My sexual neurosis was in full bloom by the time I reached puberty. I call it ‘sexual schizophrenia’ because I feel that throughout my life I’ve attempted to dissociate my sexuality from my personality. I’m fairly certain my struggles with sexuality were born from this traumatic experience. Also, from this moment on, my brain connected having pleasurable sensations with evil, guilty feelings. Having sex caused me enormous amount of pain in the form of bullying. In my child mind, having sex was equated with being evil, dirty and hideous. Many nights I would kneel down by my bed before I went to sleep and promise to “God” (I didn’t believe in “God” really, but during these moments, I pretended to***) that I would never have sex again with anyone.
That was the beginning of my sexual schizophrenia. Every day they insinuated that I was a whore. They called me bad names and terrorized me by singing a tormenting song. It was one of the worst moments in my childhood.Įvery day after the event, my friends teased me relentlessly at school and at home. I was made to feel like I had committed a crime. My body was shocked and filled with shame, horror and regret. In a millisecond, we disengaged then I froze in terror. “My little annnnnnnngggggggggggggggelllllllllllllll!” It must have looked incredibly freaky and disturbing. Right at the moment when the boy’s penis was inside me, his mother opened the door to his bedroom and found us standing there with our pants down, encircled by the other kids. I was a shy child, easily influenced by others. And I can’t remember how I decided to “do it.” I don’t know if I was pressured by the other kids or just decided to do it on my own. Someone dared us to “do it.” Of course, I didn’t know what “do it” meant. We ended up having sex with each other because of a dare. Here’s where the terror sets in: we were encircled by other kids of varying ages, including some who were around 12 years old. All he did was stick his thing into my thing while we were standing up, with our pants down. We didn’t lay on top of each other or kiss. The definition of sex for this story: his penis went into my vagina. It took place in his bedroom at his house. In my community, I had sex when I was 8 years old with a boy who was also 8 years old. My grandmother, a firm RLDS believer, thought that dancing was the work of the devil. Sex, cigaretttes and booze were all taboo in there. But I lived in an RLDS community for my entire childhood, surrounded by both religious zealots and well-meaning Christians. This particular religion didn’t make a lot of sense to me as a child, so I never joined it. At an early age I was told by adults in this community that I was going to hell because I would frequently respond with a “No” when asked the question, “Do you believe in God?” My parents decided to let me and my brother decide for ourselves if we wanted to join the RLDS church or not.