Russell M. Nelson's new wife and advice on intimacy

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Russell M. Nelson married Wendy Watson roughly three years ago. Prior to that, she had never been married. She was also a professor at BYU's Family Science department (or whatever its called). One of her specialties was counseling people on sexual intimacy (well, she didn't use the word sexual, it's just marital intimacy to her). She commonly gave talks at education week type venues. Somehow an unmarried woman became the expert on sexual...err...marital intimacy.

My brother, a psychiatrist, mentioned this woman last night to me as an example of what he views as a weird and dysfunctional view on sex that is espoused by people in prominent positions within the church.

Here's a talk I found from her:

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/conferences/womens/1999_watson.htm

[I.J. Reilly]

Russell M. Nelson married Wendy Watson roughly three years ago. Prior to that, she had never been married. She was also a professor at BYU's Family Science department (or whatever its called). One of her specialties was counseling people on sexual intimacy (well, she didn't use the word sexual, it's just marital intimacy to her). She commonly gave talks at education week type venues. Somehow an unmarried woman became the expert on sexual...err...marital intimacy.

My brother, a psychiatrist, mentioned this woman last night to me as an example of what he views as a weird and dysfunctional view on sex that is espoused by people in prominent positions within the church.

Here's a talk I found from her:

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/c...999_watson.htm

This speech is too long. Will you highlight some of her more egregious examples of sexually dysfunctional views?

[byu71]

Russell M. Nelson married Wendy Watson roughly three years ago. Prior to that, she had never been married. She was also a professor at BYU's Family Science department (or whatever its called). One of her specialties was counseling people on sexual intimacy (well, she didn't use the word sexual, it's just marital intimacy to her). She commonly gave talks at education week type venues. Somehow an unmarried woman became the expert on sexual...err...marital intimacy.

My brother, a psychiatrist, mentioned this woman last night to me as an example of what he views as a weird and dysfunctional view on sex that is espoused by people in prominent positions within the church.

Here's a talk I found from her:

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/c...999_watson.htm

Don't give Bronco any ideas on what other subjects he should be lecturing the fans on.

[Fiyero]

Russell M. Nelson married Wendy Watson roughly three years ago. Prior to that, she had never been married.

Elder Oaks' replacement wife was also an untouched fiftysomething. They like 'em new.

[DU Ute]

Looks like she's been lurking on CUF!

Warning 3. For the devil's Internet connections: "Share the following with someone whose soul you would like to destroy. Complete success is ensured if you can offer it in the spirit of friendship and under the guise of love. By thinking and talking together about the content, all sweet pure feelings will be distorted into grand perversions. Pick a perversion, any perversion. That may be one of the very last choices you will get to make.

In fact, if you are tired of making choices just view the following several times—or keep immersing yourself in similar material—and your degree of freedom will be increasingly limited with each successive viewing. The irony is that you will be provided with a personalized illusion that your freedom is actually increasing. We've taken this way beyond the old smoke and mirrors tricks—and the illusions that will influence your heart and mind will be stunning. Virtual reality is here to replace virtuous living.

[byu71]

I have an awesome aunt who was widowed while in her fifties. I have been amazed she hasn't been called to serve.

It might have something to do with how well my Uncle knew those in the highest echelons of the church. Someone may have issued a hands off.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

This speech is too long. Will you highlight some of her more egregious examples of sexually dysfunctional views?

A huge portion of the talk is fluff where she says, probably about 50 times, that we can't be truly intimate in our marriage unless we're intimate with the lord (not in that kind of way of course). She's not only counseling people to avoid affairs and the obvious things, but she's telling that that "lustful" touching between a married couple is not in line with the spirit.

But here's one of the more interesting parts which talks sometimes about intimacy but it also shows how wacky she is:

"Could Paul possibly be talking about afternoon soap operas and talk shows—and how through them, all these offenses creep into our homes? And could he be describing those of us who watch them? Are we silly when we watch them? And is watching them leading us away into divers lusts?"

"Have we been careless? Have we drifted far too much in the direction of the world's view, which is so saturated with Lucifer's lies about physical intimacy?

