Do Tampons Take Your Virginity? A Catholic Girl's Memoir

by Marie Simas

  The Bettencourt seemed to have everything: their own house, a happy marriage, a pigeon coop, and a great job. They lived like kings.

  At one point, Daniel and I became sexually curious about one another. We decided to play doctor, which was pretty harmless sexual play. My father caught us one time and freaked out. I think we were only about nine or ten years old. Father immediately took me home and beat the shit out of me. He called me a puta. My mother was actually more upset than my father—whoever would have thought that my mother could produce a child like me, who actually wanted to touch her own vagina?

  I should have been recoiling from my pussy like it was a cobra.

  Daniel wasn’t punished. Mr. Bettencourt just blew it off as childhood curiosity, which any normal parent would do. But Daniel and I weren’t allowed to play alone anymore.

  We continued to visit even after my mother got sick. So we played in the common areas. At one point, we snuck away and Daniel showed me his stash of Playboy magazines. They were old Playboys—second-hand, garage-sale Playboys, but they were still nudie magazines! I was impressed.

  Then one day, it all ended.

  My grandmother Amalia, who was my maternal grandmother, invited Daniel’s grandmother to her house for a sleepover. I never really understood the reasoning for the overnight stay, but it happened. Both of these ladies were pretty old; over sixty by then.

  Overnight, some money disappeared from my grandmother’s purse. My grandmother discovered the theft the next day and immediately suspected Grandmother Betten-court. My grandmother called the Bettencourt household, screaming accusations.

  “Thief! You thief! You were a guest in my house! How could you?” Amalia screamed.

  “You are a crazy woman! Why don’t you ask your crazy homo son, or your druggie slut teenage daughter where the money went!” hissed Grandmother Bettencourt.

  My grandmother’s children, Moses and Diana, were teenagers with poor reputations. Moses and Diana were my mother’s youngest siblings; the babies of the family. It was all conjecture, of course, but it made good fodder for an argument.

  My grandmother took a deep breath to respond. But before she could say anything, Grandmother Bettencourt hung up on my grandmother. That was it! It was WAR. All out, gossip-to-the-whole-town, crazy-old-lady WAR!

  A rift opened up in the Portuguese community—those who believed one old lady and those who believed the other. My mother picked sides with my grandmother, and Mother subsequently refused to go over to the Bettencourt’s house. This greatly distressed my father. He hated the appearance of outward disharmony and this little scrap between old ladies seemed ridiculous. In vain, he tried to negotiate a truce between the two women.

  Neither would budge. No one can hold a grudge like an old Catholic grandmother.

  But the war raged on... for years. My father continued to visit the Bettencourt family alone. My mother never went back, even though she had enjoyed the visits. She felt it would have been a betrayal to her mother, who still talked incessantly about the stolen money. Of course, it’s ridiculous to believe that the old lady stole the money. My grandmother probably misplaced it, or my aunt or uncle really did take it.

  The Bettencourt family never set foot in our house again.

  When Grandmother Bettencourt died, my grandmother finally stopped talking about this “horrible incident.” At that point, she must have thought it bad form to speak ill of the dead. But she didn’t go to the funeral. That would have been too much. And she really wasn’t ready to forgive.

  I went to a wedding a few years ago and saw Mr. and Mrs. Bettencourt in the pew next to me. They were older, but still a very handsome couple. They greeted me warmly, and told me that neither one of their kids had married. Daniel was still single.

  I was sad for them... they deserved some grandkids.

  One Black Kid

  1982, AGE 9

  There was only one black kid in our elementary school. His name was Randall Johnson. He had an older sister who was popular, but she was in high school. Randall was an outcast and he had few friends.

  I wanted to be his friend because I felt like an outcast, too. I used to compose little novels, written on folded sheets of binder paper and stapled together. In fifth grade, I wrote a little book about Randall titled Randall Johnson’s Adventures with the Birds.

