I felt victimized when, when X, Y and Z happens.

Natasha Helfer [01:58:52] He's equating advocating for minority rights as a form of victimhood.

Carah Burrell [01:58:58] That everyone is just having a big old cry fest from their safe spaces and this is not the direction America will head in if we want.

Natasha Helfer [01:59:07] Sounds to me like he needs to take some anti racist classes.

Carah Burrell [01:59:11] Oh, and I'm not gonna like that.

Natasha Helfer [01:59:13] I'm not sure that I'm really interested in engaging with public people who have not.

Carah Burrell [01:59:20] Well said.

Natasha Helfer [01:59:21] So if they want to engage with me after they've taken at least a fourth of the anti racist classes that I have taken, maybe then I'm willing to have a discussion about this and

Carah Burrell [01:59:33] I don't have to play the clip. But I know what he would say to that, which I believe is you are forcing an authoritarian ideology and he's not. And he's not that that is a religion.

Natasha Helfer [01:59:45] He's not forcing his ideology on anybody either. Right, right. I mean, this is tit for tat type. I know, but I'm just not interested. For me, I don't feel like I have the energy or even expertise. Like, if you want to learn about these things, go listen to the marginalized, go listen to the people of color, Go listen and learn from the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender folks. There are so many resources, and this is one of my critiques of the LDS Church with the amount of money that they have, that they are not accessing trauma informed best standards of care, resources and education. They are not allowing themselves to be taught by the best peoples in our country and also internationally who have the expertise to talk on these issues. And if he thinks that, I mean, I don't. Maybe you can tell me if he has some type of credential where I would even engage in a conversation with him about this. But I don't. I don't think he probably does.

Carah Burrell [02:00:47] If I'm gonna say this kind of mean, Greg, I hope that you're listening. I don't mean to come across me. He had a lot of nice things to say that were kind of weird, backhanded compliments where he said, natasha does a lot of nice work and maybe I would go to where a family member would go there, but when it comes to her and the church, she's putting, you know, her personal practices and not sustaining the brethren. So he has lots of, like, kind of backhanded compliments. Sure.

Natasha Helfer [02:01:09] And this isn't a critique on him. It's just. It's just I've had to do this work. I've had to be challenged in my own way of thinking about many things that have to do with especially minority status that I am not. I am not LGBTQ plus, I am not a person of color. So I would feel, first of all, like I was doing those communities a disservice if I was going to try to educate him when there are resources that are much more perfect.

Carah Burrell [02:01:42] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [02:01:42] Adept at educating him. And if he's not willing to have that education and have a different perspective, then at some level, I'm not willing to expend my energy in having that conversation. And that's nothing against him as a person. I'd be more than happy to see him in my practice or any of his family members.

Carah Burrell [02:01:59] Always the professional. All right, let me see if this is it.

Speaker C [02:02:02] And by the way, there are studies that show that LDS members are some of the most educated of any religious group out there, period. Right. Education is a very high value for members of the church, broadly.

Natasha Helfer [02:02:15] That's actually accurate.

Carah Burrell [02:02:16] Yeah, that's true. And what he's doing is he's conflating LDS members value of education, like you were talking about with a podiatrist and a heart surgeon that he is able. And other various LDS people. Just. We're not anti science. We're able to evaluate science and we're able to cherry pick the science that we like that fits already within our religious paradigm.

Natasha Helfer [02:02:37] So just because we value education, that that means that maybe you have a degree in mechanical engineering or you have a degree in biology or you have a degree in.

Carah Burrell [02:02:47] Don't have a degree in sex therapy.

Natasha Helfer [02:02:49] Right. Or even gender studies.

Carah Burrell [02:02:52] Right.

Natasha Helfer [02:02:53] Or minority studies or, you know, social advocacy. So you don't know the best way

Carah Burrell [02:03:03] to solve these problems.

Natasha Helfer [02:03:04] Right. Because you're not.

Carah Burrell [02:03:05] Have a master's from byu.

Natasha Helfer [02:03:07] Yes, correct. That's why I would want to see his credentials before I would engage in a conversation.

