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The custom of keeping part of one's body in the garment while bathing didn't die completely in the 19th century. It's not a topic I see come up frequently on contemporary LDS boards, but it is a recurrent topic (and, when described, it invariably involves the ankle swap and not hands)..

As you likely know, bathing is one of the specifically recognized activities during which garments may be removed, so Latter-Day Saints who are taught this are being taught folklore. Wearing or touching a garment while bathing is not an official teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The garments may also be removed for intimate moments, but a minute, fractional percentage of Latter-Day Saints don't. The issue comes up repeatedly in the columns of LDS therapists and counselors and on contemporary LDS boards, all in the context of improving marital relationships.

When the late LDS Apostle Mark E. Peterson gave talks about chastity at BYU and to other youth groups, he invariably mentioned that he'd been married for X years but had never seen his wife's nude body. Perhaps the couple kept the lights turned off, but given the nature of Peterson's talks I'd guess: garments. Peterson and his wife would have worn the one-piece post-1923 garments with the lower access, although Peterson lived to see the 1979 two-piece garments.

Wearing garments during intimacy is not an official teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A few LDS may do so and I almost always see it in the context of an LDS woman raised in a very conservative LDS family in which chastity and LDS modesty were taught to the extreme. Those Latter-Day Saints are not following church teachings any more than Baptists who commit adultery or Buddhists who murder.

So, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not teach either the bathing or intimacy rule and actually has a specific exception for both activities. Some people may be more conservative than the rule, but they are not following the official teachings of the church. It happens in all religions.

When I think of conservative attitudes regarding intimacy, I don't think about the COJCOLDS. I think about my BIL, who married an extremely conservative Southern Baptist girl from Plano whom he met when they attended Baylor, or the guy who married the sister of my BIL's wife.

Counseling; eh??

What is your church doing to help the male to stay true?

"All of this should be conveyed without having priesthood leaders focus upon intimate matters which are a part of husband and wife relationships. Skillful interviewing and counseling can occur without discussion of clinical details by placing firm responsibility on individual members of the Church to put their lives in order before exercising the privilege of entering a house of the Lord. The First Presidency has interpreted oral sex as constituting an unnatural, impure, or unholy practice. If a person is engaged in a practice which troubles him enough to ask about it, he should discontinue it."
- Official Declaration of the First Presidency of the Church, January 5th, 1982

"Prophets anciently and today condemn masturbation. It induces feelings of guilt and shame. It is detrimental to spirituality. It indicates slavery to the flesh, not that mastery of it and the growth toward godhood which is the object of our mortal life. Our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation-practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality...."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Pages 77-79, 81-82

"Among the most common sexual sins our young people commit are necking and petting. Not only do these improper relations often lead to fornication, [unwed] pregnancy, and abortions - all ugly sins - but in and of themselves they are pernicious evils, and it is often difficult for youth to distinguish where one ends and another begins. They awaken lust and stir evil thoughts and sex desires. They are but parts of the whole family of related sins and indiscretions. Almost like twins, 'petting' and fornication are alike."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, page 65

spencer kimball "Also far-reaching is the effect of the loss of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in a forced contact such as rape or incest, the injured one is greatly outraged. If she has not cooperated and contributed to the foul deed, she is of course in a more favorable position. There is no condemnation where there is no voluntary participation. It is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, page 196

"And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth." (Genesis 4:9-14.) That was true of murder. It is also true of illicit sex, which, of course, includes all petting, fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, and all other perversions. The Lord may say to offenders, as He did to Cain, "What hast thou done?" The children thus conceived make damning charges against you; the companions who have been frustrated and violated condemn you; the body that has been defiled cries out against you; the spirit which has been dwarfed convicts you. You will have difficulty throughout the ages in totally forgiving yourself."
-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, "Love Versus Lust", BYU Speech January 5, 1965. Often-used quote still used today in LDS seminary classes.

kimball "I do not find in the Bible the modern terms "petting" nor "homosexuality," yet I found numerous scriptures which forbade such acts under by whatever names they might be called. I could not find the term "homosexuality," but I did find numerous places where the Lord condemned such a practice with such vigor that even the death penalty was assessed."
- Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, "Love Versus Lust", BYU Speech January 5, 1965

"If adultery or fornication justified the death penalty in the old days, and still in Christ's day, is the sin any less today because the laws of the land do not assess the death penalty for it? Is the act less grievous? There must be a washing, a purging, a changing of attitudes, a correcting of appraisals, a strengthening toward self-mastery. There must be many prayers, and volumes of tears. There must be an inner conviction giving to the sin its full diabolical weight. There must be increased devotion and much thought and study. And this takes energy and time and often is accompanied with sore embarrassment, heavy deprivations and deep trials, even if indeed one is not excommunicated from the Church, losing all spiritual blessings."
-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Page 155

"How like the mistletoe is immorality. The killer plant starts with a sticky sweet berry. Little indiscretions are the berries -- indiscretions like sex thoughts sex discussions, passionate kissing, pornography. The leaves and little twigs are masturbation and necking and such, growing with every exercise. The full-grown plant is petting and sex looseness. It confounds, frustrates, and destroys like the parasite if it is not cut out and destroyed, for, in time it robs the tree, bleeds its life, and leaves it barren and dry; and, strangely enough, the parasite dies with its host."
- Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference Address, April 1, 1967.