This post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium, Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.
Amanda Pumphrey is a first year Ph.D. student in women’s studies in religion at Claremont Graduate University. She received her MA in religion from Claremont School of Theology and her BA in religious studies from Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia. Amanda enjoys studying Christian sexual ethics and feminist and queer theologies.
It’s 8th grade. I’m in the girls’ bathroom during lunch time and I ask my friend in the stall next to me if she has a tampon that I can use. “Amanda Brookins, I didn’t know you wasn’t a virgin nomore!” screams another friend who is waiting on me. I was confused by her comment, but I later learned that her mother had explained to her that girls could not wear tampons unless they had had sex. Which translated into only married women should be utilizing tampons. This is the context in which I grew up: South Georgia where there is virtually no comprehensive sex education in the public school systems. In this small southern town, I learned about sex through my youth group at a country, Pentecostal church. What I learned was that sex was sinful and it was not something that I should even think about until I was married. Christianity and southern culture go hand in hand within my hometown, so as a born again Christian and a girl I was expected to “save myself for marriage” and my future husband, and to uphold my status as a polite and proper southern belle. The norms were already established: sex is for marriage which is a Christian institution between one man and one woman. Continue reading “Sexual Ethics and Southern Belles By Amanda Pumphrey”
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