Masturbating as a Young Woman Within a Religion That Condemns Touching Yourself
Condemned by God and Parents: Releasing Shame and Secrecy
I used to touch myself in secret when I was a child.
Even as a child I had heard enough preached from the platform at our local congregation at the Kingdom Hall (I was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness) about sex and masturbation to know that my body was condemned by God for me to touch, but was to be saved for my future husband to touch when I was married.
But, I didn’t wait until marriage.
Usually at night, under the covers, my fingers would stray and find themselves inside my labia stroking, separating the folds, and rubbing. I never reached the point of orgasm and would often fall asleep with my fingers resting “down there” as a form of reassurance.
It was a form of self-soothing.
Comforting.
Here I am. I am here. I have a body. I am real. My body is real, and I can feel it.
Being sexually abused by my pop between the ages of 4 to 9 years old I had become used to an adult violating my physical and sexual boundaries.
I didn’t know back then it was called sexual abuse or sexual assault. I just knew I must never talk about it or everyone would think I was dirty and bad. I felt that my hands had “made” my granddad do bad things to my brother.
My body had enticed my pop. I had somehow made his hands touch me, and then touch my brother in ways that made me run and hide while he carried on abusing my younger brother in the bathroom.
But first, my pop always starts with me.
He would get me to rub him with my hands, and I would focus on the talcum powder of my nana that lay scattered on the bathroom floor in little white specks under the sink. I would focus on that and the black and white tiles until my pop would suddenly remove my hands, hold them up in the air, his erection in front of my face and say, “Look what you have done to me.”
Then he would sexually abuse my little brother.
My mother took my little brother to the doctor as his bowel had collapsed and was protruding outside of his body.
He was four years old. I was nearly seven.
The doctor thought it was because he had just started kindergarten and was reluctant to use the bathroom at school and so was getting constipated and straining to use the toilet when he came home.
He didn’t realize my little brother didn’t like bathrooms because a toilet/bathroom is where we were abused, and where I “made” my pop’s body do things with my hands, that hurt my brother.
I would sit inside the coat cupboard in the hallway at my grandparents flat completely disassociated holding onto the latch inside the door to try and stop anyone from opening it, my face lost in the coats and jackets hanging up and my feet and knees crouched and hunched over the shoes lining the bottom of the cupboard.
My legs would go numb, and I would lose all feeling in my feet, which would turn into blocks of concrete. Eventually, my grandmother would return from wherever she had gone and would pull me out of the cupboard and rock me on the ground in the hallway, my face pressed into her massive bosom as she would whisper in my hair, “your a strange little one, you’re a funny little thing.”
But I didn’t feel funny.
I felt bad and confused, and the pressure in my chest would build and build until I just wanted to disappear. And I did.
Touching myself at night in the privacy of my bedroom and the dark, under the covers was my way of “checking” nothing was damaged — my way of trying to understand why my pop was so interested in “down there” and feeling and exploring my body to try and make sense of it all.
But I never really could.
As I turned 13 and once I had started my periods the sensations and urges within my body as I touched myself grew stronger.
I was an avid reader. I read a book I had brought home from the school library that in words described a young girl reaching orgasm by masturbation.
I was fascinated.
I knew masturbation or touching my private parts was condemned by God. Jehovah’s Witnesses had plenty to say from the platform (by men in suits, white shirts, and ties) over the years, for me to understand in my young mind that my body was not my own — it was not made for MY enjoyment. It was purely for my husband.
If I allowed anyone else to touch my body before I was married, or if I felt myself, then God who knew everything done in secret was aware and would destroy me at Armaggedon and would condemn me.
I lived in fear always as I knew God knew what I was doing. I already felt condemned in my heart, mind, and body.
After I had read the book from the school library detailing in beautiful language the absolute ecstasy to be experienced by dipping my fingers into olive oil and rubbing the pea-like protrusion at the top of my labia and penetrating and pushing my fingers inside of me to create an “orgasm” I decided I needed to try this.
I wanted to know what it felt like as I knew I was condemned and was already going to die, so I thought that I might as well die knowing what it was all about.
I got some olive oil from the kitchen and put some in a small jar when my parents were not around. I had some tampons from my mother’s room (I was only allowed pads to wear when I had periods), but I knew about tampons from overhearing other girls who had been allowed to go to sex education at school. I read the back of the box in my mother’s drawer next to her bed when she was not around, so I knew how to use them. I went and got one of them.
I waited until my parents were not in the house and I pushed my clothes drawers against my door so no one could open the door without me knowing. I opened the lid on the jar with the olive oil, and I removed the tampon from the paper enclosing it and put it on the floor. I removed my underpants.
I lay on the floor like had been described in the book. I let my legs flop open and spread out. I rubbed the oil slowly where I thought I could feel my clitoris. I rubbed and rubbed. I could feel the sensation building. I kept squeezing my legs together as the tension built then allowed my legs to flop wide open again. I increased the pressure and the speed of my rubbing.
The explosion of absolute pleasure and release of tension when it came throbbed up between my legs and into my pelvis and down my legs. I shuddered and shook and lay panting on the floor. Tears silently rolled from my eyes.
