How Being Mormon Influenced My Feminism

Growing up Mormon had its perks. The religion is very family-centered so growing up with 3 siblings and not being able to leave the house on Sundays forced us all to be friends. My siblings still love me (or are frightened of me?) enough to let me have shotgun every time I come home, so I'm grateful for that.

The religion also had its perks of shaming and scaring the living shit out of a young girl going through puberty and discovering her sexuality.

I never got the talk as a child, but I knew there was something shameful about the female body when I got in trouble for making my Barbie doll get naked with my best friend's doll in kindergarten.

I also sensed there was something truly horrific about sex when I was sent to bed when my mom turned Desperate Housewives on.

And after I discovered the miracle that is my vagina at the end of middle school, I can't tell you the number of times I prayed to dear Jesus to forgive me for my sins and cried with feelings of absolute disgust for my actions.

I got (obtained? captured? lassoed?) my first boyfriend freshman year of high school, the first in my group of Mormon friends, and suddenly I was isolated from my them because I was careening straight to hell, doomed for a life of adultery and lust because GOD FORBID I hold hands with a boy. Whenever my mom and I fought, I was given the "WELL UR NOT EVEN A VURGIN NE MORE" line as if to make me feel ashamed or less valuable. 5 years too early mom, so suck on that AY-YI-YI-YI-YI-YI! *jumps off stage and crowd surfs*

Little did my religious posse of family and friends know I was still fucking TERRIFIED of sex thinking my great granny would see me from up above and snitch on me to God. I vowed off kids because kids meant sex and sex meant letting some man defile my sacred temple of a body and that meant I WOULD ROT IN HELL 5EVER.

So, kudos to growing up Mormon for keeping me in my pants for fear that my vagina was Satan himself and for giving me an insanely inflated ego that made me believe I was a saint among jezebels, for a majority of my life. 

However, I will also attribute the glorious loss of my virginity to growing up Mormon. By scaring the living hail Mary out of me, my religious beliefs ensured I waited until I came across the right guy when I was emotionally mature enough and I swear Jesus himself came down while Dave Matthew's "Crash Into Me" was playing and was like "Kudos girl, this is a fine way to lose your virginity and begin your sexual exploration as a young adult woman. I'm proud."

I was pissed that I had wasted so much of my life loathing my body. So I had to re-learn my opinions and thoughts about sex; and it took me awhile. I had to learn not to treat it like something to hide and be ashamed of. Being proud of my sexuality became a key point in my belief in, and fight for, feminism. Because no little girl should be taught that her body is dirty. Because no young woman should be taught that sex is something she has to wait for and that she can't confidently initiate it herself. And because no woman should ever believe that virginity is an acceptable measure of her worth and beauty as a human being.