Why Do People Know Nothing About Sex?
QUESTION: It feels like no one knows what they’re doing in bed. Can having terrible sex ed (and then terrible sex) damage society as a whole? What can we do about it.
We need to examine and question the way we talk to young people about sex (or don’t talk to them about it) in a bigger, societal context. I know most of you are woke and will probably agree: We live in a world of sexual scarcity, ignorance, and fear.
In sex ed, there is so much focus on the pregnancy aspect of sexuality that everything else is left out -- the real reasons people even have sex: To get off. To feel good. To feel closer to their partner. To feel good about themselves. To feel desire and to be desired. To feel alive. And on and on.
Let’s talk turkey, pals. 99% of the time, people are not having sex (PIV sex or any sex, really) to get pregnant. They are having sex for pleasure. It feels good. We want it because it feels good. We have orgasms and we want more orgasms. We want sex for many reasons that don’t even have anything to do with orgasms … maybe we want it because it brings us closer to a partner, ourselves, our self-understanding. Maybe we want it because we’re bored, curious, excited. Maybe it’s Tuesday.
Who the fuck cares? Because sex is magical in all its forms.
So let’s talk about how our shit sexual education comes into all of this and how a lack of comprehensive sex ed is fundamentally fucked for everyone.
I’d like to point out that focusing on reproduction (though problematic in many ways) negates everything queer in sex - A LOT of people are not heterosexual or cis. This means that PIV sex may not even be relevant to them, their experiences or desires. You wouldn’t know queer sex existed based on our deeply flawed or, in many cases, entirely absent sex ed curricula. This absence of queer sexuality in sex ed programs tells queer people that their experiences don't matter and that their desires are wrong.
What about pleasure?
Pleasure, babe, is a key component of sexuality - and what it means to be a sexual human being. It is as fundamental to our well-being as eating, sleeping, etc. Sexuality is not taboo or bad because it is inherently a bad thing, it's bad because we SAY it's bad. We decided it was wrong to be sexual and so it came to be. The entire backbone of our cultural understanding of sex is based on something we, as humans, created. It's ignorant and it's time to move on.
Pleasure is beautiful and sexuality is something everyone deserves in a safe, healthy, holistic way (I am saying everyone because everyone is included here, regardless of desire. People in the asexual community may not want to experience sex or have desire, but they still deserve the education - EVERYONE does).
Understanding your body is something we all DESERVE and it is truly unethical to deprive young people of this information. The only thing that happens when you keep young people in the dark about sex is STI spread, consent violations, unplanned pregnancy, and general misunderstanding.
To be perfectly honest, even amongst non-religious groups, wherein people don’t actively use shame or God as a tool of control, but still don't talk to their kids about sex - even those kids will sustain long-term psychological damage. Not having access to information about healthy sexuality and your own body is actively harmful for your well-being. Growing up in a household and community where sex is not something people discuss makes sex taboo and shameful, with or without a diety to worship. Again, we did this to us.
We have this bizarre notion that kids shouldn't know about pleasure because “then they'll want to have sex” - well, spoiler alert, kids figure it out ton their own, have sex in an unsafe ways, and wind up confused and vulnerable. All studies show that comprehensive sex education is a key factor in safer sex.
If you don’t believe understanding sex and your own sexuality is something of use, I’d beg you to look at your own life and your own values. They deserve interrogation.
We're in a time, in 2021, when adult people grew up with little to zero sex education and absolutely no understanding of pleasure and how to get it (or give it). Look at the ways people interact with each other. I have couples coming to my practice every single day who have been together and have never had a good sex life. They don't know where to turn or what to do because they lack the language and tools to properly communicate about sex.
In sex ed (and society at large), there is so much focus on pregnancy and penises and religion and virginity and purity, that everything else slips through the cracks.
Look, we don't even use the correct words for our own genital anatomy, that's how misinformed we are. We still widely refer to the vulva as the "vagina" and no one bats an eye. How can someone with a clitoris ever have a fulfilling sex life if they don't know what a fucking vulva is and what a CLITORIS is? Riddle me that.
The misinformation is truly dangerous. A lack of comprehensive, pleasure-inclusive, sex ed damages society as a whole. We're a culture that learns about sex from watching mainstream gang-bang porn because no one else does the legwork. Porn isn't sex ed and has never pretended to be sex ed, but when there is nothing else to turn to, it becomes the default for kids. This is only logical, here. You think you're protecting a young person from sex by hiding it, but what do you think pops up when they come home from the playground and Google the new word they learned today: "titties"?
When parents think school will explain sex and school thinks the parents will explain sex and everyone thinks "sex" is PIV intercourse: Everyone loses.
People feel deeply, deeply ashamed, scared, confused, frustrated, and misunderstood in their desires and their sexual identity because of all of this bullshit. When this is the culture people grow up in, they become adults who don't know how to ask for what sexually - because they probably don't even know what they want. We've been living in a vacuum of shame, guilt, and a dark pit of misinformation.
We are a culture of sexual-ignorants. We deserve better.
XOXO Gigi
This article originally appeared as a part of The G-Spot Newsletter.
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