The question of oral sex in LDS marriage: Part 2

There’s more to say about the mysterious 1982 letter on oral sex from the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

There is no way to view the original document. It cannot be retrieved from LDS Church Headquarters without proper authorization. A copy of the letter can be found online, but be aware that this letter was not intended to be released to the public and any copies found may have been doctored. Most importantly, it was never canonized as any kind of scripture.


After analyzing a more complete copy of the letter that is being circulated, it is my personal conclusion that the letter itself may have been tampered with.

Grammatically the whole sentence starting with “The First Presidency has interpreted…” seems to come out of nowhere. It reads too much like it was added after the fact. The very next sentence “If a person is engaged in…” picks up like the previous one never existed. The whole document is structurally congruent except for that one sentence.

Another inconsistency that I observed was that the sentence right before “The First Presidency has interpreted…” emphasizes to the leaders to give “counseling without going into clinical detail”, and then the very next sentence jumps right into a very intimate, clinical detail. It was a very jarring contradiction. As I was reading it, I was hearing that Sesame Street song going through my head – “One of these things is not like the other, c’mon now, can you tell which one?”

When dealing with apocryphal documents of this sort being circulated, one thing that we have to keep in mind is the example of the missing 116 pages from the Book of Lehi. The 116 pages of translation were stolen while in the possession of Martin Harris. This account can be found in the book “Our Heritage: A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” on page 8.

Joseph Smith was commanded by God not to re-translate those pages. Now that they were potentially in the hands of those that wanted to destroy the church, they could be manipulated in a way that would be used to discredit the work that Joseph Smith had done. (Doctrine and Covenants 10:10-12) Since this letter has been circulated on the Internet by questionable sources, I have to conclude that a similar situation could exist in this case. Manipulating the letter with today’s technology would be easy to do.

Even if I’m wrong, there are other factors to consider here. After reading this letter, my memory was jogged to another inconsistency. If oral sex in marriage was even a minor sin, President Kimball (who’s shown as having signed the letter) would have mentioned it in “The Miracle of Forgiveness.”

Spencer W. Kimball was the champion of the law of chastity in the 70’s and 80’s. If President Kimball felt that oral sex in marriage was immoral, unnatural, unholy or impure in any degree, why wouldn't he spell it out in his book.

It was not in his book, nor is the denouncement of oral sex in marriage found in any Church Conference talk anywhere, at any time.

Reason causes me to conclude that the part of the letter that says, “The First Presidency has interpreted oral sex as constituting an unnatural, impure and unholy practice.” is suspect, to say the least, and thus cannot be taken as official Church doctrine on the subject.

For those who may want more historical background on the “oral sex” letter and what happened afterward, as well as the Church’s current stand on sexual practices in marriage, this link gives good clarification:
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V25N01_51.pdf

This is an article written by Romel Mackelprang, a former professor at BYU and Eastern Washington University. His article talks about a follow up letter that was sent by the first presidency that essentially rescinds the first.

“A question I have frequently been asked concerns the propriety of
oral sex. To address this question, one must first define the term. Is
kissing oral sex? How about a mouth on a breast? Or is oral sex lim-
ited exclusively to oral-genital contact? (These questions have special
significance for disabled persons who are paralyzed and lack sensation
in their genitals, arms, and legs and for whom sexual expression is
very different from that of able-bodied persons. For some, their mouths
may be the only means of active sexual expression.) On 5 January
1982, apparently in response to numerous queries about oral sex, the
First Presidency distributed a letter (signed by Spencer W. Kimball,
N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney, and Gordon B. Hinkley) to
bishops and stake presidents. In it, they characterized oral sex as
impure. However, the letter specifically stated that Church leaders
were not to discuss intimate sexual matters with members. The letter
was also not to be shared with the general Church membership. Appar-
ently, a number of the local leaders read the first part of the letter but
ignored the second, choosing instead to delve into their members' inti-
mate lives. After the 1982 letter, several of my clients and a number of
friends reported experiences in which their bishops or stake presidents
inquired into their intimate sex lives. Some reported local leaders using
Church meetings to counsel members about sexual practices. Almost
all of the inquiries and counsel dealt specifically with oral sex. As a
result of these intrusions, many members wrote letters to Church lead-
ers, protesting ecclesiastical meddling. Apparently, in response to these
reactions, on 15 October 1982, a second letter was sent to stake and
ward leaders that reiterated the January 5 directive to avoid inquiring
into couples' intimate sexual practices. Further, it directed leaders that,
even if asked by members about specific sexual matters in marriage,
they were to avoid giving direct counsel. The latest directive, in the
"Instructions for Issuing Recommends to Enter a Temple" (1989),
instructs interviewers to ask only, "Do you live the law of chastity?"
They are further counseled:
When interviewing an applicant for a recommend, do not inquire into personal,
intimate matters about marital relations between a husband and his wife. Gener-
ally, do not deviate from the recommend interview questions. If, during an inter-
view, an applicant asks about the propriety of specific conduct do not pursue the
matter. Merely suggest that if the applicant has enough anxiety about the propri-
ety of conduct to ask about it, the best course would be to discontinue it. If you
are sensitive and wise, you usually can prevent those being interviewed from
asking such explicit questions.”

