It was a beautiful and sunny afternoon as I found myself sitting in the last place on earth that I wanted to be at that moment, a hard metal folding chair in the young women's room. The room was filled with bustling young women chattering like chipmunks in their separate clicks. Sarah was talking about the phone sex she and a boy from Payson were having, Jenny was going on about the mean teacher she had for Spanish that year and Candice was putting on makeup while talking about the new spring line that Pac Sun had just put out. I was sitting quietly in the back of the room, leaning the chair back so the front legs were off the ground and the wall was supporting me. My eyes were closed, I was thinking; thinking about how dumb I was for not skipping Beehives and walking down to the lake to finish my hundredth reading of A Mid Summer Nights Dream instead.“Okay girls, everybody settle down”, said Sister Johnson as she came in the room. I rested my chair back upon the ground and forced myself away from the day dreams playing out in my head. “Today girls, we’re going to be learning about chastity and how as daughters of our Heavenly Father it is our greatest responsibility to protect our virtue at all costs.” Wonderful I thought, yet another lesson on the importance of innocence and purity. “Okay girls, I’ve made us all a special treat today… cupcakes!” Oh wow, now I was really excited. Sister Johnson pulled out a tray filled with bright pink cupcakes topped with rainbow sprinkles. Next she did something so absurd that I remember thinking that she might have just lost her ever living mind, she grabbed a cupcake off the tray and proceeded to lick all over it with her fat pink tongue. As if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred she placed the cupcake back on the tray and began passing it around the room, instructing us to each take one. Everyone stayed clear of the tainted cupcake eying it with utter distaste. When the tray finally reached me at the far end of the room I remember thinking, “Of course, I just had to be the one to get the crazy ladies cupcake”.
Being as polite as I could I picked the tray up and brought it back to the front of the class as dozens of eyes bore into me. I set the tray down on the table and turned to walk back to my chair, “Well where are you going Crystal, you didn’t take your cupcake” Sister Johnson said in a sickly sweet voice. “No thank you”, I replied.“Well why not, I made these cupcakes because I really care about all you girls and I really want you to have one”. She picked the dirty cupcake up and shoved it into my hands. “Why don’t you take a bite, they’re delicious” Sister Johnson urged. Quickly losing my patience in whatever game we were playing I replied, “Listen, I don’t know why you licked all over this cupcake and I don’t know why you’re trying so desperately to get me to eat it but I’m not doing it”. I gently placed the cupcake back on the tray. A huge smile broke across Sister Johnson's faced as she lifted the diseased cupcake into the air,” See girls, people don’t want things that have been contaminated” As I looked around the room I saw a rainbow of emotions playing out on the faces of these young girls. Some were giggling, some whispering to their neighbor and then there were the ones with their heads held down in shame.
The licked cupcake is a very popular lesson in chastity that is taught to virtually every young woman in the church. If it’s not a cupcake then its white roses that are handed out to the girls with the last girl receiving a wilted, stomped on, and de-petaled flower. In this object lesson the cupcakes and roses represent us, the females of the church and we learned very quickly that we didn’t want to be a licked cupcake or a wilted rose because no one wants a disgusting and ugly object such as that, those items are destined for the garbage can. In young men’s the cupcakes also represented the girls. The boys are taught that no one wants a licked cupcake and neither should they. I was never told that boys could also be licked cupcakes, what the boys did was none of our business. Every single girl in the room that day knew that we were never to let a boy touch us, or no one would ever want us. The burden of chastity was ours to bear, and the prospects of forgiveness for failure were grim.
