“What am I going to get out of this?” I didn’t know then that this question would come out of my mouth so many times that it would become part mantra, part catchphrase.
“A place to come where everything is speakable, and you are not asked to hold any secrets for anyone. Ever.”
At the end of the session, Dr. Rosen pressed his palms together. “We’ll stop there for today.” Everyone stood up. To me, Dr. Rosen said, “We close the same way they close twelve-step meetings, holding hands in a circle saying the Serenity Prayer. If you are not comfortable with that, you don’t have to participate.”
I flashed him my “this ain’t my first rodeo” smile. I’d just sat through ninety minutes of group therapy; if anyone needed the Serenity Prayer, it was me. The familiar prayer was meant to help addicts get in touch with a power greater than themselves without invoking any particular religious tradition: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
After we recited the prayer, everyone turned to the person next to them and embraced. Rory and Patrice. Marty and Ed. Carlos and Dr. Rosen. I watched them, unprepared to step forward and press my body to theirs, but when Patrice opened her arms to me, I stepped forward and let her hug me. My arms hung at my sides like empty sleeves. Dr. Rosen stood in front of his chair, and my group members stepped over to hug him, one by one.
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around Dr. Rosen’s shoulders and gave a quick squeeze—too quick to smell him or to retain memory of his arms around my body or mine around his. So quick it felt like it didn’t happen. There was no imprint on my body. I hugged him because I wanted to fit in, do what everyone else was doing, and not draw any attention to myself. Years later, I’d watch new patients come in and refuse to hug anyone, especially Dr. Rosen, and my jaw would drop open, realizing it never once occurred to me not to hug him. I didn’t have that kind of no anywhere in my body.
After group, I rode the Red Line train north to school, my head buzzing with the new faces, the new feelings vocabulary, the new world I’d just joined. Dr. Rosen acted like he knew all about me. His definitive statement—you don’t like having sex at all—stung. So cocky! Just because he was a fancy psychiatrist didn’t mean he knew everything. I’d once been open to pleasure, and if he ever bothered to ask me about it, I would look him and each of the group members in the eye with my legs uncrossed and tell them all about it.
The night of my first big O the spring weather in Texas was pleasant enough that I had my bedroom window open at 6644 Thackeray Avenue.
I couldn’t sleep, so I flipped on the radio and heard, “Sexually Speaking, you’re on the air.” Ooooh. This radio program was not for kids. I burrowed deeper under the covers. Sister Mary Margaret told us that sex was only for married couples trying to make a baby—having sex under any other circumstances would lead to hell, far away from God, our parents, and our pets. My mom affirmed that Catholic truth over dinner one night when she explained that there were two sins that would get you a one-way ticket to eternal damnation: “Murder and premarital sex.”
It was not hard to imagine myself slipping from God’s favor as I scooched up the volume on the radio.
A caller confessed that she was unable to reach orgasms with her partner. What followed were Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s instructions on how to get to know your body through masturbation. Helpfully, Dr. Ruth explained where the clitoris was and what it did. It was almost like she knew she was talking to a fourth grader.
I couldn’t let all that sage advice go to waste. I slid my hand between my legs and touched the delicate pearl that sometimes hurt when I rode my bike for too long. Slowly, I circled it with my finger until I felt something happening—a warm wave building, making my legs go stiff. My fantasy reel: Tad Martin from All My Children kissed my face and told me he loved me more than all the women in Pine Valley. I rubbed myself harder. The extra pressure didn’t hurt. My body climbed toward its first glorious sexual release. Then my whole body shuddered with pleasure just as Dr. Ruth promised. For the first time in my life, I thought: My body is exquisite and powerful.
There in the balmy, darkened privacy of my childhood bedroom, I tripped into my sexuality under the gentle tutelage of Dr. Ruth. I felt grown-up to have discovered the sexual secrets of adulthood. This touching myself and the warm wave of intense body pleasure must have been naughty because nobody ever talked about doing it. Masturbation was the grossest-sounding word I could imagine, and I’d never ever say it.
By fourth grade, I’d been marinating in body hatred for a few years. My stomach was too big—that was the message I received starting at age four from my beloved ballet teacher. “Christie,” she’d say. “Stomach.” A reminder to
