Being a woman: prompt
Shame and The Farmer
A story of female sexuality interrupted
I was twelve, back when twelve-year-old girls only knew the barest facts of sexuality and never spoke them out loud.
My girlfriend in another state learned about the deed from an older, experienced foster sister. We were nine when my friend told me in whispers about what boys do to girls. I didn’t believe her at first. Who could believe such a thing? But, knowing that the disturbing information originated with Dreama, a teenager we revered as knowing everything, I believed what my friend said. But, I never spoke about it to anyone. Because only very best friends could talk about something like that.
When I was eleven and my “womanhood” began, my older sister (our mother was deceased) gave me the talk. Well, she tried to give me the talk. I stopped her. Not wanting us both to be embarrassed by what she was struggling to say, I told her I already knew and gave her a few details to prove I was knowledgeable enough not to endure the talk.
But, on that summer day when I was twelve, my patchy knowledge became experience.
It was a Virginia-hot June day back when only the very wealthy, which we were not, had air-conditioners. My father started cooking a pot of something before leaving the…