This concurs with my belief and understanding of the Church’s current position on sexual practices in marriage - including oral sex. I would especially recommend reading pages 60-61 of the article, entitled “And They Shall Be One Flesh: Sexuality and Contemporary Mormonism.”

Your perceptions of sex

Our perceptions of sex are affected by our cultural, religious, and historical family beliefs. Many of our misconceptions about sex can be traced back to what great-great-grandma taught/didn't teach her kids about sex.

Mormons were not always Mormons. Joseph Smith organized the LDS church only about 180 years ago. Even at that time, they were just organizing and beginning to get revelation about what church doctrine should be. Even today, our beliefs and practices are still being refined.

Before our ancestors were Mormon, they most likely belonged to another church. Even today, we have converts to the church who were Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Methodist, Hindu, Muslim and many more.

When converts come into the Church culture, they bring their family beliefs and superstitions about sex and marriage with them. Many of those beliefs are incorrect. I know my parents had some pretty interesting beliefs about sex, and they were beliefs that were contrary to what the LDS church teaches.

Just for fun:

How far back can you trace your family's religious history? What did those religions teach about sex? Do they match your current beliefs about sex? Why or why not?

How have these beliefs and traditions affected your sexual relationship with your spouse?

The question of oral sex in LDS marriage.

WARNING: This post contains a topic of a sacred sexual nature and is intended for married couples only. Viewer discretion is advised.

There is an apocryphal letter that has been passed around for years regarding the LDS church’s standing on oral sex between a wife and husband who are legally and lawfully married. My comments can also be applied to any other sexual practice in marriage.

I’d like to address that letter and clear it up once and for all. I also invite any of my peers and any Church leaders who wish to comment and give additional clarification if they feel it is needed.

First off, the letter cannot be found anywhere on any official church sites. To find this letter one would have to go to anti-Mormon or other questionable sources. This one came from http://theboard.byu.edu/index.php?area=viewall&id=6853


Letter to all Priesthood Leaders, January 5, 1982.

Married persons should understand that if in their marital relations they are guilty of unnatural, impure, or unholy practices, they should not enter the temple unless and until they repent and discontinue any such practices. Husbands and wives who are aware of these requirements can determine by themselves their standing before the Lord. All of this should be conveyed without having priesthood leaders focus upon intimate matters which are a part of husband and wife relationships. Skillful interviewing and counseling can occur without discussion of clinical details by placing firm responsibility on individual members of the Church to put their lives in order before exercising the privilege of entering a house of the Lord. The First Presidency has interpreted oral sex as constituting an unnatural, impure, or unholy practice. If a person is engaged in a practice which troubles him enough to ask about it, he should discontinue it.

Anyone guilty of verbal or physical child or spouse abuse should not enter the temple. . .

(Signatures)
Spencer Kimball
N. Eldon Tanner
Marion G. Romney
Gordon B. Hinckley


A letter by the First Presidency was submitted, but you must read it carefully and understand the background of this letter.

Notice that this letter was "Letter to all Priesthood Leaders." Having personally served as the clerk in a Bishopric, I can tell you that the Bishops and Stake Presidents of the church are sent letters from the President of the Church all the time. Some are meant to be read to the congregation and some are not. This letter was never meant to be read to the congregation, nor was it established as the official doctrine of the church.

Notice the phrase "The First Presidency has interpreted..." The President and his counselors were asked a question and are entitled to their opinion. Anyone who studied President Kimball's writings will read for themselves that President Spender W. Kimball admits to giving his opinion at times and that it's not necessarily from God.

