Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
I’m 11 years old. I’m sitting on a hard pew, my Mary Janes barely hitting the brown carpet below. My mother and younger sister are on either side of me in a sanctuary full of middle school girls. A woman in a red Talbot’s pantsuit and big gold jewelry stands on the stage.
“Your body is like a rose,” she says, looking toward a flower she’s holding. “It is beautiful and pure. It deserves to be revered and honored.”
She abruptly plucks a full pink petal and throws it to the ground, squashing it under her heel.
“But,” she continues, “when we let others pick from this pretty rose, it loses its beauty.”
She begins to rashly pick at the soft petals. I watch them gently float to the hard ground, until nothing but the spiky stem remains.
“The Lord designed this rose to be a beautiful flower for us to admire and appreciate. Now it is nothing more than a thorny stick.”
She explains how my virginity — a word I only recently learned — is like this rose. My body is pure and beautiful until I give it to a suitor outside of marriage. He will claim me and pick at me until I am empty, pokey and pointless, and it will be my fault.
I just learned what sex was last summer. I am deeply uncomfortable and embarrassed. I don’t know where to look, or what to do with my hands.
The presenter turns on the projector and opens a PowerPoint presentation. A photo of a teenage girl with large breasts in a teal tank top flashes on the screen. She is beautiful. Her tanned shoulders shine under her spaghetti straps. Her cleavage peaks up over her top. Her shirt is too small, stretching over her chest. I want to be her best friend.
“See this, girls? There are several things wrong with this image,” Mrs. Red Suit chastises.
As she uses a laser pointer to identify the “valley between her mountains,” anger rises in my chest. I feel defensive and upset. We do not even know this girl. Why are we saying such mean things about her body? I happen to think her body is the most amazing body I have ever seen.
As I look at the faces of disgust and judgment around me, I shrink further inside. Something is wrong. I do not feel disgust or judgment. I feel curious. I am wrong. As she flips through more pictures and shares more slights of modesty, I take in these rules and commit them to memory.
If I can follow these rules perfectly, nothing will be wrong with me.
The volunteers pass around a purity contract for each of us to read and sign. A verse from 1 Corinthians 6 (ESV) is bolded at the top.
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Below the Bible verse, the contract lists a series of proclamations about saving my body for my husband, and committing to resisting any and all sexual temptation — but without detailing what that actually means. I am to dress modestly, avoiding spaghetti straps, bikinis, tight shirts and short shorts. This feels doable — I wear my uniform skirt and a sweatshirt most days anyway. In 15 minutes, I have learned several fundamental truths that will inform every decision I make for the next 15 years.
1. My body is not my own. It belongs to God, the authority figures in my life, and my husband.
2. I do not know what is best for my body. At its core, my body is sinful and bad. Only the Bible and adults I trust can tell me what is true.
3. Sex only exists between a man and a woman.
4. Sex is terrible and painful and bad until you are married. When you are married sex is enjoyable and fun. Sex is anything that is remotely physical between a man and woman.
5. God literally died for me. The least I can do to repay him is to follow these rules.
6. I will do whatever it takes to get this right. If I fail, I will be damned to hell for all of eternity.
I quickly sign the contract. I feel proud of my choice to follow God’s will for my life. I shove down my confusion and curiosity about how it feels to see girls in tank tops. I instead try to dream of what type of wedding dress I will wear, and what kind of man God has made for me. I stare blankly at the floor. I feel nothing.
