I was a week old the first time I was in church. I’ve had a lot of pastors, and heard a lot of sermons and illustrations on sexual purity. Indoctrination comes in other forms besides sermons, including Christian dating books written for young teens, shaming YouTube videos comparing sex outside of marriage like a used piece of tape, my own fear of making mistakes… the last thing I need help with is shaming and guilting myself.
My boyfriend and I are forging our own path, one that fits our convictions. I’m comfortable with it completely. But sometimes a whisper of doubt will whistle around my head. In the same thought I could go from wanting to tell him to stop hugging me to being compelled to take my clothes off. This binary way of thinking leaves me exhausted, but it mostly leaves me angry.
When I was twelve, after a TV ad encouraging parents to talk to their children about sex, dad turned toward me and said: “Wait until marriage”. I have no idea what sex was. I didn’t wear bras yet, I didn’t even know what a period was. If my friend hadn’t gotten hers before me and told me about it, I would have been terrified by the blood stains on my underwear a few weeks after my 13th birthday. I was raised in complete ignorance, my parents attempt to “raise a child in a PG13 world” as my church advised. I never learned how to be friends with boys. I didn’t think you were allowed, unless you were a tomboy or you liked them. I fit neither category until high school.
I had my first kiss when I was 16. He was 15, and wasn’t allowed to kiss until he turned 16, so we walked his dog whenever I visited and kissed at the park. We never went on a date alone together. On our first date, my mom drove us and two of my friends to Inspiration Point, a low intensity hiking location. My two friends and I still laugh about this date, and how the two of them walked in front of us laughing away as my date and I awkwardly walked behind them, silent. It was May 21st, 2011, the day the world was supposed to end, and part of me was actually terrified it would, the other part was terrified I might do something to imply I wanted to have sex with him. Leading someone on is the same thing as being a stumbling block.
In high school, my aunt told me she believed French kissing outside of marriage is a sin. One piece of evidence was the fact that prostitutes didn’t like to be French kissed. I was tempted to ask her how she knew all prostitutes didn’t like to French kiss, but I held my tongue, the pit in my stomach growing as I had already French kissed someone. Her warnings were a little late.
I had my first orgasm in 2015. I decided I wanted to masturbate as a last ditch effort to help shake of the last bits of situational depression and to spur on my journey of body acceptance. Nothing was sinful about it. I felt no shame. In fact, I have never liked being myself more. I have never been less judgmental toward others now that I judge myself less. Jesus knew what he was talking about in Matthew 22 when he said “Love your neighbor as yourself”, loving yourself first is pretty important. I wish I could turn off the other voices, both “of the world” and of the Church, but they linger, intermixed with my beliefs. Leaving me muddled, confused, and fucking pissed. Patience is my only game plan as I continue through life, correcting my own thoughts when they are toxic lies.