On Easter Sunday after the morning service my family and I held hands in a circle, our pastor's hands on mine and my sister's shoulders linking us all as he prayed to commit my youngest sister's purity ring.
Yes, her
purity ring.
I was brought to tears thinking of how much this could mean in her life and what her relationships with men will be like. It made me think back (which I never do) and imagine what life would have been like if I had gone the road of faith and pledged my body to God until I was married.
I didn't
lose my virginity until I was almost 17 and it was to my boyfriend in the Marine Corp who was also a virgin and I have no regrets. We loved one another and had waited for longer than a year to have sex all through him finishing high school and then going through basic training.
We met on a beach and ran into the ocean with our clothes on and when we walked back to his truck with our friends, he let me wear his size 14 sandals because I couldn't get my sandy, wet legs back into my knee-high leather boots. He asked me if he could kiss me for the first time and I was sure that he would be big in my life. I was right.
That said, while I have no regrets, as we stood in a circle up near the stage of the auditorium with our hands clasped to pray for God to bless my sister's strength of will I tried to imagine my life if I had always said "No" and stayed chaste until marriage.
It was hard to do.
I won't say that sex has defined my life but it has definitely changed it, and changed me too. Sex complicated things, it simplified things, it killed things and made things happen. I've felt pleasure and pain and sadness and joy but most of all I would define my relationship with sex as an ever-evolving process of finding myself and my body and my strength through my power as a woman.
I'm glad that sex is not a huge mystery, that its not something to fear or hold high on a pedestal. It is important in your life, but not something to become totally fixated on.
That being said, it brings me to the current day and the fact that I'm dating someone new...but we can't have sex.
Almost three weeks ago I had a small internal surgery that became a big problem when during the supposedly simple procedure, my ureter ripped 4 inches south and had to sutured. Three days later, the sutures ripped and I was back in the ER. As much as that was a *totally fun night* for me, it got worse. The doctor who sewed me up brought me out of anesthesia with a question,
"Guess who's not having sex for a month?"
In my drugged addled state I replied,
"You?"
He laughed and said,
"No, you sweetheart."
I closed my eyes and let my head drop back down on the pillow, hardly contemplating the ramifications of this bit of information. For the first few days I was pissed that their mistake was going to hamper my quality of life but then I came to realization that what happens, happens and nothing can stop it. I smiled and prayed for a quick recovery and a reprieve from my usually overly lustful needs.
About two weeks ago at a dinner party I met a guy who was really interesting to talk to and whom about I said silently to myself, "
Now this is going to be trouble" when I saw his masculine frame seated across the table from me. We hung out later into the night and ended up talking over the phone once we both went home until the sun came up and agreed to meet up for coffee the the next afternoon. We agreed to be friends but something stirred and we both knew it wasn't going to just stay "platonic".
The night he kissed me, I knew it wasn't going to be a simple situation. There was more to the attraction than we had both imagined but we didn't know what to do with it. My invisible chastity belt has been in the way and its been so interesting to feel my way through my feelings and longings versus just letting our bodies do the thinking. We have an undeniable animal attraction, something vital that could become something bigger if allowed.
For now I'm glad to have the buffer of my locked up panties to allow the tension an need to build up. The insane thing is that though my sex drive is higher than its been in the past few months, I have this need to refrain from touching myself because I only want to orgasm with him (Wow, I just shocked even myself with that sudden realization!).
I'm glad we have the time to let things work themselves out, build and change before we get lost in the lust that has so often consumed me in the past. Don't get me wrong though, I want to dig into him like nobody's business but for now, its huge for me to see past his trousers.
For the moment, only time will tell what this dynamic will or will not do for the forces at work between us. I don't want to sound like a giggling school girl, but I'm excited to see what will happen next.