Time for another installment of Building Bridges, where we facilitate, then publish a conversation between two people in different life stages who have something with gender, sexuality and/or relationships in common. This time, our intergenerational pair is two women who have had their sexual orientation and identity shift for them during the course of their lives.
Amy, 24: I came out as a lesbian at 14 and was, as I call it, "a Professional Gay" for a long time. I interned for activist organizations, ran the GSA at my high school, got a scholarship from a local LGBT organization for my activism and went on to a women's college where I eventually became co-chair of the LGBT organization on campus. I was, as a friend once said "her definition of gay."
Looking back, I struggled with liking guys for a long time, which sounds so backwards in the way that people think of sexual orientation transitions. I felt a strong connection and loyalty to the LGBT community that I basically grew up in and was afraid that by liking guys I was betraying them. Eventually I started to wonder - if I was okay with dating people who identified as male, why was I not okay with all people who identified as male? I started "experimenting" with people-with-penises when I was 21 and started actively dating them when I graduated college at 22. I'm currently involved with a person-with-a-penis and we've been dating for almost a year now.
Candice, 39: I have been in a continuous committed relationship with the same (cis)man since I was 16. We've been legally married for something like 15 years (it all runs together at this point) and have an 8 year old son. Despite my first sexual experiences being with girls and the crushes I had on female friends, until I was in my early 20s I very strongly identified as straight. I think that the when & where of my childhood had a lot to do with that. Growing up in the 70s and 80s in a very Baptist city in the deep south meant that until I was in high school, I honestly wasn't even aware that people had anything other than hetero relationships. Even when I learned about homosexuality, I never considered identifying as gay, partly because I was strongly attracted to boys but also because to do so wouldn't have been safe, socially or physically. The only openly gay student at my high school was beaten up and bullied out of the school - talk about a powerful lesson in staying silent.
My sophomore year in college I started hanging out with a group of people that included most of the non-hetero students at the school. They were generally considered the "freaks" on campus, but they felt like home to me. For the first time I felt able to think of myself as something other than straight but I wasn't sure what exactly I WAS. I loved my boyfriend, I was attracted to girls...I started thinking I was bisexual because that seemed to fit best. Unfortunately, the lesbians I knew (and the gay men, to a lesser extent) were painfully scornful of bisexuality and although I privately identified as bi I was publicly silent on my exact orientation and simply presented myself as being in a relationship with a man.
Who I'm attracted to has changed several times in my adult life...I've had times where I was intensely interested in women and not at all in men (THAT makes a committed relationship with a man a challenge, let me tell you!) and times when I've been very into men and not particularly noticed women. My relationship with my husband has both affected and been affected by this in complicated ways. Currently, I am very much enjoying sex with a man while also "not-dating" a woman I consider my "not-girlfriend" and being very frustrated by the sex we are not having. (And yes, my husband knows this. Like I said, it gets complicated). At this point in my life I'm most comfortable identifying as queer - it's the only orientation that seems to offer enough room for the different ways I feel at different times and it has less personal baggage for me than "bisexual".
Amy: My social group is very hmm "non traditional" (aka not any different from anyone else, just more open about it) in regards to sexuality - kinky people, swingers, polyamorous, queer... the kind of people who go to sex education events for fun and lust a little after Tristan Taormino (whose book, Opening Up, is a fantastic one on open relationships. Minus the attempt at history in the introduction. My background's in history and that intro made me want to scream for proper citations.) I'm also in a non-monogamous relationship, but I know from talking to married folk that nonmonogamy is a different ball game when marriage and children are involved.
You noted your not-girlfriend and ongoing attractions outside of your marriage. Have you and your husband considered any of the various forms of non-monogamy?
Candice: Yes, absolutely. I'd say that at this point, we are tentatively poly...it is a long, tricky process renegotiating some of the most basic terms of such a long relationship. I have a much easier time with the idea of nonmonogamy, perhaps because there is no way that any one person can be both male & female & satisfy everything I want. I've also never thought that sex and love were necessarily always bound together...that idea never made sense to me. My husband is naturally monogamous so it's been a real challenge for him. I am incredibly grateful that he is willing to be flexible and work towards ways for both of us to have our needs met.
The not-girlfriend bit is because, although they are a poly couple, her husband isn't comfortable with her starting another relationship right now. Oh, ironic Universe, I shake my fist at you!
I wonder how it feels for you, Amy, to have access now to "heterosexual privilege." I know there are many times when it makes life less superficially complicated for me, even when I feel guilty about sliding through peoples' perceptions because of it. Does it make you mad when that happens? Does it sometimes feel like a relief (even if you don't think it should)? How has having a male partner affected how you move through everyday life?
Amy: On my OkCupid profile, one of the things I note is that I spent a good chunk of my life immersed in the queer community. That's part of my history and it's shaped how I approach relationships and life in general. I do not think I could date someone who did not have some form of "alternative sexuality literacy." Male, female or somewhere in between, they need to have had some interaction with the queer community and they need to be comfortable with their sexuality.
In my daily life, heterosexual privilege doesn't really come up - as noted, I tend to surround myself with people where sexuality is a very fluid thing and more tied up with actions than identities. I have noticed that because I no longer actively present as a soft-butch lesbian and because I am presenting as more femme, that the way other people interact with me - from bartenders to people at happy hours to men who hold the doors for me outside of office buildings - is different. Also, I haven't been sir'd in years. But that's more of a presenting thing than a who I'm dating thing. (I think I can provide an entertaining contrast picture somewhere, along with Venn diagrams. THERE COULD BE A FLASH PRESENTATION... only I'm not that motivated).
