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.
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