premarital sex 6: I totally just had some.
and it was very, very good. in fact, it was delicious.
I am in love, which is something I thought I’d never attain. like many screwed-up women who come from dysfunctional families, I had low self-esteem and thought no one would ever want me. then my confidence grew as I grew, to the point that I thought I would never want anyone else. I couldn’t imagine spending my whole life with one person. I revelled in the freedom of singleness. and, as another result of my dysfunctional family, I didn’t see marriage as desirable. my parents never seemed happy, even after 25 years of marriage and five children they are still trying to figure out what they want (and it’s not each other, it seems). why would I put myself through that?
meeting albano shocked me. neither of us expected or wanted a serious relationship when we met, but while the insane sexual chemistry kicked our asses, our instant emotional and mental connection is what made it stick. he is my best friend. we are so similar in so many ways. we have so many desires and appetites in common. we get each others’ senses of humour, which surprised both of us, since others usually find us eccentric and bizarre. most importantly, we share the same core values and have the same goals for our lives. we’ve both already confirmed to each other that we want to be together for the long haul, until one of us dies.
so why not get married?
hmm, why not indeed? I would love nothing more than to have a big, sassy wedding to celebrate our love and show the world that we’re together. but, as university students living below poverty level, neither of us has extra cash lying around to procure a marriage license, much less pay for a wedding. it would be ridiculous. and we don’t exactly have the time, either. we both want to finish school and pay off some debt before we’re legally bound to each other. neither of us sees a huge rush right now… we are living together, but don’t necessarily want to fund a ceremony or huge social gig till we can both comfortably afford the time and money.
so we live together, without being married, and we’re having sex.
to be honest it didn’t occur to me to even think about waiting till marriage to have sex. you can see PMS episodes #1 through #4 for the reasons why. and besides, I’ve got to say, I’m a little confused… what does “marriage” mean exactly? when we say “sex before marriage” are we referring to the days-long wedding bashes that happened in Jesus’ day, with tons of feasting and celebrating and drinking? if so, how come no one does that? or do we mean Catholic-style marriages (and if so, at what point did wedding parties like the one Jesus went to at Cana turn into the dull ceremonies of the RC church? who made that change?)?
or is it sufficient to just go to city hall, then have a kegger in the backyard? is city hall even necessary? did God write Canadian law books, too? or can we just have the kegger and announce to everyone that we’re totally committed?
the thing is, paternity plays a smaller role in life these days. in modern times, men are more likely to make their own fortune rather than having it handed down, if they happen to be a firstborn son. a person’s number of children no longer dictates their virility or their favour with the gods, nor does it make or break the success of the family farm. women can now easily and independently support themselves for their whole lives, without ever marrying, having children or having to become a prostitute. if a woman has sex before marriage, she is just as likely to be married as her virgin sisters, and she’ll probably be allowed to choose her own spouse these days, too. marriage is no longer a financial transaction, a political move or a necessary act of survival. if a woman has a baby out of wedlock, she won’t be stoned to death or shamed forever by her village. and if she is raped, she won’t be punished (but her attacker will). a woman’s virginity has ceased to become a huge issue, and marriage has become just one of many socially acceptable ways to legitimize a relationship. man, things have changed since Israel in 30 c.e.!!!
I guess in the past, having a giant shindig was a good way to show everyone that this man ‘owned’ this woman (and her future spawn), and they probably wouldn’t forget it after feasting and partying for days. the whole village would know because of the huge ceremony that had taken place. now, we have this nifty new mode of communication called the internet which makes communication all the more efficient. so I might as well do that here… Albano and I are committed. mind, body, soul.
thank God and Al Gore for the internet!
anyways, one way that we celebrate our commitment is through sex.
I do admit that I have achieved a new depth of sexual enjoyment. it’s so sweet and healing to look up into the eyes of someone you adore, who cares about you. it becomes more than an exciting expulsion of fluids — it’s that, with this added intensity, with this satisfaction knowing you are joined with the one you love, and bringing him pleasure, and knowing that he loves you and loves bringing you pleasure. I know these things. and guess what? omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God knows them, too. He’s seen what we went through, He knows how we feel, and I’d be willing to bet He’s satisfied. if He tells me otherwise, I’ll change accordingly.
premarital sex, part 5: sex will change your life!
take a look at this article, if you’d like:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/01/crime-bill.html
basically, the age of consent in Canada has been raised from 14 to 16. there’s a “close in age” exception, meaning a minor can sleep with someone within 5 years of their age. I think this is a pretty good plan. it scares me to think of 14 year olds sleeping with 20 year olds, much less men in their 30s, 40s and beyond. a girl develops so much in her teen years, physically, emotionally, and mentally, that a 14 year old is worlds away from an 18 year old in terms of maturity. at least by 16, presumably you would have completed sex ed and have a little more of your bearings in the world. I say this as someone who lost her virginity at age 15.
