Sex.
What does the word mean to you? It carries a different weight to each of us. The mere mention of the word makes some of us shudder, and for some, it makes them uncomfortable. Some of us live in a state of hypersexuality. To use the cliché, everyone is different.
This post is not going to consist of me talking about the action of sex itself, in fact, there isn’t going to be anything sexual about this post at all. For those of us who are growing up in the United States, sex is such a taboo. We’re not supposed to talk about it, out of pure curiosity, with teachers. We’re not supposed to ask questions.
Good sex ed is a rarity in many U.S schools. The Texas policy for sex education is to teach abstinence. Abstinence. They preach abstinence because they don’t want teenagers having sex. But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because teenagers are having sex whether the state likes it or not. Is that a bad thing? Of course not. However, so many of us, due to a lack of proper education in regard to sex, get the wrong idea. We become vulnerable to myths, to unhealthy sexual identities.
We have a high number of teen pregnancies because many teenagers are never taught the importance of safe, protected sex, or the risks of unprotected sex. All of this because sex is portrayed as a shameful thing… unless you “do it right,” that is, with a spouse or a significant other. We’re taught that it’s something you are not to show curiosity about. Sexual knowledge is so repressed in teens that it’s no wonder many teens sexualize everything (of course, that’s still no justification for the sexualization of everything).
When the only access to sexual knowledge you have is porn, you end up with a plethora of teenagers who end up with the wrong idea of sex, of a healthy sexual identity. I blame the lack of proper sex education we’re raised into as part of the reason why so many young boys oversexualize their female counterparts. I blame it as part of the reason why so many girls don’t even know their own bodies well, why this hypersexual culture we live in is so normal. I blame it for making rape so common, because nobody ever sits a classroom full of boys and girls to talk about consent. I blame it for making slut shaming so prevalent, for making the sexual gratification of women such a rarity. I blame it for not educating lgbtqa kids and teaching them that their sexuality is perfectly okay and nothing to be ashamed of. I blame it for a lot of things.
Sex is such a normal part of human life. Many cultures have been known for embracing and exploring human sexuality. Why is it now that we, as a society, are regressing? Why is it now that many young people are ridiculed for a lack of sexual experience, are made to feel pressured to be as sexually active as their peers, and then shamed for being sexual? We can never win. Most of us end up being labeled as too sexual, or not sexual enough. Let’s establish something; there is no such thing as a right way to be sexual. There isn’t. It’s a fallacy that we are conditioned to beleive, but it’s completely false.
A healthy and confident sexual expression is, I believe, essential to young people’s development in every sense–physical, emotional, socially. Sexual identity is an integral part of who we are, why should we deny ourselves the freedom to explore exactly what that means for us? How are we to fully understand ourselves and know who we are if we can’t be confident in our sexual identity? It doesn’t matter what your individual sexual identity is, that’s up to each of us to figure out on our own.
What matters is that we, as the generation that is growing up and is going to be “in charge,” are able to understand ourselves, and be understanding of others. We need to be sex-positive in the sense that we become accepting of people and their sexualities, whether this means sexual orientation, or sexual preferences/habits. We need to be understanding and become comfortable with talking about sex. Not just engaging in it. We need to be having conversations with each other over what’s healthy and what’s not. We need to be talking about respecting people’s sexual boundaries.
Some people love sex. Some people do not. Some people don’t know because they haven’t experienced it. Does this mean they have to experience it so they can figure it out? Of course not. Someone’s lack of sexual experience is not an invitation to pressure or shame them into it. It is noboby’s choice but their own in regard to what they want to do or feel ready to do sexually. I’m sick of hearing people say things like “oh you’re still a virgin?” to others. It actually does not matter.
Virginity does not matter unless you want it to, and in that case, it should be respected. On the opposite side of the pendulum, I’m equally sick of the fetishization of virginities. This obsession with “stealing” virginities is such an idiotic thing. It makes someone’s virginity something they should be ashamed of until it’s convenient for you. In fact, it only puts more pressure on people to “get to it.” It reduces people’s value to whether or not they have lost this imaginary thing. We need to sit down and talk about boundaries. About making sure don’t shame people for wanting something or for not wanting something. We need to talk about respecting people who have no interest in sex, and respecting people who love sex. We need to talk about consent and exactly what that means.
Too many people think they know what consent is when they don’t. We need to talk about rape. Let me reiterate, we need to talk about rape. Rape is more than a violent, forceful sexual encounter in an ally. Rape is way more than that. Rape is tricking someone into having sex with you. Rape is not making your intentions clear and then shaming the victim into having sex with you. Rape is making someone think that the only way they will gain your respect, love, or care is if they have sex with you, even if they don´t really want to. Rape is giving someone drugs or alcohol and having sex with them, regardless of whether or not they agree to it, if they’re intoxicated, you do not have clear consent. Rape is making someone feel guilty for saying no to you. Rape is an uncomfortable subject, I understand. However, I don’t think it’s as uncomfortable as it is for actual rape victims. So yes, it’s a discussion we need to have.
Sex isn’t a bad thing. However, the way we as young people perceive sex culture is bad. We make even the most irrelevant things of the most importance. Why does anyone’s body count, or lack thereof, matter? Why does anyone’s sexual orientation matter to you? It’s not your business. Why do we shame women for expressing a like for sex and having healthy and open sexual identities while encouraging it in men? Why are we making (cis) men feel insecure about the size of their penises and why are we making women feel insecure about their bodies? Why are we so concerned with what trans+ people do and why do we intrude into their lives with questions about their genitals that most of us would be appalled at and uncomfortable with were it us who were on the receiving end of those questions.
Why are we pestering gay men and women with questions over the legitimacy of their sexual orientation? Or treating them like something we can use to experiment on to satisfy our own curiosities? Or burdening them with uncomfortable questions over their sex lifes for our own amusement? Why do we shame people with STDs as if there is something horribly wrong with them? Instead of helping and supporting them, we force those with STDs to internalize their emotions, many never even feeling like they are able to confide in anyone about their problem out of fear that they will be socially rejected. Why? We’re shaming people for things that don’t concern us, all while being on the defensive about many of those things ourselves. Nobody ever gets to breathe this way.
Is this what we want? A society built on a faux sexual confidence while being scared and insecure on the inside? A society that is largely misinformed on everything sex-related? Why are we trying to make it impossible for us to relax and be happy? We need to stop doing this to ourselves. Again, we need to be able to discuss these issues. We need to be able to correct and improve each other.
