Pharynx:

the part of the throat behind the mouth that serves as a passageway for both air and food. Why, then, am I unable to breathe or eat?

Throat:

a ring-like muscular tube allowing a passageway for air, food, and liquid, also responsible for enabling speech, protecting against aspiration, supporting immune function, providing lubrication, and equalizing air pressure. The highly acclaimed pornographic film Deep Throat (made in the Year of our Lord 1972) centers around the protagonist, Linda Lovelace, whose clitoris is located (deep) inside her (deep) throat; thus, the plot ensues: a quest to fellate (again and again [deeper and more deeply]) until she finds the best deep-throating technique that ensures her own sexual fulfillment (a.k.a. propagandization that encourages the idea that deep-throating provides physical pleasure not only to males but females [as displayed by the contentment in Linda’s bulging, watering eyes each time her mouth is crammed {deeply} with penis {and even I, watching it before I hit double-digits, could see this}]). Due to the film’s inclusion of this ingenious plot and (deep) character development, Deep Throat is credited with kickstarting a revolutionary social and cultural moment called the Golden Age of Porn (approximately 1969-1984), a time when hardcore pornography was redefined as “porno chic” (quashing less-commercially-viable terms in the running such as degradation, commodification, exploitation, or the dehumanization of women), a movement that also eroticized subordination, humiliation, and violence, including “roughie” films (where women were raped and beaten) and “snuff” films (which involved the actual or fake [“Come on, it’s just a marketing gimmick”] murder of the actresses), during an era when women were still not allowed to obtain birth control, breastfeed in public, serve on juries, secure loans or credit cards, were barred from many Ivy League schools, and could neither serve as astronauts nor practice law (but in this Year of our Lord [when the blockbuster was made {promoting the fulfillment of women}], females were finally allowed to at least run in the Boston Marathon). Deep Throat is one of the most profitable films ever, its budget a paltry $25,000 while earning over $600 million to date. Its star actress, Linda Boreman (who portrayed the fully developed [deep] character Linda Lovelace), whose (deep) throat was used for all the deep-throating, earned a whopping $1,250. Although unaware of these statistics in my childhood, Deep Throat’s social and cultural importance was as clear to me as the cellulose triacetate plastic upon which it was filmed, given the fact that my father, one grandfather, a couple of male cousins, several uncles, and quite a few of my friends’ brothers and fathers and grandfathers all had a thick, black, plastic, rectangular VHS copy of it in their homes (in their closets, or in a dresser drawer, or on top of said dresser, or on the television set in the family room, or sticking out of the VCR in said family room [always adorned with generic white stickers, labeling a random title in red Sharpie with scrawled attempts at diversion, falsely advertising some of the worst movies of the decade, so that one didn’t dare peruse {Moment by Moment with John Travolta and Lily Tomlin or The Swarm or The Assassination of Trotsky the usual suspects}]). Some of these men watched this VHS copy in their bedrooms, with the door left open, for me to see when I walked by. Some watched it while I was in the same room. I will not name any names.

Hard Palate:

