TouchedByMadness

You Catholic Girls Start Much Too Late (Part I)

This post is part of the Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign 2008, and is meant to generate donations for The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).

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The defining characteristic of my sexual history is there isn’t much of it.

I know that probably seems strange for someone nearly thirty years old, but I assure you that my marathon of inexperience wasn’t intentional. As I mentioned previously, I never received “The Talk,” so I knew precious little about sex in my youth.

My sexual education began to come in bits and pieces when I started public school at the age of nine. I might have had some sort of foundation to build upon if I were one of those little girls that played Doctor or House. Of course, I couldn’t be bothered with games like that. I was an active child who liked to run around outdoors, usually pretending I was one of the Thundercats or perhaps Wonder Woman. I also favored Cops and Robbers, which wasn’t as popular with my parents because they kept finding children tied to my swingset.

Bondage exercises aside, I was pretty clueless.

It was in those later elementary school years that I recall learning what the term virgin meant. I was familiar with the word. I had spent five years at Saint Peter & Saint Paul, after all. I knew Mary was a virgin and that it was relevant somehow to baby Jesus. But beyond that I couldn’t give much of a definition. Our teachers always got fuzzy on the specifics.

I also remember distinctively when in the sixth grade a classmate asked me, “Stacey, have you ever kissed a boy?” I was eleven. The boys I knew liked to make farting sounds with their armpits, flick boogers in the girls’ hair, and handle worms. And as far I as was concerned, kissing was for grown-ups and people in love. Why anyone would want to try that with the kid behind me that kept kicking my chair during math was unfathomable. My surprise at the question was apparent, so before I could fumble for an appropriate answer another classmate chirped, “Of course she hasn’t. Stacey is a prude.”

Prude was another new word for me. I wasn’t sure what it meant, only that it was said with disdain. How was I to know that my peers were already practicing sucking each other’s faces off?

If my ignorance wasn’t readily apparent in elementary school, it certainly became well-known in middle school. My first day of the new school year I immediately noticed that my classmates seemed, well, different. That summer puberty had come to the entire seventh grade . . . except me. This meant two things:

1. I would be forced to endure three years of hearing “Stacey’s so flat she makes the walls jealous!”

2. My peers were now driven by hormones. Hormones that hadn’t made any effort to begin stirring within me.

I was suddenly a child among women. My peers paraded around the schoolyard showing off their new curves and talking about Spin the Bottle and Seven Minutes in Heaven (neither of which have I ever played). Meanwhile I hadn’t yet discovered makeup. I was years away from a training bra. Hell, my mother never even advised me on when to start shaving my legs. I felt woefully out of place, though I couldn’t understand exactly why . . .

“And when he walked away I could still feel the warmth of his handprint on my ass!” my friend Sarah eagerly shared with a group of us. As it often does, my face betrayed my shock. “Don’t mind Stacey,” she continued, rolling her eyes. “She still thinks boys are yucky.” Laughter.

I didn’t, in fact, think boys were yucky. I adored boys ever since Brian Segal held my hand as we recited Jack and Jill together for Kindergarten graduation. Something about boys’ impish grins had a way of sending my heart aflutter. Perhaps to prove this fondness, when a boy who lived nearby had his friend call me to see if I’d “go out” with him, I said yes. I had no more interest in my new beau than I did in any other boy, really, but even at the age of thirteen I was aware that “going out” meant nothing more than a declaration of mutual like, at most. After three months of awkward phone calls and passing notes on the schoolbus, the boy’s friend called again. My first boyfriend and I amicably parted ways.

The school year was winding down by then, and soon it was time for the eighth grade dance. I remember slow dancing with a number of boys, but one in particular sticks out in my mind. His name was Jared, I believe. I didn’t know Jared well, so I was surprised and a bit intimidated when he caught me in the hallway and told me to remember to save a dance for him. That’s not why I remember Jared though. I remember Jared because as we swayed in little circles to the music, he leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I bet one day you’ll be the prettiest girl in high school.”

Me? The girl that didn’t seem to have a prayer of growing breasts? The girl that was trying to get used to wearing nylons and wouldn’t dream of attempting to walk in heels? The girl who now had braces and still had never kissed a boy? Was he serious?

I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out. High school loomed just on the horizon . . .

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DONATE TO RAINN HERE. And if you’re feeling especially generous, please mention the GBBMC:08 and my name & blog in the “donation in honor of” field. Thanks for your support!

Living in Sin on a Rural Route Is Not Condoned by the USPS

This post is part of the Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign 2008, and is meant to generate donations for The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).

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The Captain and I had been together nearly three years when he invited me to move in with him. I had mixed feelings on cohabitation at the time. If my younger sister hadn’t long since decided to shack up with her boyfriend, I might have refused for fear of offending my parents. As I mentioned before, growing up my mother cautioned us that premarital sex was the surest way to secure an afterlife of eternal damnation. Surprisingly, she was quite excited for me when I revealed my plans to make the Captain’s home mine as well. I am fairly certain that this abrupt change in principles is due to the fact that she’d prefer a grandchild over my salvation.