Speaker C [02:03:12] Says that this discredits the people that can most help that community. So, in other words, if you're attacking me as a professional, as a scientist, kind of is what she's saying then. Then, you know, I'm someone who can help the church. And that is true, but not the way she's doing it. Not by breaking down the law of chastity, not by attacking the church publicly. Right. This, this does not give you license to do that. If you want to help the church, talk to others. Right. And say, well, what about that? You know, you can't. You can't take your profession and put it above the law of chastity. That just makes zero sense.

Natasha Helfer [02:03:52] Do you want to pause for a minute?

Carah Burrell [02:03:54] Yeah, go ahead and respond to that.

Natasha Helfer [02:03:56] So, yes, I mean, again, I'm not, not putting anything above the law of chastity. And how he defines the law of chastity and how I define the law of chastity may look a little different at the same time. This idea that, yes, I. Absolutely. If you're going to excommunicate LGBTQ affirming therapists who are best equipped to help the LGBTQ population, that is a huge problem. That, that it's a problem. And by no means, every time, you know, he says me, by the way, he's trying to make this very personal. I tried very hard the whole time to not make this about me. This isn't about me. These are conversations that now we are having across the board. I mean, I've been contacted by so many LDS therapists, by so many non or post LDS therapists or secular therapists who are very concerned about what these kinds of issues mean for the overall public. Because, yes, if the church says these kinds of professionals are not trustworthy, then where are the parents of the LGBTQ kids in our community going to go to the conversion therapists that cause, you know, increased risk of suicide, increased risk of mental health symptoms, increased risk of substance abuse possibilities, increased risk of relational distress, increased risk of sexual dysfunction. No, this is. This is serious. And then this idea that we can't critique our church. I, you know, first of all, it was interesting because one of my providers, Janice Spangler, who also happens to be an analyst, went through all of my Facebook posts and that this incredible analyst that I was like, how did you even do this? But she basically found that, you know, in the year, I don't know what year, she went through all of my Facebook posts, she found, like, two. Two posts where I was critical of an LDS leader or a policy or something like that, and that most of my posts were very. Either neutral or support supportive towards the church and that what I'm generally critiquing are processes or systems or discriminate, you know, ways that we discriminate against minorities. Which, yeah, I, I will gladly continue to do that work. I feel passionate about that. I feel like that's, for me, part of, of my baptismal covenant, quite frankly, is to mourn with those who mourn, who help those who need help, and using my profession and my, my skills and my expertise to do that within a community that I love and that I've been devoted to my entire life. Yeah, that's, that's, that's of meaning to me. That's. I would prefer to work amongst my people versus, you know, other people that I don't know as much. So anyway, I just feel like. And this idea that somehow leaders shouldn't be critiqued also is why we have to face the reality within our LDS community as to whether or not we start falling into some of these cult like traits that actually make our community problematic for things like self agency, self things like self revelation, you know, things that we actually believe in that align with mental health. And instead are we only cherry picking the types of ways that we can be quote unquote, good Mormons by only complying and being obedient and being blind sheep. Which goes against everything that I learned as a young woman in my right on, you know, in my young women days when we were talking about standing for what you believe in, choose what is right, do what is hard, let the consequence follow. I mean, put your shoulder to the wheel. I mean, what's more Mormon than doing hard work? Not just blindly. I'm, I'm a robot. Here I go. And I believe that our church is robust enough and I hope that our leaders are educated enough and robust enough and hopefully wise enough that a little critique isn't going to be a bad thing.

Carah Burrell [02:08:02] Right, Right. I actually, I have a great.

Natasha Helfer [02:08:05] Are we too easily offended?

Carah Burrell [02:08:07] Oh no, we didn't. Greg, are you playing a victim over here? No, I, I have a, I have a great. The next one that I want to play after this one. I just wanted to finish up where he's. Where he just barely finished talking about you putting your, your profession above the law of chastity.