the bony, front portion at the roof of the mouth, also plays a critical role in breathing, eating, and speaking, especially so that one can chew and breathe at the same time. Its ridged surface helps articulate sounds, as well as enabling babies to suckle properly. When I first took Holy Communion as a child, I thought the crispy, crinkly piece of wafer placed in my mouth was the literal body of Christ. I stuck my tongue out as far as it could go (wiggle, wiggle, wiggle) while accepting the Holy Sacrament, taunting Father DeLaney like the women in the pornographic videos and magazines I’d seen in my father’s, one grandfather’s, a couple of male cousins’, several uncles’, and quite a few of my friends’ brothers’ and fathers’ and grandfathers’ homes. I scooped my teeth around that Eucharist, and I’d suck it, suck it so hard, until it became pulpy and pliant like undercooked bread so I could ram it against the roof of my mouth, and I’d press it, press it so hard, my tongue lizarding against its pure, faultless edges, thinking: I have a man inside my mouth. The mother of my best friend, Ginny O’Brien, told us one day while helping her make homemade wontons in her ranch-style kitchen it was a woman’s job to keep a man, to do whatever possible to make him happy, and while I watched the paper-thin sheets of dough float in Wesson oil, I figured that included the things the women did in Ginny’s parents’ VHS copy of Deep Throat we found in their bedside drawer (although we never dared watch this together [in all my years, I’ve never watched porn with a female friend {except for the times a male was there, who always initiated the viewing by saying, “This is gonna be so hot,” while he watched and we gals drank our wine and made our way out of the room}] and I don’t know if Ginny had watched it [but as I’ve mentioned, I’d already watched it many times via, and because of, the ownership by {but without disclosing whom} my father, one grandfather, a couple of male cousins, several uncles, and quite a few of my friends’ brothers and fathers and grandfathers]), and I sucked and pressed that little piece of Sacramental bread against the arch of my mouth until it became concentric, decreasing in radii, like the cut-open tree trunk whose fossilized rings become smaller and tighter as the eyes move inward, until nothing was left of the wafer but a spindle torus, a mere point no bigger than what a Bic Stic Vintage pen left behind on a five-hole-punched piece of Mead loose-leaf paper fluttering in a Trapper Keeper, and it was always at this exact moment when, in sudden desperation, panic, I tried to cram that last little smidge of the body of Christ into one of my teeth so it didn’t fall down my throat, when, to my horror, eventually, and inevitably, the consecrated crumb dissolved entirely. My stomach churned as I heard Father DeLaney’s words: “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” I’d swallowed not only the man from whom I was created, but the one for whom I was created. What the fuck good was I then? I thought of Ginny O’Brien’s three older brothers, confused as to why their happiness came first, why smelly boys who ate their boogers and tortured their cat and dog were a priority over me and Ginny, we who cleaned the wounds of said cat and dog, we who were responsible for all the laundry and housecleaning and meal preparation and yard work while being sure not to complain or swear or wear our shorts too short or cut our hair too short while they watched The Dukes of Hazzard and The Fall Guy and Magnum, P.I. (1982 offered twenty prime-time shows featuring men in their titles [when prime-time only consisted of three hours, 7:00-10:00 p.m., seven nights a week, broadcast across a mere three television stations {these shows comprising one-third of the sixty-three total hours}]) and while Ginny’s three older brothers lounged around in stained tighty-whities, we had to bring them snacks each time they snapped their fingers, futilely averting our eyes from their little Y-shaped front flies, from where various items would protrude (hot dogs, Cheetos, our poor, assaulted Hello Kitty dolls) before running away to the sanctity of cleaning bathrooms and washing windows with buckets of ammonia. My favorite word at the time was cocksucker.

Adenoids:

