Sex: talking about it can change the world

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah are uniquely positioned to lessen the ill-effects of society’s increasing embrace of sexual freedom. In order to change the world, however, they must be willing to stick to their values and speak openly with their kids about sex, its benefits, and its consequences. 

Social scientist J.D. Unwin wrote a 710-page “essay” in 1934 titled Sex and Culture. This work, which documented his study of 86 civilizations throughout history, exposed an interesting finding. He explained that if, in at least one stratum (or level) of a society, women and men can be treated as equals legally, socially, and sexually, while holding high sexual standards, that stratum of individuals who choose sexual restraint can arise to influence the course of society towards a more refined, productive, and successful future. If Latter-day Saints in Utah, who are already filling these requirements to a large degree, can pass on an appreciation for and love of healthy sex to subsequent generations, they will be the ones to create that stratum.

This is a difficult balance—trying to protect their children’s innocence while also providing them with enough education on the literal “facts of life”—but solutions and tools are gradually being presented. There is a major push to implement comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in K-12 classrooms to better prepare young people for becoming sexually active. This initiative is being discussed everywhere from local school board meetings to the United Nations. Many of Utah’s Latter-day Saints, however, hold reservations about CSE, since sex is considered sacred in their religion. Those who have concerns see the topic of sex as something to be taught by parents who can determine what amount of knowledge is best for their child at each age. Additionally, while the Church condemns pornography, the line between healthy education and pornographic content can be awfully blurry. Thus, values-based educators and therapists have taken to the platforms of the day (social media and podcasts) to offer a better way.

The Rostra conducted a survey of 54 Latter-day Saint young adults ages 18–35, asking questions about sexuality. Only 20 percent said they got the majority of their information about sex from their parents, and 11 percent responded with a mix of parental and other sources. Some of those parents had very negative experiences with sex due to their lack of education. Those young adults were split on how prepared and educated they felt prior to experiencing sexual relations in marriage.

Most of the poll respondents reported that they had little knowledge of female sexual pleasure, proper hygiene, how to best communicate with their partner, and how to decrease discomfort. Several female respondents received messages that sex was miserable for women, but necessary for keeping their husbands happy. This misinformation (or total lack of information) produced fear, anxiety, and a difficult transition into marital sexual activity for many. Many of those who did feel adequately prepared for marriage got their information from sources besides their parents—usually friends, the internet, and sex ed in school. While some of those sources were positive, others had a negative moral effect. One respondent said his sexual education was “adequate technically, but only because I figured stuff out in a not-so-ideal way as a teenager, stumbling into pornography.” 

Today’s young people have more access to information than at any other time in the history of the world. So, for a parent to simply say to their curious tween, “I’ll tell you more when you’re older (or engaged),” just won’t fly. If they want to know, they’ll look it up. And if they don’t, they may develop a fear of sex or quickly come to dislike it after a few negative sexual experiences in marriage.

Though sex in Latter-day Saint doctrine is meant to be taught and treated as sacred (hence, no sexual relations before marriage, complete fidelity after marriage, and no pornography), too often that gets conflated with secret. It can feel intimidating and even downright awkward for parents to offer more to their children than just the essential facts about sex. This combination—a touchy topic combined with strict religious commandments regarding sexual relations—has resulted in a lack of understanding about some of the most vital and healthy aspects of sex. This can be almost as harmful to individuals in committed marriages as pornography is to society as a whole.

Utah’s younger generation is starting to become aware of this disconnect, and they’re proactively working to change it. A large movement has arisen in favor of introducing CSE into Utah’s public schools, with some arguing that this is the solution to destigmatizing sex and protecting young people from the various problems that arise from lack of understanding of this topic. However, CSE has raised concerns among many parents that it is too explicit—more pornography than education—and encourages early exploration of sexual behavior. If this is true, not only does it pose risks to minors’ physical health, but according to Unwin’s study (mentioned earlier), it poses risks for societal and cultural progress. Others acknowledge that some of the content may be helpful and even necessary, but advocate for parental authority over the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of sex ed for children. 

