This is a difficult story for me to tell.

It’s the story of how I grew up with fundamentalist religious parents and how I use to injure myself.

You may have seen stories on TV about the Amish and that sort of thing, where people live without tv, without radio or newspapers, in fact without any contact with the outside world. That was us, except we didn’t wear black all the time.

To the outside world, we lived in a hippy commune, with all the women having long hair and long skirts, growing vegetables, while the men learnt how to ‘live on the land,’ raising cattle and always building more buildings.

Although it seemed OK, we were taught that what we saw every day was not the ‘real world’. The ‘real world’ was a fight between God and Satan, and the fight took place every day. The fight was between ‘us’ and ‘them’ – them being the outside world.

Then there was the warfare between those who lived with us who might have once walked with God but were now under Satan’s influence, and then there was the biggest battle of all. The warfare between good and evil that was within each of us.

The anger of God was all around, and accidents as a child, falling over and grazing your knee, a toothache, were all seen as divine punishments for being selfish, or not giving enough for the Glory of God. Telling a child that if she didn’t do something then God would be angry with her meant complete and total obedience. For those raised on the commune, this blind obedience continues into their teens and then on into adulthood.

Our sex education was zero. As children we even didn’t know about sex between animals because all the dogs were female, all the cattle were cows, and all the fowl were hens. When I was little I didn’t know that grown-up women had periods or that they shaved heir legs.

Then there were the speech codes. The children were employed as spies, if that is the right word, to try and tempt other children into evil. A child would be asked by a grown up to use the word ‘damn’ in front of another, and if that child didn’t report it then they would be punished.

The child would be hauled out in front of the morning congregation and be told that the word ‘damn’ was used in front of her, and she failed to report on a fellow Christian who was going astray. There was no way, of course, to tell whether a brother or sister Christian was trying to tempt you or not, so you always had to report them. This made speaking about some things impossible.

My physical puberty began as normal but my mental puberty started when I was 19. that is how repressed we were – I was that age before I was aware of any sexual feelings. The sexual thoughts possessed me, and I knew that it was evil.

It was while praying in the prayer hall with 50 other people that we would be sitting in silence. My mind would be on the beauty of His Name and the torment that awaited us if we allowed the Prince of Darkness into our lives. We were taught that there would always be at least one among us that would be on the verge of worshiping Satan, and so we had to pray to bring our sister or brother back from the abyss.

During those group prayers I felt that it was me who needed to be saved.

I fell in love, at a distance of course, with one of the Elders. I felt his power, his attraction. I felt resentful towards his wife, because it was she and not me that could touch him at night. I knew that they had full sex because they had children. It was so unfair that it was her body and not mine that was the weaker vessel that took in his masculine energy. I wanted him to love me and not her.

Such thoughts were evil. I knew that. I wanted to break up their marriage. I fantasized about how it would be possible for her to die. Perhaps she would just die in her sleep from a mysterious cause. Perhaps she would slip while working in the garden, or fall over in the kitchen and hit her head and die in an accident. Perhaps she would become infertile and then the Elder would have to choose me to bear his children.

My thoughts became more violent rather than more sexual. My ‘lovers’ at a distance became more numerous, and after falling in love with one married man my attention would move to others. I would imagine their wives’ deaths more easily, and more violently.

My first orgasm was not through masturbation, but just before my twentieth birthday when I was on a horse. I got onto one of the horses which was offered to me because I was one of the more experienced riders. His name was Harmony and he was the largest and the least broken in.

Harmony was male horse, although a gelding (castrated), but it was still unusual to have a male animal in the community. Although he didn’t mate with the mares, all of the children could see his penis. It became huge sometimes, like just before he urinated. Most children would have laughed at such a site, but we were so dominated by the community and its terrors that we all pretended that we didn’t see it.

Harmony was nonetheless aggressive and didn’t take to riding very well. Although I was tall (5’9”) I was still a skinny nineteen year old, but they choose me to break him in.

It was thus early one morning that it was time for the ride.

