Figuring Me Out

Starting to figure out where some of my confusion/repression regarding sex has come from.

I am a readaholic and a bookophile (I read anything and everything I can get my hands on and love books). Have been all my life, got it from my dad, as he was a readaholic and bookophile, too. He introduced me early on to fantasy and science fiction, and I now find myself wondering what the heck he was thinking.

I think I was about 12 when he gave me Marion Zimmer Bradley's Endless Universe (I think that's the title). I rapidly moved on to anything else she had written, and Robert A. Heinlein, and Anne McCaffrey, and on and on. If you've ever read any works by these authors, you know that sexual/sensual freedom was a common theme running through there stories. I'm currently rereading some of Heinlein's works (The Number of the Beast, To Sail Beyond the Sunset), and I am amazed that no only did my religious leader dad (he was in charge of our small congregation most of my teen years) know I was reading these, but I often took them from his shelves.

Hence, the basis for my confusions and repressions. I was reading these books that my dad also read that were full of people having sex with whomever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and it was happy and joyous and full of love. Then I would go to church and have it pounded into me (hormonal, curious teen) that sexual feelings and passion (lust) are WRONG. That I shouldn't fantasize or read about sex, shouldn't masturbate and should not be doing anything sexual with anyone. Sex was only between a man and woman bonded by marriage, and presumably, only for creating a family. The church that my dad where my dad was the local leader. Talk about your mixed messages.

Heinlein -- oh my goodness... His stories are full of sex: man/woman, man/man, woman/woman, group, swapping/swinging, never in explicit detail, but always clearly respectful, loving, fun, etc. And spankings: threatened, promised, remembered; man to woman, woman to man, etc. Again nothing in detail, but still. And he was writing this stuff clear back in the 1930's.

I know my dad didn't mean to do anything to cause me distress, but I lived so repressed for so long, that I have some deep regrets over the "wasted years", and although it was never officially diagnosed, I know I suffered through bouts of depression (DH can attest to this -- and to the fact that I do not go through these "dark periods" near as often or as severely as I used to). And finally expressing those regrets and the desire to have things be different from now on has caused some stress in my marriage as DH worries that it's pulling me away from him (part of this past weeks mess). I honestly don't feel that it's pulled me away or that it will -- in fact, we are better than ever. We talk, and joke, and share, and laugh more. I am an active participant in our sex life and am not denying my passion anymore.

I've also stopped attending church -- although initially I used other excuses to explain why I wasn't going anymore (even to myself). I'm glad that so many people find peace and joy and love with religion, but it didn't provide that for me, just one more responsibility, duty, and standards that I knew deep down I could never meet; and that ultimately held me down in denial, repression and depression. I'm definitely spiritual, just not religious anymore. So far no one has really questioned me about my decision (other than DH, and he understands), but since my mom and my sibs all still attend the same church with their spouses and kids, and my oldest daughter does, too, plus I still have social contact with members, I suppose at some time some one may ask. That could be interesting.

So now you know a little bit more about me and where I'm coming from as I use this blog to help me sort things out and share my experiences with my "new" life.