How romance novels brought me sexual healing and happiness

Marrying my husband was the greatest stupid decision I ever made. Let me explain.

I was raised in an abusive, conservative religious home. My parents taught me that I was dirty and bad because I was female. Essentially, women are the scourge of the earth because of their sexual ability to bring men to their knees. We are Kryptonite to the man's otherwise supernatural sexual control. I was taught that men are born strong and dominant because they are equipped with all powerful magic wands . . . ahem . . . penises. Women are born flawed. They have holes. I wish this was fiction.

Actually, I was not allowed to show my knees.

In my last post, I wrote about the way I used romance novels to learn about my body. I was never given a proper sexual education. I was taught to receive, that I was a catcher's mitt for male desire. It was made clear to me through threats and physical violence that should I ever engage a man other than the one I married sexually, I would be kicked out of my home after being beaten where I would be left for hypersexual men to prey on me. I was told men have a sixth sense about deflowered girls, so they would know immediately that I was easy and they would come for me and it would be my fault.

I was also told my only hope would be to get pregnant by one of the men who raped me and be able to prove it so they would be forced to financially care for me.

Forget being an intelligent young woman with talents outside being born with a vagina. I was a stupid siren who deserved bad experiences.

Marriage was the way out.

I was extremely lucky to have stumbled across my husband in high school. While his background was significantly different than mine, he loved me and we worked together to find a way our marriage could be allowed. He ended up converting to my sect and demonstrating to my parents that he was a capable and devoted caretaker. Together, we petitioned them to allow us to marry. I'm still not sure how it happened, but it did. We got married in our teens. It was stupid and reckless and the only way we could see to get me out of a house where I was being abused.

I am not the only woman I know who did this. Allowing me to marry was my parents' way of giving the responsibility of me to someone else. Now, if I failed, my failures were my husband's to tend and would weigh him down in the afterlife. At this point, you may be starting to understand why I no longer believe in God and have a strong dislike for religion. Every hateful belief of my parents, while not a result of their religion, was reinforced by it.

I brought their indoctrination to my marriage. I can attest that nothing makes for a less exciting sex life than the belief that a woman is meant to spread her legs and wait while her husband gets the job done. As a couple, we were both saddened. I was afraid of sex. I had no desire because my intuitive understanding of the act had been squashed. There was no such thing as connection or intimacy. I was a tool for a man's pleasure. Fortunately for me, my husband's love was genuine, as was his desire for intimate connection.

I was afraid when he asked for more. That fear led me to a therapist and then romance novels. Why the books? My therapist said that sex was natural and meant to be enjoyable. When I mentioned some of the fantasies I had that I believed to be dark and horrific (multiple partners, being overpowered or tied up, whipping my partner, etc), she told me there were entire books written about these fantasies and encouraged me to explore them. Maybe if I read about others enjoying sex, I could chip away are the wall of damage my parents had built around the topic.

Reading the books was a very guilty pleasure. It was terrifying to be aroused by the actions in the stories. It took an enormous amount of work and about three years of reading before I stopped feeling ashamed and began responding to my own desires. Romance novels truly offered me a sexual education. One I doubt I would have received if I hadn't recklessly married as a teen to escape my family.