As Mormons, Sarah and her husband James used to believe that sexual pleasure was sinful. Then they left the church ...
For Brut, filmmaker Léo Hamelin tracked how this ex-Mormon couple went from stigma and shame to sexual liberation.
For Brut, filmmaker Léo Hamelin tracked how this ex-Mormon couple went from stigma and shame to sexual liberation.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I can't speak for all ex-Mormon or ex-religious women, but I can speak for myself.
00:06I've always kind of been a sexual person, and I was just suppressing it.
00:10That was my first purchase.
00:13It's the Oxfun Automatic Sex Machine.
00:17So, I see that look on your face.
00:20I've just solved every single woman's problem.
00:23It even goes faster.
00:26I've never gone that fast.
00:28But, like, that's just crazy.
00:32When I left the church, I think I was...
00:34Once I was able to deconstruct my prudeness,
00:37I think it was easier for me to start to explore stuff.
00:41But really, I'm just like a girl who's learning stuff.
00:44Like, this is all new to me.
00:46Look at this.
00:48It's almost the size of my arm.
00:50This is the hardest thing to hide.
00:52Like...
00:53From who are you hiding?
00:54Well, when my in-laws come over, I'm like...
00:58Like, trying to find a place to hide it.
01:01It's so big.
01:03It's just...
01:05You're, like, dying.
01:06But, like, imagine trying to hide this.
01:08Where do you hide it?
01:09I don't know.
01:10Where do you hide it?
01:11I hide it in my closet, but I need to find a better hiding spot,
01:13because I've got nosy in-laws.
01:16So, all it takes is them just being like,
01:19Mormons believe that sexual desires should only be satisfied
01:23within heterosexual marriage.
01:25Outside of that, any sexual activities or sexual perversions,
01:29as they call them, like watching porn or masturbating,
01:31are completely banned.
01:33For Brut, I'm in Utah, in the Salt Lake City area,
01:36and I met with this young married couple
01:38who just recently left their marriage,
01:40and they're trying to find a place to live.
01:42So, they're trying to find a place to live,
01:45and I met with this young married couple
01:47who just recently left the LDS church
01:49and is re-exploring their sexuality.
02:02And I was just, this is what I would do.
02:04I would walk to the temple every single day
02:06and write in this journal.
02:08My love for you has always been present
02:10and has grown ever so.
02:12I was speaking in thousand these.
02:14Thou has blessed me with my desires.
02:16I am here in Salt Lake City.
02:18This is like, I bought this because I had moved to Salt Lake City.
02:20I was like, I am here. I'm going to be so devout.
02:25Ooh, this one's saucy.
02:27This one's a day after we had sex.
02:29Yesterday was the strangest day for me, yet the best.
02:32James and I got married,
02:34and Lord, I pray that thou will bless us,
02:37that as we continue forward from here,
02:39we may have your protection from the adversary's power here on earth.
02:43I love you, Lord, and thank you so much for giving me James.
02:47I didn't give him any of the details.
02:49I wish I would have wrote about those details.
02:52I was still on my honeymoon at the time when I wrote this.
02:55I'm like sitting here, like, just getting plowed.
02:58I'm going to write to my, I'm going to write to God.
03:01Hello. Hi.
03:07I look back at these pictures, and it was just, it was all a facade.
03:13Did you just get married to have sex?
03:15We did get married to have sex,
03:18but we still loved each other and wanted to be married.
03:22But yes, we wanted to.
03:31I still have our temple picture next to the bed.
03:33I love this dress.
03:35I hated that I had to have, like, a sleeve thing on.
03:39You have to keep your shoulders covered.
03:41Also, I did get to wear my dress during my temple sealing,
03:45but let me show you what I had to put on over my dress.
03:48I had no idea this was going to happen.
03:51And then they tell you you have to put this over it.
03:55Temple ritual clothing.
03:57They kind of go through, like, the Adam and Eve story,
04:00but there's one point where,
04:02when they get kicked out of the Garden of Eden,
04:06they then have to cover themselves.
04:09I had to put this on over my dress.
04:13Like, like this.
04:16And then, yeah, there's more.
04:22This is like, you'd think that this would be a part of your wedding,
04:26but this is a part of every single endowment session you go to.
04:30Women have to veil their faces.
04:32Because guess what?
04:34We're not worthy of showing our faces.
04:38They have escorts that go with you.
04:41That person was probably there to make you feel like everything was normal,
04:44when in actuality, it was weird.
04:47What we were doing, like, going into prayer circles,
04:50doing crazy handshakes.
04:53I got a new name.
04:56It's just, in my opinion, it's a cult.
04:58Really.
05:00And there are people who would strongly disagree with me.
05:04But come on, you get this,
05:07and you have a wedding dress?
05:09Try to tell a 23-year-old girl,
05:12you're not going into a cult.
05:22We're in Salt Lake City to meet with Natasha Helfer.
05:25She's a really well-known sex therapist,
05:27a mental health and sexual health advocate for the Mormon community.
05:31This is the practice that James and Sarah first came to when they started exploring.
