Disgusted

When I was young-probably 8--my parents came home from a date only to find several of us upset and confused.  We had watched the 1982 made for TV remake of Johnny Belinda. 

All my parents could make out was that some drunk guy had been chasing a deaf girl and when she tried to hide in the bushes he started howling like a dog.  Somehow that got her pregnant.  We wanted to know if this could happen to us.

I can imagine my parents looking at each other in desperation.  And now that I think back I suddenly understand their new policy of no TV and no watching any movies unless they saw them first. 

They sat me down and explained the basics to me.  They also explained how it was a wonderful thing given to us by God and when shared between a married man and woman it was beautiful and would bring them closer together.  Naturally, I believed them. 

And so later when I was 16 and asked a good friend it she was ever "turned on" by guys I shook my head in amusement when she exclaimed in shocked tones "I'm a virgin!!" Still later at 19 I told my mom about someone I was attracted to and she said "those are wonderful feelings.  Don't be ashamed of them. God gave them to you and you should guard them and save them because someday they will be something you can share with your husband."

And I believed her again. 
 

Later I hated that my mom had told me those things.  Because I knew what I was missing out on.   Ignorance would have been a gift.

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A few years ago I went to visit my dad and he had years worth of National Geographics piled up and  I binge read them for a few hours.  Unfortunately one of the articles was about child brides.   Another was about female genital mutilation as a cultural practice.

I wouldn't say I was full on triggered.  But I did start reflecting on how so many of the evils in this world stem from sex.  At one point my father walked into the kitchen only to be confronted by four females who demanded to know why Heavenly Father allowed such evil.

My poor Father.   I asked where the females were when God was coming up with this plan.   I mean what self-respecting mother would willingly agree to these atrocities? Sexual abuse of children, prostitution, child brides, rape, genital mutilation.  Get rid of sex and you get rid of a lot of evil in this world.

He stood there and just took it.

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I read Saints by Orson Scott Card when I was a teenager.  So this recent hullabaloo about Joseph Smith and his plural marriages was a different kind of shock for me.  Where everyone else was screaming "why did you hide this and lie to us" I was looking around in confusion saying "you didn't know?  Don't you read?"

I didn't have a problem with polygamy as a teenager.  But that's because I still believed my parents story about sex.  Now I think polygamy is a male institution designed solely for male benefit.  I don't consider myself a feminist but sometimes I think only a man could come up with this system.  Everything seems geared towards a man's pleasure.

H-er once told me he thought we'd be permanently physically connected sexually after we were resurrected.   After that comment whenever he talks about life after death I tune him out. That kind of stupidity disqualifies him from ever being taken seriously by me.

Nowadays when he's trying to talk me into sex he tries to use the argument that it's natural and that I'm a passionate person. Surely I have needs. I should just let go.   There's nothing wrong with it because we are married.  He doesn't understand why I'm guarding them. It's not because I believe it could be beautiful.  I guard them to protect myself from the ugly reality of it.

And when I tell my children about it I explain the mechanics.  I talk about disease and pregnancy.  I talk about the law of chastity.  But I can't bring myself to tell them that it's wonderful or that it is supposed to bring married people together.   I can't bring myself to lie.