“Growing Up Female in the Bible Belt” is a collection of true stories that come from several different women, including myself. All the women I interviewed were cisgender, heterosexual, white women raised in churches located in Kansas City, St. Louis, or Springfield, Missouri. For the sake of anonymity, I have changed names and combined all of our stories into one composite memoir. They could just as well be the stories of one woman, though, as I have found a consistent ability to talk ceaselessly with these women about such experiences, our memories welling up from an inexhaustible source, the damage done seemingly endless.
Growing Up Female in the Bible Belt
1
Our lips were fuschia from cherry slushies at the gas station. The sky was hot, bright, brutal. It was summer in the suburbs, and my friend Alex and I were walking back to her parents’ house with her older sister Laurel. Alex was wearing tiny red shorts. She was on the swim team. Her lean, tan legs were on full display. I remember being surprised that she left the house in shorts that short. I silently disapproved. The whistling sounded suddenly from a big, cream-colored pickup truck full of white men with long hair and 5 ‘o’clock shadows. They must’ve been in their 30s. “You ladies need a date tonight?” they howled as they slowed for a stop sign. Laurel flipped them off and they yipped even louder. We giggled gleefully behind her. We thought she was being uptight. We’d never been catcalled before, and it seemed like a flattering coming-of-age badge. Laurel was 14. We were 12.
2 For weeks, my parents had been hinting that they’d gotten me something really big this year for my thirteenth birthday. I was hoping for a dog. We gathered in the living room after chocolate cake. They both looked so excited. My dad handed me a small box. I could tell by their faces that this was the big one. I tore into the light pink paper, thinking it must be a cellphone. But the paper revealed a jewelry box. Nestled inside was a beautiful ring--silver and gold with my ruby birthstone in the center. I knew right away that it must have been expensive. My parents explained to me that it was a purity ring. Now that I was getting older, I might begin to face new temptations, and so might the boys around me. Wearing the ring was meant to remind me to resist those temptations. In the same way that an engagement ring symbolizes commitment to a fiancé, the purity ring was a symbol of my commitment to God. I was supposed to look at that ring and be reminded that my body did not belong to me. It belonged to God. Because the Holy Spirit lived inside me, my body was His temple. Living a sinful life would corrupt this temple. The dangers of smoking or drinking were rarely emphasized, though; neither was an encouragement to eat healthily or exercise more. No, it seemed that the chief worry for everyone in the church, the most dangerous corrupter, was sex before marriage. Not every girl in my youth group had a purity ring, but many of us did. A lot of girls planned to wear them precisely up until the moment that they eventually got engaged, a life development that we were already pining for at age thirteen. We were taught to keep journals for our future husband, to pray for him every day, and to remember always that every boy we so much as kissed on the cheek was a subtraction from the dowry of fresh-faced physical value we could, at long last, eventually offer to our sweet and holy man of God. Some girls even inherited their purity rings from their own mothers, women who had laid their rings aside when their virginal treasure was used up by their husbands on their wedding nights and their value left to be found elsewhere. So it was that generation after generation, commitment to God the Father would be replaced by a commitment to another man. An engagement ring tells other men to stay away--she belongs to somebody else. The purity ring told me that there was no right time, even outside of a relationship, for a woman to belong to herself.
