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it's good. Oh the from the New York Times and W B are Boston. This is modern the stories of love loss and redemption. I'm your host magnetron puberty, the Nicole Hardy, was single thirty, five years old. Old am struggling with her churches requirement that she stays celibate before marriage, but struggle is very different from action and that next step would change her life

just you know Machado of six feet under and the Netflix Series one day at a time reads: Nicholls as a single female mormon alone of all the places, I felt sure I'd never go plan. Parenthood tap the list because you know home abortions and give condoms to kids, or so I'd been warned yet one spring afternoon found me and it's waiting room next to a teenage girl who was clearly confused. The intake form and likely bound for an uncomfortable for minutes in the back of a borrowed car. But what it I know I was a thirty five year old virgin preparing for my own first time, incidentally, didn't happen until I was well into thirty six. I wasn't frigid fearful or socially inept, not overweight or unattractive and suffered from halitosis or social anxiety disorder.

I was a practicing Mormon and Mormons wait until marriage. So I had waited. Spent the first two decades of my adult life, sell a bed and for the most part along because only after the trial of my fate, I be blessed with an eternal marriage which I prayed would also blow my mind in the bedroom- it never occurred to me that I would remain married, especially in a system where marriage is not only a commandment but also one of six primary purposes turns out, though, that there is no place in that community for a single woman who doesn't want children. My only available choice within the church was to wait for my reward in Heaven as

I mean doctrine, promises that single members denied marriage, family and sex lives on earth will have them after death. Needless to say, this was not a compelling argument. Most troubling was the fact that, as I grew older, I had the distinct sense of remaining a child in the women's body virginity brought with it arrested development like the russian orphans, read about whose lack of physical contact prevented them from forming emotional bonds. Now it like celibacy, was stunting. My growth. It wasn't just sex, I lacked, but relationships with men. Entirely too pendent from Mormon men and how much a virgin for the other set. I felt trapped and adolescence. My first act of open rebellion was to go see. Brokeback mountain

in Seattle's, Rainbow stripe, Capitol Hill neighborhood with a pair of lesbian friends I wasn't ready to have an alcoholic beverage or a cup of coffee to lie with a man or smoke a cigarette, but I could watch a movie even if that movie wasn't is attack on the sanctity of hetero marriage with his handsome straight Hollywood actors, acting as if homosexuality were not perverse because While I am also straight and believe in God, one thing became clear that day I could empathize with those gay cowboys. I knew as an unmarried thirty something happy without children, Mormon woman, how it felt to grow apart from one's community. I knew what it was to be fundamentally bound to

ill fitting life to be the object of pity and judgment to feel I had no choice but to be the thing that made me other and to be told that if I prayed hard enough, God would bless me to want what I was supposed to want stage. Two of my rebellion happened immediately after the movie at Bay, bland, our cities, world renowned sex toy store My lesbian companions were supportive of if perplexed by my commitment to the law of chastity, they were protective of innocence. In the same way, another friend once knocked a pot cookie out of my hand. I was not gently getting stoned on her watch, but what could be more fun than a thirty four year old virgin to wish top selling, everything from art, glass, dildos to vibrating, nipple clamps, and what,

Would be funnier than watching said Virgin study each product's list of features for water this tense battery life noise factor shape size and have the fury. fish and chips I did have all with Non Mormon men lasted only a few weeks. Months. If it was summer time and all dates could begin and end outside in daylight, delaying the expectation of physical contact that darkness inspires. The pattern was the at first men were intrigued, turned down by my virginity, the landscape of uncharted territory, my innocence and city in certain scenarios, a man believes or hopes I'm playing an elaborate game of hard to get that the whole thing will culminate one night in the city, sweaty up against the wall scene out of roadhouse starring him as a young Patrick Swayze. However, every time

I'm fantasy met reality. These men and in search of something simpler and who could blame them? We were grown adults most of them had been having active sex lives for decades, and it was weird for them. Some would say ridiculous to suddenly be thrust back into the eighth grade, So why wasn't I dating Mormon men? In a nutshell, the pool is small and people marry young for obvious reasons. The leftovers were leftover clause, closet Gay men porn addicted virgins, along with the merely awkward uncompromising, an unlucky. My favorite was the movie industry veteran who, after offering me a peanut butter cup said, Murray, loves, peanut butter. You know, Marie Osmond we dated in college. She was into it, but I just couldn't handle being Mr Marie Osmond. Obviously I was left

for two. I would just never sure what my problem was until one And let me know after overhearing a friend and me comparing our weaken horrid date stories, he walked up to me and asked you know what your problem is no! I didn't know what my problem was and I was dying to find out your problem. He said. Is you don't need a man? I thought that was a good thing to be able to take care of oneself. He asked if I had a job. Yes, a car, yes yes, close. Of course food. Obviously that's your problem. Excuse me Men in the church are raised to be providers. We are the breadwinners, the stew,