▶ Video Clip 5

Video Clip 5 [02:08:23] Second Nephi. And I want to read 28. I want him to read Interject right here. When they are learned, they think they are wise. And they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know for themselves. Right. I, you know, I'm sorry, but that's that's what comes to mind when I think about this.

Video Clip 5 [02:08:44] It also comes to mind as I watch you, brother.

Video Clip 5 [02:08:47] Having a degree, Matson, does not put you above the law of chastity. And a professional organization with a consensus that says that these things are okay and good and it's going to move more and more that way.

Learned Expertise Versus Church Authority

Carah Burrell [02:09:02] We have gone 2 hours and 13 minutes and Carah hasn't gone on a rant already. So I want to just get in one hot take on a rant. So he's talking about that the learned don't think they're wise. And I just want to challenge that. Has there ever in the history of Mormonism, or maybe any religion for that matter, where science butt heads with Mormonism and Mormonism came out on top. Young Earth, creationism, evolution, science came out the winner. Every single time the church has changed. When it's, if it's the, the introduction to the Book of Mormon saying that the Native Americans are or that the Lamanites are the principal ancestors of the Native Americans, when DNA comes out, that shifts and science is the way that we correct dogmatic authoritarian structures and it's not the other way around. If there is a point at which Mormonism has had an immense amount of truth that it's added to the world, it has been in conjunction with things that are already kind of like best practice, scientific things. And I just want to challenge if it goes back to conversion therapy. Even you mentioned that earlier, right. That conversion therapy was a scientific practice that was quickly changed as soon as we realized it was very harmful. It's still to. In this day 2021, it's difficult to get people to stop practicing conversion therapy because they have a religious reason to be doing it. Everything that goes back to, you know, I'm thinking about mixing, mixing race like the blood of, of, of like the Negro race and the white race. And like if you, you'll die on the spot because God cannot allow that

Natasha Helfer [02:10:47] all the way up.

Carah Burrell [02:10:48] And that carried into thinking that they had different diseases and that the blood banks in the LDS hospital in Salt Lake had separate facilities for black people's blood and white people's blood based on religious ideology. And it wasn't until science came along and called BS on these things that the religious dogma had to nuance, it had to change, it had to shift. That's happened over and over and over again. So, Greg, yes, the learned do think they're wise because it's based on what you just called a consensus. It's based on best practice and if it's not, it's usually quickly corrected.

Natasha Helfer [02:11:25] Yes, yes, and I know, and I. And I think that there is an element of humility, too, which is one of the principles that we're encouraged to have present in our lives. If, if, again, if this is one of the ways that you hide behind the skirts of God is to say, oh, the learned are wise, because I'm uncomfortable and I can't look at new information. I think that that's a lack of humility. And also, how are you supposed to repent, Brother Matson?

Carah Burrell [02:11:55] And let me hit one more clip about. Like we're trying to say changes are made within the church. Almost all of the doctrine that's ever been established as immovable has been changed. And as much as I think that I want people to have as much religious freedom as they, you know, want to have in their communities, they want to worship the way that they do. When people like Natasha are saying, hey, this is harmful, X, Y and Z is harmful, what is she supposed to do? Just sustain the leaders while she.

Natasha Helfer [02:12:33] I actually don't think that's sustaining the leaders. I think that agreeing with leaders in a bubble belt is actually very harmful. That's not sustaining. Sustaining is helping. Sustaining is bringing. Oh, you're putting, like, information, a new

Carah Burrell [02:12:49] twist on what it means to sustain your leaders.

Natasha Helfer [02:12:51] I think sustaining means, like, if I'm going to sustain you, what does this sustain kind of means carry? You know, I'm going to sustain you, I'm going to help you. I'm going to respect you. I'm going to. That doesn't mean agree with. I don't feel like agreement is part of my sustaining, but I would not like your.

Carah Burrell [02:13:11] Your own definition of that.

Natasha Helfer [02:13:13] I honor and respect that. The volunteer work, the, the, the immense amount of time that our leaders offer. I've offered immense amounts of time in my callings. So. And I appreciate sustaining energies. People who supported me and people who challenged me.

Carah Burrell [02:13:31] Right.

