From Sexual Guilt to Sex Positive

Note: This post contains information about my sexuality or sex life, if you would rather not know these things about me move along and check for another blog post on another day.

Mike and I took a trip to the three-story Lovers adult store in Tukwila the other day, and had a really great time. The salespeople were all very friendly and helpful, and there wasn’t a hint of awkwardness. They knew their stuff and were sincerely looking to help us enjoy our time shopping. It took me once around the store to relax and be able to talk to Mike about the products we were looking at, but once I did I was really comfortable and appreciated the atmosphere. It got me thinking about how nice it would be if sex wasn’t such a stressful taboo in our society, if we could always relax and talk with others with the same ease that Mike and I could in the store.

Lovers mission statement is “To provide an exciting environment to explore human sexuality and to acknowledge the freedom to do so."

Now, how is that possibly a bad thing?

We once went to a lecture by Dr. Darrell Ray where he talked pretty extensively about The Guilt Cycle, and how it plays such an important role in religion. The Church latches on to sex as a really great way to control their members (no pun intended). They find something that people are naturally programmed to do – in this case masturbating or experimenting as they mature sexually – and tell them that it’s wrong, a very serious sin. When Churchgoer masturbates or experiments with a friend or partner, they feel intense guilt that has been programmed in by the Church. They turn to the Church or prayer, to absolve them of their guilt, which the church will happily do… while reinforcing the idea of how bad this sin is. Churchgoer feels a little bit better, at least until their hormones kick in and they ‘slip up’ again and the cycle repeats. I’ve watched several Christian friends and even a few relatives anguish through this cycle. It’s incredibly powerful.

If you want to control someone, control their sexuality. Sex is one of the most powerful urges that we have, next to eating and sleeping. We become sexually viable in our young teen years, and it’s completely unnatural to abstain from sex until your early 20s. There is a reason that teenagers are so horny, it’s not a choice, its basic biology. It’s generally mentally and physically unhealthy to abstain from sex for so long, especially if you try to eliminate masturbation as well. There may be people out there who can do it, and I’m impressed. By the time I was 18, I was chomping at the bit. Depending on your definition of virgin (mine was vaginal sex) I was a virgin until I got to college, but at that point I was ready to fuck just about anybody. I’m lucky enough that I met my future husband and he didn’t take advantage of that, but let’s back up a bit to get the whole picture.

My own sexual growth and knowledge has been stunted on one side, and accelerated on the other, which has forced me to do some painful growing and balancing in the past few years. Let me explain.

I grew up in a sexually repressive Evangelical Christian church, though thankfully not as repressive as it could have been. Sex was something wonderful and awesome - a perfect gift from God - as long as it was saved for marriage and you only ever had sex with your permanent heterosexual partner. You give up a part of yourself whenever you have sex, a part that you never get back, so don’t you want to be whole for your spouse? If you’re not, all of the other partners that you have will basically be in the bedroom with you every time you have sex. (What a load of bunk.) I got the idea that you didn’t need to work at sex, your wedding night would automatically be amazing since you’d waited patiently for so long. Real life turned out to be just a bit different, but we’ll get to that.

So, from my verbal schooling about sex, I got a good education on what was happening to my body through puberty, the basics on the mechanics of sex, the ‘icky’ knowledge that gay men had sex by sticking it in the butt (I was young and it was said with such disgust), and the idea that sex was perfect when God brought the right man into your life and you ‘became one’ with him. This is the stunted half, there’s so much that I didn’t learn about the way sex really is.

The other half started silently when I was 5ish. I discovered my body and “Hee, that tickles! … Hey, that feels really good!” at nap time and at night. I had my first fantasies, and ‘played doctor’ with the neighbor girl down the street. Young-me was told that pornography was a terrible sin, degrading for women, something that should be avoided at all costs, etc. I was either never told, or could never remember, what pornography actually was. Curiosity eventually won out, and one night when I was home alone, I turned to the internet. I went to Lycos.com (remember that search engine?) and searched for “pornography”. With my heart pounding, and looking paranoid over my shoulder, I was faced with my first “You must be 18 or older to enter” screen and feeling like I was breaking the law, I pushed “ENTER”. I panicked and quickly closed the window. I sat there for a moment, heart racing, sure I was somehow going to get caught. Once I calmed down a bit, I repeated the process and I was hooked. I think I was 12.

I was insatiable for a while, learning and looking at everything I could get my hands on. I found a site full of erotic stories that captured my imagination, AOL chatrooms where I pretended to be twice my age and quickly got frustrated with guys who couldn’t figure out descriptive writing and that ‘I give you an orgasm’ wasn’t exciting (which I still find hilarious). I also had a 30-something guy tell me he was newly married but he loved me and his wife said that it was okay if it was just on the internet. Right. That scared the pants off me, I told him I was 13 and then blocked him, and that killed cybering for me. I learned pretty early on what I liked, what got a rise out of me, and what didn’t do anything. I was increasing my sexual knowledge by leaps and bounds, but I didn’t have anything practical to temper it against, and I wouldn’t dream of talking to anyone about it. This is the accelerated half, and the silence of it all has made my sex life unnecessarily difficult.

As I became sexually active, I found that I had no idea if the things that I read about in porn were the way it actually worked and I also quickly realized that I couldn’t vocalize the things that I wanted, including saying no when things were moving too fast. I had good boundaries in mind, but enforcing them was nearly impossible for me. If I had stumbled into a less amazing guy than my future husband when I first got to college, this could have ended very badly for me. As it was, I got off with only days of stress, guilt, and frustration at myself afterwards. Yeah, there’s still something wrong with that picture.

As our relationship grew, we struggled pretty mightily creating a happy and healthy sex life. Some of it was the fact that being on the pill killed my libido, but I think a lot of it came from my lack of ability to communicate. Some people might be lucky enough to get it right the first time, but from everything that I have heard, read, and experienced: it’s all about communication and practice. If you’re missing the communication, the practice isn’t going to help much either.

So many couples are incredibly self-conscious talking about sex, even though they are actively engaging in it. Why is talking about it more embarrassing than doing it? I still have a problem talking openly about the specifics of sex with my own husband. I get embarrassed and shy and it’s damn frustrating. The unrealistic expectations from the church, mixed with feelings of guilt from my Christian peers and teachers, self-imposed guilt from my parents teachings (Don’t make our mistakes!), and silence through my sexual development have been huge hurdles that I’ve had to face in coming to terms with my sexuality and in working with my husband to create a healthy sex life. I read blogs about parents raising their children in sex-positive environments and I’m jealous. But I can only take what I’ve learned and move on.

I am sex positive, working hard to become vocal about it, and I think the world would be happier if everyone else was too.

Never stop questioning,

Valerie

*****Edit*****

Here's a little bit on the sex positive movement to help clarify things:

"The sex-positive movement does not in general make moral or ethical distinctions between heterosexual or homosexual sex, or masturbation, regarding these choices as matters of personal preference. Some sex-positive positions include acceptance of BDSM and polyamory as well as asexuality, transsexuality, transgenderism, and other forms of gender transgression in general. Most elements of the sex-positive movement advocate comprehensive and accurate sex education as part of its campaign."

"Sex-positivity allows for and in fact celebrates sexual diversity, differing desires and relationships structures, and individual choices based on consent."

Being raised sex-positive would mean that all forms of consenting sex and gender combinations would be viewed as normal and healthy, and would include a well-rounded education about the dangers and benefits of sex, physically and emotionally. I definitely don't advocate all teens running around sleeping with each other, I agree with you that most aren't emotionally ready yet, but we can better prepare our children for how to safely have positive sexual experiences when they're ready.