of the household, if you have all the things were supposed to provide, we have nothing to give you one of my love. I asked what about intimacy in partnership and in making a run at the world together? No, he said for Providers regardless of my tragic, dating history, in the fact that I had no reason to feel hopeful. I tried for, fifteen years, not to lose hope the gospel, was the answer. It had saved my parents, each of whom had converted separately when they were young. thanks to the Mormon church. They escaped childhoods full of abuse, alcoholism and neglect. They found God found each other. And were rescued by a community committed to family forgiveness, enjoying out of chaos. They create

did a tiny space where our family of four lived happily and prospered. I was surrounded by love. Tee that I am a child of God that I have a divine purpose. My whole life I felt secure, fulfilled purposeful and connected and further I'd made, a commitment Why would I abandoned God in his church now when Anne always ways, but one I had asked and had received. Perhaps the failure was mine. I'm sure many church members see it that way. I was too weak to endure. They'll say

should have waited another decade or spent my whole life alone. If that's what God required, I'm just unwilling to believe that what God wants for anyone and was unwilling to continue spiraling further into a disconnected life feeling abandoned being discounted. Oddly, my trip to planned parenthood provided much that the church had not in recent years. During my exam, the clinician explained every move before she made. It asked permission to touch me during the most routine procedures. I was mystified by her compassion by the level of attention paid to my body as if it were fragile or sacred. Only then did it occurred to me how

many terrified and abused women planned parenthood must treat every day and that brought me to tears distressed by the ways in which we all suffer and whatever ways we do in and grateful for the unlikely refuge of this place. Grateful also for the safety granted my own tears, prompted by the delicate weight of a hand on my shoulder, the warmth of her palm against. My back how unprepared I was to experience tenderness in the place. I had been warned so vehemently against how unprepared for the flood of relief, the butt of hope your life devoted to keeping myself separate from my body here was a path and opening who was empathy I would have an eye you d instead of children. I would have

to and spiritual freedom. I would write poems and finally live inside my body. I would for the love of God, I feel a man's hands on me before I died, the Justina Machado reading call Hardee's s a single female Mormon alone, more from Nicole Hardy after the break the

your hiring, you know can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. You just hope the rate Canada comes along, but not when you use it for cruder zipper. Critters technology finds qualified candidates, for you then actively invites them to apply. In fact, four out of five employers who posted zip recruiter, get a qualified candidates within the first day, chide free today at zero cruder, dot com, slash and my tea that super cruder dot com slash N Y T Ziprecruiter the smartest way to hire. I love spelling my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other, playing individually cheating. Sometimes when I open up spelling bee- and I see that you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed. They may have happened again to I, have one friend who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words, then I was get nervous. I sent it to my parents or something

me and my dad. We likes this time you together and I wish cuz it out. It J, J, C K, p o t It's a jackpot, yeah nice, I'm same is asking the digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try, spelling bee and all our games at annoying times dot com, flash games, we're back its modern love. The pod cast a magnet upper body after Nicole parties essay was first published in the New York Times. She got a book deal. Hidell of her memoirs confession of a latter day virgin now she knew that putting her words on such a public stage would have wide reaching ramifications. It could have endangered her future, the Mormon Church and maybe even just play her relationship with family and friends. My van

is the only member of my immediate family. As far as I know who has read my book and I gave him a special redirected copy, where I took a raise blade to the spine of the book and I took a sharpie. to certain We'Re- and phrases and paragraphs, and so I gave him a copy that has all of the. Emotional and spiritual struggles, but none of the sex, and he said he felt really grateful that he didn't have to be fearful of turning the page, because that allowed him to really understand what went wrong for me and to their credit, I'm still part of the family, but I don't feel like they know me is intimately as they could so, there's a certain amount of not asking and not telling around the Christmas dinner table. We asked if her parents were did he pushed back from the Mormon community. Coal says quite the opposite happened,

especially the Sunday. Her piece was published. He said he walked into church a woman approached him right away and said: does your daughter write for the New York Times and he said well, she doesn't write for them, but she has an essay in the paper this morning and she said I read it and it was beautiful and you should be so proud and I think the reason that story was so important is because I feel like it surprised him that, because I think he was expecting judgment or silence and I think the thing that helps Hannah. continue to have a good relationship is that he can imagine a world where I can be, who I am and still be loved by God.

