Eve's Agony

Reaching out
To touch a stranger
Electric eyes are everywhere
See that girl
She knows I'm watching
She likes the way I stare
If they say -Why, why, tell em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -Why, why, tell em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
I like livin this way
I like lovin this way -
Human Nature

I wrote this blog a while ago and as with so many other things I write, I opted not to post it. But it's one those pieces that stayed with me; there is a psychological importance to what I talk about here. Certainly to me and possibly to somebody else who grew up the way that I did, whose sexuality was forged in that terrible crucible of fundamental Christianity. I dare say not everyone grew up to be quite as fucked up a personality as me. I hope not. I heard Human Nature on the radio today, and I thought, "This is my nature." Maybe nobody cares about that or maybe they do. Either way, with my writing I seek to honor those things in me that twist and gnaw and hurt. I want to present myself not the way I wish I were, but as I actually am. That being said, here is me in all my despicable and strange glory. Do with that what you will.

"Here's your coffee, ma'am". She takes it from his hand and when she does, his fingers lightly, unintentionally brush her hand. And then it happens, because it has to happen these days. She feels the rush of arousal and the inevitable wetness that always follows it. This guy doesn't even know. He is all baseball capped and young and about to get off his shift at Starbucks and probably go meet his girlfriend at the movies. She'll be wearing something adorable, maybe a denim mini-skirt and a tank top, and she'll smile when he hands her a latte. "You're so sweet!" And he'll smile and bide his time until later when he can get her naked and panting and begging him to show her just how sweet he really isn't.

"Have a great day!" she sing songs and then walks away wondering if he could even tell the dirty thoughts pervading her mind. Pink excitement flushing her pale skin, quick, shallow breaths.

This is the way of it these days. Every moment is tinged with the color of fucking, sepia toned pornographic images, one after the other, on a perpetual loop. Distracting, invasive thoughts that make it difficult to live those mundane moments.

When she was fourteen, this was always a problem. She had her peculiar yearnings in bed at night. What was that about? She didn't know. Then it started to bleed into everywhere. In church, as the preacher stated his case for chastity from the stage, a sign containing some poignant scripture hung behind him, she sat, still as a statue. But she was a bad girl. So when he talked about fornicators and unclean behavior, it only served to make her excited. The rush, the wetness. Every muscle tensed, poised and ready, building, building, nobody knows. Then when it hits it is almost painful and unwelcome. Nobody knows. This is God's house and she is balling her fists at her sides having an orgasm. God knows.

She spent a long time at prayer. She spent a long time reading holy literature. "Deaden, therefore, your body members that are upon the earth as respects fornication, uncleanness, sexual appetite."¹ It was not good to feel so alive. It was better to cut off your hand than to allow it to do an unclean thing². Better to be dead than full of sin. Yet this arousal came unbidden and soiled her heart. It was going to get her killed eventually.

Unclean things - Romance novels stuffed under mattresses, hidden beneath piles of theocratic books and a heavy bible. She learned about carnal pleasures from the bible first. But those seedy books completed the education. Nightly, there were re-imaginings of those wicked scenarios. The push and pull of desire. "No, don't." "Yes. You will like it." "It hurts." "You have to." The heroines were always conflicted about their appetites. Good girls will never admit that they want it. They are afraid of their orgasms, of what they meant. She wonders - What does it say about me if I want that? She doesn't have to admit that she wants him hard inside her. "You have to." Her pleasure has a price. Her punishment is pain. Her pleasure is pain.

It's OK if somebody makes you.

When she was nineteen - in her boyfriend's car, intense kissing turns into unbuttoning pants, into hot whispers in her ear "just touch it, just a little bit." And she knew how to do it, too. But she said, "No. I can't. I shouldn't." His request intensified, "Do it, please?" She only wanted him to love her. No, that's a lie. She wanted to know how it felt to hold it in her hands. He pulled her hair tightly into his fist so it hurt and said firmly through gritted teeth, "Do it." So she did.


It's OK if somebody makes you.

Suddenly she was a metaphorical Eve. These are forbidden fruits indulged in. She insists, "God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree...nor shall you touch it, or you shall die." The serpent said, "You will not die for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad." Why does the serpent want you to do the bad thing? She doesn't care. She was fully clothed but her eyes were opened and she knew that she was naked. He tried to put his hands on her place and she pushes it away. He didn't insist. His orgasm was the only thing that mattered.

When she was alone, she cried. Wet and unsatisfied, she masturbated to orgasm, wallowing in her sinful, dirty nature. Wet with tears and her own arousal. She fell asleep an unclean thing. It was too heavy. She couldn't do it. She didn't want to be like God, knowing good and bad.

"I don't want to do it anymore. I feel...dirty." She wanted his love. She was desperate for it. She had risked her reputation, her relationship with God, the love of her family to satisfy him.

"Nobody knows."

"God knows." She was crying now. "God knows. We have to tell on ourselves."

She couldn't sit in church anymore pretending to be pristine, virginal. She was full of dirty things.
This is the part that she can't even think about. When you are unclean the only thing that will cleanse your soul is confession, submission to judgment. She made her confession to the older men in the congregation. The confession took place in a library, walls lined with biblical tomes. The room smelled like discipline and authority. She sat on a metal chair shivering internally and told three grown men about her first sexual experiences. They were wearing suits and holding bibles. It was all very official.

"Where did he touch you, sweetheart?" "Where did you touch him?" "Did he have a sexual climax?" "Did you?" "How many times did you touch him?" "How long did you touch him for?" "Did he ask you to?" "Did he take his pants off?" "Did you?"

She was nauseous in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes were opened and she knew that she was naked. All her dirty secrets laid bare before these men who barely knew her. It felt like a violation. She cried as they chastised her with scriptures. Pain is her punishment.


1 Cor. 6:18 - Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself.

2 Tim. 3:6 - For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Rev. 2:22 - And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

Hebrews 12:11 - All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

She wanted to repent because she was exhausted from carrying the burden of this clean disguise. She wanted it to be real. And they said God will forgive you but only if you display works befitting repentance. She was disciplined with private reproof, spared the public shame of an announcement to the congregation. But everyone knew anyway. She lost every small privilege. She didn't have that many to begin with since she was only a woman. Study the bible, prayer, ministry, church. Stop practicing the unclean thing.

You can't sustain repentance when you have so much lust burning in your veins. She tried to starve it out of herself. Even that didn't kill it all the way. Finally she knew that God would never love her. She thinks, "I am dead anyway. I might as well feel good while I'm still alive."

But it was too late.

The Lord God said to [Eve], "What is this that you have done?"
Eve said, "The serpent tricked me and I ate."
God said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall dominate you."³

That was the birth of her passion. It's OK if somebody makes you. To have pleasure, first pain. You will want your husband and he will rule over you.

She watches her husband undress for bed. She feels the rush and the wetness. She can't ask him to fuck her. He crawls in beside her, his body warm, his strong arms folding around her small body, his masculine scent filling her nose. She is breathing short, shallow breaths. She is aching for him to touch her. She can't ask. They fall asleep in this nurturing posture.

He wakes her in the night, mounting her urgently. He pins her arms the way she likes it. She pretends he is making her. She whispers one or all of the following, "Pull my hair, bite my neck, spank my ass, fuck me so hard that it hurts". Only then can she have it, the thing she's thought about all day. It grips her and she is momentarily afraid. It is an agony of pleasure. Passion and suffering. They are actually the same thing.

¹Colossians 3:5
² Matthew 18:8
³Gen 3:13, 16