A Holly Jolly Ever After

by Julie Murphy

Growing up, pastors had made self-pleasure sound like something anyone was at risk of doing at any moment, but I’d just tried valiantly for fifteen minutes to follow in Onan’s footsteps and couldn’t make a single thing happen.

And what if this was virtue? What if this was purity? The raw generosity of sharing space and pressure and pleasure, the honesty that came with each moan and every breath? What if good sex only made me more like Winnie Baker in the end . . . happier, more hopeful, closer to my own soul and the soul of the person I was with?

I had let the anger burn away the idea that I needed to be perfect in order not to be hurt, because even imperfect people didn’t deserve to be treated like trash cans.