I'm lying on my back in a king-size bed at the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, wearing nothing but my underwear. Next to me is a man I'll call James, an insanely attractive British guy (think a younger Clive Owen) I've had a crush on since we met last year. Hands down, he's the most handsome man I've ever seen close up, not to mention naked. I sneak a peek at us in a massive mirror across from the bed and think, I like him—a lot—and I might have sex! Yet I'm still not sure I can go through with it.
Let me explain: I'm a virgin. As a practicing Mormon, I'm supposed to wait until marriage to have sex. But not just intercourse. I'm really only allowed to kiss sitting up. Which means I'm definitely not supposed to be in bed with a naked man. My life was supposed to go like this: get married in my early twenties to another Mormon in a Mormon temple, have children, raise them, marry them off, become a grandmother and die.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when I strayed from that course and ended up, at 27, single and perilously close to losing my virginity every other week. Perhaps it was the day I received my college acceptance letter from New York University. My mother was terrified. "Elna," she said nervously, "the first thing that will happen in New York is you might start to swear. Swearing will lead to drinking, and drinking will lead to drugs. And Elna," she continued, looking directly into my eyes, "what would you do if a lesbian tried to make out with you?"
My mother, who once referred to Manhattan as Babylon, sat with her arms folded, waiting for me to answer.
"I'd say, No, thank you … lesbian.'"
She rolled her eyes. "There's one more thing," she said. "There are clubs in New York where men pay women to dance with very little clothing on. Don't do that."
Despite her concerns, I was pretty straitlaced at NYU. My friends, however, weren't, and I found myself fascinated by their hectic dating lives. As a Mormon, my one illicit curiosity had always been sex. With men. Sex, boys, penises. Not that I'd ever sated that curiosity in my boy-free teen years. In fact, I was so clueless about the opposite sex that when I tried sketching a penis in a college art class, my best guy friend thought I'd drawn a tugboat.
Which makes complete sense, really, because everything I knew about sex I learned in church. I remember a Sunday school class on chastity when I was 13. The teacher walked into the classroom and slammed a tray of cookies onto the table with a loud clank.
"Does anyone want a cookie?" she asked in an aggressive tone. We perked up in our seats. Chastity class was always easier to endure when the teacher brought food, but something was amiss. Upon further inspection, the cookies were half-eaten, broken and sprinkled with dirt. "Anyone?" When no one answered, she nodded emphatically and said, "That's right, no one wants a dirty, half-eaten cookie." And that, my friends, is how I learned not to have sex.
There were other, more significant reasons to stay a virgin, of course: I learned that I had to fight for the future I wanted, and the way to do that was by making wise choices. If I waited to have sex until marriage, I'd avoid unwanted pregnancy and disease. I'd be guaranteed the best kind of sex, the deeply-in-love kind, with someone committed enough to marry me. If I didn't wait, I risked damaging my soul, I was told. As if that wasn't enough, the biggest reason to stay a virgin was because sex is sacred—it creates life, and therefore is an act that unites us with God. Try explaining all of this on a first date.
After I moved to New York, it would've been easier for me to date only Mormons, who'd understand. Except there aren't very many in New York, and, anyway, I've always gone for guys I find attractive regardless of their religion. As a result, I dated mostly non-Mormons. But that led to the same frustrating scenario repeating itself: I'd meet a guy and fall head over heels, we'd go back to my apartment and make out, I'd cut things short by blurting out that I'm a Mormon and then, realizing he wasn't getting any, he'd split. My longest relationship in my early and midtwenties lasted four weeks. And that's because the guy was out of town for two of them.
Although my virginity was a disadvantage, I stayed hopeful about dating. And yet, some encounters were just ridiculous. One date, with a French movie director, stands out.
"You're a Mormon?" he asked me. "Can you have ze sex?"
I was surprised at his candor. "No," I answered.
He looked at me in disbelief. "Well, if you can't have ze sex, what can you do?"
For simplicity's sake I took my left arm and lined it up under my collarbone. "Nothing below here," I said. I lined my right arm across my knees and said, "Nothing above here."
"What about ze armpit?" he asked. "Can your boyfriend do anything he wants to ze armpit?"
I thought about it for a few moments. "Yeah," I said optimistically. "My boyfriend can do anything he wants to my armpit."
"This is good," he said. "He can stick his penis in and out of ze armpit, and if you grow hair there, it is almost like a vagine."
Check, please.
After braving probably a hundred disappointing dates over six years, I actually met a cute Mormon guy when I was 24. We fell in love. A year or so later he brought up marriage. I picked out a ring. I even moved to Utah to be with him. I can't believe I actually made it, I thought. I get to have sex! But I celebrated too soon. We quickly realized we were incompatible, and sadly, we decided to break up.
I moved back to New York and vowed that I would focus on myself, not on getting married, for a while. Which made me a virgin with no end in sight—a daunting predicament. I started taking yoga, hoping it would help release my pent-up sexual energy. Then, one day in class, we did a hip-opening pose lying on our backs with our legs spread-eagled. In a soft, meditative voice, the instructor said, "This position may bring up some emotions for you." Before she even finished the sentence, I started sobbing and muttering to myself, "I'm going to die a virgin!"
Right there on the floor of the yoga studio, despite everything my parents and religion taught me, I decided to change the rules. I, Elna Baker, could have premarital sex. My criteria were pretty simple: It had to be with someone I trusted (no one-night stands). Most important, I would not cave to pressure from anyone. I had to make the decision for myself.
Over the next year, instead of just kissing sitting up, I started kissing lying down (the gateway drug to sex). And my dating life actually improved. By not taking sex off the table right away, I made it past the four-week mark in relationships with several different guys.
That's how I find myself in the Hotel Chelsea with kind, funny and incredibly hot James, barely dressed and as close as I've ever been to losing my virginity. As we lie on the giant bed reflected in the giant mirror, James asks, "Should I get a condom?"
I hesitate. Mentally I run through my sex criteria. Do I trust James? I do. Then I get to the most critical one: Is it really my decision? What do I want?
The only way I can explain how I feel at this moment is this: Once, I tried to follow my daring brother's lead and dive off a 30-foot cliff into a pool of water. I hoisted myself up the jagged rocks until I made it to a ledge at the top. I took three steps back and began propelling myself forward. But as I approached the steep drop-off, I stopped and froze. My heart raced. You could break your neck. This isn't worth dying for. After a few minutes I started to climb back down. But the trip was much harder in reverse. I was stuck—too scared to go back, too scared to go forward.
There were many times I could have taken that leap with sex, and the consequences could have been heartbreaking for me. No matter how sweet and well-meaning the guys were, the hot-and-heavy moments I'd shared with them just didn't add up to something worth losing my virginity over. After all, once it was gone, I could never get it back.
As I learned in church years ago, I have to fight for the future I want through the choices I make. And even though it's hard to fess up to, a big part of me really does want to give myself to one person alone. Not for him or for anyone else—for myself.
"I'm not ready to be intimate," I hear myself tell James.
"What do you think this is?" he says, laughing and gesturing from me to him. "I think when you do finally have sex, you'll be surprised. It's not that different from what you're doing already."
"I know," I say, and I can see his point. But I also hear another reassuring voice. Someday Elna, it says, you will look around the room at your husband and children and the rich, full life you've built for yourself. And you will be so proud of the choices you've made. That's the voice I'm listening to.
Elna Baker's memoir, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, will be published in October by Dutton. She lives in New York City.
