A sex life limited by religion and marriage ends, and one of discovering the joys of the ‘sinful’ body begins.
I bought my first vibrator at thirty-five, off the dusty shelves of a sex toy shop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I tried not to be embarrassed. After all, I was a grown-ass woman. The mother of two children. Certifiable sex-haver. Anyone could look at me and see the mom jeans, sneakers, ruffly blouse and know that I was a Midwestern mother. And as such, it was very likely I had had sex at some point. Still, I parked around back and hoped no one saw my car. Not too far from this sex shop was where I had once attended church with my ex-husband. An Assembly of God church, where pastors preach about the evils of lust, the horrors of porn, the sin of sex outside of marriage — all the new joys I was just discovering. A town of 132,000 people can feel small when you are newly divorced and dating.
- Medium
