Every Body

Jesus Dirt

by ELNA BAKER

I had recently seen the documentary The Devil’s Playground, which is about Amish kids and how at sixteen they have a Rumspringa where they go out into the world and do anything they want to with no religious consequences—I decided that I would take a one-year break from being Mormon (this, by the way, is totally not allowed). But I decided the only way to know if it was true was to leave and then come back to it.

My plan was to go wild. I had an imaginary list of men I would sleep with. But the second I was free to do whatever I wanted, I couldn’t. It was like there was an invisible electric fence around me. The closer I got, the more paralyzed I became. Especially when it came to sex. In Mormonism you’re taught that sexual sin before marriage is the second most serious sin next to murder. You’re told that if you engage in it you won’t be allowed to be with your family in the afterlife. I’d had some sexual experiences before, but never anything more than groping—and that one time my neighbor kissed the outside of the crotch of my pajama pants and I’d had an orgasm.

I’d become a regular at this tiny bar/dance club called the Beatrice. During the first few months of my break I’d go there almost every other night, meet a guy, and we’d go back to his place and make out. I’d want to do more. He’d want me to do more. I’d stare at the bulge in his pants and think about touching it. But that just seemed rude. Inappropriate. So I wouldn’t do anything. It was a mixture of the religious stuff—this is murder, I’ll lose my family—and plain old insecurity: I was scared of being bad at it. I was twenty-seven, an age by which people expect you to be sexually experienced. No one would ever guess I was doing things for the first time. Which meant that if I was bad at sex, or blow jobs, or hand jobs, they’d just think I sucked. They wouldn’t know it was my first time. And this fear of being inexperienced kept me from getting experience. I’d inch closer and closer to the dick, but chicken out and leave abruptly.

After months of doing this, I confided in my friend Andy.

“I have a close friend who left Orthodox Judaism in his mid-twenties,” Andy told me. “He went through a lot of the same things. I’m going to introduce you. I bet he’d be a helpful person to talk to about this.”

I met David at a small Italian restaurant in the West Village, one where you had to walk downstairs to get in. It was dimly lit with candles and had the kind of ambience that just feels sexy. He was cute. I’d googled him beforehand, but he was hotter in person. He had an energy about him—like he was aware that he was in charge. During my Google search I’d read some articles he’d written. He was a very accomplished writer, which made him seem older and cooler than me. But right when I sat down I felt comfortable. We talked for two hours. He told me about his decision to leave. And asked me questions about mine. I told him about my concern that my family would find out and it’d be heartbreaking for them. And about my anxieties and the fear of making a choice I couldn’t take back, which at this point had become paralyzing.

“I felt the same way when I left,” he said. “How long have you been out?”

“About five months,” I said. Not clarifying I was technically not out at all.

“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. It’s going to take a lot longer than you think to get used to everything. Don’t feel the need to rush it. Be patient with yourself.”

“Yes, but I have only a year.”

“What do you mean?”

I leaned in. As the candle flickered in his brown eyes, I went into detail about my decision to take a Rumspringa and my plan to potentially return to Mormonism at the end of the year. He found this amusing.

“So you’re on a break.”

“Exactly.”

“And what have you done so far?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No.”

“What about drugs? Any drugs?”

“No.”

“What about sex? Have you had sex yet?”

I looked into his eyes not wanting to answer. “Honestly? I have no idea what to do with a penis.”

He stared back at me, unflinchingly. And then, looking directly into my eyes, he said, “Do you want me to show you?” (He said this like it was some form of community service all formerly religious people had to do.)

I bit my lip. This was maybe the sexiest thing that had ever happened to me.

“Yes,” I said.

Within ten minutes we’d settled up, hailed a cab, and were back in my apartment. We sat nervously on the couch, with the lights on, staring straight ahead.

“You’ve seen a penis before, right?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I said, with a little too much bravado to sound believable. It was true. Sort of. I’d changed diapers before. So, baby dicks. I’d seen baby dicks.

Now here I was, about to see the real thing—the adult version. I tried to mentally prepare myself so I didn’t make the wrong face. Not that I knew what the right face was. David turned and looked at me, as if to say, Are you ready? I nodded my head yes. He unzipped his pants and slid them down a little. Then he reached into his underwear and took out his dick. I looked at it with wide-eyed wonder.

“It’s so big,” I accidentally blurted out. (And it was. Compared with, say, a baby’s dick.)

“Wow,” he said. “You’re already good at this.”

What followed was partly erotic, partly instructional. First, David gave me a guided tour of his dick. “This part here is called the head,” he said. He gestured to each section as he spoke: “This is called the shaft. These are the balls.”

“And you’re not supposed to touch those,” I said. I was basing this information on America’s Funniest Home Videos. When men got kicked in the balls they always fell over. So it seemed like balls were off-limits.

“No, you can touch the balls.” He took my hand and placed it on his balls.

“They’re so soft,” I said. “Like a baby bird.”

We both cringed.

I lifted my hand. It hovered over his penis for a second. I wanted to touch it. But I was too afraid.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You can touch it.”

I touched it lightly with one finger, the way you might wipe ketchup off someone’s face if you didn’t know them very well: cautious but kind.

“Here,” he said, taking my hand and wrapping it around the base of his penis. “You can be a lot more firm with it.” He put his hand around mine to show me the amount of pressure. Then he took his hand away. I held on a little tighter.

“Not that firm,” he corrected me. And I wanted to die.

“If you move your hand up and down the penis, it feels really good,” he explained. “But you need moisture.”

David spit into his hand—like a ton of spit—and rubbed it onto his penis. I had to actively control the face I wanted to make: What? You just spit on your penis!

From here he took my hand in his and showed me the speed and pressure I should use when I stroked his dick. After a minute he took his hand away so I could do it on my own, and then every thirty seconds he’d put it back to help me stay on rhythm. It was a bit like learning to drive—if you were using only the stick shift.

“Yeah. That’s it,” he said, encouraging me. “And now go a little faster.” My hand bobbed up and down in the narrow space between us. It occurred to me how strange it was that this was happening. We hadn’t even kissed yet. So I leaned in toward him, and he kissed me. We kissed for a little bit. Our tongues pressed together in synch with the bobbing of my hand. I pulled back a little and looked into his big brown eyes. He looked back into mine.

“Do you ever get over the guilt?” I asked. The second I asked that, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. His expression can best be described by that record-scratching-to-a-halt sound effect.

His penis, which had felt strong and firm against my hand, suddenly turned into a limp noodle. I struggled to get a grip on it. I now know that this is called losing an erection, but at the time I had no idea what was going on.

“What’s happening?” I said, in a panic. “Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

“No,” he tried to reassure me. “It’s not you.” We both moved around awkwardly. He took my hand off his penis and set it back in my lap with a little pat, as if to say, You stay there.

Then he tucked his penis back into his underwear. “I… I don’t think we should do this,” he said.

“No!” I said. “I’m totally fine—I want to do this. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” I tried to pull him back toward me, but he blocked my advances.