However, with family, I have embraced the heterosexual privilege of being open about my love life. My grandparents, who never met any of my girlfriends, will be meeting my boyfriend this fall. Being able to talk casually about someone who is such a large part of my life without having to filter them out or call them "my friend" is such a relief. It doesn't make me angry, it just makes me sad.
Do you think that you would have been out as bisexual if the members of the queer community you were exposed to had been more accepting of bisexuals?
Candice: I've thought about this question a LOT. I wish that I could say "Well, of COURSE," because that is who I want to have been. The honest answer, which I like a lot less, is "probably not."
I was painfully uncomfortable with myself on so many fronts back then...I don't think I could have overcome my own fear of being identified as "wrong" or "different" and been open about my sexuality. That said, I think that I would probably have worked through my issues with sexuality a lot faster if I'd been in a more supportive and accepting community. As it was, the community I was in certainly reinforced my belief that it was not safe to fully express who I was.
The first question I had reading your introduction post was how the LGBT community you were originally a part of reacted to you coming out as bisexual. You said that you were afraid that you would be betraying them by dating guys...did they see it that way as well, or was that more your own imagining?
Amy: I think that a lot of it was my own imagining, but it wasn't unjustified imagining. The group of lesbians that I used to hang out with in college and I have more or less fallen out of friendship - whether that's because of the natural order of growing up or because we didn't have anything in common besides liking women, I don't know.
I think I've actually had more trouble with the LGBT community about being bisexual and poly. I think that if I was bisexual but dating a woman, I'd still feel more... accepted, than the fact that I'm about to hit the year mark with a man and still open to dating women.
One of the largest fights I've ever gotten into (and this is including the dinner time arguments with my father, who thinks Rush Limbaugh is a liberal) was with a lesbian who informed me that she didn't think poly people should raise children. Her arguments were such that you could take out "poly" and replace it with "lesbian" and it would be the exact damned argument that is made against gay people raising children. The hypocrisy of her (and two other lesbians that chimed in) made me unspeakably angry.
How has growing up in a conservative Christian environment influenced your own relationship with religion?
Candice: My own family is very Christian (I swear every other relative I have is a minister) but also quite liberal so even though I was surrounded by churches that condemned anyone different, I was raised in Christianity that was loving and tolerant, if not always affirming. Although I'm not a Christian myself, I have great respect for the teachings of Christ and for the people who follow and live his teachings.
Which isn't to say that I don't carry scars from and bitterness towards the many many people who call themselves "Christian" but practice intolerance and hatred. I choose to think that most do so out of ignorance and indoctrination rather than informed choice (that's cheerier than thinking that so many people are just hateful), but I still avoid them. I try hard not to pre-judge people, but anyone calling themselves a Christian has some proving to do before I really trust them.
One of the things that is most difficult for me right now as I try to forge more connections in my local queer community is how many people make assumptions about my sexuality based solely on the fact that I am holding a man's hand or (more rarely, but it happens) the fact that I am fairly femme and wearing very traditional engagement & wedding rings. I often feel that if I were alone, or with female friends, or if I were more butch, I might be treated more as "one of us" from the outset, rather than having to explicitly say "I'm-married-to-a-man-but-that-doesn't-mean-I'm-straight" (it's kind of a one breath phrase for me now).
Do you find yourself having to work a little harder to be accepted as a part of the community now that you are partnered with a person-with-a-penis?
Amy: To be honest, I haven't been as active with the mainstream LGBT community so I can't really say that I have to work harder. The more general sex-positive community has been where I've focused things of late - and there's significant overlap with the queer community and the sex positive community. But because I'm not coming at it from a different angle I think that the queer community I interact with has different expectations of me which makes it so much easier for me to be partnered with a person-with-a-penis.
I had a hard time coming to terms with being bisexual - from the gays and lesbians who said that bisexuals were cheating, as it were - they they had it easy - to my own mother who seemed to be (relatively) okay with me being a lesbian but several times said things about bisexuals like, "Why can't they just choose?!"
On a different note, where'd you go to college? Do you think that if you had gone to a different college your sexuality would have been influenced? I went to a small Southern women's college - Hollins University in Roanoke, VA - that was a little bubble of liberal in a large sea of red. Having been out as a lesbian during the application process, I would not have gone to a particularly conservative institution, but I wonder sometimes if I would have ended up differently if I hadn't attended a liberal women's college.
Candice: I went to Transylvania University in Kentucky. It's a great school, academically, and I had an scholarship I couldn't say no to. When I was there, the student body was overwhelmingly white and upper/upper-middle class; over 80% of students pledged greek. A lot of my experiences there were great (I don't want to sound like I'm dissing the school) but as a whole it wasn't very tolerant of diversity.
I feel certain that a different school would have influenced my sexuality, or at least my expression of it. I desperately wanted to go to Oberlin University, which is radically liberal, and I have no doubt that had been able to afford it my experience would have been very different, if only because there would have been more than 10 openly queer people on campus.
I love the phrase "Professional Gay!" I know exactly what you mean by that. I'm wondering how you felt your role changed when you changed how you identified yourself. Did your focus in the various activist organizations change (i.e. did bi issues become more apparent or important to you once you identified as bi)? I imagine that if you saw yourself as "Professional Gay" you might have felt a bit lost when you let go of identifying as gay...did you? Or did you feel like letting that identity go freed you up to explore other ways of being in and presenting to the world?
