介绍： 036 | Single, Female, Mormon, Alone

OF all the places I felt sure I'd never go, Planned Parenthood topped the list. Because, you know, they perform abortions and give c.o.n.d.o.m.s to kids, or so I'd been warned. Yet one spring afternoon found me in its waiting room next to a teenage girl, who was clearly pe...

介绍： 036 | Single, Female, Mormon, Alone

OF all the places I felt sure I'd never go, Planned Parenthood topped the list. Because, you know, they perform abortions and give c.o.n.d.o.m.s to kids, or so I'd been warned. Yet one spring afternoon found me in its waiting room next to a teenage girl, who was clearly perplexed by the intake form and likely bound for an uncomfortable, humiliating four minutes in the back of a borrowed Chevy Chevelle.

But what did I know? I was a 35-year-old virgin, preparing for my own "first time," which, incidentally, didn't happen until I was well into 36.

I was not frigid, fearful or socially inept. Not overweight or unattractive. Didn't suffer from halitosis or social anxiety disorder. I was a practicing Mormon, and Mormons "wait" until marriage. So I had waited, spent the first two decades of my adult life celibate and, for the most part, alone. Because only after the trial of my faith would I be blessed with an eternal marriage, which, I prayed, would also blow my mind in the bedroom.

It never occurred to me that I would remain unmarried, especially in a system where marriage is not only a commandment, but also one of life's primary purposes. Turns out, though, that there is no place in that community for a single woman who doesn't want children.

My only available choice within the church was to wait for my reward in heaven, as Mormon doctrine promises that single members denied marriage, family and sex lives on earth will have them after death. Needless to say, this wasn't a compelling argument.

Most troubling was the fact that as I grew older I had the distinct sense of remaining a child in a woman's body; virginity brought with it arrested development on the level of a handicapping condition, like the Russian orphans I'd read about whose lack of physical contact altered their neurobiology and prevented them from forming emotional bonds. Similarly, it felt as if celibacy was stunting my growth; it wasn't just sex I lacked but relationships with men entirely. Too independent for Mormon men, and too much a virgin for the other set, I felt trapped in adolescence.

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