The Great Mormon Virginity Shortage

By the late 1960s, the LDS Church had built a full defensive system against premarital sex.

There were interviews.

Lectures.

Pamphlets.

Firesides.

Film strips.

Sad facial expressions.

Entire armies of middle-aged men stood guard over the virtue of teenagers who mostly wanted to hold hands and maybe buy each other hamburgers.

The Church treated virginity the way the Pentagon treated uranium.

Careful storage was essential.

At BYU, romance often resembled hostage negotiations.

A boy could place his arm around a girl during a movie and both would instantly look around as though federal agents might burst through the popcorn machine.

Somewhere in Utah, there was probably a committee studying excessive slow dancing.

But then something happened.

The world changed.

The internet arrived.

Suddenly young people had access to more information about sex in fifteen minutes than my entire generation received in twelve years of church instruction and three terrifying interviews.

Meanwhile, church leaders continued issuing warnings that sounded like they came from a nervous principal at a high school sock hop in 1958.

And the young people started leaving.

Not all at once.

But steadily.

Quietly.

Like cattle slipping through a broken fence at night.

Some left because they no longer believed the theology.

Some left because they were exhausted from shame.

Some left because they were gay.

Some left because church history turned out to be less like a Sunday School lesson and more like a locked attic full of raccoons.

And some left because they got tired of elderly men asking questions that would get most substitute teachers arrested.

Meanwhile, the Church itself seemed increasingly confused.

One moment it warned against worldly excess.

The next moment members discovered the institution had investment reserves large enough to purchase several medium-sized countries and possibly Cleveland.

Nothing says “lay not up treasures on earth” quite like a treasure so large it needs accountants with oxygen tanks.

Then came arguments.

Arguments over race.

Arguments over history.

Arguments over money.

Arguments over sex.

Honestly, Mormonism began producing arguments faster than Utah produced chocolate-covered almonds.

And through it all, leadership kept circling back to the same basic message:

“Please stop touching each other.”

But here is the strange thing.

Most young people are not trying to become monsters.

They are trying to become loved.

That is different.

Very different.

Most are not searching for sin.

They are searching for connection.

Meaning.

Warmth.

Acceptance.

And maybe somebody willing to split the cost of sushi.

Looking back now, I think organized religion made a tragic mistake.

It confused fear with morality.

The assumption seemed to be that frightened people would automatically become righteous people.

But fear mainly creates frightened people.

Fear of mistakes.

Fear of desire.

Fear of honesty.

Fear of being human.

I spent years believing one romantic mistake might permanently derail my eternal future.

That is an astonishing amount of pressure to place on two teenagers sitting in a parked Dodge.

Especially in Alberta during winter, when survival itself already required divine intervention.

And yet civilization somehow survived.

Young people fell in love.

They made mistakes.

They learned.

They grew older.

Most turned out reasonably decent.

Some even became bishops.

The future of religion may depend on a radical idea.

Treat adults like adults.

Teach kindness instead of terror.

Teach honesty instead of shame.

Teach responsibility instead of panic.

And maybe stop acting as though consensual kissing automatically alarms heaven.

Younger generations do not want perfection.

They want authenticity.

They want compassion.

They want a faith large enough to survive reality.

And frankly, after the invention of smartphones, they already know considerably more about sex than Spencer Kimball ever did.

As for me, I eventually stopped searching for my lost virginity.

At my age, finding it again would probably just create paperwork.

If you happen to see it wandering across the Alberta prairie with a confused sheep and a retired BYU guidance counselor, please let me know.

Disclaimer: This essay is satire, memory, exaggeration, prairie philosophy, and emotional archaeology. Any resemblance to actual committees studying slow dancing is probably entirely accidental.