Written by Kiana Neemeh
November 18, 2019
Pleasure is inherent to human nature. We are attracted to what feels good, and we search for it in everything we do. Sex is also inherent to human nature. It’s how we procreate – it’s literally how we survive as a people. And it’s no secret that sex can lead to pleasure. Yet we grow up thinking of sex as either something taboo or something that serves to produce children. The pleasurable aspect of sex is still completely off-limits in educational settings.
I grew up thinking masturbation was only for guys. They talked about “jacking off” as casually as they talked about what they had for breakfast. It was never portrayed like that for women. It was not “normal” for girls to masturbate. If no one was willing to normalize the subject, then how could anyone feel comfortable in bringing it up with a trusted adult figure? Girls who had scandalous questions found their answers elsewhere. They turned to the easy answers: hardcore, non-consensual, fake porn. Porn in which mutual pleasure is never touched on; rather, women are turned on as soon as a penis is exposed. And anything a man does, as long as his hands are on her, pleases her. Onscreen, simple penetrative sex is always displayed as being more than satisfactory to all women, and so young girls who wish to explore their sexualities only have this as a model for their sex lives. They were never taught to seek respect from their partner, or to know they have the right to have just as much pleasure as their male counterpart.
Even in our progressive age, sex in the bedroom (or not) is still not a righteous subject to address in classrooms. Some believe in sex being a purely biological act. And outwardly talking about the pleasure of it would be encouraging kids to engage in sexual activity. The thing is, sex is just like drugs. If you don’t talk about it, kids won’t just forget about it. They will simply take measures into their own hands. They’ll figure it out on their own, and because they don’t have the resources, safe sex will not occur. Yet sex still will, and that’s what people have to understand. When you ban something, it doesn’t prevent it from happening. It just encourages its occurrence in unsafe conditions. It becomes counterproductive.
To fight stigma, many sex-positive platforms are surfacing. Online platforms such as ParFemme and Club Sexu encourage people, women in particular, to feel good about their sexuality, to be upfront about it, and to destigmatize topics that have evolved with very illicit connotations surrounding them. It is so liberating to see people talk about (anonymously or not) what helps them feel pleasure, what makes them feel good and empowered, and it’s a shame that exactly this has been shamed for so long. It has and always will be a universal conversation topic – one that people have been encouraged to be secretive about, especially women. We were taught to do whatever we want behind closed doors but to never mention it in the open because it would taint our perfect image of a ladylike woman. You like to touch yourself, be touched, try different things? Cool. But don’t let people know.
All this skirting around sexuality does is make women feel shame. Shame for something their male counterparts take pride in feeling. You can please a woman? You’re a legend. You watch porn? Great, all boys do. Is the pattern not clear? For so long, men were almost persuaded to assert their sexual dominance upon women, and women would enjoy anything they did to them. There has been such an unhealthy image built around sex that people forget to talk about how important talking about it openly really is – to avoid shaming and instead talk about how normal it is for people to want to explore their bodies, with or without partners. And that only happens when people can stop fearing judgment for concerns, questions, or fantasies they have.
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