Nicole Hardy - Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin: A Memoir

Chapter 2: From Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen by Fay Weldon. Copyright 1984 Fay Weldon. Reprinted with permission from Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc.

Chapter 7: Salvador Late or Early by Sandra Cisneros, from Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Copyright 1991 by Sandra Cisneros, reprinted with permission.

Chapter 13: Excerpt from Advice I Wish Someone Had Given Me by Ann Darr, from St. Anns Gut, reprinted with permission.

Copyright 2013 Nicole Hardy

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 1500 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:

Hardy, Nicole.

Confessions of a latter day virgin: a memoir/Nicole Hardy.FIRST

EDITION.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-4013-4186-2

1. Hardy, Nicole. 2. Spiritual biography. 3. Ex-church membersChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsBiography. I. Title.

BL73.H34A3 2013

204.092dc23

[B]

2012045975

eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-4290-6

Cover design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich

Author photograph by Melissa Fenno

First eBook Edition

Original hardcover edition printed in the United States of America.

For Eric, that pusher

Sex isnt everything, my mother says lightly, from the kitchen of my new condo. She means to be encouraging. But I stiffen reflexively against her words, as if to defend myself. Ive heard it too many times from too many peoplethat sentence, so reductive its offensive.

How easy it is for my mother, who married at twenty, to dismiss what shes never lived without. I cant help but feel like shes being purposefully dense, simply refusing to consider anything beyond the surface. My first impulse is a fierce rush of frustrationthe urge to roll my eyes, shout a blistering, condescending no shit in the direction of the kitchen, where shes unpacking boxes. Obviously, the problem is not just the absence of sex. Obviously, there are more complex issues at the heart of my unplanned celibacy.

But when I turn to meet my mothers eyes, I work hard to keep my voice from veering into sarcasm. Do you think Id be a virgin at thirty-three, Mom, if I thought sex was everything?

As if on cue, the CD weve been listening to reaches the last notes of the final track. The silence in the room highlights the trepidation we both feel. I know youre struggling, my mother says, resting her hands on the counter. An impotent kind of energy is humming around her. She wants to help me, I know. Shes trying. For the first time, shes asking.

Seconds pass before I trust my voice not to waver, before the burn in my throat subsides. I dont know how to fix it. Ashamed by even that admission, I hold in the heaviest secret, the sentence that frightens me at night. Outside, a container ship slowly barrels through the shipping lanes. The north end of Vashon Island is nearly obscured behind its towering mass of orange crates, its hull plowing a wake toward the breakwater below. I dont know how much longer I can live like this, I say finally, half hoping my mother wont hear.

The Mormon Church is a system of absolutes. There is only one right way to live. One complete truth. Either I believe the doctrine of my church was revealed by God to a living prophet, or I dont. And if I believe, I must live the way Ive been commanded. I must endure to the end. If I am floundering, drowning, or desolate, my faith should be the solution.

I can feel my mothers fear from across the room, the exaggerated stillness of her body. How can I tell her that over the past two years I have willed myself into depression? The relief of numbness, that saving grace. How can I say I am glad to feel myself withering? That I can almost stop needing what I cant have, if I dont allow myself to feel anything.

If I say no, sex isnt everythingthose mechanics, that actbut it affects everything, she will say, Be faithful. If I say sex casts a monstrous shadow over my life: the visceral wanting of it, the religious sanctions against it, the looming threat of disfellowship or excommunication, and the damaging ways Ive devised to resist it, she will tell me to follow the prophets counsel, and that of his apostles. If I say sex keeps me from getting near enough to a man to fall in love, because nonmembers are the ones who want me and I can no longer trust myself around them. If I say Im unmarriageable in the Mormon community. If I say the crisis of celibacy is a crisis of isolation, that I am wrong in both places, judged by both sides, she will say wait for my spiritual reward. Look to the afterlife, as if this life means nothing.

There will be no way to respond that isnt sacrilege. No prophet or apostle has lived a celibate life, is what Id like to tell her. No one whos told me celibacy is a viable option has ever been celibate. They dont even use the word. They say abstinent, which implies there will be an end. They dont consider what my life will be like, if I never marry. Which is likely, given who I am, and the ways Im different. People stand at the pulpit or they come to my house and tell me not to need what every human needs. Afterward, they go home and undress. They lie down next to the person they love most, or once did. When they reach across the bed, someone is there.

The ship outside my window has traveled all the way from China. I imagine its full of laptops, T-shirts, lipstick, or toys; I imagine a crate full of telephones or headphonessome advanced technology that could help my mother hear me. Make her understand. One of the apostles recently warned against withdrawing from others. Such retreat, he said, may ultimately lead to the darkening influence of the adversary, which leads to despondency, loneliness, frustration. Hes got it backward, I remember thinking. Withdrawal is a survival tactic. Because if I cant get numb enough, if I cant withdraw far enough from my body and the need to feel human, I will end up clinging to a stranger on a deserted beach, again. I will find myself tangled in the arms of another somebody, anybody, on my entryway floor. It will be some weary, medicinal surrender that destroys everything. One moment of weakness is all it would take to make myself a hypocrite, or a failure.

I open my mouth to explain, or try to. But there is nothing I can say. I listen, instead, to the steady, rhythmic crash of waves against the seawall. And my mothers voice, which sounds as if its coming from far away. Everyone has trials, honey. You just love God. You keep the commandments, and you say your prayers. She turns back to the dishwater, as if that is all that needs to be said.

And ye must practise virtue and holiness before me continually. Even so. Amen.

DOCTRINE & COVENANTS 46:33

Age twelve is a turning point in the Mormon Church. For me, on that portentous birthday, the heavens opened. The angels sang. Because the following Sunday I would enter the Young Womens program and would never again have to sit with the little kids in Primary, be made to sing embarrassing, babyish songs, and be talked to as if I couldnt already read at a ninth-grade level.