trained

i was taught to think of sex, as something dirty. as a sin. as something that, if i ever did, or if i ever wanted to do, god would strike me down. dead. one of the things that we don't realize as we get older, is how literally we used to take things when we were younger. for a time, we don't know how to reason, or now to question. we know that what mommy says is right, is right. and what she says is wrong, is wrong. and that is our whole world.

my parents used to refer to sex as "special loving" they used this phrase because one day our guinea pigs started to get a little frisky, and my brother and i of course had to ask. to their credit, we were young, and they probably thought it was a little too early to explain things to us. (although that kind of thinking never stopped them from explaining anything else to me. but, whatever.) i have come to hate this terminology. and i really wish that they hadn't used it to symbolize sex. because love is supposed to be a pretty great thing in and of itself. your parents are supposed to love you, and that is always supposed to fix everything. when a child has no knowledge of sex, and you throw this foreign term at them, they don't think about sex, they think you're telling them that you love mommy or daddy more than you love them.

i was used to feeling like my mother loved other things more than me. you spend your time focusing on what you love. i don't remember my mother ever playing with me. she would send me to my room, or ignore me while i played in the living room. mommy why are you watching those soaps. mommy why are you watching football. mommy why are you going to work. and yet i idolized her. i would go to her closet and wear her shoes, and try to walk down the stairs to show her. i always fell.

i have a fairly strong moral compass. now. i didn't always. when i was younger, i used to get in trouble a lot. because i didn't understand why things were "wrong" or why i wasn't "supposed" to do this, or that. things didn't stick for me. when we moved to tennessee my dad started getting more and more stressed out. i think i've told this story before, but no matter. my parents didn't think it was necessary to tell me a specific age that i would be allowed to have a boyfriend, or that i could date, or start to like boys. they never said anything like that. and so, at the ripe age of 9, when i decided that i was ready to have my first kiss, i didn't think anything of it. but when they found out, all of the sudden, i was supposed to have magically known that was unacceptable. my dad was so angry. he sat me down in my room. (i started escaping to my room when i got to stressed out, so it doesn't surprise me that he would violate my sanctuary, and just be stationary in a place that was safe for me. so i couldn't escape, and i had to talk to him. and even when he left, i would feel like my room was against me. maybe he didn't do it on purpose, but it felt like it) he yelled at me about his mother, and about all of these other women who had gotten pregnant, and who were all over the place with their man-lovers. my dad doesn't really yell, but he gets really loud. and he was just getting louder and louder, making sure that i knew it was wrong. it was wrong wrong wrong.

if you keep going like this, by the time you're 13, you're going to be a slut. you're going to be all over the place with so many different boys, and no one is going to want you. and there's a chance you could get pregnant. and if you get pregnant, there is no way you are allowed to come and live, in my house. if you think you're old enough to have sex, i think you're old enough to think about finding a new place to live.

no one is going to want you. i am not going to want you. god won't want you. i was 9. all they had to do, was tell me they didn't want me to kiss anyone. set an age limit. you're not allowed to date until you're 17. or something like that. but it was like, i found this box by accident one day, and when i decided to open it, it exploded.

i thought this was normal. and everyone knew that you weren't supposed to have sex. when i would find out that people i knew had started, it would completely change my opinion of them. i was disgusted with young married couples who were pregnant. because in order to get pregnant. you need to have sex. and sex isn't okay even if you're married.

this was how i thought. all the time. even up until my senior year. i hated talking about sex with pastor dave in leadership bible, because he's a pastor. pastors aren't allowed to talk about sex. and i kept getting so angry with myself, because i couldn't understand why i hated it this much. why i was so uncomfortable with this concept. there's nothing wrong with it. and when i started becoming aware of why i was like this, why i was this person, i was so disgusted with myself. so angry, and ashamed.

it's been a year, and i still haven't completely gotten over it. it's kind of an interesting thing to have to re-learn. sex is not synonymous with sin.