I noticed some sad, misguided commenters on the cbc website recommending that teenagers be taught “abstinence only”. how tragic. do you know what would HAPPEN if we started doing that? I’d probably have gotten pregnant, for one thing. abstinence education doesn’t deter people from having sex. having a crazy stalker dad who tried to have my lovers arrested didn’t deter me from having sex either. and my particular crazy stalker dad was waaaay scarier than the idea of God shaking his fist at you from the heavens, let me tell you.
having sex killed my relationship with my first love. neither I nor my 16-year-old boyfriend were really emotionally equipped to deal with our insecurities and other issues. I was dealing with bulimia, and he was dealing with some other things that made it hard for him to be intimate. as a result, our sexual experiences were largely negative and the relationship ended. at the time, I mourned this, as he was, of course, my first serious boyfriend, my first love, my first EVERYTHING. however, in retrospect, that was the best possible thing that could have happened. I actually wish we had broken up sooner. the relationship had to end because we never would have grown as people had we stayed together. the relationship had to end because we weren’t good for each other. we didn’t have the same values, desires, or outlook on life. this became very, very clear once we started having sex.
now, what do you think would have happened if I had waited to have sex until we had married, as per Christian recommendations?
in that case, I would have been legally bound to someone who had never seen a naked woman before except on tv and in (I assume) pornographic images. as a result, he saw my body as flawed. he had never seen breasts before, and thought mine irregular and odd looking. as soon as he saw my naked thighs, he told me I needed to start exercising. this devastated me, and made my eating disorder worse as I tried to conform to the cute little cheerleader image he preferred.
he refused to use lubricant because he didn’t believe it was necessarily for arousal. he thought that I should be wet enough, if I were really attracted to him. in reality, few women get *that* wet and lubrication helps enhance pleasure and avoid pain for the female. because he had no sexual experience, my boyfriend didn’t get it. and I didn’t know any better, either. I thought there was something wrong with me.
he wouldn’t try new things with me, as he had a very narrow definition of what was “normal”. had we waited till marriage, I would probably still be doing it in the missionary position, without foreplay, thinking this was the only “right” way to do it. and I never would have lost my gay virginity because he didn’t support me expressing my attraction to women in a physical manner. I never would have realized a lot of things about myself, and I never would have found the empowerment through sex that I discovered later. all of these things, plus my feelings of freakishness and inadequacy took a toll on me, and just made me more emotional and insecure. I looked to him for support, and he couldn’t give it, because of his own issues with sex. my sexuality became a shameful thing, a barometer of my failure as a girlfriend and as a female in general. I felt like an oddity for wanting it so much, and felt slighted when he denied me. we went for months and months at a time without having sex. had I not moved on and slept with other people, I never would have discovered what I actually liked. I never would have discovered my own capability for self-confidence. I never would have realized my dominant streak, or acted out many fantasies.
at 145 lbs, he thought I was overweight, and so did I. now, at 195 lbs, I feel sexier and more desirable than I ever have. had I not moved on and experienced different partners, I never would have met people who affirmed me and liked my body the way I was; I believe that meeting men and women who were truly attracted to me at every weight has helped to heal my eating issues. through that, I learned also that desire is fluid and has many forms. I never would have realized that my shape, my size, my desires were all completely normal, or at least as normal as everyone else’s. and I wouldn’t have clued in to the fact that it was possible to be treated better. I didn’t have to put up with the things he said and the way he made me feel, but I didn’t know that then. and if we had waited till marriage, I would have already been his wife by the time I found out. it would have been much harder, emotionally and legally, to get away.
sex isn’t the only part of a successful relationship, but don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t vital. it can speak volumes about who a person really is and what they want. it can be a mode of self expression, a way to wordlessly say so much that doesn’t usually come up in conversation. and it allows you to figure out who you are, too. at 15, I definitely wasn’t ready to have sex with an adult, much less be in an adult relationship. but had I waited till adulthood and marriage, I wouldn’t be ready either.
premarital sex, you should have some, part 4
I had this whole post planned out about bible learnings. about how political Roman Catholicism really is. about how different early Christianity was, Back Then, in Acts. about the Nicene creed. about the fact that the bible is cultural.
