My bizarre introduction to sex in an ultra-orthodox Hasidic household - and the secret even my closest friends couldn't have imagined

Ironically, the first time I received a clear piece of sex education, it was queer. 

I was 19 years old, and slowly falling in love with Dassa, a young woman who lived in a home just as protected as mine. 

We had never watched TV. We did not listen to popular American music. We read Jewish novels from the Judaica store. 

And we did not know what to think about the way we craved one another, about the way I kept asking her to sneak into my bedroom at night, where we threw our clothes to the side of my bed and fused together, skin on skin. 

After several months of feeling completely out of control, we both figured we needed a bit more information.

Sara age 16. Three years later she was falling in love with another woman

At age 19, Sara received her first sex education, which consisted of a toothpaste tube and a pencil-shaped toy. She is pictured wearing her first full wig

Sara on her wedding day: 'It was forbidden for my husband to look at my private parts or to put his mouth anywhere near them'

Dassa placed an anonymous call to a rabbi and asked a question: Were two women allowed intimate physical touch?

The rabbi said that for men it would have been a very bad sin, but for women, it was merely disgusting. Still, he noted, that should we penetrate each other with an object, 'like a cucumber or something,' we would cross the line to actual sin. 

We had received a nisayon, the rabbi said - a test from God. He offered Dassa a blessing for the strength to withstand it.

As I write these words, sitting in Manhattan's West Village, I am aware of just how naïve I was back then. 

At 39 years old, I am still confused about the rabbi's choice of words, but at least I can laugh about it. 

At the time, though, the humor in the situation was lost on me. I was determined to pass God's test, and so I agreed to meet Yossi, the young man my family had vetted for me. 

He showed up for our first date wearing a dark suit, black felt hat, and with soft blue eyes. We sat across from one another in a hotel lobby and talked about how we would raise pious children. 

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Three weeks later, we were engaged to be married, and my second round of sex education began.

I began to attend 'bride classes' with a woman who taught me about the Jewish laws related to marital intimacy. I was to avoid touching my husband for two weeks out of every month, during my period and the seven days afterward. 

I was to swipe a white cloth inside of my vagina for each of those seven days, and then hold it to the light to make sure it was clean and blood-free.

Then, I was to dunk in a ritual pool called a mikvah, while a religious woman would watch to ensure that my entire naked body was submerged in the water, after which she could pronounce me 'pure' and send me home to my husband. 

That all seemed fine to me. I was ready to do what God wanted, to perform the holy act of intimacy. 

I learned that the act was to take place in pitch darkness. It was to occur in something called the 'missionary position.' 

It was forbidden for my husband to look at my private parts or to put his mouth anywhere near them. 

As soon as the act was complete on that first night, my husband was to retreat back to his own bed, across the room from mine. I was to put a kerchief back over my hair, and put on a long sleeved nightgown immediately, lest he see any of my skin. 

He would not be allowed to touch me, to kiss me, to hold my hand, or even to pass me something as innocuous as table salt, because the briefest brush of our skin could cause him to sin. 

Those restrictions would be put into place during every one of my 'impure' time periods, any time I would experience vaginal bleeding, whether from losing my virginity or from my regular period.

What 'intimacy' meant, however, was less clear. I didn't find out exactly what that act would entail until days before my wedding.

'Come in! Ready for the wedding?' Mrs Levenstein guided me past a living room full of toys and into a study lined with leather-bound volumes.

On the metal folding table between us, I saw what appeared to be an empty tube of toothpaste and a bendable pencil-shaped toy.

Age 25, freshly divorced, Sara rebelliously teased some natural hair over the hairline of her wig

Age 31, married to a man (again), Sara models what she describes as a 'Modern Orthodox Jewish, bougie-type wig'

It was ten years and many painful experiences later when she decided that being holy was no longer working, and if that meant that she, too, was a heathen, then so be it

'When a man and woman come together, it is the holiest act in the world.'

I nodded, listening intently. I knew this. 

She picked up the tube of toothpaste and I noticed little stickers stuck on the white cap. They formed the shape of a face.

