Growing up Laestadian — Part 26

I learned about masturbation from a minister at youth camp

Being kept out of sex education classes at school, I was pretty ignorant about sex. It wasn’t until fourth grade that I learned that Laestadian moms and dads were like any other parents — they had sex. Prior to that, I thought Laestadian babies were created through divine intervention. I thought we were that special.

Ironically, it was from a Laestadian minister at summer youth camp that I learned about the Big M — masturbation.

I was in junior high then. The minister told us in plain language: Masturbation is wrong. Do not do it. It is sin.

What, I wondered, was masturbation? And why was he so emphatic about it? Why did he act like this was something we all knew about — or should know?

I did not dare raise my hand to ask. Instead, I waited until I got home to look it up in our handy encyclopedias. We had not one set of encyclopedias at home, but two, and I had learned all sorts of interesting things about horses and historical fashion and various countries and continents. Could the encyclopedias also inform me about masturbation?

As it turned out, they could! The World Book was too staid to say anything, but the newer set — whose publisher escapes me — contained nearly two full pages on the topic. I read it, hardly breathing, finally having a word for why it felt so good to slide down the poles on the elementary school playground.

Thus began years of a new hobby — and years of guilt.

In a religion that depended on confession of sin to another believer, this was a particularly mortifying sin. You could never confess it to your mom and dad. They would no doubt reel from the shock. They would never be able to forget what you did — and whenever you spent alone time in your own bedroom, you knew they’d be wondering — is she? Should we interrupt her? Call her down to do a chore?

So who were you supposed to tell? We Laestadians didn’t have a priest like the Catholics, where you could sit in a private area and talk to a neutral party. No, we went face to face with another believer with our sins. “I listened to worldly music.” “I tried on lipstick.” “I watched TV.” Those were all normal sins to ask forgiveness for.

But masturbation? What if they didn’t know what it was, and you had to explain it? You’d have to crawl away and die in a ditch.

The church had a ready answer for concerns like these. “That’s the devil talking. The devil doesn’t want you to confess. He wants your conscience to grow weak. That’s when he attacks.”

Oh the stress! If you confessed, you would be humiliated. If you didn’t confess, you would go to hell when you died.

A couple times I sucked it up and confessed to a friend who forgave me. Immediate relief, followed by abstinence, followed by more guilt. A time or two I suffered agony on the other end, being the one to listen to their confession.

You can imagine with masturbation causing so much inner turmoil that sex was even more taboo. We were strongly discouraged from dating until we were serious about marriage. Ministers advised couples not even to kiss before marriage. Sometimes girls got pregnant out of wedlock, but not very often. When they did, there were hasty weddings and snide comments about how the bride shouldn’t wear white. The people in my circle were chaste, as far as sex went — at least with another person. Self gratification? Well, I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.

I’m sure the Laestadian minister who unwittingly introduced me to masturbation would be appalled to realize what he set in motion. It’s a tricky thing, condemning behavior. In order to condemn it, you need a certain level of knowledge among your listeners. And so by condemning, you also inform, and bring about the behavior you sought to eliminate.

The Laestadian church is far from the only faith group to frown on masturbation. It’s equated with lust, and lack of self-control. The Bible says the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that we need to use our bodies for God’s glory. Writing on Christianity.com, this writer argues that masturbation may lead someone into viewing others as sex objects, at least for men.

But, shoot. To be alive is to be sexual. All of nature is geared toward procreating, to spreading progeny. Acorns, dandelion fluff, the fall rut among deer, it’s the way life marches through millenia, and for mammals, sexual pleasure makes that happen. I think even animals feel sexual pleasure, as without it, why would they breed?

Laestadians preach that when you confess a sin and have it forgiven, then you need to stop committing that sin. But my sex drive didn’t go away. Eventually I realized that my sex drive was normal, that masturbating was normal, and that as long it was done in private, it was nobody else’s business. And I stopped feeling guilty.