3 In the fall I went on a weekend trip where they separated the boys and the girls. They showed us pictures of shapes with a tiny sliver missing, silhouettes of triangles that looked like they had a bite taken out of them. “See how your mind completes the picture?” they said, “That’s how boys look at your clothed body. Little pieces don’t keep their brains from completing the picture.” They showed us shapes with larger pieces missing, pieces so large that the squares were indistinguishable from the circles. “See how it’s a little harder to complete the picture when more of it is out of sight? That’s why it’s so crucial to cover your skin as much as you can.” The rest of the meeting saw us brainstorming what was and wasn’t acceptable clothing. Two piece swimsuits? No. Tightly fitted pants? No. Shorts more than a couple inches above the knee? No. Don’t wear sleeveless shirts or your bra strap might show. Don’t buy jeans with embellishments or embroidery on the back pockets because that draws attention to your butt. We listed these garments like they were each their own kind of scarlet letter. Girls in V-necks and tight pants squirmed uncomfortably in their seats, suddenly embarrassed by their own skin. It was like Adam and Eve realizing their nakedness in the garden. Their eyes had been opened to seeing that their clothes were mere bite marks from a triangle. I don’t know what the boys were learning all weekend. Their meetings always seemed to end earlier than ours--we’d see them appear outside the window, playing flag football and drinking cans of cream soda. I watched them play while a woman confessed to us through tears that she’d had sex before she was married and had even succumbed to the temptation of masturbation almost every week in college. Sex with “several men” and near-weekly masturbation made her consider herself a recovered sex addict. She spoke of how she’d been saved by God’s grace, how she believed that she became a virgin again when she found Christ and He washed her of all her former sins. We all sniffled along with her story. At the end there were hugs and thank-yous for her honesty. They handed out little paper hearts to us and asked us to tear off a piece and give it to our neighbor. Now, do it again, they said. And again. After awhile they handed out a second set of paper hearts. We held them up next to the first crumpled, torn up heart. “Now, when you are married, which one looks like the heart you want to give to your husband?” Outside the window, the boys tumbled in the grass.
4 Every year of high school, my church’s youth group hosted a fancy event called the Girl’s Formal. And every year, on the Sunday before the formal, they’d host a “modesty fashion show” to demonstrate proper dress for the event. They’d get girls to volunteer to be “models” and assign each of them a dress deemed exemplary. The girls would strut down the center aisle of our giant meeting room. How wide their shoulder straps were, how lose their bodices, how long their hems! We applauded their utter non-seduction. Only later did I consider how odd it was that a roomful of older men and women were parading young girls through the middle of a large crowd to point out precisely which body parts they were hiding so well. The high school boys were watching too, imagining along with all of us the horror that might take place if only Allie’s neckline were a little lower; if only the fabric of Bethany’s dress hugged her a little tighter. Oh, God, if only! The Girls’ Formal was well-intended and well-attended. They brought in volunteer makeup artists and hairdressers, free shoes and long, flowing gowns in a vast rainbow of colors. They’d deck the main hall with twinkling lights and flowers; the boys would dress in suits and neckties. It looked like a wedding. The young men would escort us down a candlelit hall; we all stood in line praying to God that chance would pair us with our crush. Once we all sat down to our dinner, the speakers and musicians spent hours telling us how beautiful we all were, how worthy of praise in God’s eyes. Still, it hurt to look around the room at the prettier girls, their eyeshadow sparkling gold in the low light. I put too much butter on my wheat rolls and felt fat.
5 One morning, I brought my friend Amelia with me to church to visit. She dressed up for the occasion in high heels and a mint-colored dress that fell just short of her knees and rippled in the spring breeze. It was a beautiful day. The wind carried the scent of flowers across the church lawn. We floated out the front doors with high spirits and brunch plans. We were laughing about something when a sharp voice came from behind us. “Excuse me, ladies!” We turned around to see a little old lady with big curls of grey hair and sunglasses on. She approached us and whispered with urgency. “Do you realize how you look dressed like that?” she hissed at Amelia. Amelia stared at her blankly. “A whore!” she whispered, “A prostitute!” Her lips were pursed so tightly together that they began to go white. “Think twice before you go out like that again!” With that, she rifled hurriedly through her purse, snatched out a glossy piece of paper, and held it out for Amelia to take. Neither of us said anything. I took the paper, and the lady huffed away. It was a pamphlet on how to dress decently, outlining precise measurements of what was too short and too tight. We flipped through it in shock, laughing indignantly. Later on the car ride home, my mom apologized to Amelia for the woman’s actions. I didn’t invite Amelia back to church the next week. I knew she wouldn’t want to go. I didn’t really want to go anymore, either.
6 My junior year of high school, I spent my New Year’s Eve at a party with some of my friends from church. It was all very tame. The closest thing to alcohol was the sparkling white grape juice that the parents had bought for us. When the clock struck twelve I ended up making out with Austin, a good friend who I’d had a crush on for awhile. Six or seven long, warm kisses. That was all, but it was enough. I saw him again about a week later. He waited for a moment when everybody else was distracted and asked to talk to me outside. He stood in the driveway, waiting. It was cold, and I’d left my coat inside in my nervous rush to meet him. I shivered and waited for him to ask me out or to kiss me again. When he spoke, he said instead that what we had done was wrong. He had fallen into temptation because of what I was wearing. It had caused him to stumble into sin, he said, and he couldn’t help himself. He spoke slowly, his words heavy with guilt. He hoped I understood. He gave me an apology. He asked me not to dress that way around him anymore. I stood there in the cold with my mouth parted slightly, at a loss for words. The mist of my breath in the winter night swirled from my lips and hung in the air like a million things unsaid. That summer, I bought a bikini behind my mother’s back.