Natasha Helfer [02:13:32] I was Relief Society president, and it wouldn't have been helpful to me if my. If, if either my. Either one of my counselors or the bishop or any of the sisters in the ward had just said, yes, Sister Alpha, anything you say goes, no. I needed to know what. What are we doing that's working? What are we doing that's not working? What are your needs? What are my blind spots? I still have a sister in my mind that I will never forget. That I know my bias as Relief Society president harmed her. Harmed her, really. And I will be forever regretful about that because I Had an idea about how calling should go, and she had requested something different from me. And I thought she was prideful. She was proud.

Carah Burrell [02:14:21] Interesting.

Natasha Helfer [02:14:22] And who was really proud in that moment? I think I was. And I've. I forever felt really sad about that. At a time in her life when she probably needed something very different and a different type of fellowship, I wasn't able to provide it because of my own traditions, because of my own ideas, because of my own bias about how Relief Society presidents should rule.

Carah Burrell [02:14:47] Yeah. And then you take that lesson on. You're here to share it with us, to examine your own biases.

Natasha Helfer [02:14:52] Really sad.

Carah Burrell [02:14:52] Examine your own traditions.

Natasha Helfer [02:14:53] Right. So sustaining. If it's just. If it's just a yes vote, I. I think that's actually. You're. You're not helping anybody.

Speaker C [02:15:01] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:15:02] You probably already said what you. What there is to say, but I'm gonna play the clip anyway.

Natasha Helfer [02:15:05] Okay.

▶ Video Clip 6

Video Clip 6 [02:15:07] That activist approach is not a positive one. It creates massive division. That doesn't mean that the church doesn't need to change in some things.

Video Clip 6 [02:15:15] Which ones name them.

Video Clip 6 [02:15:17] Right. That. That's not the issue. The issue is, do you sustain the leaders of the church? You may not agree with everything, but do you sustain them? This is not sustaining. Right. There's things that I don't agree with.

Video Clip 6 [02:15:30] Which ones name them.

Video Clip 6 [02:15:31] And, you know, I don't go out and use the platform here that I have to go out and try and beat that pulpit, you know, and. And try and say that we've got to change this.

Carah Burrell [02:15:42] I would like to know which ones they are. Because he's trying to, you know, act in an empathetic way that, yeah, I want to change things, but I'm not going to. As if that's a positive. I don't think that's quite the pos. Do you think it is, Greg, you have a platform. You have how many, let's see, 14,000 subscribers. Congratulations. That's. That's really impressive. What do you have to say to that? That he's. He's upset with you for using any kind of platform that you should call for change.

Natasha Helfer [02:16:11] I'm.

Carah Burrell [02:16:11] That's not sustaining the brethren.

Natasha Helfer [02:16:13] I super stand by how I've used my platforms and the things that I have said, unless I need to correct something that I'm not aware of as of yet. And. Yeah, I just. I don't know. I think that part of my Mormon upbringing was action. It was action. It was about being an activist. It wasn't about sitting in the pews. It was about going out and serving people. It was about doing things. So I would feel again, for me, it really became an issue of ethics. I couldn't continue to see adolescents, minors and adults be harmed in ways that I feel were unnecessarily tragic.

Carah Burrell [02:17:00] And what are some examples that come to mind?

Natasha Helfer [02:17:02] Well, like, for example, the. The internalized shame around masturbation that I do think that we can absolutely make room for normative masturbation while still very much having the law of chastity. And that's what that blog post was about. In fact, that blog post was fairly. Was. Was a little bit more of me being a Mormon than of me being a therapist, because I was sharing my ideas about how you could see it from a theologically different perspective, you know, and still very much consider yourself a follower of the law of chastity while having access to your own body.

Carah Burrell [02:17:39] Yeah, yeah.

Natasha Helfer [02:17:41] So, yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't. That's fine. If people. I mean, obviously people have their own opinions. And I know a lot of people in our culture, we do have this discomfort of publicly criticizing our elders or our leaders that we're uncomfortable with that. Or at least the generations maybe 37 plus are uncomfortable with that. As far as 37 years of age, I don't.

