The first time I had sex with a man that wasn't my husband
Healing from Vaginismus, reclaiming my body after god, purity culture and divorce.
I want to offer a trigger warning for anyone with religious trauma (like me): if reading religious themes makes you physically sick, causes panic attacks and unrest and you are still working through big themes around that, proceed with caution.
I hope that in sharing this, it can help not only people who have left their faith to reclaim themselves but also people who suffer from Vaginismus: I know firsthand how isolating and debilitating it can be. I want you to know that there is a cure, that you can heal and that most importantly, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I will provide some resources I have used for those who are struggling with both Vaginismus and religious trauma.
(For my own petty pleasure I love writing the word god with a small g. It’s not a typo)
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the lord god had made. He said to the woman, “Did god really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but god did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For god knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like god, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:1-5
I have to start with Eve. Because even though she isn’t real, her story is where my sexual journey began. Eve’s story is my story. Eve’s story is a lot of our story: a story about shame, lies and courage. Because Eve was lied to.
Not by a snake - but by god.
And I was lied to about Eve. She had it right all along. Why would you want anyone not to have knowledge of good and evil? Why would you not want someone to have awareness? There is only one reason: to control them.
What a devastating thing to keep someone from their own power. To tell them not to be curious. To control them with fear.
As I learned way too late in life, people who trust themselves are powerful.
And men have always been scared of women who know their power.
So they wrote a few convenient stories to shame them and keep them small for thousands of years. But what if Eve wasn’t the problem?
As Glennon Doyle put it in her book Untamed:
"Maybe Eve was never meant to be our warning. Maybe she was meant to be our model. Own your wanting. Eat the apple. Let it burn."
When you poke holes in the fabric of faith, when you follow your curiosity and choose not to obey, you might make the most amazing discovery of your life.
Just three years ago this piece would have been impossible to write. Now, despite this feeling very tender and like I am bleeding on the page, it also feels easy. I am liberated and new and there is no shame left inside of me.
This is a story about sex, but it isn’t. This story is about the intersection of sexual and spiritual healing. This story is about coming back into my body after being severed from it for over three decades.
Growing up I had to sit through many pastoral analogies of girls who have pre-marital sex being likened to chewed up gum or torn up wrapping paper.
’Sex is so sacred and important to god that he made a specific container for it: marriage’, is what I heard week after week, in youth group, bible studies and read in christian teenage books. Anything outside of that container, was considered adultery, whether with another person or with yourself.