Patriarchal Sex Education 101

“You just remember that I hold the key to your chastity belt.”

These were words spoken to me by my father when I was about 16 or 17 years old.  I had no idea what a chastity belt was, but I do know that it meant that I was certainly not having premarital sex.  My father was the head of the household and I listened.  I feared letting him and my stepmother down.

One day, I remember we were watching Oprah together.  It was an episode where a parent had come home and found their daughter in bed with her boyfriend.  My father was enraged.  But it wasn’t so much because the girl was having premarital sex.  It was that the daughter and the boyfriend were having sex in her parent’s bed.  These words quickly rang out:  “If I ever catch you in my bed with a boy, I’ll break both of your legs.” I certainly knew that wasn’t going to happen.  I would never do that. I valued my life.

I’m at the dinner table.  We had family over for dinner.  The conversation turned quickly to the topic of AIDS.  It was 1986.  That’s all we were thinking about.  We lived in Sayville, NY, the town were you would catch the ferry to go over to Fire Island.  I knew about “the gays” and their time on the Island.  I heard about it from my dad and stepmother.  I remember them telling me stories of complete disapproval as they had taken a trip over to Sailor’s Haven and stopped at a grocery store and two men came out of the store.  One said to the other, “What are we having for dinner?” The other man pulled a zucchini from the grocery bag and rubbed it on the rear end of his lover.  But, let’s get back to dinner.  Let’s get back to the story of AIDS and how it was a sin and gay people were paying for it.  The conversation got heated.  My father, in a complete rage, pounded his fists on the table and yelled, “A vagina is made for a penis and a penis is made for a vagina, not an asshole.”  These were my teachings.  These were my precious teenage years and what I learned about sex.

I loved my father.  And I have to tell you that when it came to my sex education from him, I knew that he, as my father, controlled my destiny in that department.  Back then, it seemed perfectly normal to me.  Now?  It explains a lot. It explains years of sexual dysfunction and understanding of myself as a living, breathing, sexual being. Sex was never talked about in a loving manner. It was talked about without mentioning love……….joy….tenderness…connection….deep intimacy…..safe space….trust…….all that I lacked. All that I truly needed to know.

I realize that what I am going to be talking about will make many of you uncomfortable.  If it’s one thing that I have learned from my workplace, being uncomfortable, at times, is ok.  If it’s too uncomfortable, I have the right to take care of myself 100% and remove myself from the situation.  You have the right to take care of yourself and close out this blog and not read any further.  But what I want to talk to you about is how damaging the patriarchy was and how it played out in my life.

I’m sitting in youth group.  My father and stepmother were the youth group leaders at my church.  They were new at this and were far more strict than the former youth leaders. Hand holding was allowed at youth group. Any other signs of affection were not allowed. Not so with the well-loved former youth group leaders. There was a little more freedom with them in charge and it was obviously a conflict between both sets of leaders. So, the other couple left, and it became just my parents.

Having them as my leader was both fun and extremely difficult.  So, I’m sitting in youth group.  My father holds up pictures for us to all see.  What are they?  They are life-size pictures of aborted babies.  Earlier that year, I had written a report for a history class on abortion.  I did some pretty intense research and something during that time had a profound impact on my life and views of abortion.  There was a chart in a book that listed all of the abortions that happened in a clinic that year.  On that chart, it recorded statistics about the fetus.  It stated how many months along each one was and the outcome after the abortion.  Next to one entry, it said “alive” and that the baby survived and was adopted by one of the nurses at the clinic.  I honestly could not catch my breath after reading it and between that and the pictures that my father held up during youth group, I went on to become a huge Pro-Life supporter. Premarital sex was bad. Sinful. And it lead to abortion. Murder. Abortion was for naughty people, who were sexually irresponsible. There would be no other reason to get one. Where was their chastity belt?

