Sex Lives chronicles the evolution of one person’s sexual history. This week: Jonathan, 32, in Seattle.
I found out about porn on my own from our family computer; I stumbled into some stuff that was downloaded by either my older brother or my dad. I was raised very anti-sex-out-of-marriage, very religious. Porn was very sinful. Masturbation was sinful. I grew up with three brothers, so like we were all doing it but no one was walking about it. I drank the Kool Aid on the surface, but I just kept it a secret. I remember taking JCPenney catalogs that would come with the Sunday newspaper and taking the lingerie section to my room. That was probably my first “porn.”
I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness; it was like a cult. I couldn’t have friendships with people who didn’t go to my church. My dad was a little more lenient than my mom and other parents in the church, so he would let us play public school sports. But I still never went to a high school party or to a friend’s house unless they were in my church. And there was only one family that had kids my age, so that was the only friend’s house I ever went to. But because I went to public school—I was in Vermont, in a very liberal town, and I went to a pretty artsy school—I did get sex ed in 7th and 8th grade. They’d talk about sex and masturbating and I remember other kids sharing their experiences in class and just being blown away—and also silent because that was unheard of in my family.
I was probably 21 when I lost my virginity and it was to a coworker I’d gotten close to throughout that year, and we started hanging out more. I was more independent then than when I was a kid. I lost my virginity to her, but we did oral and messed around before we actually had penetrative sex. I felt super guilty afterward. Not because I was afraid of God or felt like I did something wrong, but because I knew I had to keep it a secret. I lived in a small town and all my aunts and uncles and cousins lived so close to us, so I couldn’t just hang out with this person or go out to dinner without being seen. So I felt guilty; it just made me feel bad. We continued to date and I left Vermont later that summer.
I ended up marrying her and later we got divorced, but I’m jumping ahead. She was not in the church, so I very much had to throw that part of my life away. When we got married in 2015, my parents wouldn’t come to the wedding. My brothers wouldn’t come to the wedding. Marrying someone outside of the church is viewed as you having sinned, so they basically cut you off from your life if you’re not in the church anymore.
Sophia Benoit
Source link