Teens and young adults are bombarded with messages about
sex everyday. They often struggle to
make the decision not to engage in some form of sexual activity on a daily
basis. As parents and church leaders we
need to become more effective in teaching and supporting them in their struggle
to live virtuously. If we as parents
don’t teach them our knowledge of the truth, we will have conceded defeat from
the start. Most parents feel they need
to talk about sex with their children but feel uncomfortable doing so because
they don’t know how. Sometimes, parents
feel having “the sex talk” is a one-time event rather than an on-going
discussion throughout their child’s life course. In the past, out of a desire to prevent kids
from having sex, parents and leaders have used metaphors and messages that
might lead a youth to believe sex is a dirty or negative thing. This doesn’t work! We can and must do much
better!
Specifically, parents and church leaders can use positive,
uplifting examples to teach children and youth about the sacredness and beauty of
our God-given procreative powers.
Positive examples by Church leaders using analogies to teach
about sexuality include comparing sexual intimacy to fire and the sacrament
(Holland, 1989). But I would like to
talk about how sex is like ice cream. As
a bishop, I started giving a lesson about the law of chastity that the youth
dubbed “The Ice Cream Talk.” They would
ask for me to give it frequently, so I knew that it was helping them and
empowering them to live more virtuously.
Let me share just a some of the ways I compared sex to ice cream from
the “Ice Cream Talk.”
Sex is Like…
Ice Cream
I
believe a positive way to teach youth about the law of chastity is the use of
the analogy of ice cream. Sex is like
ice cream, here are just three of the ways:
1.
Like ice cream, sex is so good that it is worth
waiting for;
2.
Like ice cream, premature exposure can have
lifelong, adverse consequences; and
3.
Like ice cream is enjoyable in this mortal
sphere, the Restored Gospel teaches us that we can enjoy marital intimacy and
the possibility of having “eternal increase” and a “continuation of our seed
forever” in heaven as exalted beings.
Sex is Like Ice Cream… It’s So Good It’s Worth Waiting For
I
have to give credit about this first aspect of the metaphor to someone who was
a good friend of mine when I was in college, Jeff Parkin, son of former General
Relief Society President Bonnie Parkin.
Jeff and Jana Parkin were a married couple in the University of Southern
California (USC) student ward when I was a freshman in college there. Jeff
said, “Sex is like ice cream; it’s so good it’s worth waiting for. And if someone gave you a little taste and
then said now you have to wait years until you are ready to have this, it would
be really difficult. But if you’ve never
tasted ice cream until you are ready to have it, then you can wait patiently
more easily and enjoy it when it’s the right time.”
Jeff
was absolutely right about that. Marital
sex is very good. There has been
extensive research to prove that very point.
One of the best summaries of this well-researched truth is found in Dr.
Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher’s (2000) book The Case for Marriage. For
many decades now social science research has indicated that both the best
quantity and quality of sex happens in marriage. That means compared to singles, dating
couples, and cohabiting couples, married couples have sex more frequently and
are more satisfied by their sexual experiences with their partners – by far! Marital sex is unquestionably the best sex,
most satisfying sex, and most frequently occurring sex compared to other
relationship forms. Social science
research has finally caught up with God’s wisdom in this instance – nothing
compares with marital sex. It is further
evidence that trying to find happiness by going against God’s teachings doesn’t
work. Thinking we know better than God
how to have happy, fulfilling sex lives by engaging in sex outside of the
marital covenant is sheer hubris. There are several reasons for the vast
superiority of marital sex which center primarily on the principles of
availability, permanence/commitment, sexual exclusivity, and specialization
advantages in marital relationships that are not enjoyed by other sexual
pairings. Husbands and wives who
co-create their sexuality together in the permanent, exclusive bond of marriage
create a quality in their sexuality that cannot be matched by other relational
forms. That’s why married sex is by far
the best sex available.
But
what happens to individuals and couples who don’t wait to “taste the ice
cream,” as my friend Jeff described it.
If marital sex is really that good,
why wait? Why not marry at much younger ages in the teens (as was done in much
of human history prior to the twentieth century)? What could possibly go wrong by premature
exposure to sex?