I rolled onto my side still half naked and bunched my legs up and just lay there until the shaking stopped and my breathing and heart quieted down.
I knew I would be doing it again.
It was the most amazing and most beautiful feeling physically I had ever experienced in my life. I was crying with sadness for my guilt and sin and also pleasure and heartfelt relief for what my body had just experienced.
The ambivalence was overwhelming.
I had stopped halfway through rubbing oil on my clitoris and inserted the tampon inside of me. I had succeeded in inserting it after oiling up the outside of the tampon and slowly stretching and pushing it into my vagina until it hurt. I would stop and then slowly push and insert it again. In this way, I had slowly stretched the opening to my vagina without causing any harm to myself. I had put the tampon aside after a while and had concentrated solely on rubbing my clitoris until I reached orgasm.
The second time I masturbated my clitoris, I sellotaped together the cardboard, so it stuck to the tampon and didn’t slide back down into the cardboard. It was longer this way, and I figured it more closely was the length of an erect penis although not the width. I slowly inserted and withdrew the tampon in my vagina until I could push it all the way inside of me.
I found it awkward laying on my back trying to do it, and so I crouched over my dad’s shaving mirror I had brought into the room from the bathroom and watched as I slowly inserted the tampon into me. I rubbed my clitoris until I could feel the sensations building. I knew I wanted a vaginal orgasm as had been described in the book, so I inserted the tampon and pushed it inside me as far as it would go. The end of the tampon extended within the cardboard hit my cervix (although I didn’t know it was called this at the time)-I just knew that the tampon hit the top of my vagina and could not penetrate any further inside of me.
I slowly moved it in and out of me. I felt the tension rise. I knew I needed to change position as I desperately wanted to open my knees and legs as wide as they could go as the sexual tension rose up in me from between my legs. I lay back down on the ground and opened my legs wide. With one hand I rubbed my clitoris with the oil on my fingers, increasing the pressure and speed and experimenting with going up and down and also around in circles.
I delighted in the sensations and the ability I had to slow down and speed up and prolong the pleasure.
I thrust the tampon inside of me pumping it in and out fast as the pleasure in my clitoris was climaxing. Having my vaginal muscles clamp down on the tampon at the same time as the orgasm from my clitoris nearly made my heart stop it was so powerful.
I lay with my knees clenched after they had been open in the air up until the point of orgasm and I could feel the throbbing inside of my vagina in time with my heartbeat slowly dissipate. My breathing and heartbeat slowly returned to normal.
I could not believe my body could bring me such pleasure.
I wondered:
Why should my future unknown husband be the only one allowed to do this to me?
It was MY body, so why couldn’t I bring pleasure to myself?
Was it really true that my body would be weakened by masturbation?
Would I be unable to have children because I was masturbating regularly as I had been taught?
Was I “dirty” doing this to myself?
Why was I dirty if God had made my body and created my body to do this?
Why was it okay for someone else to do this to me and it not be “dirty” and not me do it to myself?
What if I never married?
Did this mean someone who never married must never experience this pleasure?
At this time I was not aware that some married women never experienced orgasm with their husbands.
I was 13/14 years old and had been touching myself for pleasure although not up to the point of orgasm for years.
Finally understanding and gaining awareness of the world of sexual pleasure with my body awakening hormonally and growing and developing plus having access to material describing sexual arousal had opened up a whole new world to me.
It was a world of sexual pleasure and release that helped me cope on and off for years not just up to my marriage but also through my marriage and into the present day.
Masturbation was a gift to me, but also was a source of great guilt and shame due solely to the teachings of the “church” and the inaccurate information I was unintentionally given by my mother.
My mother had told me that men were more sexually “needing” and that a woman was to please her husband (although no information on how to actually “please” was given).
I wondered if I was normal when I experienced such desire and need for sexual release and pleasure?
I wondered if it was true that only men were sexually needy then was I abnormal?
Did other women feel sexual desire and urges the way that I felt them?
I had so many questions and no way to get answers.
After my mother had found the book from the school library in my possession, she had taken it back to the school with me, demanded to see the headmistress and asked for the book to be removed from the library as it “was filth” and encouraged “promiscuity.”
The headmistress had gently and kindly explained to my mother that artistic expression of sexual pleasure whether in art or a novel was essential to be made available to young people to normalize the experience as it was completely normal for young people to feel these things and it was vital for them not to feel guilty.
I remember how important it was for me to hear her say this, at a time when I wanted the floor to open up and for me to disappear under it as my mother was forcefully saying how disgusting the book was I had brought home. In my mind if my mother thought the book was disgusting enough to take me to the school and make a scene in front of the headmistress, what would she feel about me if I confessed what I was doing in secret? I already knew she would think I was disgusting so I stayed quiet. The shame increased. The secrecy remained. All my secrets stayed secret.
I was confused by the messages I was given in comparison to the pure pleasure I felt in my own body.
It would be years before I resolved the ambivalence and would be able to let go the guilt fully and enjoy sexual experiences without shame, guilt, and secrecy surrounding them.
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