Nicole no longer considers herself a member of the church of Latter Day saints spiritually. She still searching, I'm not sure what I believe any more and that strangely, is really a relief. I was sort of told my whole life. What I believed in for a long time that was see to do because nothing bad ever happened to me and felt blessed in my life was abundant until I changed or life got complicated enough that those things were true anymore and all the things that I fear radically believed just became less and less like inspiration like fulfillment, like joy, and letting go of all those supposed tos and sheds felt credibly, liberating

don't know if I could sit down and tell you like. A list of doctrinal Points that I believe anymore, but I love not knowing, and I thought for a long time. the not knowing would be terrifying, but I feel like those are the places wherein the biggest revelations come come and the coal is welcoming more revelations into her life and I've traveled and you know at one point I quit my job and sold everything I owned and moved to a tropical island just because it's a thing that people talk about, but it didn't make sense not to do it if you could- and I feel like that's one of the benefits of being single I still haven't married. I don't know if I will. I would like to be in love someday, but in the meantime,.

I want to see the world and I want to have extraordinary adventures and I want to be open to the unknown. So what about her? First? Sexual encounter of the time that the article was written, I had a boyfriend and I thought we're going to happen with him and the more intense it God and the closer it got it. It turned out that that was a situation that was very pressure which I can kind of understand, but I didn't at the time that's fine because, as women were always told that in our men always want it, and there are four whenever and whatever we want is available to us. All the time from men's. But months later I met a new man who became my boyfriend and he had had a really lovely first time,

and they always been super meaningful to him that it was with someone that he really cared about, and I appreciate that he took a lot of care in making sure that I have that same kind of variance and we're not together, which is fine for both of us. He is now married to someone else who is probably better suited to him. but a thing that I let go of when I left the church is believing that the person that you're with on the first night is the person that you're with for eternity, and I really believe that he was the perfect person. For that moment, the Nicole Hardy. Her memoir is confessions of a latter day virgin she In Seattle and is working on a nonfiction book about her latest adventure a year at sea. On a one hundred and eighty foot tall ship with forty two strangers,

don't go anywhere more in a minute. I love spelling my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other, playing individually, and not cheating. Sometimes when I open up spelling bee- and I see that you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed in salary, They may have happened again to I have one friend who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words. Then I was get nervous. I sent it to my parents or something Me and my dad, we like to time you together and I wish cuz it out it, J, J C K, P, o t. Jackpot

yeah. Nice I'm same is risky. The digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try, spelling bee and all our games at annoying times dot com, flash games, welcome back now let's hear from Dan Jones editor of modern love for the New York Times we're getting letters that were People in similar situations that suddenly say like this just releases the floodgates of emotions that have been pent up. It starts out with her talking about how life and this religion has sort of suffocated her, but then marvelous turning point where she is about how religion saved her parents and gave her alive if essentially, and that the string of the Mormon religion are What saved them and gave them purpose, and- and she gives you this- this sort of

picture view. Instead,. demonizing. religion and Mormonism, in this case and so you understand you know you understand her dilemma, it's not something she can just walk away from very easily. It's not something she embrace. I don't know by the time you get to the end or she's talking about If she's going to move forward in this life- and well feel a man's hands on her body before she dies. It's just so beautifully resonant by that point, Dan Jones. editor of modern love for the New York Times, a more modern love join the Facebook community at Facebook, dot, com, slash, modern love, Dan Post, some guy. Things there, including an early digital release of the weeks essay special thanks to you. Dino Machado, for reading this week's s aim, we sent her a handful of essays and

calls rose to the top we asked just you know why I mean it's: it's tolerance and dumb. Out of your comfort zone and realizing that it's not so bad It going through the same thing we're dealing with with a differently and we into one another little bit more. I think We find a lot of these stories, so I just loved the compassion and empathy Indus and I'm a big planned parenthood support it. You can see Justina in the Netflix Reboot of Norman Lear's, legendary family sitcom one day at a time, version Justino is a divorced military veteran raising her cuban him. Can family in LOS Angeles. The entire first season is streaming now. next week on the podcast Malin Akerman from the Showtime series. Billions brings us the story of a fake marriage based

real love when we reach the altar. The obvious Percinet or stopped his hip swinging jig, do you promise to polish each other's blue swayed shoes I beamed at my almost has been. I do It might have been more genuine. Of course, a frigate been standing next to the preferred love of his life. A man but a man wouldn't have been able to help them the way his best girlfriend good, the modern love is the production of the New York Times and W B. You are Boston, NPR station, its produced directed edited by Jessica, Alpert John Parity and am receive written for the modern love. Podcast was conceived by LISA Tobin Chris allows our executive producer, Jones is the editor of modern love for the New York Times and adviser to the show music for the pod cast courtesy of a p m, I'm making a Chakrabarti see you next week.

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