“What’s the difference between venerating women for being fuckable and putting them on a purity pedestal? In both cases, women’s worth is contingent upon their ability to please men and to shape their sexual identities around what men want.”
Note: This post is categorized in "EMDR & Recovery" because it was written during the EMDR process. It is also categorized in "Escape Route" because many ex-fundy females may relate with the insanity of purity culture.
___________
Once I was in high school, I learned that the faith-based DVDs about abortion and sexually transmitted diseases weren’t any better than the public school’s fifth-grade sex-tapes about the horrors of our periods.
I went to a public high school, but attended church a few times per week with other fundamentalist kids. Our mothers were so afraid we’d learn about the responsible options of condoms and birth control that they pulled us from the school’s sex education seminars and created a homemade version based on the purity culture’s abstinence curriculum.
It wasn’t really sex-education at all. It was more like sin-education. Mostly filled with remorseful testimonials of women who had experienced abortions just milliseconds before converting to Christianity, it also included the inevitable brain damaging effects of masturbation and predestined divorce of couples who co-habitate before marriage.
My big takeaway from these “I'm Married to Jesus” classes was that female sexuality was a destructive force that was not to be reckoned with. Afterall, Eve - although created to be Adam’s “helper” - was the reason for The Fall in the first place. Damn the seductive powers of a woman bearing citrus! This means womanhood - full of her tantalizing promiscuously - is responsible for the sexual sins of mankind...and everything wrong with the world. Thus, if you are woman, you’d do well to take note of these three important laws:
If your shorts don't extend to the mid-calf, you’re a home-wrecking slut. Women shall shun you and sexual assault by men shall be justified.
If you have premarital sex relations, incurable STDs will grow on your face to expose your wickedness. Women shall shun you and sexual assault by men shall be justified.
If you have premarital intercourse, the relationship will result in divorce and the disintegration of American morality. Women shall shun you and sexual assault by men shall be justified.
The totality of my education could have also been summed up in this fabulous ad, which just so happens to be one of the many commonalities between members of ISIS and Evangelical Christians:
In the movie of my previous life (let's call this faith-based thriller “Biblitopia”), man is Batman, and woman is Robin. Batman, being center-stage, is appointed COAJB (Captain of Everything Always Just Because). Why Batman? Well, because the magical rulebook says so (also written by the Batmen of yesteryear).
So, man is Batman and woman is Robin. When it comes to sexually, however, woman's body is more like Wolverine's, but with voluptuous fleshy parts that can - if used wrongly - destroy God’s holy destiny by slicing man's virginal innocence into bloody pieces. So basically, I’m Robin with sideburns and three dangerously sharp blades shooting out each of my nipples. This Wolverine sexuality must be suppressed for man’s spiritual survival (and equally because Robin must never show up Batman or distract him from his mission of doing whatever the fuck he wants). Of course, my sexuality must also be suppressed if I ever want to trick someone into marrying me, which appears to be required for salvation, although is never directly stated.
Biblitopia, once translated into everyday reality by my developing teenage-brain, resulted in the following psychological maladaptations:
Since I’m responsible for mans’ sexual integrity, I will punish myself if my boyfriend finds me too attractive, masturbates, or watches porn...because it means I have failed.
Since I was created to accessorize man’s life as a live-in sex-kitten-maid-servant, I will punish myself if the man I marry no longer finds me attractive, has an affair, or goes impotent...because it means I have failed.
Notice how, in Biblitopia (the Real World edition), the boys you date and the men you marry must be too different types of human being...which means you have to marry the moment you find a Christian you actually want to have sex with. Of course, this is the case for men, too, which sets all of us up for the Madonna-Whore Complex.
This post has no conclusion.