Why do we say “Did you do ‘it’?”? “It” as in sex, a “thing” to act upon. Not something that is an important, integral part of humanity. We are taught to shut off or control sexual expression. We feel awkward talking about it. We objectify sex.

I used to believe that sexuality was a weakness for me — a straight, Catholic, white, middle-to-upper-class, female US citizen. My mom once told me, “If you play, you pay,” referring to unwanted pregnancies, STI’s, unwanted encounters, and guilt.

I’m 24 and I had my very first orgasm just 3 years ago. Why? Because I thought it was all for the guy. No one taught me any better. I was told that a blow job on the third date was something I “had to do for a guy to like me” without expecting oral sex or any other form of pleasure back.

Sex is something we share with each other. NOT something a guy does to a girl to get pleasure.

Like Brad Perry wrote in his chapter “Hooking Up with Healthy Sexuality: The Lessons Boys Learn (And Don’t) About Sexuality, and Why A Sex-Positive Rape Prevention Paradigm Can Benefit Everyone Involved,” back in 1988, and still today, there were very few places in America where young people could receive the knowledge, skills, and opportunities to develop their own feelings about gender, sexuality, and intimate relationships. Perry describes our culture as sexually myopic. “We have a drive to oversimplify and distort the intricacies of gender and sexuality that makes us minimize the existence of sexual violence, while simultaneously blocking healthy affirmations of human sexuality and oppressing people with non-traditional sexuality and gender identities,” he says. We learn about sexual violence and sexual health, but we don’t learn about how to navigate the gender and sexuality pressures of adolescence.

I share the same grand vision as Perry. I envision a culture where people experience and share sexuality in a state of well-being. If we took time to teach our young children, adolescents, and college students that sexuality is a precious part of humanity, we might have less sexual violence. Female empowerment goes a long way, but the way men and boys are taught about sexuality and gender will create a major shift in our culture.

Let’s be allies in modeling and teaching these values to our friends and our children to come. One day, I hope my grandkids will be allowed and encouraged to become connected with their own sexuality because I will teach my son and daughter and everyone else I come into contact with that sex is an emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and social act that should feel good for both parties.

When my daughter turns 16, I’m buying her a vibrator to teach her that her pleasure comes first and that sex isn’t just for her partner to feel good.

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Edited by JC.

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This article was inspired by a journal exercise from the author’s Women and Gender Studies class during first semester of her senior year in response to Brad Perry’s Chapter 16: “Hooking Up with Healthy Sexuality: The Lessons Boys Learn (And Don’t) About Sexuality, and Why A Sex-Positive Rape Prevention Paradigm Can Benefit Everyone Involved.” (See below for full citation).

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