Chapter 2 - Puberty

Let’s talk about sex! “Let’s talk about sex baby, let’s talk about you and me.. “ cue in music.

Okay not literally, but how about we start by talking about puberty.

Picture this - 10 year old Peta, grossly averse to anything feminine (I’ll explain this in more detail later) suddenly waking up one morning to discover I’m bleeding.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, going through puberty is an awkward and uncomfortable time for any young person - but let me assure you, going through puberty as a young female in a religious cult is a whole other ball game.

So what did I do about it? Well naturally - not having been told any prior knowledge of puberty, or female bodies, or literally anything to do with sex - I assumed I was dying and hid any knowledge of the event from my family.

I mean, why should I alarm my family of my impeding doom when to be perfectly honest, I was already well prepared for my death. I knew where I was headed - paradise baby! And it sure as hell would be better than this gloomy existence I called home.

That’s a pretty disturbing realisation to be frank. To look back and see my child self as fully prepared for death.

How is it that a 10 year old girl can have such strong beliefs about dying you might ask.

Well, to answer that question will take us on a huge tangent, so how about we come back to the puberty thing first and I’ll answer the morbid details of this question later.

So there am I, slowly waiting to die when all of a sudden - you’ll never guess this part - the bleeding stops.

It’s a miracle! I’ve survived! That is until I get pulled aside by mum one day and asked about why my underwear was soaked in blood.

I think I would’ve preferred the death option at that point.

So there you have it, the cat is out of the bag and now I have to sit down with both of my parents and hear about the miracle of reproduction.

Mind you, up until this point, I had no knowledge about what sex even was. My whole understanding of sex was just a movie scene getting fast forwarded and a scoff from my dad if the remote didn’t work fast enough.

I had no knowledge of the fact that sex is 100% allowable (and actually pretty fucking awesome)

and that people have sex all the time.

Fuck, even my parents had sex! What a truly shocking revelation.

So, I get the sex talk. All the technical details about how reproduction works and females have eggs and blah blah blah and that once you are married you will have sex with your husband and overall nothing whatsoever about anything that might have actually been helpful to me in my sexuality.

Let me make one disclaimer - I do not hold any of this against my parents as I am fully aware that they 100% did the best they could in the controlled environment we lived. I just wish to point out how much ignorance there was , especially for women, in relation to sexual practices.

Not once was there ever any conversation in youth group about safe sex. Not once did we hear any information about consensual sex.

Not once was there any mention of sexual preferences (obviously homosexuality was not even a consideration unless you wanted to burn in hell).

Not once was there any discussion of female pleasure and the importance of enjoying sex!

No, sex was just something that was done for the sheer purpose of fulfilling your womanly purpose and making babies.

At least that was the gist of what I understood.

And before you start to think that I would’ve been taught these things in school, I will just point out that all of the kids in this church were homeschooled.

Sex was in fact such a taboo topic that my eldest sister recounts a story of her asking her first serious boyfriend at age 26 how can a penis fit into a vagina.

Not once was there any conversation about harassment and having the ability to say no.

In fact, the church bred a culture of women being powerless, voiceless and 100% to blame if harassment did occur, because don’t you know that you’ve made your brother in Christ sin by being attractive.

I remember hearing the phrase often “don’t complain that you attract pigs if you choose to dress like you’re in mud”

In other words, if you dress in any revealing way you have no ability to say no or speak out against harassment.

Slut shaming and victim blaming at its finest.

Throw in some misogyny to the mix and you’ve got yourself a nice little cocktail for sexual harassment.

I know personally of a woman who experienced a serious sexual assault whilst being a member in the church , but instead of being encouraged to speak up and report it, she was told to keep quiet because it was shameful that she was no longer a virgin.

And while that is not my story to tell, fuck It makes my blood boil to think about it!

Because you see that’s where it starts-

The glances from middle aged men that would linger a little too long.

The scrutinised look from the older women making sure that your dress was past your knees and your sleeves were to the elbow.

The modesty (modesty as in how you should dress, not humility) lectures we had to attend about how women have more shape to their body and as such need to be completely covered and obscured to avoid tempting the men in the church.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

Not to mention the extreme lengths we had to go to maintain this “modesty”

Doing the “modesty test” when buying clothes which essentially just meant that you would bend over, touch your toes , spin around, lift your arms, and make sure that not once your skin was exposed.

This test was of course for the purpose of ensuring you could freely worship without destroying your modesty.

The private one -to-one sessions me and my sisters were blessed with receiving from the pastor’s wife about how to be ladylike and holy.

This privilege of course was only due to the fact that my Dad was the assistant pastor and pretty much ran the church while the pastor enjoyed his tithes and offerings from his private manor.

Women were not allowed to dye their hair, bleach their hair, have short or medium length hair, have piercings, wear makeup, wear pants or shorts, wear bikinis, have tattoos, essentially have any type of individual expression.

At one stage me and my sisters even had to wear these very ugly (and I mean very ugly) swimming dresses when swimming so that we didn’t tempt anyone in our board shorts.

This rule was later revoked on the premise that the water served as a sufficient covering for our bodies…

And although all of these rules and mentalities could seemingly be twisted into something good, protective even, where does it end?

I’ll tell you where - in sexual assault and rape being swept under the rug because the woman must have been to blame…

The crazy thing about this is that if you ask any domestic violence counsellor about patriarchal views and mentalities, I’m sure every single one of them would say they had heard something similar from a victim.

These type of victim blaming and slut shaming views may seem trivial but they can escalate into something extremely dangerous.

You see, it breeds a culture of objectifying and disempowering women, not to mention it justifies men’s shitty behaviour because don’t you know that men just can’t control themselves.

I also want to point out how a majority of these rules were aimed at women.

I quite literally used to pray and ask God why does he hate me, because he made me a girl and all I wanted was to be free.

Maybe the men in this group knew that if the women realised their potential and power they wouldn’t be able to control them any longer. And maybe, just maybe, the women might actually fight back, or god forbid, leave.

Fuck, a girl can dream hey.

So there you have it folks - my puberty experience in a nutshell. The moment I started to menstruate these rules become further enforced upon me.

I recall getting in trouble off my dad when I was 10 for swimming in my crop top and bikini bottoms in our own personal pool because I was now too old to be wearing such things.

If I could go back to those times I think I would just hold little 10 year old Peta.

I think I would tell her that females are so fucking strong and powerful!

I think I would tell her that her body is something beautiful and not something that needs to be hidden.

I think I would tell her that being a woman is amazing, that she doesn’t need to cry herself to sleep begging for God to make her a man.

I think I would tell her that harassment is not her fault and she can say no to men if she doesn’t want their attention!

I think I would tell her that she will be a virgin when she marries at age 23 and have completely unsatisfying sex until she divorces at age 24.

I think I would tell her that she will struggle for years to say no to men, but eventually she will find her voice and her boundaries again.

I think I will tell her that she will fall in love with her body, that she will feel strong and beautiful and that she will love to radiate her feminine energy.

I think I will tell her that she will explore her sexuality and discover pansexuality after years of homophobic beliefs being drilled into her.

I think I would simply tell her, life does get better.