  It was typical fifth grade gibberish—50 pages of block lettering and line drawings. I was quite proud of it. When it was finished, I took my masterpiece to school and showed Randall. Instead of being impressed, he got angry.

  “I don’t want you to write about me!” he yelled.

  “But it’s good, Randall—read it. I made you a hero.”

  “I don’t want to be in your stupid book!”

  I was so upset. Enraged, in fact. He had rejected me. Who did he think he was? And then I screamed, “I hate you, Randall! You’re a dumb nigger!” Randall froze. Then he started crying. Hysterical, unstoppable crying.

  My parents never used racial slurs. I don’t even remember where I heard the word nigger. I just knew it was really bad and it would hurt Randall’s feelings. All the other kids in the class turned to stare at us. The teacher, Mr. Coleson, walked up and asked what happened.

  Randall pointed an accusing finger at me. “She-she— called me a nigger!”

  Mr. Coleson looked at me, his mouth open. He was horrified. My father had given Mr. Coleson permission to spank me in class during the last parent-teacher meeting and I thought he would punch me. So I lied.

  “Randall called me a bitch!” I started crying, too, more from fear than anything else, but the tears were genuine.

  “That’s a lie!” Randall yelled. He wouldn’t stop crying. Mr. Coleson took us both outside and talked to us privately. He left us in the hallway, sitting in chairs on opposite sides of the room. We sat in silence for about thirty minutes and then went back to class. Nobody ever said anything else about it.

  I felt so guilty. I never forgot that day. It made an indelible impression upon me. As an adult, it bothered me so much that I tracked Randall down online. I sent him an e-mail and asked him to forgive me. But even then, I couldn’t get myself to repeat what I had said, even in the e-mail.

  This was his exact response:

  “Good to hear from you. My apologies for the tardiness of my reply. Now what’s this with all the worry about things twenty years ago? There’s nothing to apologize for. We were kids. It was a long time ago and that’s it. Come to think of it, I probably thought of you more as sassy than rude. So free yourself from worry over imagined slights. I felt none and take no offense.”

  When I read his reply, I cried. He could have been a complete asshole, but instead, he forgave me, and in the most gracious way possible.

  Thank you, Randall Johnson.

  White Tube Socks, Please

  1984, AGE 11

  European Catholics love dark colors because they “show less dirt.” These color choices spill over into all aspects of their daily lives: dark brown cars, wine-colored tablecloths, and black socks and shoes, even in the summertime.

  I hated wearing dark socks. In the eighties, all the other kids had pegged jeans, white Reebok sneakers, and scrunchy tube socks that came up at least six inches above their shoes. I was the only kid wearing bell bottoms, patent-leather fats, and black socks. When I walked to class, the other kids would call out, “Ding, dong, ding!” which was supposed to be the sound of my bell-bottom pants.

  I begged Mother for white tube socks when I was in junior high school. Madonna was really in fashion then, and I desperately wanted legwarmers, long white socks, and pegged jeans.

  Mother never bought white socks because she said they would “show dirt” and would be too difficult to clean. So I was the only kid in the sixth grade wearing little girl patent- leather black shoes with black socks.

  My grandmother, Amalia, finally gave me a few pairs of white socks. I washed them in the bathroom sink so I could wear them over and over. In desperate t
imes, when the socks were still wet, I dried them with a hair dryer and put them on while they were still damp.

  In seventh grade, I was ecstatic when a friend gave me her old legwarmers. They were pink. I brought the legwarmers home and proudly showed them to my parents. My father flew into a rage and threw them in the trash.

  “Do you want to be a whore?” he screamed. “These things are for putas.” He raised his fist, but I ran to my room. I let it go and didn’t get punched, which seemed like a fair trade at the time.

  That was it. The conversation was over. I was shocked— why this sudden prejudice against legwarmers? I didn’t understand it. He’d never mentioned anything about them before. But I suspected that it was Madonna. My father hated Madonna. Her blockbuster “Like a Virgin” video was all over television and she was wearing legwarmers and cut-off gloves, which were also contraband.

  That bitch ruined my only chance to wear something fashionable.

