Soaking (sexual practice)

Soaking is a sexual practice of inserting the penis into the vagina but not subsequently thrusting or ejaculating, reportedly used by some Mormons, also known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). News sources do not report it being a common practice, and some Latter-day Saints have said that soaking is an urban legend and not an actual practice. Others report knowing church members who had soaked, or gave a firsthand account of trying the practice with a partner before marriage while a member of the LDS Church.
Postings on TikTok and other social media sites have stated that soaking serves as a purported loophole to the LDS Church's sexual code of conduct, called the law of chastity, which says that all sexual activity outside of a heterosexual marriage is a sin, and further bans masturbation for church members. At church-run schools like Brigham Young University, students who confess to or are reported for having pre- or extra-marital sex can be expelled because of the universities' codes of conduct. The LDS Church teaches that "it is wrong to touch the private [...] parts of another person's body even if clothed" outside of a monogamous heterosexual marriage. Some news sources directly state that the LDS Church and Mormons do not believe soaking is a loophole to the church's code of sexual conduct.
The term soaking comes from the idea that vaginal lubrication is "soaking" the penis. One source said the term started as "dick soak" on an internet forum in 2009, and morphed to simply "soaking" by 2011, and gained wider use in 2019. One source stated it was difficult to know how common soaking was among Mormon youth due to the secrecy and shame around sex in the LDS Church, and underreporting due to the social-desirability bias is a common issue even among anonymous surveys of many stigmatized sexual behaviors. Sexual activity before and outside of a monogamous, heterosexual marriage is strictly forbidden by Mormon teachings.
These teachings began with Mormonism's founder Joseph Smith and are contained in The Book of Mormon. A 2002 US survey found LDS teens had the highest rates of any religious group that reported their parents would be "extremely mad" if they had pre-marital sex (78%). Despite the prohibition, a study by LDS church university sociologists published in 1992 found that 60% of 1,000 Mormon teen women surveyed reported having had sex before marriage, and a smaller survey of 158 married Mormon women in 1995 found that 32% reported having premarital sex.
In 2021, a video about soaking went viral on TikTok, and since then the topic has an estimated 69 million posts and 243 million mentions on the platform as of 2024. The practice has its own page on the pop-culture website "Know Your Meme". It has been used as a plot point in sitcoms in the early 2020s, such as the television series Alpha House, Get Shorty, and Jury Duty. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member Heather Gay reported having soaked, but did not believe jump humping (inviting a third person to generate bed motion for the soakers) was an actual practice. It was also referenced in the book Up Up, Down Down, in a Barstool Sports video segment, a Make Some Noise improv sketch, and in at least one short film of Mormon pornography. Comedian Chelsea Handler explained the practice in an interview on The Late Late Show with James Corden. A hot tub company's Utah billboard that said "we love soaking too" was reported to have been removed after six days due to its controversial nature. Comedian Shane Gillis referenced the practice by Mormons in a Saturday Night Live sketch.
Two satirical social media accounts, the BYU Virginity Club and the BYU Slut Club, have both disavowed the practice. Articles have stated that soaking does not prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infection and may still result in pregnancy. One interviewee stated it was "a dangerous form of misinformation being used to manipulate naive girls in college dorms."
Practices described in the following sources as related to soaking include jump humping, provo pushing, and durfing:
In 1885, one of the LDS Church's top leaders, 73-year-old apostle Albert Carrington, argued during the hearings before his excommunication that his decade of extramarital sexual relationships with multiple younger women did not count as adultery (a violation of the church's law of chastity) and was just a "little folly" because he would only partially penetrate the vagina with just the tip of his penis and part of the shaft (reportedly to less than the total "depth of four inches"), and pulled out before ejaculation. Then First Presidency member Joseph F. Smith called Carrington's actions a "transgression" and other top leaders called them "crimes of lewd and lascivious conduct and adultery", and Carrington was excommunicated. Carrington was rebaptized two years later.