lymphatic tissue located in the roof of the nasopharynx that traps incoming bacteria and viruses. As a child, I was plagued by ear infections, waking up in the middle of most nights, screaming in pain. I underwent several surgeries, removing my adenoids and tonsils, before finally undergoing a myringotomy, the insertion of tubes (tympanostomy) into my eardrums (tympanic membranes). The last of the surgeries was performed when my parents were already divorced, my father living out of town and unable to visit me while in the hospital. My mother sat at my bedside throughout the day, but I clearly remember her having to leave in the evenings, when I’d whimper into the ink of night until comforted by steady-fingered nurses. Strangers. Once released from the hospital and returned home, I told my mother I smelled my father’s cologne in the apartment. Givenchy Gentlemen. To this day, the smell of patchouli and that little pear-shaped bergamot gives me cause to look over my shoulder, certain that I’ll see him. She said I was imagining things (“Rayleigh, you’re crazy”). Shortly after, I found pictures in my mother’s bedside table, my father’s handwriting on the backside of Polaroids (“to my Rosebud, June 10th” inscribed on the first [another denoted with “June 11th” {and “June 12th” and “June 13th” and “June 14th” on more}]), the dates aligning with my stay in the hospital, the pictures solely zoomed in on her vagina, spread open with one of my father’s hands (I could tell it was him by the Cartier wedding band he wore, imprinted with perfect little bullseyes that mimicked a slotted screw or the cross that our Savior’s wrists and feet were driven into with nails [the same wedding band that signified his marriage to Wife #2, the 21-year-old rebound after my mom divorced him for cheating on her with an 18-year-old {among others}]). It was horrifying to learn that while being consoled by strangers in the hospital, these two were getting it on. I was already aware of my father’s love for Polaroids of naked women, having found a stash or two wherever he lived, displaying a multitude of vaginas spread open with one of his hands while the other must’ve somehow precariously held his Polaroid SLR 680, but I’d never thought that what I’d been privy to was my own mother’s “rosebud” (somewhere before this time I’d also become aware of his nickname for her, based on the shape of her female anatomy). It was because of my father that I’d also already become aware that on the cover of every Playboy magazine was an image of the hidden bunny logo (the iconic rabbit head silhouette created by Art Paul [a lighthearted way to challenge readers {and I liked nothing better than a challenging seek-and-find}]), because not only did my father own stacks of Polaroids of headless, anonymous women (why include their faces or the rest of their anatomy that held no use to him?) he also owned copies of Deep Throat and Debbie Does Dallas and Behind the Green Door and The Devil in Miss Jones, but it was his prized collection containing hundreds of pornographic magazines (Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, Juggs, Spank, Cheri, Celebrity Skin, and Zoo Weekly [among others]), which he meticulously saved in blue-and-white accounting boxes, unmarked, stacked along the walls of his bedroom closet, hidden by hanging peacoats, sports coats, and three-piece suits (the 1970s) and as the size of the collection increased, stacks of boxes, ten-high, were relegated to entire utility closets or pantries and then to a spare bedroom (the 1980s [where and when I’d wished he’d prioritized a modest room for me with pink walls and a canopy bed and Cabbage Patch and Monchhichi dolls to greet me on my annual visits {rather than being relegated to a sleeping bag on the living room floor, before the later years when I was upgraded to a spot on the couch with the dogs}]), until his collection finally comprised an entire basement large enough to be remodeled and repurposed into a multi-roomed floor (or, perhaps, containing one modest room for me with pink walls and a canopy bed and Cabbage Patch and Monchhichi dolls to greet me on my annual visits), where the boxes were not only ten-high, but now in dozens of rows that made a maze (and a hiding spot for me to peruse the shiny pages offering sun-kissed women with feathered hair, pursed and parted lip-glossed lips, cocked hips, and vacant stares). I would call this collection a form of hoarding, but in all other regards, my father was anything but. He was immaculate. No clutter anywhere. He wore loafers with tassels and button-down shirts, even on the weekends, put his sponges in the washing machine and ate french fries with a fork. I was too young (thankfully [ignorance is bliss]) to wonder about the correlation between a man who hoarded pornographic magazines (don’t forget Swedish Erotica’s limited editions of Anal Rider [followed by one exclamation point!], Gang Bang [followed by two exclamation points!!], Almost Incest, and Little Oral Annie) and the man who constantly took pictures of his daughter in bikinis and miniature plastic high heels, gifting her pink lipgloss and showing her how to feather her hair and cock her hips (wiggle, wiggle, wiggle) and run her tongue along her teeth like the actress in the Pearl Drops Tooth Polish commercial while repeating the tagline (“Mmmmm, it’s a great feeling”).

Epiglottis:

a small, leaf-shaped flap of cartilage at the base of the tongue that covers the opening of the larynx when swallowing, preventing food and liquids from entering the windpipe and lungs. I could swear one of the reasons my mother had me go through the process of receiving Holy Communion was the job she was assigned organizing and stocking the Church’s sacristy, the room off the main sanctuary where they kept the Precious Blood, the Blood of Christ (how she got this highly-esteemed position I’ll never know [although she had attended an all-girls Catholic college in hopes of becoming a nun {but by this time was an atheist, who I learned years later only took me to church because my grandmother shamed her}]), but I have a feeling it had something to do with the time I overheard Father Delaney say she looked like Linda Lovelace. From day one, I was mesmerized with the grand chalice from which we all took sips (Father Delaney followed strict rules of sanitization by wiping its rim with the same handkerchief between each congregant’s splaying of spittled lips) and for the first dozen times, I kept my mouth full with the Precious Blood until service was over, when I’d run outside and around the building, discreetly (or maybe not-so-discreetly) spitting it out into the rosebushes, the idea of swallowing blood revolting (I later saw it was boxed Franzia and Almaden wine). I thought for sure I was going to Hell because of it (and added to what my mother’d already warned me [“You’re going to Hell, Rayleigh”]) and because of what Ginny O’Brien’s three older brothers said about good girls swallowing, not spitting. I was too young to understand they weren’t talking about receiving the Blood of Christ.

