There are some memories from church and religious settings that formed the building blocks to some ideologies I hold now. And they are not good memories.
In one, I was in university and used to attend a church that I would not name. In that church, there was practically no Sunday that an allusion to virginity and purity was not made.
The feminist in me got tired of listening to such and so I stopped going. Due to how I missed what I still cannot name, I went back there after a year. I went back and told the pastor that I was uncomfortable with how there was a hyper awareness of virginity in the sermons. He seemed to agree with me.
What happened the next Sunday is something I will never forget till the day I am laid to rest. This man went up on the pulpit, looked directly at me and said: “Some of you go to clubs and then come to complain that you have been raped.”
Whenever I think about the moment I knew deep down that the sexism and hatred of women begins from religion, I think of that moment. I have incredible respect for religious feminists who are trying to make religious places safer for women. That said, there must be a holistic conversation on how churches aid and abet the rape culture seen in African countries.
We have to also discuss how there is a strong link between virgin praising and rape culture both in and out of churches. Someone may wonder what is wrong about praising a woman for not having sex and for “keeping her body”. There lies the reason why it should not exist.
Virgin praising implies that women’s bodies exist for everyone except her. Not just that, to praise something is to imply that anything other than that is punishable and to be mocked.
Virgin praising asides leading to entitlement towards women, breeds a culture where there is no empathy when sexually active women experience rape.
When people say: “And she was a virgin”, when a woman experiences rape, what they don’t know that they are doing is that they are saying that due to being a “perfect victim”, she is better than the woman who willingly chose to be with a man and experienced assault on the way.
Not just that, virgin praising can lead to domestic violence and lack of empathy when married women are raped. It can also lead to women altering their bodies so that they don’t experience outcasting for not being virgins.
For instance, there are men who beat their wives for not appearing to be virgins upon marriage and not bleeding profusely. This is even if not all women bleed. There are also men who saw their wives raped by say armed robbers on their wedding day and become disgusted by her because to them their only attraction was that she was virgin. This is as though the entirety of her humanity diminishes when an act of violence was perpetrated towards her.
Furthermore, we have sexually active women undergoing hymen reconstruction surgery before their wedding nights so that they do not face violence should it seem that they were sexually active prior to their marriage.
And why does any of this exist? Why have we created a world where women’s entire worth is based on how sexually inexperienced she is? Inexperience that can even lead to her being mocked should she not know how to satisfy her husband’s sexual needs?
Why is it that cultures like bride price exist? Cultures that degrade women who are not virgins and make women appear like commodities at a farmers market for sale? Such that one of the bargaining chips is a woman’s body and if she is a virgin?
How can we not connect the dots and see that we can never have a free world if we have cultures that validate the blame placed on the shoulders of sexually active women who experience assault? If we do not see that it is not merely harmless praise of one group? If we don’t see that the praising of virgins has disastrous side effects on women who choose to have sex?
Speaking with Star*, she explained that she was nearly raped because she was not a virgin.
In her words: “I was almost raped in my 400 level by a man I knew because he knew I wasn’t a virgin. If not for God, flexibility, and stubbornness, I no fit explain. So this was in my 400 level right? I had an issue with my school portal, so I went to ICT to fix it. The person handling it was this nice, calm, flirty guy.
So he was flirting and all, I was flirting back, but I made it very obvious I wasn’t taking him seriously, cause I’ve never rated men, and I still don’t. I gave him my number, make them no go delete my student profile by mistake because of vex.
So anyway we were talking and what not, and I had to go back like 3 times because between network issues and crowd and all, it took that long to fix. Meanwhile, I had a delivery coming in for boots that I had ordered earlier in the year, but I don’t really know my way around Owerri plus I’m a homebody, so there’s that too, and I didn’t want to bug my siblings or spend all that money on bolt. 🤧😭”.
She went on to say: “So I’m with him working on my portal one day, and the waybill people call. They’d been calling since, and he had heard me talk to them once before. I had even wanted them to do home delivery, but I didn’t understand what they were saying. Anyway, they called while I’m with him, and he suggested it again (yes, he had actually suggested it the first time he heard me on the phone with them and I refused).
He suggested that he take me in his car to pick up my stuff, we’ll chill at his place, and I can come home the next day since it was already late and he was like traffic and everything. He also said, and I quote: ‘If you’re not comfortable at my place, I’ll book a hotel for you.’
Silly innocent 19 year old me. I thought it over, asked my friends, they were like sure, why not. I should go have fun and relax. It was: ‘This baby girl deserves some baby girl treatment kinda thing.’ Na im them wan tear babygirl soft nyansh.😭😭😭
So we go, pick up my shoes, get to his place, check them out, eat, talk, smoke, vibe, yunno, it was all cool. He even wanted us to go out that night, but I didn’t have strength. Problem started when night came. I took my bath and went to climb the bed, and the owner of the bed wanted to climb me. My people imagine my shock. This boy was dragging with me o, till he got to the point where he held me down. I’ve never seen someone’s boxers go off that fast. See us tussling that night. Small thing, I’m twisting my body this way and the next. I was struggling with my life, while alternating begging and screaming at the top of my lungs.
The craziest part was that we’d drag, he would stop and ask me: ‘Are you a virgin?’ Me: No. Attempt to rape resumes.😂 It’s funny now, and it would have been funny then if I was watching it as a movie.
At one point, he had the nerve to tell me to stop shouting because his neighbors would think he was trying to hurt me. Me? I increased the volume. I don’t know how I managed to slip away from under him, but I ran into the living room and had a mini panic attack.
This idiot comes in like five minutes later, while I’m breathing like an asthma patient just recovered from an attack, and tells me to go into the room. I’m like nah, I’m fine here. He’s like go inside, I want to sleep in the living room. Who was I to argue? Went in and locked the door, and slept well because it’s not man that’ll make me lose sleep. Mind you, he was 31 and I was 19.”
The truth is that women’s bodies are not for other people. Our bodies belong to us and us alone.
By the very act of virgin praising, what is celebrated is that a woman’s body is being kept for a man.
In a truly gender just world, women will not be viewed in terms of how sexually inexperienced they pretend to be.
Instead, women will be seen first as human and not based on what happens in their bedrooms.
*Name changed to protect identity
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.