Samantha Pugsley

I’ll never forget that time when I was twelve when my mom decided to test my reaction to being grabbed in public.

I can hear the elevated thud thud thud of his heartbeat matching time with my own as if in conversation with one another. We let them do the talking and languidly drowse in the aftermath of our lovemaking.

The concept of “virginity” is heteronormative.

Picking and choosing from the Bible.

“She’s pretty for a black girl.”

Does thinking about my appearance impact my daily life and my decisions?

I believe part of the problem is that we aren’t talking about what’s actually happening in these classrooms. It’s not just about promoting abstinence, instead crossing over into misinformation, scare tactics, and lies.

It would have been easier to stay comfortably hidden behind my marriage and to write behind a penname to remove all fear that she’d find out. But that’s not what I wanted.

I’ll borrow Oprah’s words: I wouldn’t be the kind of mother I need to be.

Change.

I had packaged up my sexuality for him to open on our wedding night, but he never did because it hadn’t ever belonged to him.

It wasn’t about the tattoo itself. It was about being able to see my body differently.