For anyone that knows me, I like putting my two cents in things. Even when it’s not wanted. Especially when it’s unwanted. So here I am, talking about sex and expectations (hence the title) and my own views on sex and how they’ve changed over the years and whatnot. Warning: this will be TMI so read at your own risk.
I’ll start with my views on sex, and how they’ve changed over the years.
My views in high school on having sex was full of slut-shaming. When I heard a couple in year 8 had sex, I was disgusted. When a girl in year 9 told me she had sex, I jokingly (“jokingly”) called her a slut. When a friend told me in year 11 she slept with one of the guys we were friends with, I didn’t care but to my close friend we discussed that if she wasn’t our friend, we’d think she was a “slut”. When my best friend told me she had sex, I cheered her on because she had a boyfriend and it was fine.
INTERMISSION: I put slut in quotation marks because I don’t like nor agree with the word. No one should have to be shamed for liking sex, wanting sex, having sex, etc. I don’t care what you do as long as you’re safe. Please don’t shame other people for not being able to “keep their legs shut” or “putting on more clothes” or “have some self-respect” or whatnot. What people wear is not an excuse for them to be slutshamed. What people do is not an excuse to be slutshamed. WHAT ANYONE DOES IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO BE SLUTSHAMED BECAUSE THERE’S NO EXCUSE FOR IT. What other people do is none of your business. Got that? What other people do is none of your business. Okay. Moving on.
My views post-high school were a little different. My second year into uni I got a boyfriend and lost my virginity after about 8 months after meeting him (5 months officially after becoming his gf, if you want to get technical). I thought this was okay because I “lost it” (I also put this in quotation marks because I think virginity is a social construct designed to make women feel like it was something we had to “do” to feel a certain way and no).
(This image explains my feelings up about it quite nicely.)I’m hella embarrassed to admit this, but during this time my (ex)boyfriend showed me what’s known as Red Pill. What it basically is, is a way of thinking that says guys should play games and use manipulation as a way to sleep with women. Women are nothing more than sex objects and to wholeheartedly serve their man. Usually these type of men look for women they can easily manipulate, girls with low or no sex count, who dress and act feminine, are smart, educated, etc etc. It’s a very toxic community and unfortunately I was sucked into it. At first I did find it questionable but then I began to “see” what they were saying. When I broke up with my bf though I saw the light and now I’m incredibly disgusted at past me, because past me fucking sucked.
The period between August 2015 (time I became single) to now has been an interesting one. I went from the girl that swore she would only be intimate (including kissing guys) with guys I cared about, to someone who’s now kissed ten people and been intimate with a few. I used this time period to find myself again post-breakup and figure out what I wanted in life, career, guys etc. My two closest friends were very encouraging on the idea that I should “get under someone to get over someone”, but I didn’t want to be the girl that jumped from guy to guy because she didn’t want to be alone. That’s not who I am. (Side note: I’m not talking about the girls that sleep with guys because they love it / enjoy it / that’s what they want to do, I’m talking about the girls that sleep with guys constantly because they don’t want to be alone. Which is another can of worms in itself. That I’m happy to expand on if need be.) So I waited. 5 months exactly until I kissed someone again. And then a week later, kissed a random guy at the club on my 21st birthday, fast forward another 5 months until I reached third base with another guy, fast forward two months after that – well, you get the picture. Then something happened this year that really changed my views on sex and what came with it – I won’t get into it because it’s quite personal, but it altered my views to the point that I no longer judged what other people did with their lives. I went from 100-judgemental to 0-chill af in a matter of weeks.
It happened like this – a very close friend of mine did something that went against my morals, to the point where I questioned whether I should continue being friends with her. I was that affected by the situation (a situation that didn’t even concern me, mind you) to the point where I thought it could have been acceptable to end my friendship with her. The thing is, if someone does something that goes against your morals, it’s perfectly okay to terminate the relationship that with that person. But it occurred to me – why am I judging someone, more specifically my best friend – for something that doesn’t concern me? She knows how I feel, she’s going to do what she wants to do, so why should I let that affect me? I’m not sure if there’s a lesson in that, but what a way to test yourself when a situation surfaces that could threaten the balance, so to speak.
