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Show 366 I perceived that ' struggle between the sexes was centered, logically enough, on sex. Much of this had been taught indelibly by the rapist: Sexuality was the point of vulnerability where control was won or lost. It was a game people played to win power, to borrow self-esteem. And it was there that people expressed themselves most honestly - I then believed - there, where clothes and traditions are stripped away. At the time I did not know that I responded to roles centuries old, styled upon Adam and Eve. But ray mind had been fed Bible Stories until they encompassed my imagination, reeitnaz\ giving shape to thoughts that otherwise would have passed unnoticed. Although I was not sure what my Eden had been, I knew that I had been cast out. I longed to regain my grace with God, my grace with my father, my grace with myself. Yet, simultaneously, I resented my position. Because Eve was the first to relent to temptation, she had been ordered to obey.man, her husband. It had always seemed curious to me that she had the oower to tempt him in the anyway, and first place. Wouldn't he have partaken of the Fruit Alistened to the Snake just as she had? Mormon doctrine taught that the fall of Adam was indirectly a blessing, for it was through the being cast out, through the imperfection of the two selves that they came together to make one - a child, another attemot at perfection. So why was Eve always the bad one, the weak one?" It took courage and faith to investigate one s questions, Later in life, I learned that early Church writings were contradictory on this and other positions. For instance, the belief a Mormon.A^iicle of Faith states/that 'man shall be punished for his own sins and not for Adam's transgression.' This |