Amy: I think that letting go of that identity freed me up to be more multi-faceted in how I present myself to the world. As I noted, I'm still active with the "sex positive" community (I do things like go to feminist conferences called Sex 2.0, which is an unconference in its third year that covers social media, feminism, and sex positive stuff), though I'm not really an activist any more. When I say that I mean... I am not in my face about it anymore. I just am who I am and I'm open about it, which is often its own form of activism because that's periodically a very difficult thing to do. Trying to actively change people's minds is too exhausting and generally ineffective. I used to say when I was a leader in the LGBT organization that the most effective form of activism that you can do is to be out and honest about yourself, whomever that is. The more people who know that you're queer [or whatever] the more they make the connection between "this cool person I know who happens to be queer" and LGBT/queer rights. It personalizes the issue for them, so it's more "If I vote against LGBT rights, that means that my friend Susie can't marry her partner of ten years, Mary" and less of an abstract "other."
Anyway, what I am saying is that I didn't lose anything. I was scared to let go of that identity, but I think that my personal activism just shifted a bit and I got to become a more interesting human being as a result. Because people who are Just Gay or Just Mormon or Just Goth or Just [insert any identity] are kind of boring.
As a queer parent in a heterosexual(ish) relationship, how do you think you'll handle your son's sexuality when he gets older?
Candice: My son and I already have amazingly open discussions about lots of aspects of sexuality. My mother and I still can't talk about sex, and I was determined not to repeat that dynamic with him, so I've talked to him about bodies & sex (at an age-appropriate level, of course) from the beginning. It seems perfectly logical to him that some people like the opposite sex and some like the same and he's very indignant that gay marriage isn't legal (it's adorable to hear him rant about it). He knows that he can ask me anything, and so far is comfortable doing so.
As for my own sexuality, it hasn't come up yet, but I'm sure that at some point it will. I doubt he will explicitly ask me, so sometime in the next couple of years I'll drop it into a conversation. I'm sure he'll have some questions about how it fits into my relationship with his dad, and I'll explain as far as I think is appropriate. I'm a little nervous about coming out to him but honestly I don't think it will be that big a deal to him.
We hear a lot about generational divides. What we hear less about are the bridges: how people of different generations can and do connect; how we can support and help one another and each offer the other things of great value. Just as often as a given experience, or even life as a whole, is different for people of one generation and those of another, there are also some things that are or have been the same, and all have our own wisdom to share, whatever our age may be.
People of different generations are not incapable of connecting or understanding each other, despite the way so much media can often make it sound that way, or the despite day-to-day frustrations and challenges we have probably all experienced with one another when trying to connect. To find out more about the series, or to volunteer to pair up, click here. To see other pieces in the series, click here.
We hear a lot about generational divides. What we hear much less about are the bridges: how people of different generations can and do connect; how we can support and help one another and each offer the other things of great value. Just as often as a given experience, or even life as a whole, is different for people of one generation and those of another, there are also some things that are or have been the same, and all have our own wisdom to share, whatever our age may be.
People of different generations are not incapable of connecting or understanding each other, despite the way so much media can often make it sound that way, or the despite day-to-day frustrations and challenges we have probably all experienced with one another when trying to connect.
Often I am asked to explain things about one generation to another, illustrating differences as well as common ground to each. I often find myself telling people of one age group how to try and better understand the other; making appeals for more empathy, more understanding and fewer assumptions on both sides. But what I really want to start seeing more of are people of all ages doing that with and for each other, without an intermediary like me speaking for them.
Anyone who knows even a little about me probably knows that at the times I think, "Gosh, I really wish there was...." about something, I often dive in shortly thereafter and do my best to make that thing happen. So, because I think people of all ages stand to benefit by connecting more often and more deeply, and think we can all benefit by seeing what some people can offer each other intergenerationally, I put a call out last week for this new series, asking for volunteers of different generations to step up with a shared issue, experience or identity related to sexuality to be matched and interview one another, allow me to observe via email, and then format and reprint those interviews here.
This piece today is the first of the series. I have enormous gratitude for the two women who participated, especially with an issue and experiences that can be so hard to talk about. Being allowed to read their conversation as it happened was pretty amazing, and I think in reading it yourself you'll find both of them and what they had to offer one another as awesome as I did. ~ Heather
Who's AAG in her own words? I am a 41-year-old cisgender woman. I identify as queer, which to me means that I like people of all genders, though in the past I've had long-term relationships only with men. I'm single, poly, and the mother of three children.
The abuse against me was committed by my father. It started when I was eight, as far as I can recall, and lasted about ten years. It consisted of fondling, pressuring me for more physical contact, and lots of verbal inappropriateness.
Who's Tien in her own words? I am 16 years old. I am mostly a straight A student and plan to become a child/adolescent psychologist specializing in sexual abuse. I also want to be a lawyer working as a state prosecutor in the child abuse unit. Recently this happened to me with a man who was over 10 years older than me and he was someone I trusted. He was also a family member, my cousin. He used manipulation and my trust to get what he wanted along with other forms of abuse that I didn't reconize at the time. This relationship lasted four months. It would have lasted longer but thankfully my mother and a counselor at school found out about it and reported him.
AAG: How have your friends and family members reacted to all of this? Are they in any way blaming you for what went on? If so, how do you handle this?
Tien: My friends support me. They listen to me when I am depressed or just need someone to talk to. My family members react differently from each other. The ones that directly know what happened support me whereas others who don't know the full information either hate/blame me or don't know how to react. I handle the blame by just not thinking about it since if they do not know the full information, how can they judge me?
AAG: How are you dealing with the emotions? Do you find yourself angry? Hurt? Missing whatever good parts of the relationship you had?
Tien: My emotions are random right now. Sometimes I am fine, then the next day I am depressed. When people found out about the relationship I was angry at myself because he was someone I thought I was in love with and I did not want him to get in trouble. I do not feel hurt, just confused since he is someone who should protect me but instead hurt me. I do not miss the good parts of the relationship, the good parts were essentially the talks we had together and when we went out to restaurants.
AAG: How do you relate to your cousin now? Do you still have to see him at family functions? How have his parents and/or siblings received the news of his abuse?
