Let's Talk About Sex - Part III

My boyfriend became my fiancé, who became my husband when I was 19 years old. I wasn’t very happy, but I wasn’t terribly unhappy either. We fought often, but I had never experienced another serious relationship first hand, so I thought that maybe that’s just how marriage, how life, was. We were married for around 6 months before I decided to leave, which was just as emotionally damaging and socially awkward as if we had been together for 6 years. I thank my lucky stars that we never had children.

Now, I don’t want to come off as the victim here. True I was young, I was naive. But I was just as hard to deal with as he was. He was simply more stubborn than I, and I more passive-aggressive than he. When we were finally over I like to think that we both breathed a sad sigh of relief. 

And all of a sudden it came back; the elusive question I had been thinking about for most of my life. It finally took form in my brain as these simple words “what does sex mean to me?”

I’m still trying to answer that question. With each new discovery, with each new disappointment, I feel I get closer to the answer. Yet I wonder if I will ever truly have an answer. As people we are constantly growing, constantly changing, and I am definitely on the more introspective end of the spectrum. Which basically means I like to think about the same thing over and over and over.

My other best friend in high school (I had two besties, the aforementioned gay boy who supplied me vodka and orange juice while we danced and sang along with ‘Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’, and a wonderful girl who shared her food, her home, her closet and her secrets with me, and I with her) has stayed true to our teenage promises. She was my unofficial grad date, my maid of honor. She prayed with me, sang with me, laughed with me, and wept when I told her I was no longer sure of my faith.

She is getting married this summer and in one of our recent conversations I popped the question, “so...are you excited to have sex?” It’s crazy, that I’m comfortable asking relative strangers to discuss their sexual experiences and preferences (I have never lost my curiosity and find other perspectives fascinating). But when I broach the topic with her, I immediately feel like I am 13 years old, giggling and nervous. Thankfully, she didn’t look at me with disgust or surprise. She just smiled and said “um...YES!”

Sex is different for everyone. There’s no right or wrong way to go about it (unless you are a pedophile). Many factors shape our sexual identity, and many people feel uncomfortable discussing it. I have had mixed feelings about my sexual development and history over the years, but I have come to accept my experiences as part of who I am. And I have come to accept myself as someone who is capable and worthy of great love. As always, it comes down to being honest with yourself about what you really want and having the courage to pursue that behavior.

Safety in this day and age is of utmost importance, and I'm not just talking about physical protection, which is obviously incredibly important. But also emotional protection. It’s easy to pretend not to care when you get used or when you use someone else. But is it making you happy? It is making you a better person? Or do you pretend to be heartless so often that eventually you don’t have to pretend anymore? Do you become so closed off that when you do find someone special you won't (or can't) let them in?

I’m not sure how to end this series. I feel it’s something I’ll be writing about, talking about and thinking about for most of my foreseeable future. I’m not going to pretend to be some sort of wise sex sage, but if you do have any questions or comments please feel free to post them, you can do so anonymously. I can say that if the day comes when my [unborn] child asks where babies come from, if they are under a certain age, I have a lovely story about a woman’s garden and a man’s fertilizer to tell them. Without pictures.