but then I realized that the people who read this blog (all one of you, for serious) are not religious. I don’t have to try and sell you on having sex.
because if I were going to “sell” anything, I’d sell it to religious people. what bothers me is the Christians who are like “hey, Leviticus says gayness is an ‘abomination’” (Leviticus 18:22) when in the next breath they’ll argue that Leviticus plus every other book in the Old Testament is “cultural” and thus irrelevant to life, and that’s why they’re no longer obligated to eat kosher (Leviticus 7:19-27) and avoid wearing polyester-blend sweatshirts (Lev 19:19).
or, even better, they’ll quote Paul talking about how homosexuality is evil (Romans 1:18-27), and then turn around and tell me that women are now allowed to talk in public (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) and not cover their heads anymore (1 Corinthians 11:2-6). even though Paul says that’s not allowed, either. why? because that part is cultural. the women-not-talking-in-public-or-having-autonomy thing is a forgotten prejudice of ancient judea. but hating gay? hating gay is eternal.
I think you just need to think for yourself. think about the context of what you’re reading. what are the social implications of homosexuality, for example, in a nomadic, paternal, polygamist society, where a woman’s worth and livelihood depends on how many sons she can bear? what are the implications of random, free-spirited premarital sexing in an era without birth control, in an age where a woman’s value as a human being depends on whether her hymen is intact? in a society where marriage is as much a political maneuver or a financial contract as it is (supposed to be) a love union?
it IS cultural. because the bible is very much a history of a people, and it’s a narrative of that people group’s searching for meaning and identity and stability. those issues need to be there, not to be followed blindly, or to be used to justify your own hangups, but to tell the whole story of the social evolution of those people.
and remember, the majority of the people who are telling you that premarital sex/homosexuality/oral sex is bad are either:
- still virgins
- repressed and terrified of their own sexuality since they’ve been taught that it’s evil
- virginal AND terrified, and likely to stay that way
premarital sex, and why it will save your life. (part 3)
I eventually left the church over a contentious, wide-spread political/social issue. everyone knows that most churches, particularly those modeled after the Southern Baptists ones proliferating in the Bible Belt, don’t look kindly on homosexuality. it was pretty common knowledge that I was bi, and I’m sure people prayed that I’d be cured, but I still felt ties to the GBLT community and couldn’t accept the church’s doctrine. I was sitting in a prayer meeting when the prayer leader dude asked us to close our eyes and pray that the church’s participation in the anti-gay-marriage rally that weekend would be successful. the prayer leader’s wife noticed my reaction and commented to her husband, “she won’t be back.” I wasn’t.
I had sought help, by speaking to another woman (now married to a man) who had dated women in the past and whose therapist had even suggested she was a lesbian. I asked her if her feelings for women ever went away. she didn’t really answer me, but said that she believed it was right for men and women to be together because they complemented each other. be that as it may, my attraction to women never waned. and after a year or so of dedication to the church, I was finally fed up with being asked to act as if I were straight, fake support for opinions and causes I did not believe in, and then be indirectly chastised if I didn’t. soon after my “break” with my church, I went back to my hometown, enrolled at a new school, and got a new job.
over the winter, my Christian roommate had advised me to create a “list of no compromise”, so that when I did start dating again, I’d have standards set for myself and wouldn’t just jump on the first attractive person I saw. my list included qualities like “humility”, “honesty”, “must be active in church ministry”. virginity had no place on my list… I actually wanted to date a Christian non-virgin, if possible, because I wanted to be with someone who understood my position. it was a difficult undertaking. most Christian guys apparently didn’t want to be with someone who possessed a sex drive… or at least one who admitted to it. the few Christian guys I did meet after I moved wanted nothing to do with me romantically… though I must admit I don’t look or act like a “typical” Christian, so perhaps it’s understandable.
when I started going to Brock, I met a man (we shall call him ‘D’) in one of my classes and we hit it off. we could talk for hours about anything, and I soon found myself becoming close to him, not to mention physically attracted. I’d always had a thing for older men, and the fact that he was well-read, witty and creative made him even more attractive. but because I wanted to date someone with a similar belief system, I told him I wasn’t interested in dating because he wasn’t Christian. a few months later, he told me that he had magically accepted Jesus into his heart and was now a Christian. he started going to church with me, even though he didn’t have much interest in the bible. and I did what most people in serious romantic relationships do — I initiated sex.