Currently, Utah schools are required to offer abstinence-based sex ed, and some school districts have opted to offer abstinence-only sex ed, although many Utahns have expressed concerns that educators and administrators are finding ways around these guidelines in order to implement more aspects of CSE. These educators often defend themselves by arguing that students need information about consent, STIs, birth control, and human anatomy before they become sexually active, and no one can guarantee when that will be. Abortion and birth control providers are among the major contributors to the CSE curriculum, and therefore CSE heavily promotes their products and services. If parents don’t want this information taught by the school system or by companies with monetary interest, they need to step up their game when it comes to values-based sex ed in the home. 

One respondent to The Rostra’s poll wrote, “I wish when I was enrolled in sex ed that my parents would talk to me about the spiritual side of things. … They aren’t afraid to talk to me about it, but we never had those conversations till I was a little older.” 

Another respondent shared, “I hope to create regular teaching opportunities around sex for my children where we are having conversations about sexuality that are age appropriate and foster an appreciation for the beautiful and sacred nature of sex. I don’t want it to be a thing they are scared to talk about, and I don’t want them going into marriage with avoidable blind spots.”

Appropriate sex education seems to be a common goal among religious young adults, who want to carry on the values of their faith without perpetuating harmful purity culture or plain ignorance. Many of them are turning to another source for better sex ed: therapists, authors, and podcasters who offer solutions and tools through accessible mediums. Influencers such as Meg Jankovich, M.S. (@shame_free_chastity) and Carlie Palmer-Webb, M.S. (@thechristiansexeducator) offer advice for those seeking healthy information about sex or parental teaching tips from a values-based standpoint, and they’re joined by many other educators on social media. “I’m not saying that the when isn’t important; I believe that it is,” Palmer-Webb explained in February of this year. “But our goal is not ONLY that young people wait until marriage, is it? … Don’t we also want s*x to be something that is enjoyable, connecting, and free of shame? … Teach your children, especially as they begin dating more seriously, that the WHEN of s*x is important. And so is the WHY. And the HOW. And the WITH WHOM.”

Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is another figure who has risen in popularity in recent years as a Latter-day Saint marriage therapist, author, educator, and podcaster. Advertising for her Sexuality Coaching services, she states, “I wrote my dissertation on sexuality and desire, looking specifically at the obstacles to LDS women’s desire, eroticism and pleasure in long-term relationships. … Through your own sexual and relational development, you can find greater embodied pleasure and the deeply-felt satisfaction that comes through a passionate, monogamous relationship.”

J.D. Unwin would have stood up and cheered. That is, if he had lived to see it.

Since sex has always been one of the most essential parts of any society—indeed, it’s the only reason society exists at all!—it has also been one of the most debated and experimented with. Should it be restricted? If so, how? If not, why? Unwin answered these questions in his essay. Just as a society can gradually decline in its sexual restraint, and therefore decline in its social energy, it can also gradually increase in both. He defines decline in sexual restraint through manifestations of some or all of the following behaviors: introducing polyamorous, homosexual, or open relationships; and embracing casual sex before or after marriage. If even one segment of the society begins to insist on more sexual restraints, it creates a cultural “stratum,” or distinct layer, that infuses its growing energy into the whole society. After three generations, “the energy increases, indeed, in what seems to be geometrical progression. The society expands in all its multifarious activities, exhibits a terrific mental energy that is manifest in the arts and sciences, refines its craftsmanship, changes its opinions on every conceivable subject, exerts considerable control over its environment, and manifests its potential powers in the loftiest forms yet known.” This has rarely happened in history, but Unwin noted that this was the common thread running through Athenian, Roman, and English society at the height of their flourishing.

The fact that only one stratum must adopt a chaste lifestyle to produce such cultural success offers hope, especially with unrestrained sexuality rampant all over the world. Changing an entire society’s sexual ideals would be difficult, but creating that single stratum of energy and restraint is much less daunting—especially since that stratum might already be forming in Utah.

Unfortunately, none of the three model societies that Unwin showcased (Athens, Rome, and England) are still flourishing today. What happened? Is it just too hard to maintain sexual restraint, even among just one sector of society?

