Re: Child ****ography

Paul in Carson City wrote:

> > In Davis County Utah, the county attorney is
> > prosecuting a bunch of teenagers for exchanging ****
> > pictures of themselves with their friends.

....

> You are assuming that the perpetrators are non-LDS youth.  It may well
> be that they are LDS youth, suffering from the perverse and intensive
> indoctrination the church culture imposes upon them, making them
> ashamed of their bodies,

???  Clearly there are a few in the church who have such shame but
just as clearly that is inherited from outside the church.  Some other
Christian churches still have beliefs handed down from the Gnostic
idea that the physical world is bad and only spirit can be good.  That
is in direct contradiction to the LDS teaching that the body is a
positive good.

>creating unnatural curiosity and guilt,

Curiosity about the opposite *** is quite natural.  The problem is
when it becomes an obsession, or leads to temptation.  The church
takes seriously Jesus' teaching that looking on a woman (or man) with
lust is sin.

> destroying their self-esteem

In the first place, the gospel of self-esteem isn't even well accepted
in psychological circles any more.  However what is better for one's
understanding of self than knowing that he/she is a child of God with
god-like procreative powers.  A full understanding of that helps
understand why we should have pure thoughts.

> Paul [who sees the church as its own worst enemy in some instances]

Not the church but the way some twist church teachings.  I've never
heard any general authority teach anything to make us ashamed of our
bodies or procreative powers.  Of course they do teach proper use of
such powers but that is as it should be.