It was like a picture postcard. There was the creak of the leather on the harness as I picked it up, with great effort, and one of the stable hands helped me put it on Harmony. There was the puffs of cold cloud that came out of his mouth every time he exhaled. The jodhpurs gripped my thighs and bottom tightly making me feel lustful, as I prepared for the ride.

I put my left foot into the stirrup and swung myself up and over Harmony. The horse was large between my legs, the largest horse I had ever mounted. His muscles twitched and the twitch was so powerful that my pelvis moved underneath me. I felt as if my body had two sections, the lower half below my waist, which was part of Harmony and moved when he moved, and the upper half of my body, which was still in control and held the reins which controlled the movements of Harmony.

I let Harmony break into a slow gallop, which is normal for the early morning run. When riding a horse, there are two basic styles where the rider’s body moves with the horse. The first was like the way that I was riding the horse now, where the horse is moving at a fast pace, and the way the rider stops herself from being thrown off is to tense the legs like two springs, and where the rider is half-standing, her bum not touching the saddle.

As it was a cold morning, I felt the warmness of the exertion flow up my legs, up my thighs and meeting at a point between my legs and going into my pelvis. My breath was hard, as it requires physical exertion to stay on a horse which is moving at speed. My forearms were sore already from the need to hold onto the reins. Harmony loved riding out at full gallop, but I didn’t want to risk him injuring himself by doing this on such a cold morning.

Harmony and me galloped over the property for about 30 minutes. I really loved it, and my thighs were sore from the exertion. Half way back I brought him down to a walk, but because he was still pumped up with energy, he walked energetically, almost breaking into a run.

This is the second way to ride a horse. Instead of the upper body of the rider appearing still as the lower thighs absorb all the movements, with a walk the rider’s bottom is flat on the saddle, the shocks being absorbed directly by the rider’s body.

The walk back took about twenty-five minutes. Each time Harmony took a step my body was thrown forward, only being brought to a stop by my bottom being in constant contact with the groove of the saddle. With every other step, my body was thrown back, and was similarly stopped from sliding over the horse’s rear by the pull of my body against the jodhpurs which were firmly stuck to the saddle.

My body relaxed into the movement. By back being completely straight, because it is only by sitting up with a really straight back that the body can absorb the movements of the horse, and so you don’t end up with a saw bottom. My mind started to wonder, feeling the cold, seeing my breath panting as Harmony walked me home, seeing the ice-like dew on the grass.

At some point it started to happen. Each time my pelvis was thrown forward, the lining of the jodhpurs, where the stitching was, strained between my legs. Each time I felt the pressure and tried to move my pelvis so that it didn’t happen again, my pelvis has completed a full cycle of being thrown back and then forward again. At the time, in my ignorance, I didn’t know what was happening. But now I know that the material was straining against my lips, against my vulva and then my clitoris. The feeling was magical, and I felt that the feelings of pleasure that I was receiving was nothing more than the beauty of the morning and the glory of being alive.

The feelings increased, and so too did the wetness. Sometimes, when feeling very nervous, I have suffered from stress incontinence. I felt on this occasion that for some reason that was an early morning leakage of urine. Perhaps it was when I had cycled before in hot weather, where the build-up of perspiration was such that it had nowhere to go, so a little puddle was formed where the body rests down on the seat.

Harmony’s movement was relentless, they would not stop, we had 10 minutes at least before we got back. The feelings in my pelvis became more and more intense. I didn’t want whatever it was to happen. I knew that it was wrong. Anything that felt like this had to be wrong. Was I going to have a baby? No, I knew that couldn’t be the case because I didn’t have a bulge in my tummy. Was this a way of God rewarding me for something had I had done? I became self-conscious and looked around to see if anyone was near by.

My pelvis started contracting. I was having an orgasm, but I didn’t know that was what it was called. I understand from magazines that I have read since that a guy’s first orgasm is often a powerful experience. But with girls, or at least with me, it wasn’t. The muscles haven’t built up yet, there is a contraction but it’s a soft one. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether an orgasm has happened or not.