Esophagus:

a muscular tube responsible for moving food toward the stomach from the pharynx. I remember standing in line, waiting to receive Holy Communion, practicing my response for Father Delaney, wondering which word would best be emphasized (so be it, so be it, so be it), wondering whose job it was to cut up Jesus into all those tiny pieces so that we could enjoy him sacrificing himself, and I tried to do the math, wondering how one single man could meet the demands that ensured every congregant a piece of him, not only in my church, but in all the churches, in all the countries, over the course of the last 1,985+ years since his death. And how did they exact him into the same, perfect, discoid shape? I pictured a rumbling manufacturing plant, where equipment ground up his body, adding fillers and water and employing some kind of pressing machine to stretch out as much of the Lord Savior as they could before shooting him down a conveyor belt. Father Delaney said (via our Lord Savior): “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,” and because of what my mother’d already warned me (“You’re going to Hell, Rayleigh”) I worried I wasn’t receiving enough Communion to cover the extent of my sins, and began to fixate on how I could receive more forgiveness for said sins, when I came up with a solution: I stripped off the scorched little crusts from slices of Wonder Bread and flattened the remaining, pure white dough with my mother’s rolling pin, pressing against it a bottle cap (Schlitz Light [my mother’s favorite {second only to Franzia and Almaden wine}]), producing nearly identical shapes to the Lord’s Supper that Father Delaney served. My own little Jesus Christ conveyor belt. I placed the Lord of Lords (the King of Kings) in my mouth, pressed it hard (so hard) to the roof of my mouth and sucked it hard (so hard) before making the sign of the cross and throwing salt over my shoulder, hoping it would be good enough.

Lips:

the two moveable, fleshy folds that surround the mouth, essential for eating, speaking, and facial expressions. Ginny O’Brien and I used to play a game. Rose Garden. One of us would hold out a forearm to represent a field, its prepubescent skin the least blemished of body parts; most often I was the one farmed, Ginny the farmer, and she’d pinch dozens of spots along my flesh in rows, maybe three wide and twelve long, to represent dug-out seed holes. I’d hold my breath as pink pops sprouted on my skin, watching her stab each of the circles with her egg-shaped nails to mimic the planting of seeds, then tickling my arm with the silky skin of her fingertips to depict the watering process, before quickly reverting back to destruction by raking those fucking egg-shaped nails (deeply) along the three-by-twelve rows, before finally, and violently, plucking, harvesting, the imaginary seeds. I remember my body stiffening between each step of the process, my teeth clenching, my eyes squeezing, not thinking I could take another second, but not wanting it to end. When I’d finally feel her breath between us, I’d open my eyes, horrified at the sight of thirty-six festering sores on my arms. I loved it. I likened it to Father Delaney talking about “mortification of the flesh” and how we were supposed to sacrifice comforts, usually by fasting or refraining from gossip or lustful thoughts (about which he was most concerned for me [which he’d told me when he pulled me into the sacristy and whipped me with a small chain {before sending me home with it so I could continue to gain spiritual freedom by using it on myself}]). Over time, the intensity of the Rose Garden game amplified, as if Ginny and I each benefited pleasure from the other’s pain. We wanted, needed, more (deep) pain. Pain we could control. Because we couldn’t control the games Ginny’s three older brothers played with us. One they seemed to like most was pretending to be priests, draping pool towels around their shoulders and tucking them into their tighty-whities, all three of them bowlegged, their bracketing limbs reminding me of parentheses, inside their little packages being some sort of cupped secret, whispering, peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo. Afterwards, when I returned home, I sat for hours, lashing my body with Father Delaney’s chain, chastising my body, my self, hoping to be clean again.