Tien: Right now if I saw him again I would probably slap him and tell him how much he hurt me. I am in the process of writing a letter to him stating just that. I would not be seeing him at family functions for a very long time, since not only did my mom report him, she pressed charges. From what he told me the last time I talked to him, his parents hate him. As for his siblings, I do not know how they reacted to the news. Do you feel betrayed by your father?
AAG: Very much so. Family abuse -- even if it only happens once! -- rips away the feeling of absolute safety and security a child should have.
Tien: Did you tell or want to tell someone what was happening to you? Was it difficult for you to tell, if you did?
AAG: I told my mother constantly that I didn't like my dad to have his hands all over me. She ignored me, minimized the abuse, and urged me to "be more loving" to him. I didn't tell any other adults then. Once I started dealing with the abuse (in my late-20s), I told a few close friends, then a few more, then more, to the point that nearly everyone in my life knows about it. I've written about abuse frequently on my blog. Every time I talk about it, people disclose their own abuse to me. Every time I talk about it, it gets a little easier. How did it feel when you first realized that your mom and the counselor were digging into your business? Were you angry? Hurt? Relieved?
Tien: With my school counselor, I told her about the relationship and I did not expect her to report him. My mom caught me trying to sneak out one night and started digging through my things. She found this story I wrote about the relationship, questioned me about it and I confessed everything. At first, I was angry at them for reporting him but later on when I figured out that he abused and manipulated me, I was relieved. How did you react when you figured out that your father was abusing you? Were you confused, angry?
AAG: I always knew what was happening was weird or odd or unusual, but I minimized it until I was in my late-20s and began thinking about starting a family of my own. It was only when I thought about how I'd protect my future children from my abuser that I realized that the abuse had affected me -- a lot.
Tien: Did you go into counseling? How did it help you?
AAG: I started counseling in my late-20s. I've continued it on-and-off since then, as I've felt it was necessary. It has helped enormously, but it's not easy. In some ways it would be easier to pretend like nothing happened, but I have to consider the safety of my children when they are around my parents. Are you receiving any counseling? Is it helping? Do you think you'll continue?
Tien: I used to receive counseling but had to stop because of my mom. It helped and when I am older I will continue counseling. How did family members react to what happened to you?
AAG: My mother reacted and continues to react very poorly. She will not believe that anything happened to me. She likes to believe that I was brainwashed by my counselor. There is also a religious component: They both think that because God has forgiven them, that I should forgive them too -- and a part of that should be letting them see their grandchildren unsupervised. That will never happen. How do you see this relationship affecting you in the future, like dating or raising children?
Tien: In the future, I plan to help children who has gone through the same things I did. I think that in dating, I will be more cautious and question things more. Also, I will have to tell them about the abuse to an extent because I have figured out some of my triggers which are things that he(my future boyfriend) might say or do. With my future children, I would talk to them about how adults should treat a child and that they could talk to me about anything. My parents did not tell me any of this.
AAG's words of wisdom and support for Tien: Here's what I wish I knew when I first started dealing with the abuse: Nothing, no part, not even a tiny bit of this is your fault. No matter what anyone else might tell you (or ask you), don't ever feel like you did something wrong.
Being a survivor of abuse is a permanent condition. No matter how hard you work on it in therapy, nothing's going to change that fact. I don't say this to depress you. I say it so that you won't beat yourself up when, after a long period of feeling so much better, you find yourself in a bad period again. It will gradually get better over time, but don't expect it to be a smooth progression without any setbacks.
Tien's words of wisdom and support for AAG: I would like to say that you sound like someone who has gone through a lot. I am sorry that your mom did not fully comprehend what your dad was doing to you. My advice to you is to keep continuing what you are doing, like you said it gets easier the more you talk about it.
Yesterday, I had my hair cut.
As the stylist called my name, she asked if I would like a shampoo. I politely declined. She then noticed how thick my hair is and she said she was going to take me back to the sink to wet it. And being incredibly used to this, I readily agreed and followed.
But just as she had finished wetting my hair and I expected her to turn the water off, she started squirting stuff on my head.
I froze. I’m not great with confrontation, especially with strangers, and have difficultly forming exactly what I want to say in just a short moment. She kept rubbing my head, then squirting some more, rubbing and squirting, rubbing and squirting.
The salon smell was all around me, and finally when she’d finished rinsing, only to squirt yet more stuff on my head, I blurted out “so what’s all this stuff you’re putting on my head?”
“You don’t use conditioner?” she asked incredulously.
Once she’d finished lecturing me on why I should use conditioner, I opened my mouth again to say, “I mean, before, too. You put a lot of things on my head.”
“Oh, that? It was shampoo. Don’t worry, I’m not going to charge you for it. It just makes my life easier.”
The problem was that it made my life a whole lot more difficult.
You see, I’m allergic to almost all artificial scents. Quite a few popular natural scents, too. I can’t walk down the shampoo aisle, or the soap aisle, or the laundry detergent aisle in the store. I have to go to natural food stores and actively seek out all natural, unscented products, which is usually not an easy task. I can’t use normal cat litter or home cleaning agents, I can’t borrow a friend’s lotion, and I cringe at being around someone who is wearing cologne or perfume. If these products are actually put on my body, it’s a very unpleasant thing, indeed.
So I sat there through my actual haircut just waiting for it to be over, and begging for it to end soon. I tried to take breaths as shallow as possible, to keep as much of the scent out of my nose as I could. When she asked, this time, whether I would like any product put in my hair, I declined and said “I’m allergic to most products, actually.” Her “oh” was a guilty one, and I dropped other plans to rush the 20 minutes home and hop directly in the shower. My third shampoo and blow dry for the day complete, I could finally breathe again.