So to sum up what I’ve said so far, if it doesn’t affect you / if it’s none of your business, there is no need to slut-shame, sex-shame, any sort of shame in general.
Another point I wanted to touch on was the expectations of sex – and not necessarily just from guys, though it definitely exists. I remember talking to my ex in June over a drunken conversation on Snapchat (I was drunk, he was not) and he “teased” me about me being a “slut” because now that we’d broken up (it’d been 9 months and he moved on very quickly mind you) I was free to hop onto as many dick as I’d pleased. At the time, I didn’t realise the true intentions of his words and I laughed it off and said that I hadn’t actually slept with anyone, so I’d been a “good girl”.
The implication that someone is “good” or “bad” because of the number of people they’ve slept with is quite frankly, rude. It’s a stereotype that has negative connotations and should not be used, full stop. No single factor determines what you are or aren’t. You are who you are, we (we as in society) shouldn’t feel the need to define ourselves with a label or a stereotype designed to make others feel like they can’t stretch out of that label they’ve been confined to.
Besides the sexpectations from guys, the people I get shit from the most are my friends. I know it sounds weird. I want to have sex, but every time I have tried, my body has not let me. (TMI TIME) Mini Alex has decided she is too tight for guys to enter. The thing is, right, if I have a decent amount of foreplay beforehand and I want to 100% have sex with that person, I will. But I think the reason why I haven’t been able to literally open my legs as I would like is for one of three reasons:
1) I am not receiving enough foreplay therefore nope
2) I don’t 100% want to as much as I think I do
3) I want to wait until I’m in a relationship again
The third reason is something I’ve only recently become aware of, after I purposely made a guy soft so we wouldn’t have sex – even though the opportunity was perfect and I had my chance to do it how I wanted it to. When I look back on all of the guys I’ve kissed or hooked up with, there has not been a single guy that I’ve said ‘damn, I wish I had sex with him when I had the chance’. And that’s because they’ve been opportunities, because I could, not because I 100% was into it. There was one guy actually that really rocked my world in terms of contributing to my sexual development but besides him, they’ve all been guys I kissed because I could.
When I told my friends I was unable to have sex because of reason #1, their first thought was ‘let’s teach some positions and ways to finish quicker’, which I felt weird about because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I don’t get embarrassed talking about sex, but discussing why my body was the way it was, was something I didn’t feel comfortable with. As the months progressed, it turned into my friend making it her “personal mission” to get me laid, to which I then spoke out and said that I didn’t want sex unless I was in a relationship. When she asked why, it became more aware to me that while I didn’t care what others did with their lives, I cared what I did with mine. The standards that I hold for myself are very different to what I hold with others, in the sense that if I have sex with someone that I don’t have feelings for, I’ll regret it. I am someone who doesn’t have regrets in life, but rather see them as mistakes I can learn from, so to call something a regret is huge for me. Sex is not important to everyone and I totally understand that, but it is to me. I don’t see sex and love as the same thing, but if I’m going to have sex with someone, I want that to express my love for somebody, and I feel like when I’m hooking up with someone with no emotion involved, it doesn’t feel like me. I feel like I’m living an inauthentic version of myself that I’m not necessarily happy with. For anyone that knows me, I am all about living your true self and being who you are and being comfortable with who you are, and if I feel like I can’t be that, I don’t know how I’d be.
So TLDR of this blog:
- Do what makes you happy
- Be safe (Seriously guys, educate yourself if you haven't already about condoms and birth control and STI's. This shit is hella important.)
- If someone is doing something that you don’t agree with, keep it to yourself because no one cares what you think
- You are who you are
- Love yourself
- Be yourself
- All of the above