The Mormon Premarital Exam

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moksha
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The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by moksha » Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:13 pm

The Mormon premarital exam is something new to me and is something that occurs nowhere else except the Mormon Corridor. Even in the Mormon Corridor of Utah, Idaho, and Arizona, it is a for Mormons only kind of thing.

It consists of a Mormon bride-to-be, a gynecologist, an exam table with stirrups, some explanation of sex, and the introduction of the bride-to-be to a dilator to make intercourse less painful.

What are your thoughts and experiences with this practice? Is it helpful, unneeded, or a new ordinance?


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Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
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FiveFingerMnemonic
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:48 pm

Anyone read or was gifted that awesome book "between husband and wife" before the wedding? Mormon physicians explain in medical terms all about sex to unsuspecting lds kids about to get married.

dogbite
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by dogbite » Thu Aug 01, 2019 5:13 pm

I think it's more a side effect of getting birth control prescription with a doctor they've never seen before. They haven't been back to a doctor since they got their last immunization for Junior high. The doctor doesn't want to give a prescription without some baseline exam.

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Palerider
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Palerider » Thu Aug 01, 2019 7:29 pm

moksha wrote:
Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:13 pm

It consists of a Mormon bride-to-be, a gynecologist, an exam table with stirrups, some explanation of sex, and the introduction of the bride-to-be to a dilator to make intercourse less painful.

What are your thoughts and experiences with this practice? Is it helpful, unneeded, or a new ordinance?


https://www.kuer.org/post/latter-day-wh ... h#stream/0
Many years ago when I came home from my mission, I'd had a girl who "waited" for me. We became engaged and shortly before the wedding she went to have her exam and afterwards told me the doctor had kind of "opened" her up so that she would be able to be pain free on her wedding night. :roll:

At the time, I thought that was a little presumptuous on the doctor's part but what could I say? What's done is done.

Later about a week before the wedding my fiance failed to obtain her temple recommend and the whole thing fell apart as she confessed to a number of infractions that occurred while I was gone. So we never married.

The question that came to my mind some years later was did the doctor actually do the exam the way she described or was she in reality using it as an explanation for why there would be no traditional experience of first time virginal intercourse, since that was a road traveled while I was away.

Regardless, my feelings are that unless a woman feels strongly and expresses that feeling to her fiance, where virginal experience is the expectation of both parties, that she wants to skip any "pain" on her wedding night....the doctor ought to leave well enough alone. It's not his/her place to decide.
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light."

George Washington

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Rob4Hope
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Rob4Hope » Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:31 am

moksha wrote:
Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:13 pm
The Mormon premarital exam is something new to me and is something that occurs nowhere else except the Mormon Corridor. Even in the Mormon Corridor of Utah, Idaho, and Arizona, it is a for Mormons only kind of thing.

It consists of a Mormon bride-to-be, a gynecologist, an exam table with stirrups, some explanation of sex, and the introduction of the bride-to-be to a dilator to make intercourse less painful.

What are your thoughts and experiences with this practice? Is it helpful, unneeded, or a new ordinance?


https://www.kuer.org/post/latter-day-wh ... h#stream/0
Its true. This does happened (or at least did).

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Linked
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Linked » Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:47 am

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:48 pm
Anyone read or was gifted that awesome book "between husband and wife" before the wedding? Image Mormon physicians explain in medical terms all about sex to unsuspecting lds kids about to get married.
I didn't get that one, but an LDS family counselor who gave DW and I premarital counseling suggested "The Act of Marriage", a Christian book to inform virgins about some tips to make things go better. It helped some. Since defecting I also read "She Comes First", which is a bit more direct, including diagrams and stuff. But it spends much of the time covering things that many TBMs would not be comfortable with (Damn church).

As for the Exam, DW didn't do that when we got married.
"I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order" - Kurt Vonnegut

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Rob4Hope
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Rob4Hope » Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:07 am

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:48 pm
Anyone read or was gifted that awesome book "between husband and wife" before the wedding? Image Mormon physicians explain in medical terms all about sex to unsuspecting lds kids about to get married.
Oh yeh...that book was one of the FIRST such books of its type, and also a best-seller in LDS venues. I remember reading and re-reading the topic about it not being masturbation to digitally pleasure your spouse. The authors made a point about that issue. I was amazed that such a thing had to be discussed at all, but it made sense.

I know people who wouldn't take off their garments for sex. I know people who used sex ONLY for children, and considered it a 'necessary evil'. I know people who wouldn't EVEN consider touching their partners sexual organs, and I even know couples in the aforementioned where the woman would not let her husband even touch her breasts.

I bring this up NOT to be offensive, but to illustrate that the whole sex topic and how the LDS church has handled it did real damage to a LOT of couples, not just in the corridor, but across the spectrum.