Contrary to how this post looks, I’m not writing it because I want to complain about a bad experience in customer service. I don’t doubt that the stylist was genuinely trying to make her own life easier, and genuinely thought she was doing me a favor in the process. I’m writing this post because of the simple fact that a favor to one person is not a favor to another. I’m writing this post because such situations are so common and can be so very, very easily avoided.
In the end, it could have been a lot worse. While I’m allergic to just about everything, my allergies aren’t particularly severe in the big scheme of things. My nose itches and runs, my eyes burn, and my head hurts. But I don’t usually break out in hives or a rash. I don’t get migraines and need to lay down for hours after exposure. My eyes don’t water, my skin doesn’t puff up, and my airways don’t close. I don’t have chronic pain issues that could be triggered by certain scents. I don’t have sensory issues that make it difficult to be touched. And surely there are many, many other problems I don’t have that I don’t even know enough to be aware of.
Though I don’t consider my own personal allergies to make me disabled, this is in part a disability issue. It’s in part about the way that most people seem to assume a “norm” and forget the huge number of people who don’t fit it, and who can be harmed by the assumptions. It is in part about the way that certain conditions are made invisible, forgotten about, or assumed to not exist until or unless told otherwise.
But ultimately, while accessibility, accommodation, and awareness are huge issues, and I think that every one of us should do our best to learn about those disabilities that we ourselves do not have, the problem I had yesterday was not even an issue of someone not being aware enough of what precise impact her actions could have on me. Though it certainly could have solved the problem in this particular instance, the ultimate cause of it was not her failure to consider that not all people can well-tolerate just any product being put on their bodies.
The issue was consent.
Consent is not just an issue in sexual situations, though we tend to talk about it largely as though it is. Consent is something that we negotiate or fail to negotiate in all of our interactions with other people, every time we touch or ask if we can touch. In this case, I consented to having my hair wet down. I didn’t consent to having product put in my hair, or to having my scalp massaged. My consent was assumed, and falsely. And while quite likely most people would have easily consented if asked “is it okay if I shampoo your hair free of charge,” I wouldn’t. The only way to know whether or not a favor is really a favor is to ask.
It’s wrong to take a person’s consent to one activity as consent to all related activities. And while those of us in anti-violence work already recognize this, it’s more than time to extend the principle beyond sex.
Many feminists and disability rights activists have made the argument long before I have, but I think it’s worth a repeat and a revisit. What if we didn’t assume our right to touch in everyday, non-sexual situations? What if we didn’t just take for granted that a certain touch will be okay? What if we were to not consider our own desires and thoughts about a certain touch, but those of the person we’re touching? Many would undoubtedly argue, and have argued, that the world would be a much colder and less intimate place. But I argue that it’d be a far more communicative place. It’d also be a world much safer to a wide variety of people. It’d be a world with a far more genuine respect for bodily autonomy and personal rights.
And yes, it very likely would transform the way that we view sex and sexual assault. If we viewed all touch as not a right but a privilege, all physical contact as requiring consent rather than acquiescence, our views on what a sexual interaction looks like and on what constitutes rape would also undoubtedly transform. But even if they did not, bodily rights matter in all circumstances, and reclaiming them in all situations, including those that are non-sexual, quite simply just matters. Our autonomy does not begin and end in the bedroom, or center around our erogenous zones. Our bodies belong to us, and every part of them has value.
(Reprinted with permission from Cara Kulwicki at The Curvature)
This is one of a long line of common phrases in sex education and sexuality messaging people, including people I think of us allies, use that I deeply dislike, like "preventing teen pregnancy." Let me explain why, working backwards.
That's usually followed by "then you should have sex using safer sex and contraception." Or -- and usually addressing both those things -- "then you should at least be responsible."
In some respect, that's fine. Now, not everyone needs contraception, either because they don't have a partner with a radically different reproductive system than them or they're not having the kinds of sex that can create a pregnancy, so that doesn't always make sense. But for people choosing to have any kind of sex, we're 100% on board with the sentiment that all of us -- no matter our age -- should be engaging in sexual practices supportive of safeguarding everyone's best health, and in alignment with whether we do or don't want or are or are not ready for a pregnancy. This statement often tacitly or inadvertently defining all sex as opposite-sexed or as intercourse isn't okay, but overall, on the safer sex and contraception bit? I'm right there with you.
The "if you can't?" Not cool. We all can elect not to have any kind of consensual sex, sparing masturbation we may unknowingly do in our sleep, something that happens sometimes. Some people also do have earnest impulse control disorders, but those are disorders, and do not occur in the vast majority of people of any age.
If we have consensual sex it is completely within our control, whether we're 13, 26 or 63. There is no "can't wait" when it comes to consensual sex. To suggest there is is not only incorrect, as we have free will, it can also be rape enabling. It backs up those who excuse rape by saying they (or rapists) couldn't control themselves, that just they couldn't help it, that when they feel sexual they cannot stop themselves and every kind of garbage of that ilk that is an absolute, and highly convenient, fiction. People always can hold off on sex or decline sex unless someone is being sexually assaulted or abused, in which case the person doing the abusing is in control of what is happening, but the person being victimized is not because the other person or group has also taken control of that person in some way. If we are choosing to have sex, that choice in and of itself is one of responsibility, and if we're bearing our own and our partner's consent in mind, one is already being responsible.
Some folks say "don't" instead of can't. That's far better. There most certainly is a "don't want to wait," but there isn't a can't. Nearly everyone can. It's just that not everyone always wants to. Not only is that a more truthful framing, it's one which makes clear that active consent and decision-making, and owning your choices, is of great import.
