Purity

I just remembered. So my family wasn't big into the purity culture thing as far as I know. They never forbade me to date or anything. I don't remember them even telling me to save sex until after marriage, although I know they would have been livid if I had been having sex. I should talk about my teenage years later. Note to self, that.

So I never did the purity ball or the ring or anything. But one time in the Christian school, might have been during that sex ed/charm school crap from the previous post, I had to sign a purity agreement.

Now, my memory has some tunnel vision on this. I know I can't have been the only girl there. I wasn't singled out. But I only remember myself, the paper in front of me, and the teacher was droning about something. I don't remember anyone else around me. I don't even remember what the paper looked like or what it said or if we all signed one and passed it around or each had our own.

So I signed it. I can't remember what my reasoning was at the time, but I remember that I took it very seriously. It was a vow, after all, and you can't go back on a vow because that's sin. So I signed it, and I was very proud of my virginity for a very long time. When I got to high school, I kind of subtly lorded it over my friends who'd had sex. Mind you, they lorded it over me that they weren't virgins, too, so it was more of a good-natured ribbing among us.

But it was around that time, high school, that I also started to feeling a little ashamed of it. I wondered what I was missing out on. Didn't have enough interest to find out, but that was when I started to wish I could be like other people.