Carah Burrell [02:18:10] 32.

Natasha Helfer [02:18:10] The millennials are as uncomfortable with that. In fact, they kind of expect it. And part of why we're probably seeing some of the issues with the younger generations not being as interested in these kinds of systems where we hold to these traditions of not being able to challenge leaders. And I would hope that we would move into a space where leaders can be not so top down, but just more inviting. Inviting of people's perspectives and expertises and, you know, a variety of things.

Carah Burrell [02:18:42] Beautifully said once again. And I think this next clip will also go in line with that. Really?

Speaker C [02:18:48] Well, it's all the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. There are a few things more that she had said here. It says, oftentimes with social justice or sexual health concerns, our church has used its revelatory power in ways that kind of lag with the times. What does that mean? They've used their revelatory power in ways that kind of lag with the times. So in other words, we need to be up with the times more than doctrine.

Natasha Helfer [02:19:18] I would actually hope that a revelatory church would be ahead of the time.

Carah Burrell [02:19:25] We laugh so we don't cry, everybody.

Natasha Helfer [02:19:29] That would be my hope. Um, but yes, absolutely.

Carah Burrell [02:19:32] I think that. Sorry, that's just serious ignorance that the church always, when they get beaten into submission, acquiesce. Like, what do you mean? What does that mean? Greg, did you. Do you. Have you not read up on your Mormon history? Do you just, like, close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears? Do you not know how changes are made? It's people, it's badasses. Like Natasha over here. Like, begging the church to take a more nuanced approach to these things. Soften the edges. Sorry I interrupted. What else did you want to say?

Natasha Helfer [02:19:59] I. I don't think I have anything else to say. I mean, I. I would hope that we would be ahead of the times, not behind the times.

Carah Burrell [02:20:08] I would.

Natasha Helfer [02:20:09] During the times, just about anything.

Carah Burrell [02:20:11] I would have stayed Mormon. If we were 30 years ahead and we were constantly predicting things, wouldn't that be cool? That's not the way that it goes, though. I think there's a little bit more of this clip I wanted to play, though.

Speaker C [02:20:20] Right. I see a values hierarchy issue here. Right. Okay. So she's got a problem with some things, and I don't doubt that there are very legitimate things that she's got a problem with.

Carah Burrell [02:20:31] Name them.

Speaker C [02:20:31] I don't think we've always.

Carah Burrell [02:20:32] I'm sorry, I'm getting mad. Can I get mad for a second?

Natasha Helfer [02:20:34] Sure.

Carah Burrell [02:20:35] Craig, stop being a wuss. Name them. I'm all I'm gonna be. I'm gonna get a John Dylan rant here. They're very legitimate things. Why don't you stand up and be a man and name the things that you think have legitimate concern within your own church? Use your. Use your 14,000 subscribers. If there are changes that you want to see within the church that you think are harming people, why are you just. Why are you just tearing down people who are actually trying to forward these things by saying, oh, just be quiet. Just silence yourself. Don't, you know, rock the boat? Why is it such a value to people like this? I'm sorry, I don't want to mean. To get, like, yelly or mean here. It's just frustrating at this point. We only have, like, five minutes left, and if I don't get out another rant, I'm gonna go crazy here. But I'm like, do you know how changes are made in this church if you don't educate yourself? If you think changes need to be made, use your platform. Within reason. I'm not telling you to go out and be a wild, advocate, progressive Mormon now, but if you're agreeing and saying multiple times in this that you might send, you know, Your friends or family. To Natasha, she's probably a very nice person. She probably has, you know, an entire group of scientists behind her, but it's out of line with my church. Okay, that's, that's kind of a wussy stance. Stand up for yourself. If you stand up for other people, stand up for the marginalized. Like, come on, pull yourself by your bootstraps. You can do it. Greg, I believe in you.

Natasha Helfer [02:21:55] I like his facial hair.

Carah Burrell [02:21:57] No, I wasn't full screen for that rant, Dan. It.

