For more than a decade, I wore my virginity like a badge of honor. My church encouraged me to do so, saying my testimony would inspire other young girls to follow suit. If the topic ever came up in conversation, I was happy to let people know that I had taken a pledge of purity.
It became my entire identity by the time I hit my teen years. When I met my then boyfriend-now husband, I told him right away that I was saving myself for marriage and he was fine with that because it was my body, my choice and he loved me.
The author managed to keep the promise she made to God to remain a virgin until her wedding night. However things did not go as she anticipated.
I lost my virginity on my wedding night, with my husband, just as I had promised that day when I was 10 years old. I stood in the hotel bathroom beforehand, wearing my white lingerie, thinking, "I made it. I'm a good Christian." There was no chorus of angels, no shining light from Heaven. It was just me and my husband in a dark room, fumbling with a condom and a bottle of lube for the first time.
Sex hurt. I knew it would. Everyone told me it would be uncomfortable the first time. What they didn't tell me is that I would be back in the bathroom afterward, crying quietly for reasons I didn't yet comprehend. They didn't tell me that I'd be on my honeymoon, crying again, because sex felt dirty and wrong and sinful even though I was married and it was supposed to be okay now.
When we got home, I couldn't look anyone in the eye. Everyone knew my virginity was gone. My parents, my church, my friends, my co-workers. They all knew I was soiled and tarnished. I wasn't special anymore. My virginity had become such an essential part of my personality that I didn't know who I was without it.
That may be the best description of the shame that many of these young women who take purity vows feel after having sex that I have ever read.
The author goes on to say that if a young woman wants to save her virginity for her husband that such a decision is fine. However if the decision is driven by shame, or fear of being judged by God, or of ending up in Hell, then it takes on a kind of specialness that makes losing it an incredibly traumatic experience.
And let me add a little personal information to let you know that this shaming of women by churches can have a life long effect.
Man years ago I was in a relationship with the daughter of a minister.
She had been married before, and had engaged in sex before marriage, but always had very complicated feelings after having sex. Feelings of shame and of insecurity.
When she met me she was drawn to my openness about sex, and the fact that I was substantially more experienced than her husband had been.
The first time we had sex she had the first orgasm she had ever had that was not the result of masturbation. This made her burst into tears, which I have to say was a little off putting.
However she said that she was happy and wanted to explore her sexuality.
To be honest she was never able to become very comfortable with sex, and really did not expand her horizons that much. She often became distant after sex, and even angry with me, which oddly enough seemed directly connected to the amount of pleasure she had experienced during the act.
She came to view me as a deviant and after awhile wanted nothing to do with sex, except occasionally when her own desires became overwhelming. At those times she would start off fine but become upset as she lost control of herself, and would become actually angry if she had too many orgasms.
Of course eventually this relationship was unsustainable, and we went our separate ways.
I have come to believe that this difficulty was the result of shame and that she simply could not deal with the fact that her body responded to sex in a way that she was told only sinful women would respond.
So yes, these purity pledges, and instruction about the sins of the flesh, have lifelong repercussions.
Believe me, I know.