The official Church guidelines on this topic can be found in the Bishop's Handbook of Instruction, which states that the church cannot tell a husband or wife what they can or cannot do sexually in the bonds of marriage.

A fact about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is that we do not have paid clergy. Your local bishop could be a plumber for a living - with NO training in family issues or counseling. The impression I get from this letter was that in the 80s a lot of members were asking the question about oral sex to their bishop in their temple recommend interviews.

The Bishops didn't know what counsel to give to the married members and took it up with the First Presidency. This letter was their reply, but the letter or the statement was never repeated nor was it given as an addendum to the temple interview questions, nor have I ever heard it asked in a temple interview question.

The last statement "...If a person is engaged in a practice which troubles him enough to ask about it, he should discontinue it." is more consistent with the teachings of the church and gospel. We're instructed to pray about it and follow the Spirit. If we desire to engage in a sexual act as a couple, and we're not sure about how it will affect our standing with God, we are to investigate it, discuss and pray about it as a couple, and follow what the Spirit directs.

One constant you will find about the LDS church - if it is a serious problem and intended to be doctrine from God, you will hear about it over and over and over and over again.

This is just not the case in this circumstance. To us Mormons, what happens between a husband and wife sexually is sacred, and what happens in other people's bedrooms is not our concern. If Adam and Eve wanted to have anal sex while hanging from their disco mirror ball and playing funk music, as far as we're concerned, it's none of our ding-dang business. As it says in Genesis, the Lord married them and left them ALONE in the garden.

The only sin regarding sex in marriage is the coercion of one spouse over another to engage in a sexual act that the other is uncomfortable doing.

As Mark Gungor (a Christian marriage counselor and author of “Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage”) teaches, in order for sex to be great, you must have a turned-on husband and a turned-on wife. If this chain is broken, great sex cannot be obtained. This is true no matter what the sex act is.

Sex is intended to bond a husband and wife and bring them closer together in every aspect. Coercion only defeats this – thus the sin isn’t sexual, it’s selfishness and unrighteous dominion (D&C 121). Marriage was intended to create eternal family relationships. Any activity that pushes you apart will defeat the plan God laid out for a marriage.

In turn, any married sexual activity that is not done to the exclusion of creating and bearing children, and tightens the bond with your spouse, is the very definition of what is natural, holy and pure.

Use common sense though. If you both as a couple desire sexual acts that cause damage to you or your spouse’s body or threaten your lives or health, it may be time to re-evaluate the benefit of the sexual practice. Our bodies are still sacred to God and must be protected and respected.

In a later blog I will be addressing how the gospel defines unnatural, unholy and impure practices. Seems we need some clarification.

( Be sure to read my follow up article: The question of oral sex in LDS marriage: Part II )

The World’s Oldest Commandment

What was the first commandment given to all living creatures? In order to begin understanding sexuality in marriage, we must take a look back to the beginnings of time, even before man was found on the earth. Back to Genesis.

As recorded in the Book of Genesis and the Books of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, the Lord created the world, and the plants and animals, but he didn’t just create them and move on. They were all beings with intelligence; he spoke to them.

“…God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth…” (Genesis 1:22; Moses 2:22; also Abraham 4:22)

So these brand-new intelligent beings were given a commandment from their creator, and that commandment was…have sex. Since being fruitful and multiplying cannot occur without sex, the commandment was, logically, to work to complete a full sexual cycle of having children, offspring being the “fruit” of a sexual pairing that tend to “multiply” the more often the cycle is completed.

Although this same direct commandment is not recorded in scripture to the land animals, reason necessitates the idea that they, too, received this commandment from their creator. President Hinckley stated,

“Then followed the creation of animal life in the sea and upon the land. He commanded them together to multiply and replenish the earth.” (Hinckley, Gordon B. “Daughters of God”, Ensign. Nov 1991. Italics added.)

So once the animals were created and given their instructions,

“God created man in his own image…and God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:27; Abraham 4:26)

The first commandment to the first man and woman on the earth was the same; to multiply and replenish the earth. In other words, they were informed of their duty to have sex and procreate. It was the same commandment given to the animals, but with additional responsibilities and duties, for two reasons.

What was the first reason? Adam was on a different plane than animals, and God expected more of him. He was created in the image of God himself, with the potential and requirement to become like God. Before organized religion existed, there were religious rites and requirements of worship given to man to show his faithfulness to God.

