"Sex is always on boys' minds."

"Don't show your shoulders, it will distract the boys."

"Boys are so visual and always think about sex!"

"Ew, you thought about sex? That's such a boy thing!"

If you were a girl, especially at Church, you've always been taught that modesty is key because boys always see you as an object if you aren't dressed modestly. Then, if you really want to get into the topic, your modesty was then backed up with lesson on lesson about how BOYS act about sex. I grew up in Church, sitting on a pew and hearing the Gospel preach every Sunday morning. For as long as I can remember, I've always been in church.

When I made it to middle school and high school, the topics began to shift from sing-a-long songs to the burning issue in the church: SEX. To say the word was a scandal itself, much more to actually discuss it! In fact, my age group would have special events just so we could discuss such a topic. As a young girl, I was curious about sex. I wanted to know what it was and how it worked. Instead, any time I went to these events I was told over and over again how it was unladylike, or that it was all about modesty. "Boys will be boys" they'd say. If you tried to actually ask questions about what sex actually was or how it worked, you'd get an almost automated response, "God designed sex to be had between a married man and woman, otherwise sex is a sin."

I spent most of my time at those "discuss sex" events looking like this:

I grew up thinking I was unladylike, gross and unnatural because I actually thought about sex. I would see a guy and yes, I would be curious. I wasn't taught how to control the urges or what they meant. I fell silent about how I felt regarding sex. All the girls around me just followed blindly into this idea that sex was for boys, that the boys would be the ones enjoying it.

Now it gets personal... Due to my inability to express my feelings adequately, curiosity got the better of me. Now, you'd expect the Church, the one place that claims acceptance, to be willing to discuss with me why I made the choice I did. When the young women's minister heard wind that I had made this choice she decided to have a talk with me the following Sunday. What I arrived to was unexpected: I was greeted with an intervention-style type of room with all of my fellow female students explaining to me how my choice somehow affected their lives. Even so much as one girl coming up beside me and saying "I'll pray for you because I'm really concerned about your salvation and the state your heart is in."

I spent the rest of my high school years feeling disgusted with myself. I had been taught to believe at this point that no quality, Christian man would be able to love a girl who had made a mistake. I was judged and outcasted. I may as well have sown a red letter "A" to all of my dresses. And the church wonders why so many students fall away when they leave for college...

Now, make no mistake, this is not all inclusive. I say "the church" meaning the particular church this took place in. The story changes in college. I found a church that prayed over me in a way that was directly for me. They didn't pray for my salvation, they prayed that my heart would be healed from the pain caused by the previous years, that I could forgive myself. In college, I learned how it was actually quite normal that I thought of sex in the first place, and then that I had made the "mistake" of indulging.

Turns out, I wasn't the only one left in the dark about sex. I met girls that were addicted to pornography, sex itself, masturbation and a host of other sexual sins. Yet, not a single one of them — rather, "us," as I was finally welcome to discuss my sexual curiosities — felt that God loved us any less. We were all firm in our faith of God, not so much in what ministers had taught us.

All of us were feeling the same way. We felt dirty and as if we were beyond love. This isn't just for Christians either, but for all girls being told that sex is a thing for boys. This simply isn't true, not even close. In a society where sex is everywhere, it's unreasonable to shame teens for asking questions, much less girls because we are ignored. We are taught that we aren't to talk about sex.

To all girls out there: thinking about sex is normal! It does NOT make you dirty, slutty, unlovable or unladylike. What it DOES is make you human! Sex is not just for boys... So please, stop teaching us that lie.