I grew up in the clutches of early-2000s Christian purity culture.
At age 16, my parents gave me a purity ring. I signed a pledge that I would not have sex before marriage.
Little did my parents know that I was already chewed-up gum, and you would not believe the guilt that crushed me as I signed that paper.
Family regularly told me to “save myself for marriage,” that my body would become a gift for my husband once I got married.
I’m only just now realizing how shattering that mindset has been to my sexuality and, yes, my marriage.
So when I saw Candace Cameron Bure’s defense of her recent Instagram photo of her husband grabbing her breast, I wanted to vomit.
“He can touch me anytime he wants, and I hope he does,” she said. “This is what a healthy, good marriage and relationship is all about.”
I disagree with all my heart
And I believe it’s downright dangerous to say such a thing when you have a platform as big as Bure’s.
Like Bure, my brand of religion taught me that sex was a man’s need that only I could fulfill. The marriage books my family gave me when I wed at the ripe old age of 21 suggested that I be ready to put out at any time, no matter how tired I was.
I was so brainwashed into this mindset that when I first saw the Breaking Bad episode where Walter White essentially rapes his wife on the staircase, I felt terrible for her. I knew she was in psychological and physical pain.
But I wasn’t so sure anyone could call it rape.
Why?
Because he was her husband
I, for one, felt extremely guilty anytime I said no to sex or got annoyed with my partner because I didn’t feel like having anyone grab my butt.
Six weeks postpartum, after I had my first child, my partner decided it was time to have sex again. Common knowledge has it that six weeks postpartum is long enough to wait, and he missed sex.
I didn’t want to. I did not feel healed from having a newborn cut out of my body. But I reluctantly agreed.
I had to meet his needs, after all, and I’d been neglecting them for months.
Although I’d had a C-section and not a vaginal birth, the intercourse hurt like hell.
In the years following that moment, I have slowly but surely chipped away at those harmful beliefs for reasons that are too long to explain here. Not long after that first child was born, I told my partner that if he wanted to touch me, he had to ask first unless I was clearly in the mood.
Since he, too, had been deconstructing some of those Christian-based, men-need-sex beliefs we’d grown up with, he respected my decision.
And not only that, but I ask him the same questions that he asks me.
In short, we now practice consent with each other. Neither of us does anything sexual unless we both agree. And if someone says no, we respect that. We don’t guilt-trip each other.
And that, Candace Cameron Bure, is how it should be
No one should ever have unfettered access to someone else’s body.
Ever.
No one should make their partner feel guilty for saying no.
Ever.
During a sexual act, each person should understand that the touching can stop at any moment if that is what the other partner requests.
Full stop. No guilt. That’s it.
And that is what I’ll be teaching my kids, because that’s what a healthy, good marriage and relationship is all about.
