Though I have yet to watch Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay, I read both of her books. In Bad Mormon, Heather described getting called into her bishop’s office to answer some very personal questions. Making matters even more embarrassing, the bishop happened to be her father’s best friend. Her story is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the abuse of women and young girls in the Mormon church.
“They’d tell your parents, like, ‘Heather needs to come in for a bishop’s interview,’” Heather explained. When she arrived, he’d claim, “The Lord [impressed me] to ask you if you’ve been touching yourself.”
At the time the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star was a very young teenager, so she was confused what he was talking about. “I didn’t really even know what ‘touching myself’ meant,” she said. “[Although] I knew that it was sexual, I thought it was just something that, like, guys did. I was young, you know, and I remember being like, ‘I touch myself all the time.’”
Heather Gay says her bishop asked her questions about masturbation when she was a minor
In an interview on The Julia Cunningham Show, the podcast host continued, “At one point … [the bishop] brought you in for a one-on-one meeting. [He claimed] that he had sort of had a vision that you may have been masturbating.”
“It was multiple sessions,” Heather clarified. Even though Heather had been totally innocent prior to the meeting, she admitted, “It changed the way I viewed myself. But I chose to think he must really love me and … be looking out for me. Satan must want to pull me down. I’m special in the eyes of the Lord and the bishop, because he’s got all these people safeguarding my purity. That’s the way my mind did the mental gymnastics to make it work.”
“When you said that, I paused it for a minute ’cause I was just thinking,” Julia responded. “This is sort of like 101 on early phases of grooming … Like to see, ‘What is Heather going to say to me? Can I have her describe a sexual scenario potentially to me? What doors am I possibly opening?’ … That is so … disturbing to me also just to think that that was like an everyday ,,, occurrence.”
Furthermore, Heather explained that conversations like that are a “normal” occurrence in the LDS Church. “You had quarterly bishop interviews to check on your purity, your spiritual growth, your morality,” she revealed. “He just really keyed in on the masturbation, which made me feel like, you know, very worried that I was giving off a vibe.”
Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay is currently available to stream on Peacock.
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