7 I opened my eyes and remembered where I was. There was Henry, sleeping next to me, naked. I was naked. I curled my legs in towards my chest and faced away from him, ashamed. I’d lost my virginity to my boyfriend Henry the night before. I was dizzy with guilt and fear for a few minutes before I realized that nothing was different. I sat up and looked around the room. My delicate, pink bra hung from his floor lamp, caught there like a kite in a tree. I smiled in spite of myself remembering how he’d flung it away. Besides the curtains lifting and falling in the breeze of the open window, everything was quiet and still. The world had not changed. I knew I couldn’t take that ring off without my parents asking questions. But I knew, too, that they had been wrong. I didn’t feel like a piece of chewed up gum, or a used stamp, or a piece of duct tape getting less sticky with every use, or a crumpled paper heart, or any of the other things I’d been told that I would be like in my life after this moment if I didn’t make it to the altar first. I was exactly the same. When my parents finally found out later on, it was a disaster. They took the ring and flushed it down the toilet. They grounded me for a year. They berated my boyfriend and his parents. They blamed everything on him. They talked to me about it like I was the innocent victim of a slimy conman. My father was so distraught that he called in sick to work and didn’t leave his bed for three days. I knew my parents loved me and that they thought they were teaching me a lesson of tough love. But it was clear to me that all of this was wrong.
8 In a freezing shower on a hot day I tried halfheartedly to send my thoughts down the drain with the soap and sweat. I was worried I was pregnant. I’d spent the whole month so paranoid that I’d started eating as much junk food as I could stand. I wanted to be able to blame any changes I thought I sensed in my body on my diet. I thought back to a meeting one night at my youth group, now an era far in the past. We’d sat in a circle around the speaker for the night, He was tall, blonde, hairy, meaty. “When it comes to that time in a relationship that you’re dating someone, and you want to get engaged, one of the questions you’re going to have to ask is about their history,” he said. “Now as far as I see it, there are three possible answers that a woman can give her boyfriend. She might say”--and his voice turned mocking-- “She might say, ‘Baby, I’ve slept with other men before, but I just absolutely swear that you’re the one for me, and there’ll never be anyone else from now on, just you and me!’ Now, guys, is that what you want to hear from your woman?” The little crowd booed and jeered. “What about this one, this is number two: ‘Sweetheart, I’ve made some mistakes in my past, but I’ve come to Jesus since then, and through him I’ve made a change. Since the day I came back to Christ, He has rescued me and made me whole again.’ Now what do you guys think about that? Not so bad, right?” They made little sheep noises of halfhearted acceptance. I didn’t want to do this, but I’ve fallen to my knees in the mildew of the shower floor, my head spinning in my palms. I pray to God for a miracle, I promise Him that if I’m not pregnant, I will start going back to church. I promise Him that I will read my Bible. I will seek Him again. I will stop having sex. I will break up with my current boyfriend and wait for my husband from now on. I beg on my knees on the floor of the shower for mercy, for forgiveness, for anything but a baby. “Last of course, is this: ‘Babe, I love you. I’ve been waiting my whole life for you. For years I’ve thought of you and prayed each day that God would watch over my future husband and set his ways right in the Lord, and I’ve tried my best to do the same. God’s brought us together, and, if we marry, I’m ready to share my whole self with you.’ Now what do you think about that boys?” Their hoots and hollers and whistles echo in my head as I force myself to stand back up. I stare at my pale toes wiggling in my flip flops, hyperaware of what it means to have a body.