This "can't" stuff also plays into the way people often misrepresent teen sexuality: something out of one's control or will, as about "raging hormones" (hormones with apparent superpowers that can compel the body to move against one's own will); as a burly, untamable, and usually masculine beastie that picks young folks up by the feet and shakes them until they don't have two pennies of sense left to rub together. I'm not about to argue that when sexual feelings first start to develop and flourish that they don't often feel heady, even unwieldy: they sure can. But that doesn't make them unmanageable or make any actions one may take stemming from them out of a person's control.
I will also argue this is somewhat situational -- not about people only of a given age, gender or marital status -- and that we know older adults also experience strong sexual feelings. In addition, I hear from a lot of young people worried something is wrong with them because their sexual feelings are not at the mega-hormone-madness level people say teenage sexual feelings are. Heck, maybe it's both a misrepresentation of young adult sexuality AND older adult sexuality. All the same, young people are capable managing their sexuality well, and also tend to do a better job with it in cultures that don't present teen sexuality like this. And if young people hear adults suggesting or implying that sexual feelings are not something in everyone's control, they also are more likely to a) fall for partners who coerce them by suggesting as much, and b) won't recognize or report sexual abuse when that's what's going on.
There's another big flaw with the general message here: "You should wait for sex, but if you can't, be responsible." Huh? If there's something we should do, and we're not doing it, we're probably not being responsible already: by definition and context, the term "should" here implies an obligation. If we are NOT making and owning our own active sexual choices, or if we "can't" have the ability to own our choices at all, and thus, are irresponsible by default, we are absolutely not being responsible. So, "If you can't be responsible... be responsible?" That's -1 + 1, which equals zero. It's null.
...until? Until you're married? Until you're in a committed relationship? Until you're older? How much older? By whose standards or what criteria? And why: what will one, three, five or ten years automatically provide just by having a birthday each year? (Or "until I can or want to deal with you being sexual, because I'd just rather not?")
Many people do have down that the "until you're married" part isn't sound. Not all of us have the legal right to get married to people we love, at any age. Some of us don't want to get married, or don't want to enter into marriages without a sense of whether or not we have a compatible sexual relationship with a given person first. Some of us are in all of those camps. Too, marriage does not mean a lack of STIs, a lack of unwanted pregnancies, a healthy relationship or a stellar sex life (even far-right folks even know this part, they just vociferously avoid admitting it). It never has. It doesn't still. And as we mentioned just the other day, through history, even for those who did/do marry, most people have had sex before marriage, especially if of people who marry, both were not very young teens when they did. Saving sex for marriage was never a realistic standard for most young adults, nor a common practice.
Long-term committed relationships have more positive outcomes for some people. Some people also have positive outcomes in casual or shorter-term relationships. For most of us, it's not a simple either/or, because it depends on the specific relationship or scenario and on what that person wants and feels best about at a given time in their lives.
Wait until you're older? How much older? Until it's legal? Think whatever we do about age of consent laws, that's pretty sound. But even in states where the age of consent is, say, 16 or 18, there are almost always allowances for same-age sexual relationships for those under that age. If it's not about the law, at what age does everyone, unilaterally, acquire the skills, resources and the right relationships and scenarios to assure, or at least strongly suggest, sex will be either devoid of unwanted outcomes or bear less risk of them, or be a positive? If, in reading this, you're not silent and have that one magical age handy for me, I need to assure you that I can't think of one single age, talking to people of many ages about sex, I have not had people report negative or unwanted outcomes with. I also have never seen evidence or data via study to show such an age exists.
We have do sound study that tells us things like that younger teens' expectations of sex often are very unrealistic, and that the youngest teens also report unwanted outcomes from sex or unhappy experiences more frequently than older teens do. We also have good data that shows us that for the youngest teens, sex more often is not consensual sex, but is rape, via either force or coercion. Data like that is critically important, and is good to share with young people when we're talking with them about sex, especially if they seem to specifically fit the picture of any of that data. However, there will always be exceptions, and often those exceptions are not about a few teens, but about a few million. Age-in-years also isn't all that's going on in those pictures.
Here's where both I, and Scarleteen as an organization, stand on this.
What we want is for everyone to only have any kind of sex -- be it intercourse or any other physically enacted expression of sexuality with oneself or a partner -- when it is what everyone involved in a sexual scenario: strongly wants, can and does actively consent to, feels prepared for and has the knowledge and capacity to have sex in a way that is physically and emotionally safe. We want this for everyone the first time they have any kind of sex, and then every time thereafter.
If "you should wait" means until all of THAT, then you betcha, we're on board. This is our goal for people of every age, and we don't think it's fair or reasonable to hold young people to different standards on this than we hold, or anyone else holds, older people (especially if you're going to say young people are less capable of meeting the standard than older people, but older people don't need to meet it once they are capable).
The kinds of things we know ARE likely to create positive sexual outcomes -- areas we can clearly see are where those positive outcomes most often occur -- are things like having an earnest and shared desire for sex with the person you're having it with, having knowledge about and access to sexual healthcare, safer sex tools and contraception; having the full legal right to and a sense of ownership of your own body (be that about the right to give nonconsent and consent or reproductive rights), having emotional support and acceptance from your community and culture, not feeling shame or fear about sex or sexuality; having a strong sense of self as well as a real care for others and feeling prepared for and at least somewhat skilled with the kinds of things sex requires, like communication, vulnerability, creativity, compassion, discovery and boundary-setting. There are people who are teens and who have all of those things sometimes: there are plenty who do not. There are people who are 20, 30 or 50 who do not: there are also plenty who do. While age and life experience can absolutely hone any and all of those things, a) it clearly doesn't for all people (if only) and b) some of those things can sometimes be easier for younger people than older people, especially if they haven't unlearned any of their intuitive skills with them yet
I know that there is no one broad group which people can be a member of that guarantees unilaterally positive sexual experiences or relationships with either unilaterally positive outcomes, or a lack of any negative outcomes. Everyone who works in sexuality knows this. Marriage doesn't do that, and it never has. Being of a certain gender doesn't do that, nor of a certain race or economic class. Being of a certain age doesn't do that, either, and also never has. Setting aside both the implicit falsehood of these kinds of statements, and the audacity of making them to members of a group which we are not members of ourselves, if we give young people the idea that getting married, having a partner for X-months or X-years or reaching some magical-age-or-other will immediately imbue them with all of the above resources, skills or scenarios, we aren't helping them any. At best, we potentially set them up for disappointment, but at worst, we may put them right in harm's way -- since those things alone do NOT protect them -- the very thing I think most people do want to prevent.
