From the Mouth of a Virgin



It was a lovely April morning.  The sun shone, the tulips bloomed, the mountains beckoned, and I was inside staring at a computer screen in the Harold B. Lee Library reading my next chapter for class.  Ever the devoted student.  Minutes later I was greeted by a handsome young man I know.

"What are you up to?" He inquires cheerfully.
"Just working on a reading assignment."  I smile politely.
"Oh yeah?  What are you reading about?"  He asks with interest.
"Female orgasms!" I express articulately.
He blushes.  Heads turn.  He never speaks to me again.

 No, that didn't happen.  I thought it best not to draw unnecessary attention to myself in the hub of an academic library.  I got a lot of funny looks last time when I was studying cross-sections of male penises.  Nevertheless, I was in fact reading a book on female orgasms, and thoroughly enjoying myself.

Sex.

Isn't it fascinating what kinds of emotions follow that word?  The conversations, the contexts?  We've been discussing sexuality throughout all of history, and we're still talking about it!  (Must be pretty great, huh?)

 I fear my own world is confused on the subject.  I grew up surrounded by adults who didn't really want to talk about it and kids who couldn't stop.  It was "funny" when we heard about the student who screwed two girls in his hotel room, and "awkward" when we talked about abstinence in church.  What were we to think?

 As a religious woman and lover of science I believe God wants us to enjoy our sexual relationships. Our genitalia are structurally designed to produce pleasurable sensations during sexual contact.  Our blood flows in rivers of oxytocin to help us bond.  Our bodies were made for connection; for man and woman to share in an expression of total union, body and soul. Through sexual rituals we can demonstrate our loyalty and devotion to our spouse.  We can create children together.  We can have fun together.  We can love together.  How wonderful it is to be a sensual creature to enjoy that sacred and intimate relationship!  How little does my world understand?

Promiscuity is the sexy life, virginity is a joke.  Orgies are made comical, self-control is fiction. Chastity is antiquated, a condom makes it safe.  Women are your playthings.  Pornography is your pastime. Consent is sometimes optional, marriage is nonessential.  Cheating may be acceptable, for true love excuses misconduct.  Passions are to be indulged.  Obscenity is quite presidential.  

 I am struck in such reflections by the words of Thomas More: "For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”  Are we not accountable?  Are we not at fault?

For myself, I mourn for the world that defends fornication and adultery.  I mourn for the world pervaded by sexual violence and exploitation.  I mourn for the world that endorses female objectification, that practices genital mutilation, that promotes sex as profitable industry.  But I rejoice for the champions of virtue.  I rejoice for the world that can change.  Maybe you have a different moral code than me.  Maybe our opinions don't converge in all the same places.  I hope on these things we may agree: to treat our fellow man with dignity, to love one another, to respect ourselves.  Perhaps someday we may even find forgiveness for those who were never shown otherwise.

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