Don’t make me feel embarrassed to talk about sex!
This is the slogan for a sex positive petition that Brook
are currently running to try and get quality Sex and Relationships Education
(SRE) into schools throughout the country.
There is also a petition that can be signed, again to
help the cause in getting young people the access to quality learning and
teaching in this area that they deserve.
So who will sign? Or are we even so terrified of the
subject that we cannot even put our name to a cause such as this? Have we
become totally intolerant of sex, and totally incapable of holding our hands up
to say, “Yes, I like sex. I want sex. I want to talk about sex” whilst at the
same time allowing sexually inappropriate messages to convey themselves to
children and young people through television, music and appalling clothing for
kids.
I don’t know about you but my sex education was crap.
It was crap in school and it was crap through my first experience
of penetrative sex. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, even though I was
doing it with a relatively experienced bloke.
I had no idea what a clitoris was let alone where it was.
I only knew that somehow and at some time, he was going to stick is dick into
my vagina, and it might hurt.
It has taken me years to recover from both experiences.
In fact, it is still taking me time to recover from it. Nowadays, whilst I am
at least more confident to talk about sex, having experienced the very best sex
that one could have, I am still lacking in confidence to be as sexual as I sometimes
feel, and I still get embarrassed to ask
for sex. I still don’t like doing that, however much my mind, body and soul are
crying out for it.
And then I get cross with myself for being such a
demanding dimwit.
But I do hope I am no longer embarrassed to talk about
sex and will happily do so with anyone who wants to listen.
Sex is vital.
End of.
And we need to get it right NOW before another generation
of people are misinformed about the brilliance of it all - unable to be
liberated by sex and unable to make wise choices and decisions about sex.
We need to talk about sex now, and we need to do it in a
way that ensures young people do not diddle around before they understand what
they are doing. We need young people to know that sex is so bloody wonderful
there is no point in ‘doing it’ just for the sake of it. There is every point
in delaying until they fully appreciate every facet of its wonderment.
So what was your experience of sex education?
The lessons on sex in school occurred about a year after
my first period – wonderfully age-appropriate then!
A large reel film was placed in a blackened room where
every person passing by knew exactly what we were watching because it was
timetabled for the same week each year with the same year group. The boys
wandered up and down trying to get a glimpse of what we were watching and for
some bizarre reason, this session was delivered by our PE teachers.
I can remember the stifled giggling, and the heads turned
away when the baby was popping its head out. I remember the cartoons and the
photos of sanitary towels and tampons. I have a vague recollection of the
teacher telling us that tampons might be rather difficult to use until the
hymen was broken (for fuck’s sake) whilst simultaneously telling us that any
girl with their hymen intact was clearly a virgin.
I begged to ask the question whether sticking a Tampax up
your fanny therefore made you sexually active but I never had the nerve.
Of course, afterwards it was clear that good girls used
sanitary towels whilst the local slappers were all practiced in tampon
insertion.
I mean, can you believe this?
The sad thing is that I am not sure that it has changed
that much since I was at school.
The other thing that I remember was that either the
teacher or the film told us that it was probably better not to go to the toilet
too often when we were on a period, or perhaps I have just made that up for I
am still sitting here thirty odd years on trying to understand why on earth
this advice would have been given.
Like most children and young people, I got to know about
sex through conversations with friends and peers. And nobody ever talked to me
about delaying sexual activity or what it actually entailed other than
penetrative sex. Nobody ever told me about masturbation, and even when I was
regularly getting myself off with the corner of a cushion, still I didn’t
realise that I was wanking.
I didn’t even know what rape was until I was eighteen, so
I wouldn’t have known whether someone was touching me inappropriately other
than my common sense. I remember distinctly a couple of boys at school grabbing
my arse one day whilst I was on my period, and laughing at the fact that I had
a sanitary towel on. I cannot believe that I did not report them for their
gross invasion on my privacy. I never did because there was no way that I could
talk about it to anyone, and so they got away with it.
I was lucky. It went no further. But I was not and am not
the only ill-informed young woman who has endured inappropriate touches and it
breaks my heart to think that there are still young people out there who do not
understand what is happening to them because we are all still too embarrassed
to talk about sex.
But those are the negatives.
What we really should be doing is talking about the
positives.
I wish someone had told me what it could be like, so that
when I had sex for the first time I would have known that it wasn’t just in my
imagination. It really was crap.
I do feel that it is paramount that those who have
experienced sex as it should be have a duty to tell the world. If they keep
their mouths shut then children, young people and adults are never going to understand
or appreciate what they could be getting, could be experiencing.
If you have had decent sex, you should be screaming out
about it.
No sex at all is bad. Mediocre sex is probably even
worse, especially once you have experienced the best that sex can offer.
Having decent sex is fine but if you have the opportunity
for the best sex, then perhaps that is what you should be aiming for, but if
you do not know about it because the likes of me have not explained what
proper, wonderful sex entails, then how are you ever going to know what you are
aiming for?
Magazines like Cosmopolitan have been blamed in the past
for providing a distorted view of sex. Critics have said that if you read
magazines such as these, it gives the impression that everyone is going at it
like bunnies, having the most mind-blowing orgasmic sex and that if you were
not having such a brilliant experience then there must be something wrong with
you or your relationship.
There was a time when I agreed with the critics. Surely
this could not be happening? Surely it was normal to only have sex once a
month, if that, once you were in an established relationship. Surely it was
normal for the bloke to hump himself into you and cum after four or five quick
shoves. Surely it was normal for a woman to just lie there and satisfy her
partner without ever worrying about having an orgasm for herself? Well that was
what the pillow was for when he took a shower post-coital.
And then I woke up. I then I got it. And then I found Satori.
No wonder I still crave it.
I accept that a large majority of people do not have the
type of brilliant sex as outlined in such magazines but that does not mean to
say that we should all keep quiet so that the uninitiated feel better. Nobody
should suffer mediocre sex. Nobody. I would even go as far as to say it is a
right of all to really experience wonderful sex at least once in their lives.
For those of us who have, we need to keep on telling
people what they can have. We need to carry on having wonderful sex and we need
to make sure that the world knows about it.
As far as young people are concerned, they need to know
how brilliant it is too so that they can know what to expect. But it is also
important that they know there is no point in starting too soon.
The best sex is a combination of heart, mind and soul.
That is what they should be aspiring too and that is what
we should be telling them is possible.
And now – I have guests just arriving. So I will stop
talking about sex because that is not on!
Oh when will I be free to be me?
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