I love your work and admire what you've done. I've got a question, its personal so don't feel bad not answering it! Basically, I was raised being told constantly that, if I had sex before marriage, I'd go to Hell and I'd be a whore. I'm 20 now, and I don't follow the church anymore. I'm a feminist through and through. And I want to have sex. But every time I get the chance, I get too scared. I think about going to Hell, and I think I'll be a whore. How can I be less scared? I'm brainwashed. — Asked by Anonymous

First of all, thank you so much for the support and kind words. :)

So, though I imagine you know this already (at least intellectually, if not emotionally) - you are not going to go to hell if you have sex and you will not be a “whore.” That doesn’t mean, of course, that those feelings of shame that you were indoctrinated with are going to go away on their own. I think the more you educate yourself - and perhaps the more you speak to other people who were raised in a similar fashion but have gone on to have healthy meaningful sex lives - the better you’ll feel. Perhaps some of my lovely Tumblr followers have words of wisdom?

I’d also suggest going to Scarleteen, which is an invaluable resource on sex; specifically checking out their First Intercourse 101 and Sex Readiness Checklist. Best of luck, and thanks so much for sharing your story…

19 notes

Show

  1. brieana90 said: I think Lacigreen from youtube made a video on masturbation in which she explained about how she was brought up to feel ashamed of her sexuality and how she got past that. Personally, I still struggle with the sex thing.
  2. archivist777 said: It took me until I was 26 to rid my brain of that ideology. For me, what worked was thinking and researching through the reasons that premarital sex is okay and becoming confident in my beliefs. I still maintained my faith, but it’s different now.
  3. somuchdependsupon said: I’d suggest to Anon that she (or he) also check out several blogs on the subject around the interwebs: Love, Joy, Feminism is a great one to start with. I’d also recommend “Sex and God” by Darrel Ray.
  4. jessicavalenti posted this