  The Tapeworm Promise

  1984, AGE 11

  Back in the old country, my grandmother Amalia was prone to hemorrhages. She suffered a prolapsed uterus with her third pregnancy. She was lucky, because doctors transported her to the island of Terceira, which was the only island that had a proper hospital. She had surgery to restore her uterus to the correct position. She lost vast amounts of blood and also lost an ovary during the surgery.

  The physician told Amalia that she would not be able to bear another child. A decade passed. Then, while my mother’s family was still living in Portugal, my grandmother became pregnant again.

  Only a single ovary and she still managed to get pregnant. The doctors pleaded with her to abort—that she would never survive the pregnancy and the fetus would be stillborn.

  Grandmother refused the abortion and told the doctor, “I’m not killing my baby! If God wants us to go, we will go together!”

  Amalia survived the pregnancy, but my Uncle Moses was born sickly. His hair was white and his skin was so pale you could see the blue veins under the skin. He was the lightest one in the entire family. In the end, they called him the “angel child.”

  Moses would sleep between my grandparents, because they were afraid he would stop breathing during the night. His skin was covered with sores, either from poor nutrition or allergies. Moses would scratch constantly at his skin, crying out at night, “I’m itchy! I’m so itchy!”

  At age two, Moses became infested with intestinal worms, which were common in those days. His immune system was already weakened, and he lost an alarming amount of weight. Grandmother tried dozens of home remedies, but nothing worked. Weeks passed.

  Finally, Moses was bedridden, close to death. Grandmother was frantic. There were no doctors on the island. She found a local Curador (healer) that offered to give Moses a draft of poisonous herbs to kill the worms. But there was a question of whether Moses would survive the treatment—he was already so far gone.

  That night, Grandmother made a secret pact with the Curador. If Moses died, they would say nothing, and no one would know about the poison drink. The Curador gave Moses the drink, and Grandmother stayed up all night watching him.

  My grandfather left the house afraid, and went to the church to pray. That night, praying on his knees, grandfather promised to slaughter his finest bull and give away the meat if Moses survived.

  Moses made it.

  A few months later, Grandfather kept his promise to the Virgin by slaughtering his prize bull. Moses and Grandfather rode from house to house on the back of a donkey cart filled with the meat. Moses handed out the paper-wrapped parcels to everyone in the village. It was thanks for a miracle.

  My uncle Moses would later emigrate with the entire family to the United States. As children, we were close, because he was only eleven years older than me. My grandmother would go on to have another child, a daughter named Diana, two years later. Another miracle birth. After Diana was born, the doctors performed a complete hysterectomy on my grandmother and the pregnancies finally stopped.

  Moses picked on me as if I were a younger sister. I was jealous of him—he danced disco really well. Moses was wild and funny, the opposite of my younger brother. Moses also had the balls to call my father an asshole.

  I loved him.

  So one day, I decided to give Moses a gift.

  Moses had a giant glass fish tank in the backyard behind his house. The fish tank was green with algae and held dozens of yellow goldfish. The goldfish just lived in there... out in the open. I don’t know if the tank was ever cleaned.

  One day, I fished out all the goldfish in the tank and put them in a white bucket filled with clean tap water. I scrubbed the fish tank clean with a heavy-duty scrubber. It took hours, but it was sparkling clean! I refilled the tank with water and put the fish back in. Whew! It was a big job, but the tank looked lovely! I knew Moses would be so pleased.

  When Moses came home from school, he discovered the clean fish tank and called me.

  “What did you DO?” he screamed.

  “Do you like it? Surprise! I cleaned the fish tank!” I squealed.

  “They’re all dead!” He slammed the phone down on the receiver.

  I was so startled—I didn’t believe him. I ran over to Grandmother’s house.

  Moses was telling the truth. All of his fish were bobbing on the surface, as dead as leaves. The shock, coupled with the chlorine in the tap water, killed them all. Moses was so angry, he just dumped everything into the garden. The water, the dead goldfish... everything.

