I'm submitting this to the October 2022 Carnival of Aces (which I am hosting). It's more of a purity/ repression/ vaginismus story than an asexuality story, but this is the story that's on my mind right now, so here it is. I think for those of us who are asexual and grew up in "purity culture" it can sometimes be hard to separate out which of your feelings/thoughts/beliefs come from your own asexuality and which come from being repressed- and the way I wrote this post focuses more on the "repression" aspect of my experience (though I would say that being able to successfully maintain that level of complete ignorance about anything sexual is a possible indication of just being naturally asexual).
Anyway, here it is, maybe some other asexuals can relate.
---
[content note: it's about vaginismus, which is a medical condition where the vagina won't open]
There's a scene from the 2021 Pixar movie "Luca" that I have some feelings about, since I grew up in purity culture and very strictly repressed myself because I was a "good girl."
Some background about the movie "Luca": Luca is a sea monster who lives in the ocean near a small Italian town. The sea monsters in this story have their own advanced society underwater which is sort of parallel to human society. Luca's mom teaches him that "land monsters" (humans) are dangerous and want to kill sea monsters, and therefore he is forbidden to even THINK of going to the surface. And then there's this scene:
Luca meets another sea monster boy, Alberto, who pulls him out of the water, onto the beach. As Luca flails around, screaming and panicking, Alberto just watches him, and then says, "First time?"
And Luca answers, "Of course it is! I'm a good kid!"
And wow that is relatable. Here's Luca, so extremely repressed and ignorant, who had worked hard his entire life to make sure he stayed ignorant. Totally unaware of what his body can do- when he comes out of the water, his fins and scales transform to look like human hair and skin. So completely shocked and horrified at the idea of being out of the water, and then he's just thrown into it and expected to be able to handle it.
And then there's me... I grew up in this Christian "sexual purity" ideology, where the most important thing about dating and marriage is that you NEED to be a virgin on your wedding day. And more than that- you need to have no experience with anything sexual at all. You shouldn't masturbate. You shouldn't have "lustful thoughts." Repress your sexual feelings completely until your wedding day.
(Same thing with romantic feelings- though I guess there's a little more freedom there, because at least you're allowed to be in love with your partner if you know you're going to marry them.)
I followed the rules about sex. Of course I did! I didn't have sex in high school or college. I didn't even consider it, think about it, imagine it. It was just some abstract faraway threat, looming in the background- I never thought of it as something that could actually be a real thing in my life. Never even considered it.
Never masturbated. Never even considered masturbating. Because, I had heard (from Christian teaching about sex) that masturbating was a sin, and you will probably become "addicted to masturbation" and it's just all bad.
I never thought about my own genitals. It's like they weren't even part of my life at all. The most awareness I had was when I occasionally tried to use tampons- but it was very much "taking a shot in the dark" rather than approaching it with a practical mindset about collecting the information I would need in order to insert the tampon correctly.
Better to just know nothing about your genitals at all. If you think about such things, then that curiosity might lead to *wanting* sex, which might lead to *having* sex, and that would just be the most horrible thing in the world.
For me, the moment I was pulled out of the water like Luca was this one time when I was sick and in the hospital, and the doctor wanted to do a transvaginal ultrasound. I don't know exactly why- I think there was some something that looked like it might be a problem and they just wanted to check it.
Anyway, so... like... ooof... I'm a good girl, right? I just do whatever the doctor tells me to do. And then suddenly the ultrasound technician is asking me why her ultrasound wand won't go into my vagina, as if I'm supposed to know? How would I know anything about that? I'm a good kid!
Like I'm trying to figure out what on earth is even happening here, and she's asking me why doesn't it work, how could I not know this, what about my sex life? And I'm just, beyond shocked, why would I have a sex life???? Why would anyone think I had a sex life???? (I was in my 20's...)
The ignorance you work so hard to maintain your whole life- keeping yourself so pure that you literally know nothing- and then suddenly it's working against you.
The ultrasound technician, completely shocked that I have no experience with putting things in my vagina, and me, completely shocked that someone would assume I had experience with that.
(And a similar thing happened when I eventually did start having sex with my partner- and I was expected to know what the problem was. Suddenly, my purity and ignorance were working against me. I had always been taught that if you know nothing about sex, that guarantees that you will have AMAZING sex. In a shocking twist, that's not true.)
It happened like this for me because I had vaginismus. But even for other pure girls who don't have that specific problem, I can imagine they also get thrown into situations where suddenly their purity and ignorance, which they worked so hard to maintain, are working against them.
[content note: discussion of rape. To skip it, scroll down to the picture of Luca watching his hand transform]
So... I have read blog posts about good pure girls who didn't know anything about their own genitals, until they were raped. Didn't even have the words to describe what had happened, because they had never been taught anything even close to actual useful sex ed.
Like imagine a rapist knowing more about your body than you do. And using that against you.
Fortunately that didn't happen to me. But I see that I was really vulnerable back then when I didn't know anything.
 |
| Luca looks wide-eyed at his hand as it transforms from having fishy scales to human skin. Image source. |
And I could keep this Luca-and-sex-ed metaphor going further: Luca meets Alberto, who is very confident and eager to teach Luca about the human world. But the audience can see that Alberto is actually wrong about A LOT of things. Luca has no idea, though, and just totally believes whatever Alberto tells him. Kinda like when you don't give kids any sex ed, they end up learning all kinds of misinformation from bad sources instead.
Obviously I am not saying this is what the movie is "really about" or anything like that. Just that it reminds me of my own experiences in some way.
Because wow, that scene where Luca is pulled out of the water for the first time, and he's completely scandalized by the idea that someone would think he should know what's going on- I've been there.
---
Related:
How Pregnancy and Childbirth Changed My Asexuality (or, actually, A Post About Vaginismus)
On Gynecologists and Angry Turtles
When the Teacher Says, "Don't Look at Your Report Card"
I Wanna Preach the Good News of Masturbation
On Purity, Asexuality, and Timing
They said it was about "valuing our bodies." That was a lie.
No comments:
Post a Comment