Sex is Like Ice Cream… Premature Exposure Can Have Lifelong, Adverse
Consequences
Let
me start by telling you a story about one of my experiences as a “dumb father”
– a story which illustrates how unprepared I was to be a father when the
opportunity first came into my life. My
wife, Allison, and I had been married just five months when the chance came to
adopt our first child, Kellie. Allison
and I were just 22 years old when Kellie was born and it was only a few weeks
later when she came to live in our home.
Fortunately, Allison knew a lot about kids and parenting. I was a complete novice. One day I was musing to Allison about how I
wanted to be a “cool dad” (mistake #1).
To me, I thought being a “cool dad” meant not being firm about rules and
expectations (mistake #2). I mentioned
to Allison that I was going to be the kind of dad that let his kids eat
whatever they wanted for breakfast. I was
considering giving Kellie ice cream for breakfast. Allison gave me that sideways glance and
wryly asked, “You do know what happens to infants when you give them dairy
products in the first year of life, don’t you?”
I honestly hadn’t a clue.
“No, uh… what?” I
replied.
“They can develop
lactose intolerance. It can affect them
for life,” she taught me. Needless to
say, I didn’t give her ice cream for breakfast.
I learned how little I actually knew about parenting. Thankfully, Kellie, and her five siblings
later to come survived my “on-the-job” learning approach to parenting as life went
on.
Sex is a lot like
ice cream in this sense. I told this
very story about “ice cream for breakfast” to the youth and parents in my ward
during the now famous “Ice Cream Talk.”
Then I drew the connection for them: if you are prematurely involved in
sexual activities, it can become a life-long struggle to live the law of
chastity.
As a therapist and
former bishop I have had countless people come in to meet with me and seek help
to overcome sexual problems in their life.
They started to engage in sexual activities (pornography, masturbation,
and sexual encounters with other people) early in life prior to marriage often
develop addictions and/or compulsions that harrow their lives in misery. In some cases, even after much sore
repentance and years of faithfulness, they must still stand constantly vigilant
against sexual sins all the days of their lives. I’ve counseled with both men and women alike
struggle with serious, habitual sexual sin.
I’ve helped people whose ages span from very young pre-teens to the
considerably elderly. What I’ve learned
is that Satan’s attack on sexual purity often starts younger than most parents
and Church leaders imagine and that he relentlessly pursues those who fall prey
to his early traps all the days of their lives.
The Adversary, like his evil servant Amalickiah, is persistent in the
pursuit of corrupting and destroying the souls of men and one of his favorite
tactics is enslaving people in addictions and compulsions – especially sexual
sins (see in Alma 47: 10-19). Like
Amalickiah, Satan just won’t quit. He
doesn’t like to take no for an answer.
But we can be comforted that God has so ordained that the he must take no for an answer when we
firmly and consistently use our moral agency to resist temptation and choose
righteousness and purity (see Jacob 3: 1-2).
The
average age of the first sexual experience for people who eventually develop
sexually compulsive behaviors/addictions is 11 years old. One of the central
features of sexual addiction is that it erroneously changes and distorts one’s
core beliefs about one’s self, the opposite sex, the nature and meaning of sex,
and how to meet one’s basic needs in life.
Like all addictions, sexual addiction is about using something (in this
case various kinds of sexual activities) to avoid negative emotions that the
addict doesn’t know how to or want to deal with and assuage pains that they
wish to avoid. Sexual
addiction/compulsion, when allowed to increase in deviancy, can so thoroughly
change what arouses an individual that they can reach a point where normal
sexual intercourse with their spouse is unfulfilling. Sex addiction can literally cause
neurological changes to the brain. Though
it can take years, there is evidence that the sex addict’s brain can heal, but
it requires significant treatment and effort in recovery. I know that repentance really works and
heals, but it often takes a great exertion to free oneself from sexual
sin. Openly and actively teaching our
youth to prevent such sin at young ages will greatly benefit their lives.
For years, we have
heard the prophets and apostles warn men young and old in General Conference
Priesthood Sessions that pornography and other sexual sins must be
avoided. They have consistently taught
that pornography is every bit as addictive as narcotics or other habit-forming
drugs. Now we have the scientific
evidence to support those warning statements.