The big thing that did happen was the gushing of my fluids. Have built themselves up I guess for such a long period of time, I didn’t just become wet but I gushed out, as if I had a full-scale incontinence attack. I guess this is what they mean by female ejaculation, and it is something I have had ever since.

After the contractions I noticed that the feeling started going away. I was so relieved. I didn’t know what had happened, and as I was so wet between my legs I imagined that it was urine. Perhaps it felt so nice because I really wanted to go to the toilet and it was only the release of pee that made it feel so good. My crotch was unmistakably wet, not just a spot but also down the inside of each thigh. That was cool, I only had to hand wash them quickly before putting them into the laundry basket.

I closed my eyes and started to pray. I knew that I might have done something wrong but I wasn’t sure what. As Harmony got me to within two minutes walk of home, my pelvis contracted again, my nipples this time were hard against my top, my cheeks were flushed, and the orgasm was much, much stronger than before.

I got home and had a shower and washed the jodhpurs. That night, I started abusing myself.

I knew that what happened was shameful. I knew that it should not have happened. I knew that there was a force between my legs and in my mind. And there was no other name for that force but Satan.

I was also absolutely sure that whatever it took, I must never, ever, let Satan do that thing to me again. But Satan was always there, he was always tempting me. I starting torturing myself, as there is no other word to describe it.

Each time I became aroused, I started causing myself pain. It got to the point where I didn’t even have to have arousal, because if I was in a permanent state of pain I no longer needed to feel the arousal to begin with.

My body because a statement to my suffering, to the pain inflicted on myself so to keep Satan away. Since then to now, I have had wounds. Except, perhaps once, maybe when I was about 16. It’s hard to say.

I stared picking at my skin. I couldn’t do that anywhere, I had to do it where no one could see. I would undress, not completely, but at least the lower half of my body. If you use a fingernail which has been sharpened to a point, you can use it as an instrument of torture. You can pick at skin till it breaks, and then you can peel some of it off. I did this around my pubes, which were naturally shaved every day so as to keep the animal nature inside me away.

The best part that I liked to pick away was where each side of my vulva stopped. There was also the little crevice between my clit hood and the rest of my body. I picked and peeled till the skin started to grow back, and of course I picked away at it again. Not only did I do this to myself, but later, when I left the Christian community, I found that I needed to have this done to me my someone else.

In my own mind I have found pain completely mixed up with the pleasure, so that for me the two words mean the same thing. I could easily live my life with one word, where both sexual pleasure and physical pain mean the same to me.

I’ve read that it happens that when someone starts torturing themselves that they start out with something small and then they move on. That happened with me. After the skin picking came the cutting, always on my pubes, giving myself the excuse that I could always let hair grow to cover it up. I used the razor bald to cut with, not as you would to shave hair, but the end of it, using it as a v-shape into the skin.

I normally did patterns, Stars of David, Pentagrams, smiley faces. I became addicted to the adrenalin rush, as many cutters do. I still cut myself after I left the Christian community, and then I insisted that boyfriends would cut me there before they had sex with me. Only those without an aversion to blood stayed with me.

In extreme cases, when I was stressed out and needed really pain, I would light a candle and drip candle was on myself. It would start with around my pubes and my vulva, and then I would move up and rip the red candle wax on my (small) breasts. Candle wax it itself is not painful, so I dripped the wax on my nipples, and for the ultimate, straight on my clit.

When dripped on my clit I would wait for the pain to go, and then when the wax was dry, I would pick it off, and start again. When I was older I would have boyfriends tie me up till I couldn’t move and have them do this to me, and when he was hard and I was wet, we would make love, with my body still tied up.

I am now 24 and have managed to beat the cutting for now, although when things get stressful the urge is (almost) unbearable. I also use to pull out my pubic hair. I hate to sound obsessed by it, but I hate pubic hair, and shave myself almost every day.