It is indeed time to rise up and be careful! Careful about everything that comes into our hearts, minds, and homes which pertains to physical intimacy. Could the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith apply to how in times past we have carelessly thought about, and talked about, physical intimacy? Joseph said: "How vain and trifling have been our spirits, our conferences, our councils, our meetings, our private as well as public conversations—too low, too mean, too vulgar, too condescending" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938], 137). We must be very careful with our language and our conversations about everything related to this sacred physical endowment.

On the other hand we need to be bold in exposing Lucifer and his lies. We need to rise up, and with ever increasing clarity point out his counterfeits, his deceptions, his trickery. I believe that all satanically influenced presentations about physical intimacy should be stamped "More Lies!"

To protect our minds and hearts, our homes and families from the intrusions of the devil's devices, perhaps we need big, bold warning signs on every book, magazine, videotape, audiotape, TV sitcom, movie, play, and so forth, which is coproduced by the adversary himself. Warning signs that would reveal his works for what they really are: angry protests against God and persistent, power-hungry efforts to obliterate the truth."

[jay santos]

A huge portion of the talk is fluff where she says, probably about 50 times, that we can't be truly intimate in our marriage unless we're intimate with the lord (not in that kind of way of course). She's not only counseling people to avoid affairs and the obvious things, but she's telling that that "lustful" touching between a married couple is not in line with the spirit.

But here's one of the more interesting parts which talks sometimes about intimacy but it also shows how wacky she is:

"Could Paul possibly be talking about afternoon soap operas and talk shows—and how through them, all these offenses creep into our homes? And could he be describing those of us who watch them? Are we silly when we watch them? And is watching them leading us away into divers lusts?"

"Have we been careless? Have we drifted far too much in the direction of the world's view, which is so saturated with Lucifer's lies about physical intimacy?

It is indeed time to rise up and be careful! Careful about everything that comes into our hearts, minds, and homes which pertains to physical intimacy. Could the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith apply to how in times past we have carelessly thought about, and talked about, physical intimacy? Joseph said: "How vain and trifling have been our spirits, our conferences, our councils, our meetings, our private as well as public conversations—too low, too mean, too vulgar, too condescending" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938], 137). We must be very careful with our language and our conversations about everything related to this sacred physical endowment.

On the other hand we need to be bold in exposing Lucifer and his lies. We need to rise up, and with ever increasing clarity point out his counterfeits, his deceptions, his trickery. I believe that all satanically influenced presentations about physical intimacy should be stamped "More Lies!"

To protect our minds and hearts, our homes and families from the intrusions of the devil's devices, perhaps we need big, bold warning signs on every book, magazine, videotape, audiotape, TV sitcom, movie, play, and so forth, which is coproduced by the adversary himself. Warning signs that would reveal his works for what they really are: angry protests against God and persistent, power-hungry efforts to obliterate the truth."

I wonder if she found the errrr intimacy she's been craving all these years.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I wonder if she found the errrr intimacy she's been craving all these years.

Here's another tidbit:

"And what if the person asking you to engage in something defiling is your husband, whom you love? President Boyd K. Packer anticipated this attack on personal purity from within marriage. He counseled: "A married couple may be tempted to introduce things into their relationship which are unworthy. Do not, as the scriptures warn, 'change the natural use into that which is against nature' (Romans 1:26). If you do, the tempter will drive a wedge between you" (The Things of the Soul [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996], 113).

Anything that offends the Spirit or either spouse's spirit will allow the tempter to drive a wedge between husbands and wives.

"I was talked out of my feelings." Those are the haunting words of a woman whose husband on their wedding night had introduced her to the consummation of their love in a manner that offended her spirit. For years they carried on the illusion of a marriage. That was the best they could do, for a woman who felt numb and a man who felt rejected."

End Quote.

I love how she doesn't elaborate on the last paragraph. It could mean anything. Maybe the husband brought a bunch of S&M gear and freaked out his wife? Or maybe he tried to perform oral sex on her? I just think the injection of guilt based on some ambiguous standard that she does a poor job of explaining would be counterproductive to a couple that is struggling with intimacy.