9 When I move from my parents’ house to the city, I do not have a car. I take the train and bus often. I walk and bike everywhere. It does wonders for my legs. The men notice. Once in the middle of the day, a man starts walking alongside me, repeating his phone number over and over inches from my ear. He looks like he’s at least my father’s age. He tells me that I smell like good sex. He grabs my hand and kisses it aggressively. I yank it away and run. I’m jogging to get to work on time when a man shouts after me “I like your boobs!” This time I stop mid-stride and face him. “Do you want them?” I gasp in his face, flushed and crazed and out of breath. “I don’t need ‘em! I’ll chop them off and give them to you!” The blood has drained from his face, and his mouth hangs open like a cartoon character. He starts to back away. I wish I could slug him. No one ever teaches Christian girls to fight, so I run while I can, the image of his bewildered face seared into the backs of my eyelids. Wintertime is easy. My dad gave me a coat a couple years ago that was too big even on him. On me, it’s about the size of a down comforter for a kingsized bed. It zips all the way up to my chin. I thought about it once and realized that I’ve never been hit on once while wearing that coat. Not once. It’s like realizing that I’ve got a magic wand or a crystal ball in my hands. Nobody wants to take a bet on a body they can’t see. Inside it I’m invisible. Summertime is difficult. So much of your body has to be uncovered if you want to be comfortable in the heat. No matter how sweaty my back or how baggy my T-shirt, the men are insatiable. I come up with a strategy to ward them off. The moment I feel eyes on me, I hack and snort and cough up a snotball on the sidewalk. It works like a charm, my forcefield of phlegm. Soon, I realize it doesn’t even take those dramatics for most men. Just a big, sick-sounding cough will do the trick most of the time. They sense illness like animals and look for a more suitable mate. One day on the train, a young man about my age starts talking to me. It is friendly at first. He sees my nice tennis shoes and we start talking about how we both like to go running. Before I know it he is commenting on my legs, my waist, the shape of my butt. Already in the middle of a conversation, I don’t know how to respond. A friend of his approaches from the other side of the train and tries to strike up a conversation with me. The first boy grabs me by the hips and pulls me backwards into his crotch. “Hey, hey, hey, she’s mine already,” he jokes to his friend, “Find your own.” Even as they both look at me, I seem to have disappeared. 10 I don’t like the bitterness that’s overtaken me, the assumption, born of a learned defensiveness, that every man who looks at me is waiting to pounce. I need a breather. One spring, my boyfriend, Greg, says to me “Why don’t you shave your head?” At first I think he is joking, but he continues “Most women never get the chance to know how it feels to have a shaved head. I think you should do it.” At first I refuse and laugh it off, but a summerful of hoots and hollers gets me thinking about what it means to have long waves of blonde hair in the heart of the Midwest. I call my friend Logan one day and ask him to bring his buzzer over. We pull my hair into a high, swinging ponytail, and Greg chops it off. Then the buzzing starts. The sound fills my ears and shakes my skull. The same sick, giddy adrenaline that fills me before a public speech makes it hard for me to sit still enough to keep them from cutting me. I measure the hair and send it to a charity that makes wigs for kids with cancer. Twenty-two inches are gone. I revel in this new feeling. The wind bends my tiny hairs in the most pleasantly prickly way, the way it ripples across a wide field of grass. Without hair to twirl, I am preoccupied less and less by my appearance. I have severed myself from my own ability to exemplify conventional beauty. I notice fewer eyes on me. It is insulting at first, then amusing, then freeing. Everyone asks why I did it. I find this funny. How much hair does a woman need to cut off in order to be asked why she did it? I suppose enough that no one can honestly tell her that they like it. When they ask why I did it, I tell them “because I could.” Some ask if my boyfriend likes it. “It’s my head,” I say. I am ornery and triumphant. I go into work for the first time since I’ve shaved my head. There’s a man who always comes in and sits at the end of the bar for hours and hours. He’s given me a few too many compliments, and I always get the sense that he’s watching me. His eyes get wide when he walks in and sees my fuzzy head. He has a lot to say. “Why did you do it?” “Do you like it?” “Well, that’s an interesting change.” I am beaming. The rest of the shift passes quickly. At 10 ‘til close, the man at the end of the bar starts to pack up his things. I’m running around getting ready to close up shop ‘til I see him approach the register. “What can I get for ya?” I ask. He seems shy all of the sudden, like a little boy. “I just wanted to say that you’re still pretty. Still pretty, just different.” He smiles, yellow teeth shining with saliva.