Sex was not something that was discussed in the convent. Not discussing it didn't make it disappear. Religious women take solemn vows promising chastity, obedience and poverty. Chastity meant abstaining from sexual acts. Nuns are still human beings with the same biological drives as the rest of the species. Of course, the intensity and direction of this drive varies as it does with the rest of humankind.
Had sex been a topic of discussion, it may have helped. Once we sat in a class with some of the older Sisters. It was a general class taught by an unusual little priest who began life as a Buddhist. This class ended up being very informative not because of the topic but because of the older sisters.
During this class, I discovered that one of my former grade school teachers, who'd always barked orders at her charges with a frightening authority, didn't know that Kings was a book in the Old Testament. (She was the teacher who dwelt on Moses for so long. Guess Moses obscured the rest of the Old Testament in her mind.) Imagine my shock when I fully realized that Sisters and teachers could be wrong or ignorant. It seems silly to believe that they would somehow know everything about their religion. Not knowing that Kings was in the Old Testament was and still is very surprising.
The second thing I learned was quite amusing. Somehow our little priest lecturer mentioned French kissing. (I have no idea how this related to his topic.) St. Michael, a delightful old nun who still wore the old habit, (wimple and dress down to the floor with the large wooden rosary at her waist) innocently asked for an explanation of what French kissing was. Sister Zelda was all too eager to explain it. Sister Michael recoiled with all the shock of a squeamish seven year old girl who still believes boys have cooties.
A lot of the Sisters from previous generations had entered the convent when still quite young. Sometimes, it was their parents who made the decision for them. Large Catholic families of yesteryear did sometimes tell some of their children that they would become priests or religious. Even the next generation of Sisters sometimes entered the postulancy while still in high school and as young as 14 or 15. This was the case with our new Formation Director, Sister Christine.
Sister Christine had never dated. How much she actually knew about the facts of life and reproduction, I'll never know. I wasn't about to sit down with her and discuss it. During puberty and beyond she had been in the company of women. Maybe females were the focus of her sexual orientation. Her sexual orientation doesn't and didn't matter. Acting on it with an inferior was sexual abuse. Granted Emily Marie and the rest of formation were not children. Emily Marie was of the age of consent but Sister Christine was our boss. She had authority on her side. Despite her fragile appearance and behavior, she was considered the authority over Formation by the rest of the convent. Maintaining the structure of power became all important in maintaining the order. Saying "no" when were were supposed to be obedient to our superiors was a moral and legal dilemma. Sister Christine was abusing her power.
No matter your orientation, there are areas that you do not touch unless invited to do so by the touchee. I had not given Sister Christine the green light to "cop a feel" on the basketball court. The other larger issue was simply this: When you make vows of chastity, you need to abstain from sexual behavior. If you fail to do so, you stop doing it and try harder to avoid "near occasions of sin" because that's what it means to make a vow. (Notice I didn't even mention "sin" which is how this behavior would be viewed in a Catholic context.)
Just as in marriage, a vow is made to commit to another person exclusively. To engage in an affair or sleep around violates the exclusivity of the relationship. As a religious, a vow is made to God to abstain from sex so that one can devote one's entire focus and energy to serving Him. Sexual desire doesn't disappear. Maybe if the Sisters had been able to discuss it openly, they might have had a better way of dealing with their sexual feelings and energies. Talk about sex was hidden with elegant and distant references. The nuts and bolts were missing and that could easily caused the vow of chastity to fall apart as it had for Sister Christine.
No matter how you view sexuality, promising not to and then doing it anyway repeatedly, isn't how things are done. It is very human, however, and to this day, I feel empathy toward Sister Christine. She was not off this world in more ways than one. She was a product and a victim of her stunted past and her present environment. She was thrust in a position for which she was not prepared or emotionally equipped to handle. She cracked under the strain and acted out, seeking comfort in the arms of another. I can not hate this woman. I didn't then.
When I went directly to Sister Felicity, the top of the chain of command, I tried to delicately describe the situation. I explained that Sister Christine seemed to be under a lot of stress and with the hysterectomy, etc, her behavior was unusual. I said that she had engaged in inappropriate contact on the basketball court and that she was spending a lot of time alone behind closed doors with Emily Marie and that it didn't look good to the rest of Formation.
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