My ex. For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was giving sex; I felt I was having it. He made me comfortable enough to be expressive about my desires and I gradually unlearnt shame and guilt. Always reminded me that I had agency, and I knew right then freedom is golden. https://twitter.com/lolo_cy/status/1248518082320097282

Prior to him I’d had some sexual encounters but I always ended up feeling pangs of guilt, first as a woman, and second, as a religious woman. There was either displeasure or dissatisfaction or both, and even though I kinda hated sex, I kept seeking that one thing I couldn’t find.

Until I met this guy. The first time he tried to kiss me, I didn’t grant consent and he immediately withdrew. Said it was okay, and even apologized for making me feel uncomfortable. It was something I found strange. A man taking no for no. I’d gotten used to the opposite, sadly.

Not to talk of the fact that before then, we’d spend long hours talking in my room or in his house, sometimes into midnight, and he always respected his boundaries.

I was still battling with my novel feminist views and my very religious upbringing, and he knew, understood, and always listened. Actually, the first conversation we ever had was on feminism, and for the first time, I didn’t feel the need to suppress myself or pretend.

I didn’t feel like I was going crazy for thinking that I’m equal to any man; in fact, he told me that I was teaching him a lot too and that I should never hold anything back. We had actual, proper conversations and I knew he wasn’t faking anything.

So yeah, all these events led me to having the first ever sex that didn’t feel like a sin. That didn’t make me feel unclean or guilty. That didn’t make me feel like I was being robbed of some form of dignity, or that my body count was exploding.

We even laughed and cuddled ourselves to sleep afterwards. It was different and empowering for me, because it was also the first time I felt true sexual pleasure.

In my sexual encounters before him, I never knew that I had the ability to orgasm or squirt, but the comfort that came with having sex with him led to those special discoveries (special indeed). I remember the first time I told him that I masturbated. He burst out laughing.

I had said it in such a way that made it seem like a big deal. Like some gross, sinful act that I’d gotten into, and he talked me through it and made me understand that it was entirely normal. Even encouraged me to do more in order to discover more about my body.

Gradually, I unlearnt seeing sex as a degrading act of sin. I began to see it as a natural, pleasurable experience and the more I unlearnt this, the more I enjoyed sex, and the freedom that I felt became a transferable feeling that shaped other aspects of my life.

There is this grave shame and guilt that women are conditioned to live with as a result of purity culture which builds scars on their sexual experiences. We talk about it but we don’t talk about it enough.

How we end up feeling dirty afterwards. How we sometimes can’t look our sexual partners in the face because we don’t want them to see the shame in our eyes. How we spend long hours in the shower trying to wash off the impurity.

How it feels like something was “taken” from us.

This is what purity culture does to us. Makes us feel dirty and guilty for something that is entirely normal and natural; robbing us of guilt-free sexual experiences. And sometimes the guilt is so heavy that we spend days praying for forgiveness.

On the one hand, you’re battling the culture of feminine purity. And on the other hand, you’re battling the stronghold that religion has on you; the one that makes you cry out to God in prayer, when all you have done is simply have sex, but “fornication”, they call it. A bad sin.

It’s even worse for queer people, because this particular“sin” is different from the others. The feeling of dirtiness haunts and consumes you for so long. You aren’t only fornicating; you’re participating in the worst form of it, and you begin to wonder if you’re possessed.

I didn’t mean to make this long ass thread but I just wanted to highlight how empowering (sexual) freedom is. How cultural and religious norms have damaged some of us and why it is essential to be liberated from these shackles.

Most women (especially in our part of the world) were raised like me and robbed of the innocence of plain sexual desire, and each time, it was a bland mixture of shame, pleasure, guilt, want, dirt, and sometimes emptiness.

On a good day, I’ll talk about how damaging this culture is to most (female) rape victims, and how they have to struggle for a great part of their (sexual) lives reliving the trauma and never feeling enough.

I’ll also talk about how sex doesn’t automatically feel normal or sinless because you’re now a married woman, even if your husband is your first. The feelings of disillusionment and dissatisfaction that purity culture brings upon even married women and why we must fight it.

Well, until then.