It is very important for a young person to heed the counsel of the
prophets and avoid sexual sins. If they
have yielded to temptation and sin, it is essential to go get help from their
bishop, and maybe professional counselors and therapists. Early intervention and treatment leads to far
better outcomes. It’s important to get
help before these problems become deeply engrained.
Just as a warning
label on a tub of ice cream might have helped me when I was a young, naïve
father to avoid giving ice cream to my daughter (thankfully my wife corrected
me in time), the clarion call of the prophets and other Church leaders warn us
that engaging in sexual activities, including pornography and masturbation, can
cause life-long, adverse effects. Our
youth must heed the warning or suffer these consequences. It’s our responsibility as parents and Church
leaders to teach these things to our children.
“Heaven Wouldn’t Be Heaven Without Ice Cream” – Restored Truths &
Exalted Potential
As
a little boy, I absolutely knew that
my dad loved ice cream. We didn’t have a lot of money, so ice cream
tended to be a rare treat. But whenever
we had ice cream my dad would often say, “Heaven wouldn’t be heaven without ice
cream.” It made me wonder what heaven would be like. Would there be pleasures, like ice cream, in
heaven or not? Most people, particularly
outside the church, imagine heaven to be a place devoid of earthly
pleasures. To most people, heaven is a
place up in the clouds where we sing in choirs, play harps, and dress in white
robes. If people were truly honest with
themselves, that description of heaven sounds kind of uneventful and lacking in
purpose – even boring – to some. At
least to my mind as a little boy, that kind of heaven seemed unappealing, made
no sense, and was lacking the good things we enjoy here on earth.
I
came to learn that I wasn’t the first person to ponder that question. Mark Twain, in his posthumously published
collection of essays Letters from the
Earth (1962), describes a fictionalized set of letters exchanged between
the “archangel Satan” and the other archangels Gabriel and Michael. In Letter
II, the devil complains:
“For
there is nothing about man that is not strange to an immortal. He looks at
nothing as we look at it…
“For instance, take this sample: he has
imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his
delights, the one ecstasy that stands first and foremost in the heart of every
individual of his race -- and of ours -- sexual intercourse!
“…His heaven is like himself: strange,
interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single
feature in it that he actually values. It consists -- utterly and
entirely -- of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the
earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't
it interesting?” (Mark Twain, as edited by Bernard DeVoto, 1962).
Twain goes on to describe how most men
don’t sing or don’t like to sing, don’t play harps or other musical
instruments, don’t pray or don’t like praying, don’t like church even if they
go, don’t like the Sabbath day restrictions, have prejudices against other
nations and people, and so forth. Yet
they have created a heaven where people sing without ceasing, pray and/or
praise God perpetually, play harps continually, live as if it is always the
Sabbath, and are all equal as brothers and sisters before God regardless of
their race and ethnicity. He asserts the
foolishness and incongruence of a heaven that is so blatantly the opposite of
our earthly joys and pleasures.
Fortunately, the
Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ holds forth a very different view of heaven
than the one described by Mark Twain and most of the world. Instead of a heaven where we perpetually and
purposelessly sing and play harps all day amidst the clouds, Latter-day Saints
know that heaven is one of eternal progression.
Heaven will be heaven because we live with God and our loved ones. It will exist upon this very earth once it
has been transformed through a glorifying and purifying process that will
literally make it the Celestial Kingdom of God.
We know that we will live as exalted beings and will continue to grow
and progress until we become like our Father in Heaven. In D&C 130: 2, Joseph Smith stated: “And
that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only
it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.” For
LDS people, heaven has three degrees of glory, and to enter the highest portion
of the highest degree of glory requires a husband and a wife to enter into the
New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage that can only occur in temple marriage
sealing ceremonies (See D&C sections 131and 132). As exalted beings, we will continue to
create worlds, procreate as husband and wife, and have eternal “increase”
(D&C 131: 4) or in other scriptural words “a fulness and a continuation of
the seeds forever and ever” (D&C 132: 19).