The other thing "wait until" can say as a message, intentionally or not, is that once anyone chooses to have sex, it's a Pandora's Box they have opened and can't shut evermore. Sexual choices are not just important or meaningful the first time we make them: those choices are always meaningful, we consider if sex is something that is right for us every time we do or don't choose to engage in it, and we all always have the right to change our minds and decline sex, even if we had it before. But a lot of young people don't know or feel that, especially with the other messages they get about how their valuation as people changes based on whether or not they have had sex or do have sex. I know, for certain, our allies don't want to enable that message to young people, but I worry some do because this messaging dovetails with that kind all too easily.
Shoulds are tricky when we're talking about sexuality, especially when making opening or general statements, rather than responding to someone's specifically expressed wants and/or needs. Given a rare few of us have been reared without pervasive shoulds when it comes to sex, or have been totally uninfluenced by a world which is rife with them, it's really easy to slip into saying "should" and we all usually have to work hard to avoid it. But I think we need to try.
When it comes to things like what kind of sex someone enjoys or wants, or to when sex will most likely be right for them (especially in a given situation when you don't even know what their unique situation is), "you should" usually means something more like, "I wouldn't," "I didn't," "I don't think you should because I didn't like that," "That didn't work out so well for me, so it probably won't for you" "I'd prefer if you didn't because what I want is..." "My personal values dictate..." or "Some person or idea who has more authority than you do says no."
This is a particularly problematic issue when adults are talking to young people, and all the more so when they're saying "shoulds" about nothing but age-in-years and personal projections. So often, adults have the idea that because they were once a young person of 13 or 19 or 22, they know all of how it is for young people of that same age. Even adults who once knew how full of baloney that was when they were teens.
For sure, those of us who are older were once younger. We were, however, our own younger selves, not the younger person we are talking with and about right now. We were also not our younger selves in the same time they are their younger selves. While some parts of a given experience they had may be much like one we had, they may experience that thing very differently, or have different outcomes than we did. For sure, age and hindsight gives us perspectives, and those truly are often valuable, especially if we're mindful people. But the idea that we know so much more than a younger person about their experiences, or what may be their experiences, just because of our experiences or our age isn't kosher. It is, in fact, is one of the ways that adults are often adultist. On top of that, we have adults who DID wait past X-age to be sexual with partners, and felt that was best for them: but not having had the other experience, they can't know what that would have been like for them. Then we have adults who had sex younger than they feel would have been best for them: they have a bit more information than the former group, but still can't know what starting sex at a different age would have been like. Having experience with something doesn't give us experience with not-something-else.
Nearly of my own consensual sexual experiences and relationships as a teen, including those when I was a young teen, were positive, enjoyable and loving and I didn't have the unwanted outcomes we've always heard will fall upon the heads of teens who have sex (likely because I did very well with safer sex and contraception when it was needed), save a broken heart a few times. No more achy-breaky than heartbreak I experienced from nonsexual relationships, though (actually, I think those heartbreaks were sometimes worse for me). I've heard from more than my fair share of adults my age or older who both don't manage their sex lives NOW as well as I did as a teenager and who are less pleased with their sex lives as adults than I was with mine as a teen. However, because my experience was like that at a given age does not mean I'm going to assume every other 15-year-old female-bodied person out there, at this point in time or any other, will have or will have had the same experiences I did. I think most people, including people whose politics are radically different than mine, would agree it would be grossly irresponsible for me to project my own experiences and outcomes unto any other young person just because they're the same age I was, doing the same things. And if that's so, those folks should also agree the same would be true had I had very negative experiences and unwanted outcomes.
My own experiences, like yours, may provide me perspectives (and also potential biases) I may not have had I had very different experiences. But it's my job to manage them and put them in greater perspective, to recognize they are individual, not universal, to avoid projecting and to figure that for any given teen out there who might have been just like me, there's one out there who is radically different, and for whom my choices at a given age would be a terrible fit, with very different outcomes.
If being older really makes us wiser, why do adults have such a hard time seeing when we're projecting this stuff unto young people, or recognizing it's often disrespectful? Many times that "should" comes from the I-did-this-I had-bad-things-happen place. I completely understand adults -- especially those who are parents or are mentors, teachers or other allies, rather than folks who don't have any real emotional investment in a teen or teens lives -- wanting to do what they can, within reason and with care, to help young people avoid harm or hurt. I think that's laudable and loving. However, a negative outcome happening from something we do at one age doesn't mean it'll happen to all people that age doing that same thing. We all need to think more deeply than this and present teens with thoughts of more depth.
I took a one-block walk to the park to play when I was seven, climbed on what looked like a jungle gym in an alley to me (it so wasn't) and I wound up slicing off half my hand, which left me with a permanent disability. Does that mean that it's a bad idea for seven-year-olds to go take a walk, and we can be sure of that because of what happened to me when I was seven? If I have had both positive and negatives with both serious and casual relationships, does that mean all must be good for everyone...or that none are?