[pellegrino]

This speech is too long. Will you highlight some of her more egregious examples of sexually dysfunctional views?

I don't know about dysfunctional, but this section caught me as somewhat strange. The reference to Parley P. Pratt made me shudder as I imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that he had a much more Victorian view on the role of intimacy within a marriage.

In my clinical practice, I have worked with couples who have broken covenants of marital fidelity and couples in which one spouse has approached this marital sacrament with unclean hands and an impure heart. The outcomes are tragic and sadly predictable. I salute the husband who, following disfellowshipment, chose on his own to wait for physical intimacy with his wife until he was more pure. Following this self-imposed-self-restraint he read to his wife one evening from Doctrine and Covenants Section 46. Her heart was irresistibly drawn towards his. She experienced that moment as the most wonderfully effective prelude to physical intimacy they had ever shared in twenty-five years of marriage. Feeling spiritually more connected with her husband enhanced her desire to be connected with him physically.

On the other hand a woman spoke of times when her husband, ravaged by self-doubts and collisions with the brutal world, felt unworthy in almost every way. She then said tenderly, almost reverently, "In those moments, physical intimacy was the only way I could really help him feel loved—worthy of love, worthy to love." Perhaps there are many reasons why spouses can feel closer to the Lord as they unite in the marital sacrament.

When marital intimacy is embedded in personal purity, love is co-created—pure love, the kind of love Parley P. Pratt describes. Listen to Elder Pratt's words:

"I had loved before, but I knew not why. But now I loved—with a pureness—an intensity of elevated, exalted feeling, which would lift my soul from the transitory things of this grovelling sphere and expand it as the ocean. I felt that God was my heavenly Father indeed; that Jesus was my brother, and that the wife of my bosom was an immortal, eternal companion. . . . "In short, I could now love with the spirit and with the understanding also (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979], 260).

I believe that the Lord blesses spouses who love each other purely. I believe He blesses spouses whose passions and appetites have been influenced by the Holy Ghost. We were given the gift of the Holy Ghost for exactly such a time as this. Is it difficult to believe that the Holy Ghost will help you express your love physically? He will. Pray for it.

Perhaps I'm evil, but I've never felt the Holy Ghost while being intimate with my wife, and I don't think I want to.

[Fiyero]

I've been meaning to enroll in Sister Watson-Nelson's course on sexual intimacy, and will as soon as I finish reading the following:

-Tips on a Happy, Lasting Marriage by Elizabeth Taylor
-How to Win on the College Gridiron by Mike Sanford
-World Peace Relations by Osama bin Laden
-My Difficult Childhood as a White Boy in London by Oprah Winfrey
-Biblical Insights by Rod Blagojevich and Carrie Prejean
-Guide to Health and Fitness by Aretha Franklin

[Non Sequitur]

Perhaps I'm evil, but I've never felt the Holy Ghost while being intimate with my wife, and I don't think I want to.

This reminds me of Woody Allen's response to the question of whether sex is dirty: "Only if you do it right."

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I don't know about dysfunctional, but this section caught me as somewhat strange. The reference to Parley P. Pratt made me shudder as I imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that he had a much more Victorian view on the role of intimacy within a marriage.



Perhaps I'm evil, but I've never felt the Holy Ghost while being intimate with my wife, and I don't think I want to.

Here's the problem I have with her dispensing advice: How the hell did she know at that time that "proper intimacy" requires that you feel the holy ghost while you're having sex? I wonder if this talk was given during education week and I wonder how many women left thinking how shitty their husbands were at making sure that the spirit was present when they were having sex.

[Non Sequitur]

What's unfortunate is that when she wrote most of this crap she was just an obscure BYU instructor. Now she's the wife and soul mate of an Apostle. Instant credibility. Women might start believing her now.

[falafel]

In my uneducated opinion, Sister Nelson or whatever is just expounding on the view that most women have (I think), which is that sex is as much an emotional form of intmacy as it is a physical form of intmacy. Most guys would probably say its mostly physical, with maybe 5% emotional tacked on to make their wife happy.

I wonder if Sister Nelson just took her view and assumed it was the correct one and then wrote a book about it.