To state the facts plainly, Latter-day Saints believe in a heaven where
husband and wife who are sealed together eternally in celestial marriage
continue to be intimate and continue the pleasures, joys, and familial
experiences they began in mortality. In
contrast to the false version of heaven that Mark Twain parodied, LDS people
believe heaven to be a place of refined continuation of the noblest of
pleasures and virtues found in family life here on earth. We don’t believe you experience pleasures on
earth and austerity in heaven. Twain’s
mocking of mortals who live one way on earth and a very different way in
heaven, doesn’t apply to our view. As
Latter-day Saints we are taught to live now to the extent possible in ways that
will be consistent with our eventual, eternal, and exalted heavenly lifestyle.
In the April 2013
General Conference, Elder L. Tom Perry quoted from his “little brown book”
given to LDS Servicemen by the First Presidency during World War II. In it is a passage attributed to Elder
Stephen L. Richards, “Indeed our heaven is little more than a projection of our
homes into eternity.” (Elder L. Tom Perry, April 2013 General Conference,
“Obedience to Law is Liberty). How
beautiful! Heaven is a projection or
extension of our homes into eternity. We
don’t live lives of service and sacrifice for our family members only to be
free of that relationship in eternity. Rather, the character development and
relational bonds that come from Gospel living – attributes of service,
forgiveness, fidelity, love, chastity, and so forth – are not something we
endure in mortality to shed in heaven. Just as service is the “very fiber” of
an exalted life, eternal increase and the continuation of seed forever through
the sexual intimacies of an eternally sealed celestial marriage is the very
purpose of the glorious eternal life that awaits the faithful.
I’ve
come to learn that there are more righteous pleasures in heaven than we can
possibly imagine. Just as my dad taught
me that “heaven wouldn’t be heaven without ice cream,” I firmly and totally
believe that heaven wouldn’t be heaven for me without my wife and
children. Particularly, because of my
temple sealing with my wife, Allison, my marital relationship is at the core of
my eternal bliss and blessings. That
tells me what my priorities should be.
Eternal
marriage, including sexuality, is central to the LDS theology and
conceptualization of heaven. I’m
grateful for a revealed and restored view of heaven that includes the same joys
and pleasures of family life – including marital intimacy – that we now enjoy. Parley P. Pratt, speaking of his feelings
about when the Prophet Joseph Smith taught him the restored truths about
eternal marriage, once wrote:
“…it was from him [Joseph Smith] that I
learned that the wife of my bosom might be secured to me for time and all
eternity; and that the refined sympathies and affections which endeared us to
each other emanated from the foundation of divine eternal love. It was from the
Prophet that I learned that we might cultivate these affections, and grow and
increase in the same to all eternity.” (Parley P. Pratt, 1938, pp. 297–298.)
This truth motivates us to improve
our relationships now, because we know we will carry them into the next life.
That’s why heaven just wouldn’t be heaven without my wife and children.
Elder
Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, stated this
poignantly in a Church video entitled Between
Heaven and Earth. He stated:
“I don't know how
to speak about heaven in the traditional, lovely, paradisiacal beauty that we
speak of heaven – I wouldn’t know how to speak of heaven without my wife and my
children. It would not be heaven for
me. Now, you can say that’s wishful
thinking; or you can say that’s just because we love each other and you’ve gotten
cozy here on earth and you like each other’s company. It’s a lot more than that. There is something eternal in the statement
that ‘Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in
the Lord’ (1 Corinthians 11: 11). That
is not just good sociology – that is theology.
It is eternal” (Between Heaven and
Earth, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, DVD).
Why Teaching Our Youth Is
More Important Today than Ever Before
Our youth are getting more
and more messages about sex from sources outside our home about tolerating and
accepting sexual norms that are contrary to the commandments of God. The world, society, the media, and government
are trying to take away our responsibility to teach our children about
sexuality. We have to become better
equipped (and more comfortable talking about sex) to teach and talk with our
children to be able to compete with the messages they receive outside our home
and church about sex. A one-time talk
about “the birds and the bees” will not be able to compete with the relentless
onslaught of secular messages about sex.
We must be more diligent and concerned at home about on-going,
consistent teaching of our children the beauties and vicissitudes of following
God’s plan for sexual purity.
Kyle N. Weir, PhD, LMFT, is a Professor of Marriage & Family
Therapy at California State University – Fresno, a Therapist at Roubicek &
Thacker, and author of Intimacy,
Identity, and Ice Cream: Teaching Teens and Young Adults to Live the Law of
Chastity.
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