8 (crazy) steps in overcoming masturbation

It has been a while since I've found a list worth giving a good mocking. However I found the perfect one today. Found via a Mormon site, it is entitled "Steps In Overcoming Masturbation". This once again proves that the Mormon Church is against anything even remotely enjoyable. There is actually quite a lot of things worth taunting on this link, but I shall start off with just the first list of eight. Perhaps later I shall tackle the other list included (which I have now completed). This first list is entitled "A Guide to Self-Control", this should be fun.

1. Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal toilet processes. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company.

Yes, never be alone, because we all know that if you don't have others around you to tell you what to do you might start thinking for yourself. Next thing you know you will be touching yourself and then on to wild orgies (if you are lucky at least).

2. If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, you must break off their friendship. Never associate with other people having the same weakness. Don't suppose that two of you will quit together, you never will. You must get away from people of that kind. Just to be in their presence will keep your problem foremost in your mind. The problem must be taken out of your mind for that is where it really exists. Your mind must be on other and more wholesome things.

Well they just effectively reduced these people's circle of friends to zero. After all, everyone knows that one person who keeps inviting us along with them to masturbate and it is so hard to tell them no. We don't want to hurt their feelings after all.

3. When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes -- just long enough to bathe and dry and dress and then get out of the bathroom into a room where you will have some member of your family present.

If you get turned on by yourself you are either dead sexy or so bloody repressed that you will take any nudity you can get. Though now I'm scared, 5-6 minute baths? How exactly can someone get properly clean in that amount of time? Are they hoping the build up of grime will eventually become a deterrent to those of their preferred sex? After having just enough time to rinse the first layer of filth off of them, these people in their apparently sexually aroused state must then go and spend time with their families...I thought incest was frowned upon by the LDS Church.

4. When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time consuming for you to remove those clothes. By the time you started to remove protective clothing you would have sufficiently controlled your thinking that the temptation would leave you.

I was not aware that straight-jackets and chastity belts were considered normal pieces of sleep ware for Mormons.

5. If the temptation seems overpowering while you are in bed, get out of bed and go into the kitchen and fix yourself a snack, even if it is in the middle of the night, and even if you are not hungry, and despite your fears of gaining weight. The purpose behind this suggestion is that you get your mind on something else. You are the subject of your thoughts, so to speak

Or you will develop a food fetish and imagine someone licking that chocolate off your...oh...I'm not helping am I?

6. Never read pornographic material. Never read about your problem. Keep it out of mind. Remember -- "First a thought, then an act." The thought pattern must be changed. You must not allow this problem to remain in your mind. When you accomplish that, you soon will be free of the act.

Yes, just repress those natural urges away and they will never develop into some dangerous fixation. The more in denial you are the safer for society you are!

7. Put wholesome thoughts into your mind at all times. Read good books -- Church books -- Scriptures -- Sermons of the Brethren. Make a daily habit of reading at least one chapter of Scripture, preferably from one of the four Gospels in the New Testament, or the Book of Mormon. The four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- above anything else in the Bible can be helpful because of their uplifting qualities.

Remember, anything other than church books are evil and will lead you to that demonic thing known as knowledge. As for reading 'wholesome' things in the bible, lets hope they don't find the Song Of Solomon.

8. Pray. But when you pray, don't pray about this problem, for that will tend to keep it in your mind more than ever. Pray for faith, pray for understanding of the Scriptures, pray for the Missionaries, the General Authorities, your friends, your families, but keep the problem out of your mind by not mentioning it ever -- not in conversation with others, not in your prayers. keep it out of your mind!

Wait, did they just say that praying for aid in their issues won't do a damn thing? Did they really just admit, in an off-handed sort of way, that prayer is utter bullshit?

Well with such a well thought out list of tactics, I'm sure masturbation will become a thing of the past in the Mormon Church any day now...