Natasha Helfer [02:21:59] Oh, well. And I mean that's, that's kind of like, I mean, not to pick on something that seems silly, but that's not typical LDS to have a beard like he's wearing.

Carah Burrell [02:22:12] Yeah. If you get called as bishop, stand up for yourself, kick your goatee.

Natasha Helfer [02:22:16] Well, and I, but that's, you know, that's, that's self determination. And I, I could, I mean, if I was on, on a more conservative podcast, I could be like, how dare Brother Madsen represent himself as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints without being clean shaven

Carah Burrell [02:22:35] with a symbol of satanic music hanging in the background. He's not to be trusted.

Natasha Helfer [02:22:42] So this is why I think, you know, self expression is important and self determination is important.

Carah Burrell [02:22:48] And anyway, and I have two quick last clips we're gonna go through and then we are, we gotta get Natasha out of here.

Natasha Helfer [02:22:56] Are we out of here?

Carah Burrell [02:22:58] You have to leave in two minutes. I do.

Speaker C [02:22:59] Spiritual home where they're worth is not measured by behavior. That is such an interesting statement.

Carah Burrell [02:23:04] So just to repeat what he said, Natasha, he was quoting Natasha, where I believe he said teens deserve a home where they are not measured on their worth by their behavior.

Natasha Helfer [02:23:13] Yes.

Speaker C [02:23:14] Their worth is not measured by behavior. And we should never teach that or say that or anything else. And I'm sure there's.

Carah Burrell [02:23:21] So he's saying that in his words now he's saying youth should not be. So this is very important.

Speaker C [02:23:26] Well, that sometimes have said that somehow implying that our worth is based off of our behavior. It's not. But our behavior is important. It's everything. The whole New Testament is about behavior.

Carah Burrell [02:23:37] So.

Natasha Helfer [02:23:38] No, behavior isn't everything.

Carah Burrell [02:23:40] It's, it's. I agree.

Natasha Helfer [02:23:41] It's, it's an important aspect of, of our, of our existence. Not everything. But my, my, my whole, my whole point here is that regardless of your behavior and how we talk about that, whether we approve of behavior or disapprove or we want to have a teaching moment about behavior, et cetera, that should not be equated to the worth of a person.

Carah Burrell [02:24:09] An unconditional love from your maker that

Natasha Helfer [02:24:11] can be taken away, which is so scriptural. The words of souls. It was great.

Carah Burrell [02:24:17] In the sight of God.

Natasha Helfer [02:24:17] In the sight of God. So this is. Yes. I'm not sure exactly where he's going to critique me on this, but I'm not saying behavior doesn't matter. Obviously it does. This seems like I get a very black and white kind of fallacy. Like it's. It's all or nothing.

Carah Burrell [02:24:32] Either.

Natasha Helfer [02:24:33] Either you. If. If you're gonna. Not. If you're not gonna tie worth to behavior, that means all behavior is okay.

Carah Burrell [02:24:40] Yeah. He goes on to say that there's certain behaviors that Christ's atonement needs to get rid of, and we don't want to encourage sinful behaviors that will draw you further away from God. And I can understand that in certain ways. There are plenty of behaviors, secularly speaking or in a religious context, that would not further you in your personal development or us as a society. You could name them. I could name 20 of them off the top of my head right now. But we're talking about things that you're saying are normative. Masturbation, being gay, having transgender. Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [02:25:18] Having normal fantasies, you know, in your sexual brain, being curious about sexual materials, even if they don't fall in line with your values, and having a response to them. All kinds of things that are not to be should, in my opinion, should not be tied to our worth. Should be our understanding of our human natures. And then as we understand our values and our own morality, we can make decisions about which behaviors align with those or don't. But never from the perspective of us becoming less worthy.

Carah Burrell [02:25:54] Exactly. Well said. And I thought it was just really interesting that he phrased it that way, that he's like, no, no, no. Your behaviors don't determine your worth. And I was like, what is a temple recommend interview? It's a cult of worthiness interview view. They ask you, are you worthy to enter the house of the Lord every time. And it's based on a certain checklist of things. I don't know what kind of gaslighting kind of BS that is, Greg, but a lot of our worth before God, before our Creator, is measured in Mormonism.

