LDS fixation on sexual morality: where does it come from?

[SeattleUte]

This is a serious question, inspired by CMBF's questioning whether pornography is too much a focus of GC talks. I think it's a broader subject and want to have a different, more dignified title to the thread.

So where does the LDS Church's overriding obsession with sexual morality come from? Okay, sexual morality is important. But I'm talking about priorities and allocation of resources. Christ counted harlots and prostitutes among his good friends. He said cast stones at them if you're perfect. I don't need to recount Joseph Smith's sexual indiscretions. In any event, I don't recall an obsessiveness as to sexual morality in his speeches.

If I reduce Christ's message in the NT to sound bite, here's what I come up with: 1) the Golden Rule; 2) the first shall be the last, or, a variant, materialism is distracting and corrupting. I don't read the kind of authoritarianism and obsession with sex as we see in the LDS Church today.

I'm asking for the cultural roots. SEIQ? Any theory?

[Maximus]

This is a serious question, inspired by CMBF's questioning whether pornography is too much a focus of GC talks. I think it's a broader subject and want to have a different, more dignified title to the thread.

So where does the LDS Church's overriding obsession with sexual morality come from? Okay, sexual morality is important. But I'm talking about priorities and allocation of resources. Christ counted harlots and prostitutes among his good friends. He said cast stones at them if you're perfect. I don't need to recount Joseph Smith's sexual indiscretions. In any event, I don't recall an obsessiveness as to sexual morality in his speeches.

If I reduce Christ's message in the NT to sound bite, here's what I come up with: 1) the Golden Rule; 2) the first shall be the last, or, a variant, materialism is distracting and corrupting. I don't read the kind of authoritarianism and obsession with sex as we see in the LDS Church today.

I'm asking for the cultural roots. SEIQ? Any theory?

One I can think of is in Alma where he tells one of his sons Sexual sins are the worst, minus murder, or something similar to that. Add to that temple covenants, etc.

[Pheidippides]

One I can think of is in Alma where he tells one of his sons Sexual sins are the worst, minus murder, or something similar to that. Add to that temple covenants, etc.

I read the Alma stuff with a grain of salt, though. Here's a guy who almost certainly was guilty of sowing his own oats during his adolescence (my conjecture there, but I'll stand by it, given what we know of human nature), eventually had an angel come an snap him out of it, talking to his son who has royally screwed up his (Alma's) work by boinking the local hooker. I daresay a little bit of hyperbole was probably the order of the day.

[RockyBalboa]

The LDS Church and culture hardly corners the market on speaking out against sexual immorality.

Here's the scary part...I agree in certain extents with you SU. I believe that there is an overbearing puritanical approach that doesn't pay enough attention to the human element.

Being a 30+ Single....and being expected to remain celibate....it's VERY hard to stay that way all of the time, and I don't deny there is a divide that exists which makes it hard for singles like us to feel like we belong...but this is just one of the topics why and not the sole reason.

I will agree that the Church is too harsh against people in my demographic who end up getting down with someone they're dating. Or with the younger crowd who is still trying to discover who they are. I wouldn't mind if a little more understanding were brought in while dealing with these issues, but they are cut and dried for the most part....even though the punishments dealt out are not, as it's handled on a case by case basis.

However, I do believe that infidelity in marriage is a serious sin and should be dealt with appropriately.

[Fiyero]

So where does the LDS Church's overriding obsession with sexual morality come from? Christ counted harlots and prostitutes among his good friends. In any event, I don't recall an obsessiveness as to sexual morality in his speeches.

Have you any idea just how ugly, smelly and hairy that men and women were until the past century? A bunch of unbathed, unibrowed, manure-shoveling shepherds? I don't envision Mary and Martha walking past Simon and him thinking, "I'd hit that..."

[Rosebud]

Wouldn't it make more sense for rape to be the sin next to murder?

[Pheidippides]

Wouldn't it make more sense for rape to be the sin next to murder?

Actually, this was my thought as well, but then I started thinking about all the things I thought were worse than rape. Torture, for example, if it results in physical disability/loss of limb. But I'm not sure, and then I remember that I'm creating a sin hierarchy, which I don't believe in doing. So I don't believe that there are sins next to murder because "next to" implies ranking and some sort of equivalency.

[byu71]

Wouldn't it make more sense for rape to be the sin next to murder?

My guess is that it probably is. I don't know, but I think someone committing rape would get automatic excommunication.