With Mom on my side (and apparently praying for me to get knocked up), I took up residence in my new home Catholic-guilt free. Too easy. As far as I was concerned, everything worked out perfectly.

That is when I stopped receiving mail.

I had filed my change of address forms with the USPS (and my bank, credit cards, the DMV, etc.) about a week and a half before my actual move to prevent any serious delays with my mail. For the first couple weeks I didn’t pay much attention to the sudden cessation of flyers and loan offers. But after a month, I suspected there was an issue and called the local post office.

The man who answered the phone was very friendly until I informed him, “I’m not receiving my mail.”

“Then you’re not getting any.”

“No, I’m quite sure I should have gotten mail by now. I think there’s a problem.”

“Look, if you’re not getting mail it’s because no one is sending you mail. We don’t hoard your mail. What we have, we deliver!”

“I understand that, but I haven’t even been receiving my weekly pay stubs. So you see, I know I should be getting mail, but it’s not arriving here.”

At this point the man realized that I most likely had a valid argument and stopped to think instead of yelling at me. He asked where I lived, had some revelation about “rural routes,” and directed me to call the post office the next town over.

Again, I called the post office and explained my situation. They put my mail carrier on the line.

“Yes, Miss Willets. I have all your mail.”

“Excellent! When are you going to deliver it?”

“When you move in.”

“Uh . . . but I have. I’ve been living here for about a month.”

“You must be mistaken. My records show that the Captain is still living at that house.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t deliver your mail until he moves out.”

“Um . . . but . . . yeah, you see, he’s not moving out.”

“Well then how would THAT work?” she snapped.

Long pause.

“. . . Ohhhhhhhhhh.”

Very long awkward pause.

She then explained to me that because I live on a rural route I would have to fill out a special card requesting service. I also had to make sure to list my name AND the Captain’s name as mail recipients because since we didn’t share a last name, I wouldn’t be able to get my mail otherwise.

A simple “Welcome to the neighborhood” might have been nice.

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DONATE TO RAINN HERE. And if you’re feeling especially generous, please mention the GBBMC:08 and my name & blog in the “donation in honor of” field. Thanks for your support!

Sex Ed

This post is part of the Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign 2008, and is meant to generate donations for The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).

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THE SEX TALK.

I never had it.

I’m not exactly sure who was remiss in this responsibility. I can only assume the discussion was left to my mother. In which case, perhaps it’s not so much that she “forgot.” I half expect to someday receive one of those instructional books as a wedding gift, gingerly and anonymously left on my bed. Then again, considering I now share a bed with the Captain, maybe not.

Growing up, my mother never discussed sex with my sister or me, except to tell us that we’d better wait until we’re married to try it. Something about eternal damnation in the fires of Hell. So, unfortunately, everything I know about sex I learned from the public school system.

And late night cable television. (Hello, Skinemax!)

Maybe parents expect that this material will be covered in school, sparing them the uncomfortable Birds and Bees lecture. What I recall being taught in sex ed. included a litany of STDs we could contract if we didn’t practice abstinence. That’s right, ABSTINENCE. Our educators clearly had some good old-fashioned values. We didn’t have any of those progressive type teachers who began the lesson with, “Class, this is a dildo.” Hell, we never even practiced swaddling bananas in ultra-thin, lubricated condoms.

Our memorization of 101 icky diseases guaranteed to make your pecker fall off was followed by a video on the “miracle of life.” To this day I believe the film was a far more effective deterrent than the STD scare. Everyone was able to bravely suffer through the slides of herpes-infected genitals. The vast majority of the class (myself included) sunk under the desks tearing at our eyes at the sight of a newborn crowning.

But hey, we all turned out ok, right? I mean, yeah, there was the girl whose yearbook photo featured her and her baby (maybe they should have shown the “miracle of life” video sophomore year). And while we weren’t sure exactly what an abortion was all about, we were pretty sure another classmate had at least five. Clearly those girls got their diagrams of what goes where.

One day I hope to have children of my own. And I know that someday it will be my duty to initiate the sex talk. I couldn’t say for sure what I plan to tell them, but I can promise it won’t be, “Uh . . . Google it.”

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DONATE TO RAINN HERE. And if you’re feeling especially generous, please mention the GBBMC:08 and my blog in the “donation in honor of” field. Thanks for your support!

GBBMC 2008

If you spend any time visiting the links to the talented writers in my blogroll, you may have heard about the second Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign (click the link for GBBMC history and the full story of what’s going on).

Promoting a blogger’s new book (in this case Carly Milne’s Sexography) is always a worthy cause, but in this case, the scope of the campaign is even larger. April is National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, so GBBMC 2008 is raising money for the Rape and Incest National Network (RAINN). During the month of April, bloggers participating in the GBBMC will be writing some of their own thoughts and memoirs on sex. All you have to do is read, enjoy, and, if able, click on a donation link to help get RAINN closer to being able to offer victims of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and rape an online hotline that provides counseling and assistance twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

See? Your part is easy. I’m the one sharing all my tales of awkward sexual discovery.

(And yes, I realize this post should have turned up about a week earlier, but I’ve always been a late bloomer.)

Donate to RAINN.