Secondly, he had additional responsibilities added upon him to care for the earth and the animals, thus further separating mankind from the animal kingdom. Adam and Eve were NOT part of the animals, except that they also were commanded…to have sex.

When Eve was created, and before the Lord left them alone together (very important), they were also promptly married by the Lord.

“And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh…

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed…” (Genesis 2:22-25; Moses 3:22-25; Abraham 5:16-19; italics added)

Man was instructed to have sex, but only after being married in the manner God required, further differentiating mankind from all other living things.

Then came the fall and mortality, and Adam and Eve completed their sexual cycle as commanded, and had children. They taught their children these same things. More commandments were added by the Lord in order to help them navigate the pitfalls of mortality.

The commandment to have married sex remains in force for us today. If we make the choice to follow it, practice it, and find ways to enjoy it, it can lead to great joy and bring us closer to our spouses and to God. If we choose to abdicate the responsibility the Lord has entrusted us with…there are many directions that choice can take us in:

We can worship sex for sex’s sake by choosing to engage in sexual behavior outside the boundaries of the Lord’s approval (marriage).

We can choose to interrupt the full natural cycle of sex by not having children.

We can even choose to avoid sex completely while being married.

But we cannot deny the commandment without receiving the consequences of that denial.

“To the first man and woman on earth, the Lord said, “Be fruitful, and multiply”. This commandment was first in sequence and first in importance…” (Oaks, Dallin H. “The Great Plan of Happiness”. Ensign, Nov 1993; emphasis added)

Welcome to one and all!

My name is Sam Zaragoza, and I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church.

My wife and I were sealed in the Seattle Washington temple over 17 years ago. Over that period of time, it's inevitable that the strength of a relationship will be tested in many ways, and we have been and continue to be tested even today.

Fortunately, my wife and I have maintained a strong relationship with each other. All through that time, as we watched others struggle with marital intimacy issues as we did, and even watched some of them lose the struggle, I always wondered, "Why did that happen? Could it have been prevented? What’s appropriate and what isn’t in the bonds of marriage? What is in compliance with the teachings of Jesus Christ, and what isn’t?"

One of the major conclusions I've come to in that time is that, despite the tremendous amount of information that can be found in our society today about sex, there is a woeful lack of wholesome, accurate and accessible information, even online. There is more to be found in the wider Christian community that is good and righteous, but their information was often still insufficient for LDS needs.

If pornography is a counterproductive source of information, then where do LDS married couples go to find out about the details of lovemaking without turning to pornography with all of its addictive and destructive attributes? What does LDS doctrine teaches us about love and lovemaking, and how can we keep from being ensnared in the traps that lay in wait for those who have made covenants to the Lord in his holy temples?

I'm currently studying to be a marriage and family coach, and the insights that I'm gaining will be part of what will be explored on this blog. I hope you will find these ideas informative and useful as you attempt to develop intimacy in your marriage while trying to stay on the “strait and narrow” path of the gospel.

Before I go any further, let me make one point perfectly clear. This blog is aimed at LDS members, and specifically those LDS members who are married. Though I attempt to be clinical and not pornographic, some of these posts will be discussing sexual topics in a measure of graphic detail. My thought is, sometimes sexuality just has to be spelled out. Vagueness is crippling when you’re trying to find useful information.

These posts will not be meant for those who are single and trying to keep the Lord's law of chastity. If you currently have no sexual outlet, then reading and discussing sexual topics is inappropriate and actually counter-productive, as I will discuss later. I would ask that those who are single would bypass blogs that are marked with a “For Married Couples Only” warning. I will continue to post warnings of this sort on further blog posts, as well as additional information meant specifically for single LDS members.

Also, if someone who is not a member of the Mormon Church comes across this blog out of curiosity, I welcome you and your thoughts and ideas, as long as they are respectful. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are part of the wider Christian world, since we do worship Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior as other Christians do.

However, I cannot direct my posts to Christians in general, since that would necessitate speaking only from the knowledge of the gospel that we gain from the Bible. As an LDS member, I also use the Book of Mormon, which we believe to be another testament of Jesus Christ, as well as the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and the words of modern LDS prophets and apostles. I cannot disregard these precious resources in order to broaden my outreach to the general Christian world.

If you are married, but not LDS, and would like to read these posts, then you are welcome to do so. If you have something to add, I would welcome it. Please respect the sacredness of these topics in your comments. If you don't like the Church's beliefs or doctrines, then on that we must agree to disagree.

I look forward to our journey together.