Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [129]
Lois and Carol taught me my most important lessons. Lois was a pudgy, self-effacing fourteen-year-old whose greatest accomplishment was eight years of perfect attendance at our Sunday school. One Sunday morning she wasn’t there, and when I remarked on that fact, the teacher changed the subject. For a time no one would tell me what had happened to Lois. Eventually, however, I was so anxious that Mother told me the story. Lois was pregnant from having sex with a middle-aged man who worked at her father’s grocery store. They had married and were living in a trailer south of town. She was expelled from school and would not be coming to church anymore, at least not until after the baby was born. I never saw her again.
Carol was a wiry, freckled farm girl from a big family. She boarded with our neighbors to attend high school in town. In the evenings, after she had the chores done, Carol came over to play with me. One night we were standing in our front yard when a carload of boys came by and asked her to go for a ride. She hesitated, then agreed. A month later Carol was sent back pregnant to her farm. I worried about her because she’d told me her father used belts and coat hangers on the children. My father told me to learn from Carol’s mistake and avoid riding with boys. I took him literally and it was years before I felt comfortable riding in cars with any boys except my cousins.
In my town the rules for boys were clear. They were supposed to like sex and go for it whenever they could. They could expect sex with loose girls, but not with good girls, at least not until they’d dated them a long time. The biggest problem for boys was getting the experience they needed to prove they were men.
The rules for girls were more complicated. We were told that sex would ruin our lives and our reputations. We were encouraged to be sexy, but not sexual. Great scorn was reserved for “cockteasers” and “cold fish.” It was tough to find the right balance between seductive and prim.
The rules for both sexes pitted them against their Saturday-night dates. Guys tried to get what they could and girls tried to stop them. That made for a lot of sweaty wrestling matches and ruined prom nights. The biggest danger from rule breaking was pregnancy. This was before birth control pills and legal abortion. Syphilis and gonorrhea were the most common sexually transmitted diseases, and both were treatable with the new miracle drug, penicillin.
Sexual openness and tolerance were not community values. Pregnant teachers had to leave school as soon as they “showed.” I had no girlfriends who admitted being sexually active. There was community-wide denial about incest and rape, which undoubtedly occurred in my small town as they did all over America. The official story was kept G-rated.
There was a great deal of hypocrisy. A wealthy man in my town was known for being a pincher. We girls called him “the lobster” among ourselves and knew to avoid him. But because his family was prominent, no one ever told him to stop his behavior.
I didn’t know that pornography existed until I was a senior in high school. My parents took me to Kansas City and we stayed near the Time to Read bookstore. It was two bookstores in one: on the left, classics, best-sellers and newspapers from all over the world, and on the right, an eye-popping display of pornography.
In my town male homosexuals were mercilessly scorned. The one known homosexual was the crippled son of a Brethren minister. He made the enormous mistake of asking another boy for a kiss, and forever after he lived a nightmarish life of isolation and teasing. Female homosexuality was never acknowledged.
Outsiders—such as socialists, Native Americans or blacks—were ostracized in small communities. Our town took great pride in having no black or Native American citizens. Restaurant signs that read “We have the right to refuse service to anyone” were used to exclude non-whites.
Adults told racist jokes and held racist