05:36Today, we're doing a one-time session with Natasha Helfer herself.
05:40James asked me not to show his face for privacy purposes.
05:44In this community, speaking out in favor of sexual liberation remains taboo.
05:50How long ago was it that you left the church?
05:532019?
05:54Well, yeah, we started our faith crisis like summer of 2019.
05:58We grew up in a very restrictive religion,
06:01and it's kind of like,
06:03what do I actually believe versus what was ingrained in me?
06:07What were some of the takeaways that you were gathering, do you think,
06:11in regards to messages you were receiving about your sexuality?
06:15It was really ingrained in us girls that we had to be modest and pure.
06:19We did the licked cupcake.
06:21The whole premise is like, who wants to eat a licked cupcake?
06:24Or they say, who wants this cupcake?
06:26And then everyone's like, I want a cupcake.
06:28And then they lick it, and they're like, who wants it now?
06:30Yeah, and if you are doing things with other people prior to marriage,
06:34you are considered a licked cupcake.
06:36Right, this is an object lesson.
06:38Yes.
06:39Let's go back and talk about your developmental journey.
06:43Around 16 and 17, you have to go in,
06:46and the bishop was just asking me if I masturbated and stuff.
06:49And at the time, you don't realize this is wrong.
06:52I shouldn't have to explain this to some guy that's a middle-aged man.
06:57I'm just a teenage kid.
06:59There was always this guilt that I would carry around with me for days.
07:03If I would, quote-unquote, slip up,
07:05I would feel just awful for three or four days,
07:08and trying to pray and pray.
07:11And slip up meant masturbating?
07:13Just masturbating, yeah.
07:15What are your thoughts now, looking back at yourself at that time,
07:20about how that impacted maybe your sense of self, your sense of identity?
07:24I don't know how to describe it.
07:26I just felt like I was just a really bad person.
07:31You know?
07:33Like I'm not worthy of anything.
07:41I feel guilt and shame.
07:43I can't give priesthood blessings, can't take the sacrament.
07:46I have anxiety, loss of self-confidence, loss of focus, concentration,
07:50numbing of my feelings, can't get married in the temple, fear,
07:56risk of severe embarrassment, not worthy of eternal life.
08:01So that's probably why I felt really bad,
08:03because I felt like I was not worthy of eternal life.
08:06Tell me what this is.
08:08It's a 12-step program from the LDS Church.
08:11But the main people that use this program do what they call,
08:16what they suffer from, quote-unquote, pornography addiction.
08:19How do you get diagnosed with pornography addiction?
08:22Well, I guess it's not diagnosed.
08:24Just basically what happens is if you go to the bishop enough times
08:27to confess about pornography and you can't stop,
08:31he'll be like, hey, you should try this program.
08:34I remember saying this in one of the meetings,
08:36like I had lost my soul, like I was empty inside and that I was worthless.
08:44And it was all because I looked at porn maybe a few times a week
08:49and I just felt like a horrible, horrible person
08:53and that I had no redeeming qualities.
08:56So yeah, I think it does traumatize you.
09:00I knew he was looking at porn because he had set up
09:03so many accountability things to keep himself accountable.
09:07He would just look at it.
09:08I'd get a notification in an email or a text and I'd go and I'd see it
09:13and I was just like, I mean, I didn't say that.
09:15I was probably like, fetching, frick, like, oh my gosh.
09:20Yeah, so it was just bad.
09:23It just caused a lot of tension in our relationship
09:25and I didn't feel like worthy, you know,
09:28because we'd also just had sex maybe that night before
09:30and I'm like, why, why do you need porn?
09:33Am I not enough?
09:34But here I am just like this, having dutiful sex.
09:38Like, come unto me.
09:42I'm your wife, your help me.
09:44Like, use my body as a portal for your needs.
09:47I mean, of course he needed a little more.
09:49Do you blame him?
09:51Dutiful sex sucks.
09:53So, for women especially.
09:57In the beginning of our faith journey,
09:59we did have some disagreements on, okay,
10:02now that we don't have this set of rules that we need to live by,
10:08what kinds of things are okay?
10:10And so we had to work through that
10:12and that was probably the most challenging part.
10:14We were literally, we were on the brink of divorce
10:17and now we're just kind of thrown out to the wolves
10:20as far as, like, we got to come up with a whole new belief system
10:25a whole new value system.
10:27And here we are, we're in our 30s,
10:30and now we got to figure it all out.
10:37There was very little room for the wife to explore her own sexuality,
10:42her own desires, her own fantasies.
10:44Like, pretty much from the get-go,
10:46there was anxiety around his sexuality
10:48and monitoring his sexuality.
10:50So now they seem free to explore
10:53all kinds of things that were not available to them.
10:59Once I was able to deconstruct my prudeness,
11:02I think it was easier for me to start to explore stuff.
11:09He's smoking it for me.
11:15Ooh!
11:17I had a buyer request worn panties.
11:26What I can tell you is what I'm wearing
11:29and what I'm doing in these pictures is a no-go.
11:32I've always kind of been a sexual person
11:35and I was just suppressing it.