Later that year, my father and stepmother showed a video to our youth group of a famous religious leader speaking to a group of youth.  I had just started dating a boy.  He was my first “grown up” boyfriend.  I was 17.  We had kissed several times that week and one day, he went a little further than a kiss and his hands wandered to my chest.  Now, I knew this was wrong, but I didn’t stop him because…..helloooooo….I enjoyed it.  Later that same day, I went to youth group.  The video talked about when we sin, we are driving the nails harder and harder into Jesus’ hands.  Jesus was my Savior.  He was my friend.  I didn’t want to further hurt him with my sin.  I felt very conflicted.  I began to pull away from my boyfriend, which resulted in him finding comfort elsewhere, and at the tender age of 17, my heart was broken because I didn’t put out.  I took all of this as punishment for my sin…for going a little too far by having him touch my chest. I was 17. It was the first time. Bad girl. I deserved to be cheated on because of my sin.

I’m in college.  I finished my first semester and I came home for winter break.  Sometime during that break, a letter came to me about paying tuition and signing up for classes.  I didn’t do anything with it because I figured my dad and stepmother must have taken care of it already. When I got to school, I was not registered for any classes and I panicked.  I called home.  My stepmother answered the phone.  I told her I was scared and I was in trouble.  I told her I had to tell her something.  Her words?  “Are you pregnant?”  “NO!!!”  I mean seriously…..after the stories that I told you above, do you really think I would have rebelled and had sex?  Me?  The child that had to be perfect or she would have lost her family unit?  Me?  That lived in fear of disappointing? Me?  That lived in fear of having my legs broken or giving away the key to my chastity belt?  No.  I was not pregnant.  I just forgot to give them my bill to register me for second semester.  I remember being really really hurt.  I mean, why would she even think I would do something like have sex before I was married??  Did she think that my father didn’t get the point across?  Oh boy, did he ever. Sex was bad bad bad.

It’s after my freshman year of college and I am at a party with my friends.  There was alcohol and porn.  I remember laying down on a pull out bed in my friend’s living room and we were all laying around, boys and girls, watching porn.  I had never seen porn before.  All I remember was that the man was moving his hips back and forth, and to me, he looked like he was convulsing.  I remember hearing a boy rolling around on the floor saying that watching this was making his balls blue. I remember turning to a friend and asking what was happening.  She looked at me like I was crazy.  I asked why the man in the movie was moving his hips that way.  I am now 19.  I had no idea that a man had to move his hips like that to have sex.  Why?  I mean seriously, why would anyone tell me that?  I’d have to find that out on my own, right? Seriously…the only thing that l learned about sex is that I was not to have it. Sex was dirty, wrong, taboo, and only for married people, and because of that, I never learned anything from a loving, nurturing environment. I knew a penis was for a vagina and a vagina for a penis. That meant you just put it in there. I didn’t know you had to move. I mean, sex was for procreating when the time was right. And that is when you are married, in your own marital bed, penis and vagina, but only after daddy removes the chastity belt.

It’s the year after I graduated college. I was living in sin with my fiancé. We drove to visit my dad and stepmom and stayed at their home. We were not allowed to sleep in the same room. Early one morning, I went downstairs to the bedroom where my fiancé was staying. I sat on the edge of the bed and we were talking. I had the bedroom door closed so not to wake anyone. We were just talking. The bedroom door opened. My father appeared. He simply said, “We don’t have closed doors in this house.” He turned away and left. I knew he disapproved of me and my lifestyle. I’ve let him and Jesus down.

I’m in my 20s.  I’m teaching at a 7th grade – 12th grade school.  Within the first month of school, one of my 8th grade girls was suspended from school.  Why?  She was caught giving a blow job to a senior boy in an empty math classroom.  I cannot even tell you the reputation that girl received for this.  The boy?  Nothing but another feather in his cap. What I learned from other young girls is that it was a rite of passage…a way for girls to “move up the ladder” in popularity, and that the high school boys preyed upon those younger 7th and 8th grade girls.  The girls wanted popularity.  The boys needed what they needed.  What I learned and what I wondered was, did the boys ever give back sexually to the girls?  Of course not.  The boys had complete control of the situation.  Girls received popularity? Really?  They received a reputation and suspension. Bad, bad girls. Boys will be boys.

