Delayed Reaction Lounge's own Jillian B. Hart asks are we only coloring within the lines when it comes to sex. I wonder how many of us are starting off with the smallest box of crayons out there. I thought of an early episode of "In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman" on OWN which dealt with the struggle of a woman who was very caught up in what "good girls" did and didn't do with their partners. There seemed to be a clear distinction for her what was appropriate for a good girl (missionary) and what wasn't (oral sex). These ideas of what a "good girl" would or wouldn't do were preventing her from feeling comfortable and free in the bedroom. It was also affecting her husband's sense of self-worth. Their marriage was at a breaking point.
It's common for many women to suffer from these self-imposed rules. Perhaps it starts in junior high and high school. We get categorized into good vs. bad girls. It doesn't seem to happen on the same scale to boys (from my point of view anyway...I had very little insight into the male mind at that age). If guys were sexually active, they were just being teenage boys. Girls were sluts. And we all knew who the bad girls were. Rumors swirled around them, people whispered behind their backs. Years later, I wonder how many of them actually enjoyed sex back then. Were they doing it because they really wanted to or because they felt they had to. That is a question I never had then. All I thought was that they were having sex and that made them bad girls.
IThe best quote from Breakfast Club is when Ally Sheedy's character laments that sex, for girls, is a double-edge sword. If you do it, you're a slut, if you don't, you're a prude. How true that is in the teenage landscape. I can vividly recall being labeled by my friends as "the prude" just because I said I wouldn't jump Nick Rhodes' bones if he suddenly appeared at my friend's house. It was a ridiculous question, the likelihood of Nick showing up in a tiny Long Island town and knocking on my friend's front door and then asking to have sex with me was infinitesimal at best. But the idea that I would say "no" shocked my friends. I honestly felt I couldn't have sex with stranger, albeit famous one whose picture covered my bedroom walls. The message I received from my friends was there must be something wrong with me. And this judgment came from my best friends and I really cared what they thought of me. I must be a prude because at 15, sex scared me.
It seemed as if being a virgin implied I was sexually repressed. As the years have gone by, I've come to understand that my sexually active friends probably felt that I was judging them for what they did. They felt bad for their choices and I felt bad about mine. Wanting sex makes you a bad girl. Not wanting sex makes you a prude. There's no winning here.
It saddens me when women let worries of being a "bad" girl affect their sex lives. We are judging ourselves so harshly, putting ourselves into unfair categories. Sex is a natural part of a healthy relationship. And intimacy is essential to to success of a relationship. Thanks to the Internet, I've come across things that would make Caligula blush, but what consenting adults do in private should not fall into good or bad as long as the parties involved are both happy and willing. It's alright to say "no," but don't believe that you are limited to expressing yourself physically because "good girls" only do certain things. There are no rules other than those we put on ourselves, especially when we feel safe and loved. And if you're not feeling that safety and love, it is a must to ask why not.
Dr. Berman gave the couple homework including a new position for sex. The fact that the wife was willing to try seem to mean more to her husband than the act. There seemed to be a new hope and excitement that had been lacking for a long time in their marriage. Anything worth doing takes effort. A strong relationship is surely worth testing our self-imposed rules.
Part of this post originally appeared on: http://delayedreactionlounge.blogspot.com/
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