Our Memory Bank

“Our Savior emphasized the importance of sexual purity when he taught that it was sinful for a man to look upon a woman to lust after her. That teaching leads me to say a few words about the kind of material we read and the kinds of movies and television we view. We are surrounded by the promotional literature of illicit sexual relations on the printed page and on the screen. For your own good, avoid it.

Pornographic or erotic stories and pictures are worse than filthy or polluted food. The body has defenses to rid itself of unwholesome food. With a few fatal exceptions, bad food will only make you sick, but will do no permanent harm. In contrast, a person who feasts upon filthy stories, or pornographic or erotic pictures and literature, records them in this marvelous retrieval system we call a brain. The brain won’t forget this filth. Once recorded it will always remain subject to recall, flashing its perverted images across your mind and drawing you away from the wholesome things in life.”

Brigham Young University President Dallin H. Oaks, from President’s Assembly speech, September 6, 1973