I was no virgin when I met my husband, and he knew it. We have been monogamous, but I wouldn’t call myself chaste. (I can hear my friends guffaw.) Pleasure brings me no shame. Books gave me strength to be my own woman.
When it comes to what I do with my womb, I’ve defended myself to random interrogators and family who feared I would not marry. In college, to keep my numbers down, Abuela prayed I would wed the next man I met. If that’s what God thinks is best. Even prayers need clauses. As my primary caretaker, Abuela did not believe I’d find a man to love me, given my prickly ways. Throughout my childhood and into my adulthood, even after I’d been married for years, she told me hundreds of times that I needed to change to keep a husband. A false prophecy.