Oral sex in 1982: A prohibition followed by limits on questioning

The original instruction

A named act and temple eligibility

The January letter instructed leaders that married people participating in practices it classified as unacceptable should not enter the temple until they repented and discontinued them. Naming oral sex gave the direction a specificity absent from a general instruction to keep the law of chastity.

The signatures are those of Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney, and Gordon B. Hinckley. The surviving scan is hosted outside the Church; the BYU archival catalog also identifies a First Presidency letter dated January 5, 1982 concerning temple interviews and sexual practices.

October 15, 1982

Complaints prompted an interview correction

The October letter reports complaints about leaders delving into private matters beyond the intended scope. It tells interviewers to stay with the prescribed questions and avoid inquiries into intimate marital relations.

January had already warned against indelicate questioning. October reaffirms that instruction rather than introducing privacy for the first time. It neither names oral sex nor expressly withdraws the earlier classification. The handwritten “Oral sex” annotation on the scan is not part of the typed directive.

The present instructions

A narrower public interview framework

General Handbook sections 26.4–26.4.1 prescribe recommend questions, including general questions about chastity. Leaders are told not to present personal interpretations as Church doctrine or policy. The omission of a named sexual act from those questions does not by itself establish a formal repeal of an earlier letter.

Finding

What the record establishes

The January condemnation is documented. Describing it as something the Church never taught is incorrect. Describing the October letter as an explicit reversal also goes beyond its words.