10 May 2017: Last night I
saw episode 18 of Jane the Virgin. The theme that really stood out for me was
that of the lasting effects of negative sex messaging in a person’s life.
Jane waited until
marriage to have sex because her Catholic grandmother very strongly suggested
that to behave otherwise would be a grave mistake. Though Jane chose to remain
a virgin, the show emphasises that that did not mean that she did not have an interest
in sex or have any sexual urges at all.
Over three seasons the
show has explored Jane’s relationship with her own sexuality in interesting
ways, showing that while remaining virgin was an important part of her
identity, it was not the only thing that determined how she moved in the world.
At this point in Jane’s
story, she has had the fairy tale wedding and the perfect (hard-won) first
time, and she has also experienced the risky and tragic side of love and
romance. She has been through a lot, and she has mostly handled it with grace
and maturity. In this last episode in particular, I wished I could have the
same optimism and confidence when it came to my own sexuality and sex life.
Jane
managed to reconcile strict messages from her childhood with what she was
comfortable with in terms of her own sexuality. I have yet to do the same.
Thinking about it now, I
really don’t remember a time when my parents or teachers spoke to me about sex
and sexuality in a way that was not ominous. It was always about consequences
and diseases, never about attraction, desire or even love. In fact, a part of
me still believes that boys and men cannot be trusted because all they want is
to persuade you to have sex (because it could never be something that you
actually want), and they are not above lying and saying they love you to get
what they want.
Besides that, there is
the fact that no one really spoke to me about what happened when I was younger.
I mean about that time when I was maybe 5 or 6, and my older male cousin put
his fingers in my vagina, then told me not to tell anyone. When my parents
heard about it they dismissed the topic as something we should never talk about
again. It would have been better if we had spoken about it, because for years
afterwards (after I could no longer repress the memory) I resented the fact
that I was the one who was dealing with what happened while the cousin in
question was carrying on with his life as if everything was normal.
That’s one of the things
I admire about the Villanueva women: they talk about everything. Sometimes the
conversations are difficult, and talking does not guarantee that they will
agree, but most of the time everyone feels heard, and in their family a problem
shared really is a problem halved.
If I had had that chance,
if the only real conversation I had with my mother didn’t include the warning
“don’t kiss boys – because kissing leads to…something else”, maybe I would be
in a better position. Maybe if I had felt like I could talk to my parents about
what I was feeling or thinking about, I wouldn’t have had to struggle on my own
to process what happened all those years ago and figure out what it meant for
my present knowledge and experience of sex.
As it stands, I’ve had to
deal with my feelings of guilt and confusion on my own, and I have had many
questions. Why did my cousin do what he did? What made him think he had the
right? What were his intentions? If I say his intentions were not malicious,
does that change the effect of his actions? (The answer to this one is no. I
don’t know what he meant by what he did, but it affected me in a way that I am
clearly still not okay with.) Whose responsibility is it to teach me about
sexuality: my parents, teachers, the Bible, friends, the media? And in all the
messages that I receive about sex daily, who is right? Who should I believe?
Who knows what’s best for me? Why do I feel guilty about wanting to express my
sexuality, about feeling desire and wanting to be desired? (I have become so
proficient at stifling my desires that I worry if I will ever be able to truly
appreciate the feeling again.)
“I
guess I missed the moment when everybody got cool with sex…”
In school, while my peers
were dating and exploring their sexuality, I retreated further and further into
myself. I didn’t believe that anyone would like me or want to do anything with
me because I was tainted, both by what had happened and by how I had been
hurting myself. By now I had been struggling with my feelings about
masturbation, and I believed I was doing something wrong. I didn’t quite
believe that I was “learning good things about my body and my desires”, like
some magazines or websites said.
These days, I laugh along
to sex jokes (pervasive as sex is in everything that my friends and I consume
for entertainment); I listen when people discuss “good sex” and “bad sex” as if
I have any true knowledge or valid opinions to add to the discussion. From the
outside, I look like I am okay with sex. I’m the virgin in the group, the one
who doesn’t even entertain the idea of a relationship because men are devils,
and everyone just thinks that’s my look, when really it’s my defense mechanism.
Defense against the possible pain, guilt and confusion that I fear will come
from any attempt I make to show or share my intimate thoughts and feelings with
anyone else.
I live in constant fear
of being found out as a fraud or a freak: someone who lied about knowing
anything or who does things that no one can tolerate. I feel like I will be
persecuted for knowing and understanding more about sex than I let on.
Maybe this is linked to
the way I never felt like sex was an okay, normal topic of discussion. It was
always embarrassing (when a scene came on TV and I was watching in the presence
of my parents) or bad (again, when seeing stories about teenage pregnancy on TV),
or just generally off-limits. Which is astounding because where did my parents
think I would get the information I needed? Was I going to just magically know
and feel all the right things on my wedding night? (What wedding night? LOL)
So this is the attitude I
have had about sex for most of my life: it is a scary thing that only belongs
to certain people, and though it looks like fun from the outside the truth is
that there are so many things that can go wrong. So, while I want to one day
get to a point where I can experience sex for myself and with someone who won’t
leave me too damaged, I am also terrified of the level of vulnerability one
needs to get to that place.
I don’t know when I will
be okay in this regard, I just know that it is going to take a lot of work. A
lot. Also, I feel like it is too late to go back to my parents and ask them to
talk to me about this. It just feels like everyone has moved on and I should
find a way to do the same.
But where do I even
start?
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