Salivary Glands:

responsible for producing saliva in order to keep tissues moist and protect against irritation. They say a dog’s saliva helps break down their food. Who says that? Because they’re wrong. Canine saliva does not contain digestive enzymes, those that jump-start the breakdown of food, like we humans have. Canine saliva serves as lubrication, making it easier for food to go through the esophagus. Down the (deep) throat. I don’t know why people have an issue with the word “moist.” The word I have a problem with is “lube.” But human saliva does break down food, and it even has an enzyme that helps break down starch. I learned in biology class the average human produces one liter of saliva every day (equating to one wine bottle per twenty-four hours [how many bottles fit into one box of Franzia stored in Father Delaney’s sacristy?]), or 20,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime, enough to fill a swimming pool. I also learned that unless food is mixed with saliva, you cannot taste it. From what I’d seen, Deep Throat (and the deep-throating contained within other pornos [readily appreciated in the homes of my father, one grandfather, a couple of male cousins, several uncles, and quite a few of my friends’ brothers and fathers and grandfathers]) had a lot of involvement with spittle, glassine rubber bands that stretched from one side of the television screen to the other, and I wondered if this was why women were spat on so much. Easier for consumption. I remember Father Delaney’s retelling of how Jesus spat on the ground, making mud with his saliva, and applying it to a blind man’s eyes. Voilà. Blindness reversed. I prayed for the opposite, that I could somehow unsee what had already been done to me. And Ginny.

Sphincters:

the Upper Esophageal Sphincter (UES) allows food to enter the esophagus, while the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES) relaxes to let food enter the stomach, then closing to prevent stomach acid from flowing back into the esophagus. I began to vomit on visits to Ginny’s, sometimes as soon as I walked through the O’Brien’s front door. I got aspiration pneumonia twice, from the vomitus going down my windpipe and into my lungs while pinned down for hours by Ginny’s three older brothers, while they cornered us in locked closets, rubbing  against us the Y-shaped front flies of their tighty-whities, trying to unclothe our eleven-year-old bodies.

Uvula:

a small flap hanging from the soft palate that prevents liquids from going up the nose. Ginny O’Brien’s father was so strict that Ginny, her mother, and I weren’t allowed to talk at the dinner table, as he reminded us at the beginning of each mealtime (via some apostle guy): “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet,” although Ginny’s three older brothers were allowed to talk and joke and snort and fart the entire time. We three females weren’t even allowed to laugh. But sitting next to Ginny, in this tense environment, I wanted nothing more. To this day, laughing is one of the ways I deal with discomfort best. Pain. Trauma. We spent entire meals desperately avoiding one another, when somewhere around the cutting of dessert we’d lock eyes and Ginny’d laugh so hard milk would spurt out her nose. She and I laughed a lot, but not the time she told me she’d woken up one morning with a Hello Kitty doll stuck inside her vagina.

Neck:

connects the head to the torso, providing critical support, mobility, and protection for vital structures. Another game Ginny and I liked to play was MadLibs, a notebook of stories with missing words for the reader to fill, the only clues given as to whether they were verbs, nouns, or adjectives. When we played with Ginny O’Brien’s three older brothers, they immediately chose profane words for body parts and sexual acts that neither Ginny nor I had ever thought to use. We also hadn’t realized our girly, hearts-dotting-the-I’s would be evidence that could be used against us when each of our fathers found the booklets (my father [the former altar boy who’d met my mother in Catholic preparatory school {while my mother still believed in God, and whose only goal in life was to be a nun}]) had just driven twelve hours to our apartment to lend my mother his gun because the woman across the walkway had been raped (the boys at the bus stop talked about how she was a “slut” and a “whore” and had deserved it [which reminded me of the words the male actors used for the women in the pornos I’d seen in the homes of my father, one grandfather, a couple of male cousins, several uncles, and quite a few of my friends’ brothers and fathers and grandfathers {although no one called the male actors derogatory words}]) and I felt bad for the neighbor because after the rape she walked with her head down, shoulders hunched, when going to her car (which had been etched by paint and keys with the words “slut” and “whore” [which matched her front door that had been etched by paint and keys with the words “slut” and “whore” {as I wondered what words would be used for the man who raped her}]) and when my father found that book of MadLibs, he threw it across the room and called me names like “slut” and “whore” before wrapping his fingers around my neck and strangling me (perhaps not intending to strangle me [as he denied afterwards, “Rayleigh, you’re crazy” {followed by “You’re going to Hell, Rayleigh”}]) before taking me on a walk around the apartment complex and telling me in a long, awkward speech something about “making love” and how it was supposed to be beautiful, a gift from God, and all I could picture was those same fingers that had just been around my neck were the same ones in those Polaroids spreading my mother’s labia, and I suddenly wondered if it was my father (or some other man) who had something to do with my mother no longer believing in God. I’m not sure what Ginny’s father did to her when he found her copy of MadLibs, except that she called me from a payphone, telling me she’d run away from home because of it. Two days later, she killed herself.