Natasha Helfer [02:26:21] You're definitely a culture that measures. That equates behavior with worthiness.

Carah Burrell [02:26:26] I wish God was more unconditionally loving. I like that Jesus. Let's hype up that guy as much as. As we can. Do you have time for one Last clip?

Natasha Helfer [02:26:32] Yes.

Carah Burrell [02:26:33] Okay, the last one. And then I think it's funny to end on this clip. This is how he ends. It's about a 4, 40 minute episode. I want all of you listeners out there to guess why I chose this clip.

Speaker C [02:26:50] The, the bishops and the interviews, and I told you I would guess that they actually did change the policy, right? That this helped change the policy about interviewing one on one and allowing your parents to come in. And those are good things. Those are positive things. Again, I'm not. I'm not.

Final Clips, Reflections, and Closing Thoughts

Carah Burrell [02:27:08] What were you doing, Greg, when Sam Young was not sustaining the brotherhood, when he was being excommunicated, when he was doing very similar things to the people who have come before him? They're excommunicated. Were you in support of him for the same exact reasons that you are not in support of Natasha right now? What was your position then? I would really like to know how you would like change to happen. How people similar to Greg that are in the church, how, how do you want harmful practices to be changed? Because it sounds like you're really happy and, and finding the benefit from what Sam Young did. Natasha, your thoughts?

Natasha Helfer [02:27:44] Yeah, exactly. It's easier to say after the fact. This was a helpful change, but it's during the moment where that, where that tension is live, right where that tension is live. Where you have to sit and think about what is Sam Young saying? How are the church leaders responding? Probably feeling like you have to make a choice between one of the two. That it's very easy for those who are more accentered or more dogmatic or orthodox in their beliefs to be on the side of the conformer, right of the, of the, of the person or the system that is obedient. And yet we have this great tradition within our own theology of Eve eating the fruit, you know, so even, even in our very first story, it's theological and that we go and listen to at the temple all the time you have this same tension, the tension between Adam who wants to choose obedience and comfort and safety, and Eve who ends up choosing something that's actually kind of scary, maybe controversial, even beautiful.

Carah Burrell [02:28:59] I'm so vibing with this, you know,

Natasha Helfer [02:29:01] and it's knowledge and, and in the context of that, we see that as actually having a. Gone against the very guidance of not the bishop or the Stake president or the prophet, but of God, him, them, herself. And for the, and we celebrate that in Mormonism, which for me is unheard of in, in the, in the more than decades that I've lived in, in Bible Belt United States of America. Eve is not treated respectfully for this choice. She is seen as the downfall of mankind. And this is one of the theologies that I actually find very dear in my Mormon upbringing is the, the capacity to see that tension between Adam and Eve and their God, between these principles of knowledge and obedience and authority, as something that was meant almost to kind of just be at the heart of almost every story I can think of today. And, yeah, I'm okay being evil. Like, I'm okay with that.

Carah Burrell [02:30:14] We love you for it. It's the best. Do you have any other final thoughts before you have to skedaddle? No.

Natasha Helfer [02:30:20] I appreciate this opportunity. I do appreciate people who are talking about this. I appreciate Brother Madsen's critique. Maybe we would have a chance to meet in person someday. I'd be. I'd welcome that. I. I don't. I haven't watched the whole thing. So if he did say nice things about me or thinks that I, I'm

Carah Burrell [02:30:37] friendly trying to relate them to you,

Natasha Helfer [02:30:39] I, I do think I'm kind of friendly and I'm open and I love discussion and I'm passionate about what I care about. And that's not something that I will apologize for, because really what I'm passionate about are the people that have shown to me their wounds in my office. And that is what has driven everything about what I'm about and all the risks I've taken. It wasn't my plan to become a public advocate, but it is those people that have sat in my office that I feel passionate about.