Actually, Unwin found that the difficulty of sexual self-control was not the primary obstacle to success. What really prevented this energy from being sustainable was the inequality of the sexes. Women and children who lived in these flourishing, absolutely monogamous societies had no legal rights whatsoever and were essentially property. Whenever they were granted more rights, they were also allowed greater sexual freedom. And from that point forward, their society began its demise.

The most recent examples of this have occurred in the last 150 years. Victoria Woodhull, a suffragette in the late 1800s, not only advocated for the right to vote but also for easier divorce. She eventually ran for United States president. Woodhull most definitely saw sexual rights as a key component of any legal or social equality that women might attain. “I have an inalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please, and with that right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere,” she declared in an 1871 speech to the Labor Reform Movement. 

The second wave of feminism washed over the Western world in the 1960s, bringing equal pay and Title IX, as well as Roe v. Wade and the recognition of lesbian rights. More legal rights, more sexual freedom. Since that time, homosexuality, cohabiting prior to or instead of marriage, and out of wedlock conception have been extremely destigmatized. Media sources from movies to advertisements feature immoral behavior, crude references, and sensual imagery, while porn use is at a staggering high. According to WorldMetrics, “68% of men aged 18–24 report using porn at least monthly, compared to 45% of women in the same age group,” and that “45% of 18–29 year olds have used porn within the past 24 hours. … 67% of users start watching porn before 18, with 32% starting before 15.”

While it is exciting to explore something seemingly forbidden, the consequences are real, and they eventually outweigh the thrill. Such sensational behaviors become boring at best (porn fatigue is also on the rise) and emotionally and physically harmful at worst. 

Bertrand Russell—who was quite in favor of sexual freedom—predicted in the 1920s that dismantling traditional monogamous marriages would lead not to hyper-sexualization, but total de-sexualization. It would be especially harmful for men, whose recognizable tie to their children is through marriage (women can more easily claim ties through their literal biological connection). “My belief is, though I put it forward with some hesitation, that the elimination of paternity [fatherhood] as a recognized social relation would tend to make men’s emotional life trivial and thin, causing in the end a slowly growing boredom and despair, in which procreation would gradually die out,” Russell writes in his book Marriage and Morals, “leaving the human race to be replenished by the stocks that had preserved the older convention.”

When children are born into less stable environments, women are left with greater emotional and physical consequences, and men lose a sense of purpose and drive. If nuclear families break down, the building blocks of society break down, and everyone suffers.

Therefore, Unwin concludes that to create a society with lasting cultural energy, legal and social equality of women must be established first. Next, sexual restraints must be adopted by both genders, with absolute monogamy resulting in the greatest eventual flourishing. This must be maintained for a minimum of three generations. If it lasts, this theoretical society will “control its cultural destiny” and be on track to become the most successful, energetic, and culturally rich society of all recorded history.

If the whole society is unable to commit to this, so be it. One stratum will do.

Enter: Utah.

The Beehive State is home to 2.2 million Latter-day Saints, whose beliefs regarding heterosexual marriage, chastity, and fidelity are clearly outlined in The Family: A Proclamation to the World. This 1995 document also states in simple terms that both men and women are seen as equals in the eyes of God, as His children, and that “fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.” 

The Church has been criticized for limiting the ordination of priesthood to men, a supposed major count of perceived gender inequality. Nevertheless, the late Church President Russell M. Nelson and other leaders have taught women on more than one occasion that they do not need to be ordained to the priesthood in order to access the exact same priesthood power as men or to have a recognized voice in Church matters. In addition to equality in a religious sense, Utah was a pioneer in political equality for women, granting them the right to vote 50 years prior to the 19^th Amendment being passed.

Based on Unwin’s criteria, Utah’s Latter-day Saints are the prime candidate for his social stratum—the one that could change the whole energy of society.

So long as they are willing to teach their children clearly and comfortably about sex in a way that maintains their values without withholding important information, they will become a cultural sector that maintains chastity and gender equality. Latter-day Saints have the greatest capacity to foster thriving monogamous marriages without discriminating against those who don’t practice the same sexual restraint, and thus breathe never-before-seen life and cultural energy into the world for generations to come.