one BIG thing I want to emphasize, if you didn’t already get this from the last two entries, is that a focus on celibacy leads people to make bad decisions. there is no virtue in sticking your dick in something or otherwise involving your genitals with someone else’s genitals or body. it has nothing to do with morality except in the sense that sex can encourage intimacy, and people who mess with other people in an intimate setting can hurt them. but I think that goes back to the idea of character and integrity, rather than sex in itself. it’s the way you handle it that determines whether it is hurtful or helpful, like any aspect of a relationship, like any interaction.
but when you’ve been deprived of sex for over a year, you get a little squirrelly. have you ever fasted? after two weeks without any solid food, you’ll go crazy and eat everything in sight once the fast is done. your body has physical needs, as well as emotional ones. sex is a physical need and, like food, should be enjoyed healthfully and wisely and hopefully without catching a disease from it.
my sexual desire blinded me at first to the fact that D was deceiving me. after denying myself for so long, I reveled in the physical sensations without any guilt or shame. I actually found myself embracing aspects of my sexuality that I had repressed in my sexually active past. I felt so much freer, and part of that was being with someone who I believed supported and affirmed me in that freedom. it was the freedom of being able to be myself with someone who both believed in the same God and believed in the necessity of sexual expression. it turns out D believed in neither. after a few weeks of dating, I realized that he had been faking his supposedly Christian beliefs. he seemed to have no interest in actually learning about God, reading the bible, or developing his own understanding of the Christian faith. instead, he regurgitated clichéd Christian phrases and other people’s opinions almost on command because that’s what he believed I wanted to hear. in the meantime, D would omit facts or outright lie when talking to our Christian mutual friends, so it didn’t seem like we were actually sexually active. I never understood that. if you’re so ashamed that you have to lie about something you’re doing, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
why was he deceiving me? well, I do know that he was faking a belief in order to get what he really wanted (just like the engaged man in part 2), although what that was, I don’t know. he later commented that our sexual relationship had been more like “masturbating with each other’s bodies” — in essence, both our sexual connection and our mental connection had been a huge fraud on his end. since he was the man that essentially took my ‘born-again virginity’, this had a huge impact on me. I had been so ready to have a strong, solid, relationship based on equality and honesty for once in my life, and I felt I had been robbed of that… ironically, all in the name of God. I now feel that the whole situation made a mockery of my self-respect, my worth as a person, my needs, my feelings… not to mention, a mockery of Christians and their beliefs.
this falseness is what totally turns me off of most other Christians, or people who profess to be so. there is no need to lie about your actions, or carry on a deceitful, secretive life. nobody has the right to morally “police” another’s sex life, unless it is harming another person. sexuality is as individual and personal as spirituality. when did Jesus speak of premarital sex, homosexuality, or any individual sexual acts, for that matter? I know people who fervently believe that oral sex (as one example) is as damning as homosexuality or premarital sex are supposed to be, because it is just as “unnatural”. how can you make that claim based on a vague, unrelated passage taken out of context from the Old Testament? are people doing this to legitimize their own sexual insecurities? that’s the only reason I can think of why anyone would do this with a holy text. but in doing so, they cast other’s private lives into shame and denounce sexual expression between two (or more!) consenting adults as “evil”.
I do have more to say about this, mostly in regards to why people use some parts of religious texts and not others to guide their lives. but I do want both religious and non-religious people to carefully examine their own preconceptions of sex, spirituality, and how both relate to “religion” as an institution (I discuss Christianity here, but you may insert whatever faith system you wish). I want to know why it’s now common practice to hate, ignore, avoid, or discriminate against our neighbours based on what they do in bed… and I want to know why so many people are buying into that, rather than making a personal decision to focus on Jesus’s actual words instead.
premarital sex, and why it will save your life. (part 2)
the worst thing about the vow of celibacy is that I was lonely. profoundly so. I don’t really know how to explain to people what happened to me in that year. I spent most of it alone, in my cold basement apartment, just thinking. by the end of it, I felt totally detached from other people, the church and myself.
part of this was the fact that I was still reeling from a romantic relationship with an engaged (christian!!!) man, which had ended maybe six months before the celibacy experiment began. I had slept with him before and during his relationship with a charming Christian virgin girl. I knew everything about this girl, and she knew nothing about me. she ended up losing her virginity to him, before marriage (!!!), because she really believed he was “the one” and that they would be together forever. she switched jobs and moved to my city just to be with him. she had no idea that he had been sleeping with other women, visiting strippers, looking at porn, and generally carrying on a lifestyle that a “good Christian man” isn’t even supposed to contemplate. in the meantime, he kept up the facade by going to church services and bible studies, and trying to convert unbelievers like me… when he wasn’t banging me.
