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non-bubbly personality as I was by his happy-go-lucky Mormon one. He was the kind of man every Mormon girl wants to marry: former missionary, clean cut, funny, athletic, attentive, cute. He wanted lots of children and he planned to become a dentist so he could support them. He declared his love for me. How could I not marry him? I was almost twenty, the time had come for me to take on the role I had been taught was my destiny, and here was John to marry me. He was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, so we got “pinned” in November, became engaged in February of 1970, and married later that year. The path of our relationship did not deviate from the one expected in the Mormon culture, and to any observer, we were the right fit for each other—the perfect couple.
    But our dating, and the months leading up to our wedding, were fraught with contention that was soon to be sharpened by the pain of rejection and guilt. After all the positive attention we got on the day of our marriage, I had to get in the car and drive away with my new husband for our honeymoon. Years later, my mother told me she had seen me through the car window, sitting very still, staring straight ahead. I looked trapped. But I don’t think she was surprised by that. A few weeks earlier, I had gone to her room, sat on her bed, and told her I wasn’t sure I wanted to get married. Her words to me were, “The invitations are out.” She believed I was just nervous about the big step I was taking, that I would be fine once the wedding was over. And I wanted desperately to believe that too. I clearly had my doubts or I would not have expressed them to my mother, but I clung to the belief that having sex with my husband once we were married would make me fall in love with him. I wanted to be in love with him—someone who loved me, loved children, lived a faithful Mormon life. Love, marriage, sex—I had been taught these things went together. I had not really experienced a longing for sexual intercourse, but I believed that as soon as I had sex, I would like it and I would be an enthusiastic partner.
    After our reception, my new husband and I drove to Park City, Utah, for our first night as husband and wife. My mother had bought me a light-blue negligée, and John and I were both excited to finally experience the big event we had been saving ourselves for. I know it sounds incongruous to say I felt trapped and yet looked forward to having sex, but I was sure I would love sex and therefore all my misgivings about getting married would magically disappear. But we were woefully unprepared. John had not known how babies were made until he was a senior in high school, and the only advice he got about lovemaking was from his older sister: “Take your time.” I knew the mechanics of what was going to happen, but nothing about the fine points of pleasure. So, neither of us had any experience—we thought it would just come to us naturally.
    What I remember about that night was the darkly paneled, unfamiliar, downstairs room that reminded me of a cheap motel. I remember the physical discomfort, the stickiness and stiffness, the too-bright bathroom light. I was shocked to discover that intercourse hurt, but worse, that it was messy. I lay awake that night as John slept, thinking about the movies I’d seen in which people had sex. In Butterfield 8 , Elizabeth Taylor just gets up and gets dressed—I didn’t see her wipe herself off—and no one had told me I’d have to sleep on the wet side of the bed. No one had told me about the feeling of violation, either. Or the sense of suffocation. Or the stark loneliness of lying under someone while he labors to an ecstatic conclusion in which you have no part except to be the receptacle. We both had all the right parts anatomically, but we did not fit together. There was little sense of “give,” of comfort, of rightness. John woke me for sex three more times that night, and I kept thinking of bumper cars. I finally got