The hair pulling started with me trying to get something bad out of myself. I’d feel the hairs grow between my legs, and also under my arms, and I could never accept that hair there was ‘natural.’ It would be like if a patch of hair suddenly started growing on a person’s foot. It felt so ‘wrong.’

Also, when you pull it out it leaves the skin red and soft, which I liked. I didn’t agonize for hours, or even seconds, over whether to or not — I just did it. If it was too short to grab by my fingers I would regret it and wait till it grew. Or I would use pliers.

It was somewhere below conscious thought. I just knew I had to get rid of the hair. I felt that by being hairless I was a step closer to removing Satan from my body.

Now I’m (almost) positive that ‘Satan’ was part of my psychosis and not something that existed outside of my reality. But how many of us are absolutely sure that God does not exist? Who has never believed that God was there, even for an instant, or even as a child? And if God exists, Satan must exist, as it doesn’t make sense otherwise.

It should follow that my hairs are now safely attached to my body and all is well with the world. But I still shave every day, or at least pubes. Legs and underarms can be dealt with weekly.

Sometimes when I shave my pubes I do it with lots of pressure. Either the very top layer of chemicals is taken off or the skin buckles up and the razor jumps across the skin. Small bits of blood appear. I naturally find this exciting, and use to masturbate at that point, when I still masturbated. I even use to get off on the site of my own pussy, hairless, slight reddish from the shaving, a girly slit waiting to be assaulted by probing fingers.

Why do I still do this? The process operates below my conscious thought so I can’t say for sure. It just happens. Perhaps it is what is left over from my past, from my Christian upbringing, or my sexual abuse and rape – that’s another story in itself!

I’m not sure how, but I think it’s related to my feeling that it’s my fault (basically that I am bad, evil etc). Perhaps, though, the two things are unrelated — if I can’t hear my own thoughts when it’s happening it’s really difficult to reason why.

The picking? I don’t even know how that one started, just that it began in earnest. Sometimes when I picked I drew blood, and that gave me so much pleasure, like a vampire seeing a tasty meal. I’d draw blood and, sometimes, feel the need to keep at it till I was disturbed or my mind caught up with itself and realized what was happening. I know I’m not explaining it very well — but I’m trying and that’s important right now.

I had a deal with a boyfriend once. He was a carpenter, and he would sometimes cut his hands or something like that. If he bled I was to be allowed to suck the blood from his hands. That gave me more pleasure than anything.

In return, I would go down on him for as long as he wanted. I always regarded it a good deal. On the advice of my doctor, I am taking lots and lots of medication. I have stopped cutting myself and all the rest, but I also have less pleasure in life. I am getting a bit sick of it. If it is the case that guys like to cut me or cane me till I bleed, then what exactly is the problem if I enjoy it?

I find the most difficult times are when I’m idly watching tv or just spending time thinking so I try to keep my hands busy with other things. I saw a movie the other night at the cinema where a woman was anally raped. I have been raped a few times, but never anally. I started to find that exciting.

There was a time when every time I was tempted to cut myself I would just suck my boyfriend. He never complained, of course, but I found that sucking him again and again was just not enough to satisfy me. I needed the pain as well. As time went by, boyfriends become more confident, and they learn that it is OK, they cause me pain as I suck them. Perhaps by squeezing my nipples as hard as they can, or perhaps my dripping candle wax on me as I suck them. The best is grabbing my hair in their fists on either side of my head, both controlling the movement of my head as I suck them, and causing me pain as they pulled on the hair.

The only time I enjoy intercourse is when it is combined with pain. That is why I like being fucked without foreplay. An erect penis entering me when I am not lubricated does hurt, and it is the hurt that makes me wet up and climax. Another thing that brings me of is a cream that is called different things in different counties. It is called Dencorub in Australia, and you rub it into muscles which has been sprained during sports. Putting that onto a dildo in large amounts and using that to rape me vaginally or anally (preferably both) is painful enough to make me cry – and to give me the climax I cant get any other way.

And so, that is my story. I know it might not make a lot of sense, but I have tried to be as honest as I could be.

And I know that I am not the only one.

THE END