Maybe you had intercourse with your boyfriend when you were 15. You didn't use birth control and became unwantedly pregnant, or a condom wasn't used and you got an STI. You didn't come into the relationship with knowledge about either of these things, nor sound negotiation skills or a real sense of self-esteem. You hid your sexual activity because per your religion, you were breaking the rules and sinning. Your relationship was also crappy, and the guy wound up leaving you, on top of everything. So, if you had had intercourse at 20, but all those other conditions were exactly the same, do you think the outcome would have been different? Doubtful. Just like if that guy had a mustache, things would not have been different with all the same conditions at the same age with a partner sans mustache. The problem most likely was not being 15. It was all the conditions of that equation.
There's often some coulda-woulda-shoulda going on here, too. A lot of people come of age with ideas of what "perfect sex" or "perfect lover" or "perfect first time" is. Many people have the idea that if they had just done X-thing differently, they would have had that perfect first time instead of the less-than-stellar experience they had. Certainly, we don't always all make the best choices and some different choices very much may have resulted in different outcomes -- because no, someone who had no sex at all would not have become pregnant, and someone who didn't choose a sex partner they knew was a jerk would have been less likely to wind up with a jerk-in-bed. But as someone who hears a WHOLE lot about that "perfect first time," including from people who followed all the given "rules" about what promises to make that so? I gotta tell you: if you didn't have it, one reason why was that, in large part, that "perfect" first time isn't real. It, like perfect lovers and perfect sex, is a fable; a fantasy. That's why it's so sparkly and shiny. Too, we can't ever know what outcome switching up one thing differently would have had, or what THAT change may have created. We hear a similar tactic in reproductive justice a lot, when people who are antichoice and regret an abortion they had say that they should have done adoption, that would have been so much less painful. Not only do they have no way of knowing that, that ignores the endless scores of women who HAVE surrendered a child and found it very painful. Grass, greener, other side: you know this one.
"Should" is a word that also has something to do with control. When we say "should" to someone -- especially without context, such as where someone tells us they want to have sex without a pregnancy, so we say they should then consider using contraception -- we suggest someone is obligated to make a certain choice. That's not helpful messaging if some of our intent is truly to empower people to make their own best choices, rather than to try and get them to make the choices we want them to for our own benefit or personal agenda (which can certainly include trying to rewrite or correct our own sexual histories). The phraseology here also suggests that responsibility is more about someone doing their duty, being a good citizen or a "good person," than just caring for themselves and caring for others: it's the latter motivation that's more likely to help people create and nurture positive sexual lives and relationships. Plus, messages of duty and/or obligation in regard to sex are particularly noxious for women, for whom much of the whole cultural history of sexuality has been about sex as a duty and obligation.
I would be so delighted if we could start to broadly hear a change in this messaging, especially from individuals or organizations I know or think truly want what is best for young people, which certainly includes, ideally, a reduction of negative or unwanted outcomes from sex, and also -- pretty please? -- some address of consent; which I also hope includes nurturing positive, wanted outcomes, like feeling good about one's sexuality, having a satisfying, beneficial sexual life -- one that includes pleasure and fun, not just not-pregnancy or not-STIs -- like feeling able to express yourself and your feelings with someone else authentically, like feeling alive in your body and feeling capable and respected.
I don't think we can't present sex positively and treat young people as capable while still sending strong messages about health and public health: in fact, I think without the former the latter will often be ineffective or have its own set of negative consequences, like fear, shame or feeling disempowered. If the messages we send young people about sex don't treat them with respect, aren't honest, don't address consent or make it sound impossible or inconsequential, don't treat the individual as an individual and shortcut complex issues, expecting them to approach sexuality any differently seems a strange expectation, indeed.
Here a few different alternatives to try on for size:
Of course, my favorite approach is avoiding generalized statements like this at all and instead having conversations where I can simply first ASK (or be told) if someone does or does not want to have sex right now, then give more information, and ask more questions, then tailoring what I am saying to what they state their needs and wants to be: if we start there, and work from their answer, it's pretty easy to sidestep all of the problems with these kinds of phrasings. I think it also makes it easier for us to focus as much on what we should be doing as we're focusing on what teens should.
I'm 17, and recently me and my boyfriend decided to have sex for the first time. My mum was out, but she came back early and we didn't hear her! She ended up walking in on us just before we were going to have sex. She went mad and started screaming at me, and it was a really bad situation. She really doesn't want me to have sex until I'm married. But I feel ready now, I don't want to wait! How can I make her see this? And also she's never going to trust me and him alone together now, how can I get around that?
I lied to my boyfriend and told him I was raped. I know rape is nothing to joke about at all. My mother was raped as a child. But it is the first thing that came to mind! He's always trying to get me to have sex with him, and I'm just not ready. He's not the kind of guy you can just sit down with and explain that too..that's just not him and hes a virgin..but he does get "head" sometimes. (Not while I've been with him of course..] But anyway I told him I was raped and that I'm not ready to have sex after that happened to me and that it scares me because it will remind me of what happened. Well, that lie got old and now he's starting to ask me again and again. What do I tell him ? I'm stressing over this and hes not the kind of guy I can just say "I'm not ready to do this..or that" to. Please help. I'm young, only 14 and hes 15 but..what to do ?!
My girlfriend doesn't understand why we can't have sex because I'm not ready. I keep asking her to wait a little longer, but then she gets confused and she thinks I'm not interested. I just don't want to mess up or get an STD. I don't know what to do.
I have never ever had sex before. My BF is great: he knows me, and he likes having fun. We're both about the same age. If he's energetic, what should I do if he gets out of control? His listening skills aren't that great.
How do I best support a family member who has come out to me? The person is 15 years old and says they are bisexual.
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