  The fish tank stayed empty. I would go to my grandmother’s backyard and stare at it. My uncle, a snotty teenager, teased me mercilessly about the goldfish.

  “You killed them! I never asked you to clean anything! You’re a BRAT!” he would say.

  I hated that empty fish tank. It was a symbol of a failed kindness: a constant visual reminder of my stupidity. It hurt all the more because I loved Moses and all I ever wanted to do was impress him.

  Eventually, I went over one day after my uncle had left for school and I kicked it to pieces. When they asked me about it, I said that my little brother had thrown a rock at it and it shattered.

  Catholics, Virgins, and Non-Consensual Sex

  Everyone knows that Catholic girls only come in two flavors:

  1. Virgins

  2. Whores

  Virginity was a big issue in my family.

  Father, after sowing his wild oats with an untold number of American sluts, was determined to find a virgin bride. He succeeded when he found my innocent mother, who was a model Catholic.

  Our local parish priest told my mother in no uncertain terms that she should run away from my father as fast as her feet would take her. She wouldn’t listen. Mother married him anyway in a huge Catholic wedding. She was twenty-seven and Father was thirty-two.

  The problem with twenty-seven-year-old Catholic virgins is this: if they’ve made it that long without losing their virginity, chances are they detest sex.

  Growing up, I could never understand why Protestants believe that the Virgin Mary didn’t stay a virgin. Their primary argument seemed to be that it would be impossible for a woman to be married and not have sexual relations. I always thought this argument was ridiculous, because my mother and grandmother would have gladly lived out their entire married lives without any sex at all. Don’t get me wrong—they both enjoyed having children. But if they could have chosen a virgin birth, I’m certain they would have jumped at the chance.

  Most Catholic men search for virgins, and then are deeply frustrated when they discover that these poor women are terrified of their own vaginas and even more terrified of a man’s penis.

  During my mother’s childhood, my grandmother Amalia dutifully explained the inherent wickedness of intercourse to her impressionable young daughters. Grandmother also was quick to inform her girls that, although sex was a wifely duty, there is no reason why they should have to enjoy it, and in fact, it would be better if they just lay there and took their punishment sto
ically.

  Mother told me that she had never seen an adult male penis before her wedding night, but she knew what it would look like because she had changed her younger brothers’ cloth diapers.

  With my father’s long search for a virgin a success, the newlyweds went off to Portugal for their honeymoon.

  Father took photos along the way, and I could tell from the “before” and “after” wedding photos that my mother had NO IDEA what she was in for. She looked completely demoralized in every picture that was taken on the honeymoon. Father didn’t bother making my mother’s first time pleasurable, or at least not terrifying. He was a rutting boar and destroyed any chance that my mother would ever enjoy sex.

  When I got older, Mother told me that she despised sex, that it was painful and she only did it because it was her wifely duty. She suffered from vaginal infections because Father used Vaseline as a lubricant. He kept it right by the bedside, on the nightstand, although I didn’t really understand what it was for until I was a teenager.

  Mother didn’t submit quietly every time. There was a lot of non-consensual sex going on at my house. The pleading and occasional screams behind closed doors gave it away.

  On more than one occasion, I ran to the bedroom door to stop the obvious abuse (I didn’t understand it was spousal rape until my late teens). This interruption resulted in my father coming out and giving me a swift kick. But my father was always careful not to leave real marks unless it was a weekend, because, like I said, I had a big mouth and he knew I’d tell people at school that I’d been beaten.

  I used to lie awake at night listening to my mother plead with my father to leave her alone. I heard a lot of begging and slamming of doors. Eventually, Mother would concede and I heard the bedposts pounding against the bedroom walls. The bed was old, so my father balled up two socks and slipped them over the bedposts to muffle the sound, but it was still pretty loud.

  When I was in junior high, I asked if I could come home for lunch, because I was being bullied at school. My father refused, because he would come home at lunch to rape my mother. Without us there, Mother would scream and Father could still force himself upon her without any disruptions.