'This is the woman's body.' She folded it and set it on the tabletop. 

She picked up the bendy toy. 'This,' she said, her intonation solemn, 'is the man. His body enters the woman.'

I felt my stomach lurch. I watched her take a little balloon out of a box. 

'This is a douche, but today it will be his eyver.' She used the Hebrew word for organ, as if to sanctify the euphemism.

She demonstrated how the long stick at the end of the douche was the part on a man's body, between his legs. She pointed it down to the floor, and then up to the ceiling. 

'When he comes next to you it will get bigger and turn up, and that is how it will get into your private part.' 

She pursed her lips to demonstrate what a vagina looked like, down there.

That was what I would have to do with Yossi, the man I barely knew.

I questioned this. Could no one have told me earlier? I didn't want him anywhere near my body, never mind inside.

I stumbled back out onto the Brooklyn streets, Mrs Levenstein's voice echoing behind me: 'Call me the morning after if you have any questions!'

Mrs Levenstein guided me through my seemingly infinite list of questions during the early days of my marriage. 

She helped me figure out how to maneuver my body, and his, so that we could consummate our marriage. She slipped me the phone number for a childbirth coach when I got pregnant with my first child. 

Sara eventually moved herself and her children out of the community and into Manhattan, where they have lived for the past seven years (pictured with her daughter Jordan)

She listened when I called with questions about my relationship after the harrowing birth of my second child, and referred me to the best marital counselor she could find.

Then, my questions got too big for her, too big for me, too big altogether. I wondered where the love was, the feeling they said I would have for my husband. I was afraid to ask about my incessant thoughts of women, my constant wishes for a soft face brushing against mine.

I got special rabbinic permission to leave the community for one day each week and attend classes at the Rutgers University School of Social Work. 

There, on the secular college campus, I learned things that I was sure had to be lies. My professors seemed to believe that the holy act of intimacy was something a lot more profane, something that could happen at nightclubs and among unmarried people, and, most shocking of all, they believed it could be pleasurable. 

They mulled over the mistreatment of gay men in our society and advocated for equal, free love. I thought they were heathens.

It was ten years and many painful experiences later when I decided that being holy was no longer working, and if that meant that I, too, was a heathen, then so be it. I was done sacrificing my body for God, done serving as a vessel for his will. 

I ventured outside of my community and found my way to the gayest spot that my rudimentary Google skills could take me: the Stonewall Inn.

I sat on a bar stool, turned sideways through the shoulders clad in leather and lace, and ordered a drink. I sipped and met the eyes of women with short barber haircuts, women in baggy cargo pants and bare belly buttons, women who smirked back at me, welcomed me, dared me.

'Wanna dance?' a caramel-skinned woman leaned close to my ear.

I let her pull me up as if it were a normal Saturday night for me, as if her hand around my waist was the most natural thing in the world. I felt her hips against mine, and her gentle movements made my legs seem almost graceful as they stepped with hers.

Surrounded by rainbow flags and the sound of Lady Gaga, we danced.

It felt something like heaven.

Once I knew, truly knew that I was gay, I set myself free. I moved myself and my children out of the enclave of my Jewish community in Brooklyn’s Borough Park and out to Manhattan, where we have lived for the past seven years. 

Now, I get to kiss women out in the city streets and to hang rainbow flags on my fridge. I get to fly across the country and speak to audiences who are seeking ways in which to access their own inner truths.

I do hope that by sharing my story, I can offer one small piece of hard-won wisdom: The answers are already inside of us. 

The most important sex education we will ever receive is from our own bodies. Deep down, we already know how we feel within our relationships, how we react to various scents and sounds and requests. It is up to us to tune in, to listen to what our bodies are saying, and to believe ourselves.

Sara Glass, PhD, LCSW, is an NYC based therapist, writer, and speaker who helps members of the queer community and individuals who have survived trauma to live bold, honest, and proud lives. Her debut memoir, Kissing Girls on Shabbat, is available anywhere that books are sold. Find out more on Instagram @drsaraglass