Eve, Interrupted

I have spent the past ten years studying sex and sexuality, because outside of birth and death, sex is the most powerful and mystical aspect of life, and for that reason, I have the deepest respect for the concept. Growing up, on rare occasion the women of my family would discuss sex, and it was always viewed as being a chore--a biblical duty to one's husband or a means to achieve an end, and even at that time I could not understand how that could be so. My education during this phase of my life was reduced to television and books, which contradicted greatly with the messages I received growing up how sex was an evil concept, further proof that humankind stems from all aspects of sin. I was raised in the Bible Belt, and a woman's body was considered to be something of evil, an instrument of temptation designed to ruin marriages and caused men to flee from the grace of God, as Adam did as a result of Eve's seductive nature. For that reason, a "good girl" covered herself up, as not to project her naturally sinful form onto her vulnerable male counterparts. I have always resented this policy, because the human body is a miraculous combination of science and art; a sculpture with a soul. The belief system I was exposed to was the very reason I became a feminist at such an early age, because from my adolescent perspective the only reason the leaders of my religion presented such a negative view on a woman's body is because they were jealous of what it could do. A woman's body tells her when it is time for her to shed her childhood in a way that is so poetic it should be celebrated. Despite the impressions I may give out, I do respect the duality of pregnancy, an act I view as being simultaneously barbaric and mystical. If someone created a machine that could do the same thing, they would be heralded as being innovative, but the same form exists among us naturally and we are taught to despise it. This has been on my mind for quite some time now, and I have decided to pursue the topic further in Eve, Interrupted.