Through
my counseling sessions with Dr. W, I began to take control of my life rather
than relinquishing it to my deceased abuser and the abuse. But one ongoing
psychological and moral struggle I experience stemmed from the church and
society’s teachings about virginity. Women and children (and men) have been
taught and believe in the metanarrative or over-arching story or myth that the
protection of one’s virginity is paramount to one’s moral value and validity as
a Christian. Of course, historically and still today such virginal morality is
expected more from females than from males. Persons who embrace the virginity metanarrative
and are sexually abused can experience a split within their moral selves.
Although, many children (if not all) experiment with their sexuality, children
who are victims of sexual abuse may experiment with greater frequency or may do
so even earlier than their peers since their sexuality has been unnaturally,
prematurely, and violently aroused. Sexually abused children may look back on
sexual experimentation with greater sense of guilt.
Recollection of childhood sexual
experimentation coupled with heighted feelings of guilt create or contribute to
an even greater degree of moral dissonance (conflict) in light of the virginity
metanarrative. The virginity
metanarrative does not take into consideration, generally, how a female “loses
her virginity” (as if virginity is money which one has been instructed to hold
for someone else; maybe the equivalent when we think of bride price and dowry).
If she loses her virginity, she cannot retrieve it. Although some churches
preach/teach that one can become a “spiritual virgin” by confession, repentance
and renewal. Yet, the virginity narrative primarily claims that a female loses
her virginity when she has sexual intercourse for the first time (penetration
of vagina by male penis). Supposedly, when a female loses her virginity by
having sexual intercourse with a male for the first time, the hymen is broken
and some bleeding is expected. But we now know that the hymen can be broken
during any vigorous or strenuous exercise and that not all women bleed when
engaged in sexual intercourse for the first time. In the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, a virgin was expected to
bleed on the wedding sheets. If there was no blood, the assumption was that she
was not a virgin. The consequences of not being able to prove the virgin of
one’s daughter on her wedding night were fatal. I can only imagine the many
animals whose blood was shed in an effort to provide proof of a daughter’s
virginity. The father would be left to take care his daughter for the rest of
his life rather than selling her to her future husband for a bride price. (E.g.
Deuteronomy 22:13-30)
The
point I am making is that the notion or myth of virginity (see Jessica
Valenti’s The Virginity Myth) has
caused women and girls a lot of psychological and moral distress, which is
magnified in the case of sexually abused women. How do I come to terms with the
moral necessity to claim my virginity in light of my childhood sexual abuse and
its aftermath? How do I understand
myself sexually when I’ve been taught to understand myself, my sexuality in the
context of the virginity narrative? A woman is either a virgin or she is not.
And if she is not a virgin, what are the alternatives? Whore? Used goods? And
how does such an understanding psychologically impact women when their
sexuality is inextricably linked with their morality by the institutions
(churches) they believe to provide the authoritative hermeneutical
(interpretative) moral barometer or yardstick for their lives?
This
has been a long struggle for me. And to free myself from the oppressive, heavy
hand of the virginity metanarrative, I have had to debunk, debrief, and detox
from this harmful teaching. Who, I asked in an earlier post, benefits from the
notion of virginity? My friend Steve Clayborn replied on that post, “men!” And he is correct. I, of course, do not advocate for
“promiscuity” (which may mean different things to different folks), but I
encourage responsibility and the valuing of one’s body as a gift from God. But the female body has been treated as
a gift from God to be used as men please within the realm of societal norms.
And societal norms have not favored the protection of females and historically
certainly not black females. While
I value my sexuality as a gift from God, categories like “virgin,” “whore,”
“prostitute,” etc. that label women in relation to men are not helpful or
hopeful.
Why is it that although Jesus
declared that the greatest commands are that we love God and love our fellow
human beings, some of us have sought to de-center those commands and replace
them teachings about women’s sexuality (and now gay and lesbian
sexuality)? Often at the heart of
such teachings is control of bodies and/or fear of losing control of bodies
(one’s own and that of others).
Labels imposed by others that define us are oppressive. When our lives
fail to meet the expectations of the label, we are subjected to verbal,
psychological, moral, and physical violence. And sometimes the violence is inherent within the labeling
and we don’t recognize it. The
virginity narrative has left many females (and males) frustrated, scarred, and
hopeless.
Virginity
also does not allow for a woman to be a sexy or sexual being. If you are too
sexy or sexual, then you deserve to have (or contributed to) your sexuality
being forcefully taken from you.
The molester and/or rapist could not help him (or her) self but
succumbed to your “feminine wiles.”
As a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I felt I had done something wrong
to warrant the kind of attention and abuse I received from my grandfather. The
scar I carried (and still struggle with) is an uneasiness (to say the least)
with my own sexiness or sexuality. I am not comfortable with too much
attention. And in the past I have
not been comfortable with other women who wear low cut blouses or skirts above
the knee (not minis). I had associated such clothing with loose women (and I’m
not talking about mini skirts or deeply cut tops). This is a continual struggle
for me – becoming comfortable with
being sexy and a woman of God. But I have and I am making strides. I used to be
very uncomfortable with the deep cleavage my niece would show when we would go
on vacation together. It was all I could do not to cover her up. Interestingly,
when we went on vacation together this year, her cleavage was mostly covered
with tub tops and I wore a sexy, strappy, fitted black dress that she said I
looked good in. The bikini I still wear a little conflictedly.