Larynx:

the voice box, located at the top of the trachea, whose glands are also responsible for providing lubrication via the production of mucus. But even more than the show of spit in porn, is the involvement, the overt display, of ejaculate, and I was always amazed by how it stretched in the air like taffy, unfurling like strands of liquid sugar. Shortly after Ginny O’Brien’s death, in my dark bedroom (on whose walls I had pasted magazine cutouts of Rob Lowe and Michael Jackson and Mark Wahlberg [donned in only tighty-whities], with my bobble-eyed stuffed animals perched on bookshelves, squeezed between fingerprint-and-chocolate-smudged copies of Little Women and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret) a boy (actually, he was a man [I will not name any names]) released himself upon me, and with his large, calloused hands smeared it across my 85-pound, four-and-a-half-foot naked body, rubbing, anointing, and I thought of this as my baptism into a ceremony and ritual of which I had no comprehension, and as I lay there, covered in this boy, this man, I was reminded of when Ginny and I put Elmer’s Glue-All on the palms of our hands, letting it dry until it was a peelable crust, similar to when my skin got burned in Puerto Peñasco and hung off in strips. This boy, this man, fell asleep (but not before saying, “Good girl”) and as his release dried, I felt on my skin a crinkling, my skin itchy. I didn’t understand how I could go through one more sexual encounter again, one which provided me with no pleasure, but one I understood to be my duty. I was twelve.

Hyoid Bone:

located in the front of the neck, below the mandible (lower Jaw) and above the thyroid cartilage (Adam’s apple). Horseshoe-shaped and considered a “floating” bone since it is not connected to any others, its main function is aiding the movement of the tongue and keeping the airway open. This is not to be confused with the hymen, that flexible piece of gooey membrane partially covering the opening of the vagina, ring-shaped, with no known biologic function. Except to celebrate when we females lose our virginity. Or to shame, emotionally berate, beat, or “honorarily” kill us, when our wedding sheets don’t display blood, even though hymens break all the time, long before having that blissful, God-approved marital sex. Thankfully, I live in the God-blessed United States of America, and didn’t have to endure virginity testing, because I didn’t bleed the first time I had God-approved marital sex. I tell myself the story that my hymen broke when wracking my pubic bone on the crossbar of my “boy’s” BMX bike, after boycotting a “girly” Schwinn, secretly regretting that in doing so, I’d also boycotted a Schwinn Deluxe Ding-Dong bell for the handlebars, streamers to flitter behind me, and a braided wicker basket to hold my Cabbage Patch and Monchhichi dolls. It’s an easier story to swallow than the truth.

Oral cavity:

more commonly known as the mouth, comprising the lips, tongue, palate, and teeth, and is a primary component of the vocal tract that assists with articulating sound. All these decades later, I still think of Ginny O’Brien. Often. I remember a short time before her death, when we’d sat on the floor of her bedroom (on whose walls she’d pasted magazine cutouts of Rob Lowe and Michael Jackson and Mark Wahlberg [donned in only tighty-whities], where bobble-eyed stuffed animals perched on her bookshelves, squeezed between fingerprint-and-chocolate-smudged copies of Little Women and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret) as we read from books she’d checked out at the library about women’s experiences in the 1,985+ years since our Savior was sacrificed for us, like Saint Lucy of Syracuse (executed by a sword thrust into her throat [after being lit on fire and having her eyes removed {murdered, age twenty, for “disappointing” a suitor}]), Saint Agatha (tortured [including, but not limited to, being rolled over sharp glass and burned on a bed of coals, stretched on a rack of iron hooks, and eventually having her breasts excised via pincers {murdered, age twenty, for refusing marriage to a Roman prefect}]), Saint Antonia Mesina (struck with a stone seventy-four times [murdered, age sixteen, for resisting rape]), Saint Agnes (dragged through the streets naked, burned alive [but ultimately beheaded {murdered, age thirteen, for devoting herself to chastity}]), or Saint Maria Goretti (stabbed fourteen times [murdered, age eleven, for resisting rape by a twenty-year-old]). I was shocked, and I remember saying something to the effect of being glad not to have been alive in the times these women were. Ginny had simply rolled her eyes. She was twelve.