It’s Time to Stop Years of Cultural Shame that Deny My Sexuality
By: Marie Lynne
Tags: Sexuality, Relationships, Self, Culture, Women

It’s Time to Stop Years of Cultural Shame that Deny My Sexuality

I want to be both Ginger and Marianne of Gillian’s Island

Photo by Sarah Rodriguez on Unsplash

I am a child of the 60s and 70s.

It was a tumultuous time filled with images of fallen US soldiers’ body bags shipped home and peaceful and riotous protests against the Vietnam War and for Civil Rights and gender equality. Mostly, I focused on my small world, which kids do — overwhelming enough.

I grew up in a conservative home in rural middle America. Clearly defined daily routines governed my day. There was school, chores, and church twice on Sundays. Little time remained that was my own.

In my neighborhood, there were enough playmates to start a pickup game of softball or kickball. We dressed in old castoff clothes, played house or school, swam in the neighbor’s small above-ground pool, and rode bikes.

Babysitters or neighbors left the TV on, playing in the background all hours of the day. It became influential noise. I learned about sex roles from Eight is Enough, The Waltons, Gillian’s Island, Love American Pie, and Charlie’s Angels.

Women fell into one of two categories — either the sweet, but hot & sexy ones on an adventure or the plain, stalwart maternal figures who acted as the family’s backbone. You were either Gloria Steinman or June Cleaver of Leave it to Beaver. Ginger or Marianne of Gillian’s Island. Women’s limited choices made it impossible to be both.

My introduction to sex was the opposite of exciting. It was a confusing mess of pleasurable and painful sensations, with excitement mixed with fear and guilt. Something that happened to me.

Farm boys, sweaty and smelling of dirt and body odor, grabbed and groped me in dark corners. Their breath puffed hot and fast as they pinched and poked me. Most of the time, those encounters were interrupted and ended abruptly in awkward silence. But occasionally, they went too far. I learned compliance was the least inconvenient reaction to these embarrassing situations. Everyone saved face.

I became distrustful of men. They were silent predators hunting for an easy mark. And those they caught were ruined by association. Men liked to brag that they could tell which of my high school and college peers weren’t virgins, as if these exploits had branded the girls.

Women who initiated sexual exploration were outsiders. Often childless, divorced, or single, they were an aberration who didn’t belong in polite society. “Don’t be like them” was the obvious message.

Religion finished my sexual education with generous doses of shame. I learned God was watching my every thought and action. With one flick of his mighty finger, he had the power to damn me forever. I was supposed to be like Mother Mary — pure, whereas wanton girls were more like Mary Magdalene, a prostitute filled with demons.

I first discovered my sexuality in this world. In these furtive, embarrassing, scary, or guilt-ridden moments, I began to explore my own body and masturbate. There were no girlfriends to talk about this strange new experience. As far as I knew, I was one of the rare adolescent girls doing it — a fallacy, of course.

Sex fit in a tightly controlled box to avoid the wrath of God and my parents’ disapproval. Pornography was, of course, taboo. Pre-martial sex a no-no. My husband and I entered marriage with limited experience and loads of inadequate or misleading information.

No surprise, our honeymoon was a disaster. I came home a crying mess and no one to talk to about it. We didn’t know the first thing about arousal or foreplay. My inexperienced husband rushed our love-making, eager to get to penis in the vagina. I didn’t know much better. Our only familiarity was straight on missionary-styled sex. After all the built-up expectation and waiting, intercourse hurt.

Years of traumatic sexual experiences had made it difficult for me to relax my pelvic floor. I had no idea how to shift from seeing sex as naughty to acceptable. It had felt wrong to rock my hips to increase the pleasurable sensations. My moral upbringing had taught me that sex happened rather than was initiated, which magically made me less culpable.

It took years, decades, even before I could own my body and my sexual experience.

So, here I am in my fifties with lots to learn and plenty of guilt and shame to overcome.

I’m single too. Some would say that makes me lucky. That being unattached means I get to experiment. But that is not who I am. Does it mean I won’t hookup? No, I can’t say that. My expression of sexuality, however, flourishes the best in a committed, monogamous lifestyle.

I’m a sexual person, or rather, sexuality is an integral part of who I am. Who we all are. It cannot be separate from our identity.

I’m on an adventure of sorts as I enter a realm of all things sexual. I plan to explore cultural taboos, our societal and personal fears, and popular misconceptions. To share some of my sexual experiences, knowing all of us are more alike than different.

My goal is to embrace this essential part of me after disowning for so long. To welcome it instead of avoiding it, to explore it rather than fearing it, and to nurture it in place of denying it.