In December, the lovely Diva wrote me a guest post that snagged a mention on Five Star Friday and also caused some controversy with some of the Internets because of its sexual nature. The controversy was focused on the issue of whether my blog is pornographic or merely risqué.

I found this question intriguing, because over the past year, sex has started seeping into my writing, and yes, at times, it is a bit risqué. However, you may be interested to know that in the early days of my blog, sex was never mentioned. (You can check the archives if you want, but consider yourself warned: nothing racy going on there.)

The reason it wasn’t mentioned is I felt uncomfortable typing anything remotely suggestive on the screen. I’ve always been a very sexual person, but for many years, I struggled with how to express that side of myself. I felt trapped in the middle of the virgin/whore dichotomy, full of ambivalence about my sexuality. I flipped between wanting to be seen as “the good girl” and acting like “the naughty girl.” Somehow, I wanted them both. But how do you walk that line?

My relationship with my sexuality is made even more complicated by the fact that I was sexually abused at a very young age. Sexual abuse changes who you are. It changes the way you experience your body in every possible way: the way you see yourself in the mirror, the way you feel inside your skin, the way you relate to other people, personally and sexually.

And if that weren’t enough, I was also raised by an overprotective religious fundamentalist mother. We never spoke about sex in our home. When my brother and I asked where babies came from, we were given a long talk about the female menstrual cycle and how the sperm and egg came together to make a baby. If we asked how the sperm and egg got together, the lecture was repeated once more with no further details.

To make things even more uncomfortable and unhelpful, from the time I was 10 years old on, every time I left the house, my mother called out, “Keep yourself pure.”

Because that shit is not going to fuck you up. At all.

Yeah. Good times.

The message I got from my mother, literally on a daily basis, was sexuality is evil, unless you’re married. So, until then, it might as well not exist, unless you want to burn in hell for eternity. Combine that with a lack of sexual education, and you end up with a very confused and anxiety-ridden adolescent gal.

I remember the first time I masturbated. It was completely unintentional, since I had no idea what masturbation was or how my body worked. I was 12 years old and I was having problems falling asleep one night, so I just started touching myself out of boredom. Hmmm…haven’t really touched that before. Next thing I knew, there was this explosion of light and my body was convulsing, out of control. I was terrified. Something was horribly wrong with me. Why was my body doing this?

But it felt kinda cool, so I did it again, and again, and again. At 12, I became a compulsive masturbator, taking extra time in the bathroom, sneaking off to my room to “read”, and making sure that there was always a blanket on top of me when I was watching TV with my family. (Oh, yeah, I totally did it with other people in the room. That’s how hooked I was. They had no clue.)

Sounds like typical pre-teen sexual behaviour, yes? Well, the difference is each time I did it, I felt immense guilt and was convinced that God hated me and I was going straight to hell. Afterward, I would bargain with God, beg forgiveness and promise I would never, ever do it again. Until the next time I felt powerless to resist the urges. Whenever anything bad happened, I was sure God was punishing me for my horrible, horrible sin. This continued throughout my teens.

Some women who were sexually abused and/or raised by religious fundamentalists turn into real rebels. Others withdraw and comply with their parents’ religious beliefs. I fell somewhere in the middle. Part of me was afraid – in fact, I went through a phase (years, really) where I saw penises as weapons – and part of me was very sexual and just wanted to cut loose and be free.

I have always felt pulled between those two extremes – fighting against the repression of my childhood and struggling with others’ perceptions and judgements when I express myself.

A few years ago, I found this quote in a Katherine Mansfield story that has become a sort of mantra for me: “Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?”

Now that I’m in my 30s, now that I’ve found an amazing man that I trust and love, it feels like it’s time to open the case and play that fiddle. I don’t want to be ashamed anymore. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I just want to be.

And while some people may not be comfortable with it, this is who I am. This is how I write on my blog. I am neither a virgin nor a whore.

I’m just Savia.

Originally posted as a guest post on I Am the Diva on May 30, 2008.