This weekend I’ve been sick. So I’ve been listening to The Modesty Files and watching specific episodes of Fundie Fridays that deal with purity culture. I didn’t grow up in the church, and my mother self identified as a “proud, fat heathen”. But purity culture still caught me after becoming a Christian in high school. Gather around and this old man will tell you a story. A rap about purity culture, my first teen crush, and how sex and coming out went bad. And how that’s impacted my relationships to this day.
In high school, a friend of mine talked to me about his faith. He knew it was just my mom and I. He said that God was a father figure who would stick by me. He wouldn’t abandon me like my earthly father had. Everything he said made a lot of sense, and after a couple of months, I accepted Christ into my heart and got saved. My mom was so disappointed. She said these kids were “going to be a bad influence”. 🙂
I joined a youth group and fit right in. As a military brat, collective fellowship felt really familiar. I went to some regional gatherings, musical events, etc. To my mother’s everlasting horror, I invited a rigid fundie minister over to the house for coffee and teaching me all about the Roman Road of Salvation. For years after, she would teasingly threaten to “call pastor Bob” when I’d act like a smartass.
I felt really different and alienated inside. Big surprise for a teenager, right? But it wasn’t just regular stuff. I knew I wasn’t like other “girls”, but it was the 90s. I didn’t have any language for the feelings inside me. So when I heard about the “True Love Waits” campaign, I was interested. They said I would never have to make out with a guy if I signed this card. The card was a shield that would keep me safe.
My guts just twisted up while I typed that.
Anyway, since the area was small, the youth group covered a few different high schools. Then one day, I saw HER across the room. Suddenly, new feelings flooded me for the first time. She laughed at something a friend of mine said, and my heart just exploded. I had to get to know her.
After awhile we were friends, and looking back, I was having my first crush that (might have been) mutual. But kids in the youth group were looking at us weird, and adults were starting to hover. I didn’t know why. They weren’t watching the straight kids who were smashing their bodies together whenever they could get in a corner.
Honestly, we all deserved the chance to learn about our bodies and relationships safely. I still just really resent being picked on for my tiny baby queer crush.
One weekend we had a youth group lock-in. She and I put our stuff next to each other and got settled in. Then she disappeared. I didn’t think anything of it. But then time dragged on. And on. And no one would tell me where she was. She didn’t come back till after dinner.
When I went over to her, she had tears running down her face. I asked if she was okay, and started to wrap my arms around her. She pushed me away hard and said I could never talk to her ever again. No one would explain anything, and eventually I aged out of youth group.
I came out the first time as a lesbian my first year of college, and was promptly thrown out of our InterVarsity chapter. And everything else most of the evangelical crowd ran in. But I found other friends, and kept hold of my faith. The girl I crushed on went to the same school, but lived in a house with some of the women from youth group. I heard through the grapevine they had her on an “accountability schedule”. They helped her pay for school, but she had to tell them where she was all the time, spend hours in prayer, and do other things. I have no idea what.
Looking back, it sounds very DIY ex-gay. But who knows if she was ever actually gay? We were kids, and I’m a trans man. Did she see my gender before I did? Responding to that? Just having a small crush like me and also having no words for it?
*sigh* All I knew was by the time we met, I had been reading biblical manhood stuff on the sly. I didn’t know who I was, but my greatest hope was the evangelical dream: my high school sweetheart and I growing old together surrounded by grandkids. But that door had been slammed shut.
TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT, ABUSE, ETC
Once I made some LGBT friends, we started going to the one gay bar in the whole region. I showed my True Love Waits card around for entertainment, and then ripped it up. It was time to touch someone and be touched. 🙂 I was 19 and still a virgin. I remembered everything I’d been taught in high school about how important it was to pick the right person for your first time. The first person you gave yourself to would have a big spiritual impact.
My first girlfriend was a student from another college. She was super smart and cute. But I missed some serious red flags. If she had been a man, I would have caught them. But the idea of abuse in a same sex relationship wasn’t a thing back then.
1) She told me all of her exes were crazy
2) She said her girlfriends all vanished after the breakup. She had no idea where any of them were. A couple of them even dropped out of school.
3) She lied about ridiculous things. Small things. Things I could see in front of my face.
We had one bad argument, and I drove up to apologize and make up with her. I was nervous, and her roommate was drinking, so I had a bit to calm down. She came home and we talked things out. We decided I’d stay the night, so I called my mom, then we went to bed.
We made out a little bit, then I told her I was too drunk and tired to focus. We should just go to sleep. She said she could change my mind. I told her no, and pushed her off. Then I blacked out. I don’t remember anything after that. The next morning she was so happy. She said last night was the best sex we’d ever had. I told her I was passed out. She said she knew, and it was awesome. I drove home numb and never spoke to her again.
My next few attempts at relationships were disasters. Hookups with people too young, too old, too fresh out of the closet. Over my lifetime I’ve had one decent relationship. And the one I just left was 10 years long. 9 of those were seriously abusive. For years I wondered why.
I’d read and listened to so many different things, trying to figure out why I sucked at relationships. Was it patterns from my family growing up? Social training from years of being raised female? What was going on with me? Then I started hearing about people my age talking about the ways purity culture had harmed them. How it had given them unrealistic expectations about their bodies, sex, and marriage. And a lot of them were LGBTQ people.
I read more and dove in deep. Homeschoolers Anonymous. Scary Mommy. Doctor Ramani. I took in so much stuff. Finally, a breakthrough: I didn’t feel worthy of a decent relationship. My first serious crush had been snatched away from me, even though I was doing everything right. And then my first girlfriend turned out to be an abusive rapist. What is the point of even having standards if these are the results I get? WHY BOTHER???
I’ve spent my life just taking what I get because when I had standards it backfired. When I tried to act right, it wasn’t enough. I still lost. The first person I chose to have sex with turned out to be a predator. What is wrong with me? Even today, it feels like there’s something broken in my ability to choose someone.
Purity culture taught me that someone is always watching you. And difference is suspect. And that people in power know who is vulnerable and can be squeezed. A year after I came out, I told my mom about what happened with my crush. She was so sad for the girl. She showed me how they targeted her instead of me because she didn’t have a family that cared about her. They knew she was isolated and vulnerable, and I wasn’t.
These days, I can’t bring myself to think about relationships. There are ways I’m broken from this last abuse that I can’t even define. In my heart, my dream is still to meet a Christian woman and grow old together. But I’ll be 50 in a couple years, and it feels much too late for standards. Much too late for me. Who would want this mess?
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