I Was Taught To Protect My Virginity At All Costs. Instead, I Decided To Seduce My Town's Star Athlete.

“Girls, when a man goes to the store to buy a shirt, does he pick up the old one on the floor that’s been tried on and wrinkled? Or does he want a shirt straight out of the package, all nice and clean?”

Mr. Walsh, our main academy religion teacher, literally foamed at the mouth when he got excited. He dabbed ineffectually at it now with the tail of a button-down oxford before gleefully tossing it to the stage floor.

“Of course, a man always wants a brand new shirt!” he squealed, trampling the unfortunate item. “He doesn’t want the dirty one that other men have worn out!”

In my Seventh-Day Adventist church school, we didn’t have sex ed. We had obligatory “marriage and family” classes in which the devil-influenced slide from handholding to fornication was carefully charted to hammer home a singular message: Any frisky business before and outside of heterosexual marriage was a deadly sin.

In case anyone missed the message, we also had periodic five-day revival-style “weeks of prayer” with guest speakers and ultra-dramatic presentations like Mr. Walsh’s shirt stomping. During that week we had witnessed the lock that opens for any key (disgusting! useless!) versus the key that opens any lock (valuable! admirable!). We had seen the chewed gum, the licked cupcake, the denuded rose, the dirty dollar. And now, finally, the discarded, soiled shirt that had been “stained and stretched out by other men.”

Girls — and our appearance — effectively carried the entire weight of our faith’s fanatical fear of sex: It was our fault if we strayed and it was our fault if men strayed. It was impossible to monitor us too severely. We were reviewed, critiqued, admonished, shamed and often forcefully corrected. Our hemlines were measured and