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FiveFingerMnemonic
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:18 pm

Rob4Hope wrote:
FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:48 pm
Anyone read or was gifted that awesome book "between husband and wife" before the wedding? Image Mormon physicians explain in medical terms all about sex to unsuspecting lds kids about to get married.
Oh yeh...that book was one of the FIRST such books of its type, and also a best-seller in LDS venues. I remember reading and re-reading the topic about it not being masturbation to digitally pleasure your spouse. The authors made a point about that issue. I was amazed that such a thing had to be discussed at all, but it made sense.

I know people who wouldn't take off their garments for sex. I know people who used sex ONLY for children, and considered it a 'necessary evil'. I know people who wouldn't EVEN consider touching their partners sexual organs, and I even know couples in the aforementioned where the woman would not let her husband even touch her breasts.

I bring this up NOT to be offensive, but to illustrate that the whole sex topic and how the LDS church has handled it did real damage to a LOT of couples, not just in the corridor, but across the spectrum.
This reminds me a bit about the hulu show "A handmaids tale" where they train the young brides to use a big sheet thing with an access hole cut into it so the sex was pure. Not the handmaids, but the very young next gen girls that were married off to the non-commander men of gilead.

dogbite
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by dogbite » Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:33 pm

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:18 pm

This reminds me a bit about the hulu show "A handmaids tale" where they train the young brides to use a big sheet thing with an access hole cut into it so the sex was pure. Not the handmaids, but the very young next gen girls that were married off to the non-commander men of gilead.
See also Like Water for Chocolate. The nuptial sheet, a traditional gift from the mother of the bride.

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Not Buying It
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Not Buying It » Fri Aug 02, 2019 1:40 pm

Anyone else suspicious that this procedure might not be always administered with purely medical interests in mind?

Agree with the opinions above that this should never be done except at the direct request of the patient. Otherwise it is at best presumptuous and at worst really creepy.
"The truth is elegantly simple. The lie needs complex apologia. 4 simple words: Joe made it up. It answers everything with the perfect simplicity of Occam's Razor. Every convoluted excuse withers." - Some guy on Reddit called disposazelph

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RubinHighlander
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by RubinHighlander » Fri Aug 02, 2019 3:46 pm

Not Buying It wrote:
Fri Aug 02, 2019 1:40 pm
Anyone else suspicious that this procedure might not be always administered with purely medical interests in mind?

Agree with the opinions above that this should never be done except at the direct request of the patient. Otherwise it is at best presumptuous and at worst really creepy.
Sounds to me like the old invoking of the "First Knight".
“Sir,' I said to the universe, 'I exist.' 'That,' said the universe, 'creates no sense of obligation in me whatsoever.”
--Douglas Adams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzmYP3PbfXE

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Sheamus Moore
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Sheamus Moore » Fri Aug 02, 2019 5:04 pm

I’ve been married about 30 years. We met and married outside the Morcor but my wife got a premarital exam, ostensibly to be put on birth control. She was also given a simple dilator of sorts (which she didn’t use) and her mother (who’s bastard child, I married) gave her a little booklet about sex written in the ‘40s or ‘50s. Quasi-misogynistic, what to expect on your wedding night, wifely duty, all that. Pretty entertaining read.

Many years later we picked up a copy of “And They Were Not Ashamed” from Deseret Book with content that was pretty progressive such as self-pleasuring (for learning purposes only, of course, and I heard some of that was dialed back in later editions). It was actually a pretty good book that I’d still recommend to all TBM newlyweds.

Thoughtful
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Thoughtful » Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:38 pm

I had a pre-wedding ob/gyn exam. It was a baseline pap smear and birth control rx. No sex ed. No dilators. No big deal.

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Palerider
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Palerider » Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:56 pm

Thoughtful wrote:
Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:38 pm
I had a pre-wedding ob/gyn exam. It was a baseline pap smear and birth control rx. No sex ed. No dilators. No big deal.
If you don't mind saying, approximately how long ago was that and was it in Mormon land? Was your doctor LDS?
I'm thinking things probably have changed over the years...
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light."

George Washington

Anon70
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Anon70 » Sun Aug 04, 2019 1:43 am

Thoughtful wrote:
Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:38 pm
I had a pre-wedding ob/gyn exam. It was a baseline pap smear and birth control rx. No sex ed. No dilators. No big deal.
Ditto for me 28 years ago. And I sent my DD to one recently for same reason.

Thoughtful
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Re: The Mormon Premarital Exam

Post by Thoughtful » Sun Aug 04, 2019 10:23 pm

Palerider wrote:
Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:56 pm
Thoughtful wrote:
Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:38 pm
I had a pre-wedding ob/gyn exam. It was a baseline pap smear and birth control rx. No sex ed. No dilators. No big deal.
If you don't mind saying, approximately how long ago was that and was it in Mormon land? Was your doctor LDS?
I'm thinking things probably have changed over the years...
Provo UT. LDS provider associated with a major utah county hospital. Early 2000s.

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