It's been a while... again.

Pregnancy.

I've been thinking about it again because I recently had my first full sexual experience. I reached all ten bases - or, however many there are in whatever system you use. I never could figure out that system, all I know is we went all the way!

And it was good. No - scratch that - it was awesome. The guy in question was fun, I felt comfortable with everything, and it was just right. It was the kind of first time you could really hope for. We stayed overnight in a cute guesthouse that was actually more like a boutique hotel, with the kind of baroque décor that really appeals to me, and we just spent the night experimenting, making love, and sleeping before heading down to a leisurely breakfast. We used condoms, of course, and many of them... so my chances of being pregnant now are fairly nonexistent, but I guess it was just an interesting contrast to my few experiences with sexual encounters I had with my ex-fiancé while still a Christian.

I remember at one point convincing myself - largely thanks to a guilty conscience - that I was pregnant after we "fell into sin" one time on holidays. How I managed to convince myself of this, in retrospect, I do not know, because I had my pants on the whole frigging time, but in my hysterical guilt afterwards I was determined that my fiancé's magical man-juice would manage to seep its' way through my pants and impregnate me anyway. By osmosis or something, don't ask me. I was hysterical anyway.

And I tormented myself with the guilt until my blessed period arrived. It's just incredible to think about, looking back, that the hypothetical judgement my fellow "buhleevas" would heap upon me in case of my pregnancy was enough to drive me close to suicide. I was so terrified, so ashamed of myself - the thought of walking into that church, all of them looking - knowing what I had done - facing them all with the tangible evidence of my sin as a literal bump in my form... It made me want to die, and I mean that in the most literal manner possible. I've never told anyone this, but before my period arrived that time, I actually tormented myself into experiencing phantom pregnancy symptoms. I started experiencing a lot of the symptoms of pregnancy as a sort of psychosomatic response to my overwhelming fear I was pregnant, which in turn reinforced my belief I was pregnant, which terrified me even more.

Now, I consider the possibility of my being pregnant - which is rather more likely now that I've actually had sex, you know... and I honestly don't feel anything like the shame or guilt. Sure, I don't want to be pregnant - now wouldn't be a great time for me, and I'm not sure how I'd handle it, but it definitely wouldn't drive me to abortion or suicide. Because you know what? What I do or have done with my body is nobody else's fucking business. I may not be the best potential mom that's ever existed, but should life throw me a lemon in the form of a baby I'm gonna make some damn good lemonade. And you can fuck right off with your tut-tutting and your sideways looks.

When I was still at church, I was led to believe for so long that sex was some life-changing experience. I was force-fed these pitifully poor analogies of sex as being like two pieces of paper being glued together - apparently, you can rip them apart, but pieces of them are still stuck to one another... *eyeroll* In other words, once you give "ze vagine" to someone (or indeed "ze asshole"), you are intrinsically linked to them on some psychological or even spiritual level, that you are not if you abstain from sexual activity with them. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I can now confirm to you that this is bullshit of the highest order. I, for one, feel absolutely no different as a person. Certainly not in any negative sense - I feel a bit more confident about my body now that I've exposed it fully to someone and gotten a thoroughly "firm" response (pun intended), but that's it. I like the guy in question, very much, but we could part ways in the morning and I would mourn it no more than any other breakup. I am in no way "bonded" to him like someone superglued us together, we did not "become one" - we just did the horizontal mambo, and it was very nice.

So, lads and lassies, the moral of the story is - sex is the dog's bollocks! Go for it.