AlyssaV

I have been talking to a few friends lately about my theory.  also to my boyfriend, who knows everything about me, and to my exroommate, who became part of the same biblethumper social group as I did in 2004.  the theory is that, rather than being edifying and purifying and “right”, the Christian emphasis on virginity and chastity is emotionally and mentally damaging.  I don’t think it’s what God wants for anyone, and I don’t think it should be the focus of whole Christian books, sermons and songs.  I think by focusing on this “virtue” rather than on people’s character or their connection to God or to their behaviour towards others, they are creating a false standard for righteousness and obscuring God’s truth.

to clarify, I know a lot of really decent Christians but I also know a lot of terrifying or disgusting or just aggravating ones.  most of you know I was once an active Christian, though I always had a lot of problems with it.  I’m still really interested in the Bible, in God and the christian faith in general, but I can’t bring myself to follow today’s version of ”Christianity” anywhere close to the letter.

I went to a small student-run church, with maybe 30 or 40 “core members”.  I eventually became one of them.  I was on the prayer team, I went to services regularly, I hosted bible studies and prayer retreats in my house, I even spoke in front of the congregation about my experiences.  I was farmed out to talk to other girls about my life and answer their questions about Jesus in the hopes that my testimony would help convert them — as baffled as I was, it obviously didn’t help much.

I was even asked to speak at an event called “Sex and Candy” which my church had created as an attempt to reach people on campus about the importance of sexual purity.  with lurid stories of sexual abuse, exploitative sexual relationships, one-night stands and gayness under my belt, I was apparently the perfect example of what sexual freedom would do to a person.  both the church leaders and the audience seemed to have this fascination with all the sex I had, all of which took place outside of marriage — outside of relationships sometimes — and sometimes also with females.  at the time, I had undertaken a “year of celibacy” which I believed would help me focus my mind on God and purify me of all the debauchery I had been involved in, in my 19 years of life.

did it?  probably not.  in the church’s eyes, I’m probably far more of a deviant than I ever was then.  but I was committed to it.  so I turned down lots of sex, dates with hot med school students, lesbian blind dates, threesome offers and other such adventures to pursue the church’s idea of purity.  I even got rid of my vibrator, placing it in a box of “satanic” paraphernalia from when I was a practicing pagan and throwing it in the dumpster.  I was rewarded for my efforts with unsolicited comments by certain males of my church.  they assured me that “even though you’ve slept with a bunch of people, I’m sure your future husband will forgive you.  there must be a man out there… um, somewhere… who can look past all your horrible, horrible deeds and see what a good person you are now.”

of course, these males themselves were sexually repressed teenage and 20-something virgins, stunting the prime of their sexual lives in a search for an impossible ideal.  as a result, they latched on to any unattached female Christian like an angry hamster gnawing your fingertip (because remember, Christians can only date/marry other Christians… and these guys were in a hurry to find a wife so they could lose the big V).  one of these guys persisted in taking me on “dates” even though I told him I wasn’t dating.  he was really disrespectful of my physical and emotional space.  it got to the point that I told him I wouldn’t see him unless other people were coming along.  two of our mutual friends were supposed to come along on the next movie outing, but when he came to pick me up, the van was suspicious empty… seems the other two girls had cancelled at the last minute.  mysteriously.

a sick sexual tension had galvanized all the unattached Christian guys at this particular church.  I call it “sick” because I believe whatever natural sexuality we are given by God had been so stunted that it could not emerge as sensuality.  instead, it manifested itself in male bodies with symptoms similar to physical agony.  every interaction vibrated with this need for release, which obviously made everything awkward and stressed.  every conversation with an unattached male seemed like a job interview.  I could tell they were sizing me up, pondering how fast the “courting” could begin.  one guy I rejected ended up dating another very new girl convert, and they became engaged six months after meeting each other.  as they said, “it was going to happen anyway.”  by the time they were married, they had known of each others’ existence for a mere year.

I was talking to another, very wise Christian friend (who also happens to be male and presumably a virgin) about this marriage situation, and he remarked, “I hope they’re not doing it just to be able to ‘do it.’”  I was so glad I wasn’t the only one who was skeptical about such a union, and that someone who was so entrenched in the Christian faith as my friend could look at it objectively.  I felt like they and other Christian youth were being forced into an unnatural, sanitized, idealized version of what a romantic relationship should be, completely ignoring the reality of both marriage and of human life.

I have had male friends all my life, and I have three brothers who are a few years younger than I am.  I don’t necessarily sexualize all men, or see them as either “potential husbands” or sanitized, unsexual “brothers in christ”.  I used to enjoy a comfortable, companionate relationship with other men, and now I found this threatened, because I felt like every single guy saw me only as a prospective mate. 

single men weren’t the only anomaly in this little posse.  attached men, whether married or engaged or “courting”, were usually committed to their sig others to the point of idiocy.  I know one guy who vowed to never be alone in the same room with a woman who was not his wife, which made prayer meetings rather awkward.  I can see it making his future job prospects somewhat awkward, too.  the church didn’t help; I actually sat through a sermon devoted to the question of whether or not men and women can have BFFs of the opposite sex (Christian answer: they cannot).

as someone who isn’t altogether comfortable with my gender definition, I felt oppressed by the idea that this was to be my lot, assigned to me by virtue of my possession of a vagina.  more and more, I felt pushed into this role of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity, revived from the 19th-century sexist rhetoric of the “angel in the house” ideal.  I’d like to say that I was okay with my self-enforced singleness, but since even masturbation is supposed to be a sin, it wasn’t too much fun.