Carah Burrell [02:31:20] The real struggles, the. The real effects of this type of dogma that plays out in people's lives that you have to work through. As a therapist and even here at Mormon Stories, I'm constantly confronted with, oh, I know the church did that. I didn't realize it was that. Oh, and Mormon Stories, we give such people this long format, you know, to really express that they were sincere believers until they saw the harm it caused to like their LGBTQ child and they had to choose one or the other. And so to Natasha's point about having a face to face discussion, I'm. I have the, the license as producer and co host of Mormon Stories. Greg, you are absolutely invited to come on. You can come in, in person, or we can do it virtually through streamyard. You're absolutely invited on and to have another dialogue with me. John, Natasha, anyone else take the pick? Because like she said, I just want to know, Greg, what your boundary is. Where are you? Where would you not sustain the brother and you mentioned that there are various different ways I don't agree with all the brethren all the time, or there's some things that I need to change. I would like to know what those changes are that if. If you can actually vocalize them or if you are too afraid within your religious system to vocalize them. Just like Natasha expressed, it's part of the religion that we come from in Mormonism to eat the fruit, to go out into the wilderness, to actually bear one another's burdens. And if you're willing to empathize with people that are, whether LGBTQ or people who struggle with porn or masturbation or things that aren't outside of the law of chastity, and you can say to yourself, all right, this is a human struggle, and I shouldn't have to completely demonize this and foist a lot of shame onto it. I'd be open to having a great discussion about that, because there are people, I'm sure, in your life and a lot of people's lives that once you come face to face with these issues, you nuance it and you refine you. You fuzz the edges a little bit more. And I would love to see that more because this is a lot of fallacious, dogmatic thinking that really doesn't benefit anybody. And rant over on that one.

Natasha Helfer [02:33:26] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:33:27] I actually had one last note I wanted to read, because the. The type of church that he's talking about sustaining is like a church that. That comes before everything else. A church that come. Would come before your family. And if it was. If you saw that it was hurting a family member, the type of Mormonism he's talking about, correct me if I'm wrong. If you disagree with me, Natasha, let me know. But a type of Mormonism that is. Is. Oh, she's putting her profession over the council of the church. Don't do that. So what's your line, Greg? I want to have that discussion because if you saw people being harmed face to face, what's your boundary? Where would you speak out and say, I thought I could sustain the brother in. In that way. Now I'm actually going to push back because people in my life are actually being harmed. That's how pretty much everything happens. It's how you grow in empathy. So, any other final thoughts, Natasha? I just wanted to get that out there.

Natasha Helfer [02:34:17] No, this has been great. Thank you for the invite. It's always interesting to think through how other people think and, yeah, be able to talk about something I really care about. So thank you.

Carah Burrell [02:34:29] Thanks for Coming on. She only had to just wander down the hall. It wasn't too far, but it was a couple hours commitment. Natasha, you have to go get back to work right now.

Natasha Helfer [02:34:37] I do.

Carah Burrell [02:34:37] You're a little bit late. I. I'm so sorry for keeping you.

Natasha Helfer [02:34:40] That's okay.

Carah Burrell [02:34:41] Everyone, give a big round of applause, Natasha Hill for everyone. She's fabulous. She's just all around a gem of a human. Thank you so much for coming in, having this chat with us. And I'm just gonna close this episode of this Mormon Stories episode that me, Carah Brell that I thought of. I pitched to Natasha last week at the retreat. I found the clips and it's all because I get paid by donors who donate to mormonstories.org and if you like this content and you want to see more episodes, you can just benefit from it. You don't have to pay anything, but if you'd like to, there's a donate button at the top of Mormon Stories and it keeps me paid. John paid this building, the lighting, the sound, everything intact. We can't do this without our donor. So if you're a donor to Mormon Stories, thank you so much. And if you'd like to become a donor, MormonStories.org is the place to do it. And all in all, thank you so much for listening to this episode. It was a pleasure to have Natasha Helfer here today. I hope we all learned something. And all right, that thus concludes this episode. Thanks again, everybody.

Natasha Helfer [02:35:44] Bye, everyone.

Speaker C [02:35:44] Bye.