it isn’t his expression of his sexuality that bothers me, now. it was the fact that he created this elaborate farce in order to live a proper “Christian life”: virgin wife, monogamous relationship, chastity, purity. none of this is what he really wanted, it seemed. so he deceived people, hurt them, and ruined lives just to keep his sexual activities secret. but in order to be “allowed” to be part of the Christian community, that’s what you have to do. you can devote all your free time to volunteer work, donate all your disposable income to charity, go to multiple church services each week, be the kindest and most selfless person anyone could hope to meet… but if you have premarital sex, then you’re seen as a black sheep in the eyes of the church. certain churches, and certain Christians, seem to focus almost exclusively on maintaining their virginity and driving any “impure” thoughts out of their head, rather than building a strong character, valuing integrity, and treating others well.
I now feel strongly about the church’s demonization of sexuality. I have no respect for the people who attempt it. but at the time, I felt that I had to do the same thing or else I was evil, God wouldn’t hear my prayers, I would lead a shitty life and to top it off I would spend eternity in The Lake Of Fire. it didn’t help that the church leader, the one who had gotten me to speak for “Sex and Candy”, had gossiped to everyone else in the church about my affair with the engaged guy. so I was trying to be “pure”, and yet kept being confronted with this shameful incident at every turn, reminding me that I very much was not. I felt disgusted with myself, my need for sexual gratification, my disregard for her well-being and for my own self respect. I also felt terrified of ending up like him, enslaved to my own passions to the point of betraying those who loved and trusted me more than anyone in the world.
the second part of this debacle goes hand-in-hand with the first. I began to be aware just how important sex was to me, and as a result, I began to feel that it/I was dirty. I had a Christian friend who confided in me that she masturbated and had sexual fantasies about men — she wanted me to check her computer weekly for porn, and otherwise keep her “accountable” by making sure she wasn’t doing anything “impure”. the idea of sexual accountability began to get to me too; I began to demonize all forms of sensuality. as a result, physicality became this evil thing to me. how could I not, when I was being taught that such things were dangerous? how could I, when I was being told to read such classics as I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which described the “triumph” of couples who didn’t kiss till their wedding day? mere hugs became at once terrifying and exciting and numbing. I fantasized endlessly about feeling the skin of my roommates arm, but I eventually found it impossible to even remember what sex was like.
you might be asking, “why bother with this shit? if Christianity/this church/celibacy are so horrible, why even put up with it?”
the answer is that I was and am truly interested in God’s character. part of this means discovering what God wants. I want to seek Him out, understand Him, live the life He has set for me. I have always felt that need to connect with a higher power, and attempted to explore it through paganism from ages 10 till about 18, despite going to Catholic school my whole life. when I entered this church, it was from a desire to be around people who were all looking for that same thing. I felt the “vibe” of being attuned to that higher power. and so I stayed. and so, like the ascetics of old, I began fasting. I cut out certain aspects of my life in an attempt to pare down the nonsense of my life and become closer to Him.
I became depressed as winter encroached and the sun began to set at roughly 3:30 pm. family drama crushed me emotionally, and alienated me from the people who should have supported me the most. in retrospect, while the celibacy thing might have been beneficial at a different point in my life, it may have made a bad situation worse. at a point when I really needed to be around other people, I alienated myself: I was obsessed with being obedient to God, sorting out my past relationships, breaking what others considered sexual addiction, and generally figuring shit out. on the other hand, I can see Myself At Nineteen throwing herself into the arms of whatever hot person happened along, just to distract herself from her messy life. so perhaps it was a good thing.
god knows I wanted to distract myself. I began to feel that tension I mentioned in the previous entry, where every interaction became like an audition for my future mate. I was not allowed to view men casually anymore — I was to treat them either as a “brother in Christ” or as a “potential husband”. since I wasn’t shopping for husbands, everybody became “brothers”. it never felt sincere because I never got that family feeling. instead, I felt constantly judged against my past actions and deemed “unfit” because of my teenage adventures.
women, of course, were totally forbidden, which just added to my feelings of alienation and tension. since I wasn’t supposed to have male friends, I was suddenly surrounded by women all the fucking time and I had to pretend I didn’t have a boner for some of them. being celibate didn’t quench my appetites — it only thrust them more into the forefront of my life. it didn’t give me peace about my past, but instead made everything seem so much more catastrophic than it really was. I felt like I couldn’t share any of this, for fear of being ostracized, so I was in a little bubble of my own pain and confusion while I tried to fake the joy they said they felt.
all in all, it made for a disastrous situation.
premarital sex, and why it will save your life. (part 1)
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.
alyssav