Yep, I went there...
Hello faithful readers!
I know this post title is likely going to get a lot of attention, turn a few heads and maybe cause a few jaws to drop, but I think it's a discussion that needs to be had and that people, far too often, shy away from. I want to talk about sex in terms of how its viewed in our society, and how it affects women by causing them mountains of self-doubt and shame. Because it's always the woman's fault...isn't it? Well, it is according to many in our culture and many others.
We're taught and told from a fairly young age that sex is forbidden (Equate also: scary, abnormal, wrong). Some parents can't even bring themselves to say the word 'sex' to their children. It's as though they are afraid the very word itself will unleash a terrible curse and plant an idea into their child's head, no matter the age, that they need to go out and have sex, right then! We avoid discussions of sex, sidestep our children's questions as they get older, and then, when they become of age, we fling them out into the world with no education whatsoever on the subject, figuring, we worked it out for ourselves, so will they. I honestly believe that this is doing our children a great disservice.
Now, my girls are young, my oldest are 12 and 10 respectively. Kaia (the ten year old) asked me what sex was when she was 7 because she'd heard about it from friends. So I told her what it was. I made sure to talk about it in terms of its something that happens when you are a grown-up, and that it can cause babies so you want to wait till you're settled in life. But I explained to her what physically happens when two people have sex. She knows what a penis is, she knows what a vagina is. She was, unsurprisingly given her age, grossed out by the whole conversation. But I was determined that my daughter would learn about sex from a reliable source, namely me, instead of from her peers who really have absolutely no clue whatsoever. Did I feel ready to have that conversation with her at the age of 7? God no!! But I did, because I felt that to do otherwise, would be wrong.
Because I'm currently pregnant we've also had a lot of discussions about our bodies, how babies are made and born, etc. They still get really grossed out when I use the word 'vagina' its pretty hilarious. :) But I know they are absorbing the info in their brains for later. That is good enough for me.
Our society seems to feel these days that we need to protect our children from all the things that are a part of life, but fails to prepare them to then deal with these very natural, normal things once they become of age. We don't just do it with sex. How many people don't teach their kids how to handle money and finances? How to keep a checking account balanced? How to pay your bills responsibly? Etc, etc. It's a list I could probably add to for hours, but it goes off topic and is a post for another day.
Many people subscribe to the theory that the more we tell kids about sex, the more they'll want to go out and do it, thereby causing more teen pregnancy and teen STD's, etc. But what I have found as a parent and even as just a normal twenty-something adult (when I was one...sigh) is that the more mysterious something is, the more people want to investigate it. If you take the mystery out of something it goes from something you obsess over to, "Oh, is that all?" It loses its allure.
I liken it to a silly game I play on my phone. The games pops up treasure chests from time to time. Sometimes they are free to open and sometimes you have to spend the game 'money' in order to open them. Often, the more you have to spend to open it, the less worth it your reward is. So you might spend 8K $ of the game money only to get back 4K...is that worth it? Nope! But I often open the chest anyway, even after I vowed not to, because what if that one time I might get 20K back? The allure and mystery of the chest is too much to resist. I think that's a great analogy for the mystery that we place around sex.
We don't teach kids the mechanics of sex, or of the mechanics of their bodies. I had no clue what arousal meant when I was a teenager and started going all crazy and hormonal and having these weird 'feelings' and not understanding what they were. In fact, it wasn't until I was older that I started researching about sex and about my body and really learned how to understand what sexual arousal and release meant and how to properly achieve it. It was so liberating to learn what sex was supposed to feel like. How to make it better for myself and my partner, and yes, even how to just pleasure myself. A surprising number of women don't know where their clitoris is, and it's a VERY important piece of the puzzle when it comes to orgasm!
But so many women don't do what I did. They hang on to that fear of sex that their own mothers may have instilled in them. Because their mothers also didn't know any better. Generations and generations of telling women that there is something wrong and shameful and yes, even sinful about the things their bodies make them feel has affected us still today. There are plenty of women out there today who know better, thank God for the sexual revolution, but there is still a high number of women who don't understand sex, even beyond just the basic 'Rod A is inserted into slot B...'. They know that much, but they don't know how to make it feel better for themselves so they lose interest. Then in steps the pharmaceutical companies...
I watched a terrific documentary called "Orgasm INC" talking about the myth of 'female sexual dysfunction'. The documentary offered some fairly convincing evidence that FSD is a 'disease' that has basically been made up by pharmaceutical companies in order to give them something to make a pill, or patch or cream for, in order to make money. I'm on the fence as to whether or not that is true. It seems to me, that the pharma companies figured if men can be helped by these sorts of drugs, then what about women? And then it sort of spiraled out of control. There is no doubt that some women do experience difficulty with sex, but there are a host of reasons why beyond just 'mechanics'.
Unlike with male 'erectile dysfunction' in which there is an obvious indicator that there is a problem, there is no way to measure or determine how a woman is having problems sexually. There are also many, many external factors that affect sex drive, arousal, ability to orgasm, etc. Such as relationship problems, work stress, kid stress, busy lives, age, etc. There is also the myth that all women should be able to achieve orgasm through sexual intercourse and if they don't there is something 'wrong' with them. (Note: Not wrong with the man...with them.) When the reality is that 70% of women need some other form of stimulation aside from or in conjunction with intercourse to achieve orgasm! Wait, what? So that means the 30% of women who can achieve orgasm through intercourse alone are the abnormal ones? Who knew!
It was amazing to me watching the movie what some women were willing to go through in order to achieve what they felt was a 'correct' sex life. They profiled an older women, maybe in her mid 50's, who felt that it was a problem that she couldn't achieve orgasm through intercourse. So she signed up for a clinical trial of a product called the 'Orgasmitron'. Scary right?! It was! The device is that you basically have a doctor insert an electrical probe into your spine that is connected to a remote. Supposedly setting the device was supposed to help you increase sexual arousal and have orgasm during intercourse. What did it do for this woman? It made her leg twitch...In her own words she said, "That's good if you get turned on by a good kick in the butt..." LOL! Oh my I laughed so hard when she said that. But this woman was willing to risk spinal injury in her quest for that elusive big O during sex. Even though she told the filmmaker that she had no problem achieving orgasm by other means. By the end of the movie the woman decided, she wasn't 'diseased' she was perfectly normal. Thank goodness for her! But so many women still feel like they are 'wrong' somehow.
For a long time women have had to rely on men to 'teach' them about sex. What does a man know about a woman's body? Admittedly there are exceptions, but many men don't know what to do with all those parts down there. Their own part is pretty easy to figure out. So why are we asking a bird to teach a fish to swim?
As with so many things in life, education is the key. As women we need to be responsible in not only working to learn about our own bodies, but also teaching our daughters about theirs as they get older. I would much rather my girls know what sex is, how to protect themselves (even if that means buying them condoms or putting them on the pill) than have them happily clueless until some boy comes along they are madly in love with and convinces them to have sex, which in turn might end up being a painful and/or humiliating experience that could end in having an STD or an unwanted pregnancy.
I've honestly never felt uncomfortable talking about sex. Sometimes the best way to learn about something is to talk with a close friend who is comfortable with the subject. Or even talk with your doctor, especially your Gyno. It might seem embarrassing at first, but once you learn some of this stuff, you'll be amazed at how quickly you get over the embarrassment and want to learn more! ;)
So that's it for my controversial topic for the day. I actually started this post a few weeks ago and got sidetracked and am only now just finishing it. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think!
Dawn :)