Let’s fast forward until I am in my 30s and early 40s.  By this time, I had become fully immersed in the Bible and lived and breathed the Word.  My second marriage was built upon the Word.  I was a devout wife.  I was a good wife.  And I knew, that no matter how much I did not want to have sex with my husband for reasons that are not for this blog, I did it anyway.  I knew it was my job as a woman to keep my man happy or he would look elsewhere.  I knew it was my spousal duty.  I knew men had wandering eyes and because of his dysfunction, I had to worry for so many reasons.  So, I did my wifely duties.  I did them for 11 years, most times, against my will.  I’m not really sure he knew that, because, there was no way I felt like I could speak up.  I wasn’t taught that.  The few times that I had didn’t end well. My body was for the enjoyment of my husband. As he said to me in the one therapy session we attended the day I told him I wanted a divorce, “She doesn’t like it when I fondle her, and in my mind, she should.” She should like it. I’m the man. Her body is mine. Sex is for marriage. Vagina for penis. The man controls my body. I should like it. I should. A woman should enjoy sex with her husband because he is her husband. I mean, this is what my training led up to. Premarital sex was bad. Marital sex was good. Really? It destroyed me. I was supposed to like it. This was my training. This is when sex was appropriate. But it wasn’t. So, I made some healthy and perhaps, unhealthy decisions and I got out. Moved on.

I’m in my mid to late 40s.  I have women friends with daughters.  I remember one day, a friend who lives where I used to live, put up a Facebook post that went downhill really fast.  She received so much judgement for allowing her older teenage daughter to have sex in their home with her boyfriend.  Her defense was that she knew her daughter was having sex, she put her on the pill, and in allowing her daughter to have sex in their home, she knew she was safe and if she wasn’t, she knew she could get to her daughter if needed.  What a complete contrast to the way I was raised.  I know people who have conversations with their daughters about what they should expect from sex..that they are to receive….not just give. It should be fun, loving, give and take, and mostly, only when you want to have it.  Wow.  How healthy. That’s what happens when healthy women talk to young women about sex.

Fast forward to this week.  To my Facebook newsfeed and Instagram feed being filled with Pro-Choice memes and women being fed up with the patriarchy.  Fed up with men controlling our destinies where our sexual bodies are concerned.  Punishing us for being sexual. Punishing us for making decisions for our own bodies.  Pictures of a bunch of white men, who decided the destiny of women who dared to be sexual willingly or against their will…dared to dress a certain way, which might have resulted in them being raped….dared to go on the pill….dared to see to it that they could make their own decisions about their own health and the health of their unborn child.  It reminded me of how my whole training of sex came from a patriarchal system, set up from the Bible, set up from our country, set up by our fathers, set up by our husbands, our boyfriends…….and honestly, I’ve been in a complete lather.  I can’t type this blog fast enough to keep up with the rage that I have…the rage that I have over women and men blaming, shaming, and attacking women for making decisions for their bodies.  And again, the pictures of aborted babies start showing up.

I have so much more to say on all of this.  This is truly a part one of a very long topic.  The topic of how the hell did someone like me, and Evangelical Pro-Lifer go to being a Pro-Choice person.  I think you can read this blog here and figure it out.  I’m sick of controlling men.  I’m sick of living in a society where men call the shots from the White House.  I’m tired of a complete nincompoop running this country. The people who put him there are exactly part of that patriarchy.  He behaves like a boy who just moves in on them and grabs them by the pussy and gets rewarded for it. They should like it, right? And I’m tired.  So enough for today.  Just sit with this and think about your own stories, women.  Think about how you were raised.  How much did patriarchy play into your coming to understand your own body and yourself as a sexual being?  Understand? Probably not at all. Were you raised with a healthy view of sex?  Therapy and conversations with other women and healthy men had to teach me what that was.  Therapy taught me to speak up and ask for what I want.  Strong women had to teach me what that was.  Without them, I might not have been able to move forward in my own mind of what a woman should be able to do and say can happen with her body.

I want to end by saying that I am not out to hold my dead father over the coals. He was a product of his own generation, his own faith, and his country. He was head of the household, in a world where he can be head of the country and anything else he wanted, and head of the faith in which he was raised. He didn’t know differently. I didn’t either. And that is why I feel so strongly about turning this patriarchy on its ass and flipping the tables. It’s time. I’m tired. I think many others are, too, including some men. So speak out and tell your stories. Perhaps, just perhaps, it might change things a bit at a time.