Monday, April 9, 2012

Lies and Stereotypes I've Learned About Sex, Sexuality, and Gender

Lie 1 - Only males are horny, only males want sex.  Women agree because the men want it.  Girls shouldn't even really WANT sex.  I can attest, that this is completely untrue.  I've never had sex, because I can control my impulses and I'm responsible enough to know before I even consider, I need to be on the pill, having good condoms, and I am way too romantic to do it in 10 minutes behind the couch.  But the stereotype that guys will stick it in while your mom's at Walmart in your dirty garage is so wrong.  Boys have desire, girls have desire.  Boys pressure, girls pressure.  It goes both ways, or it can go neither ways.  Both can be respectful.  One can want more, but stay quiet about it until the other is comfortable.  And not even in the realm of anything pressuring, just arousal.  Girls can want pleasure, too.  It's not this XY chromosome thing to want to feel good sexually.

Lie 2 relates to lie 1 - Only boys masturbate.  Girls masturbate for guys, to please guys.  Sluts masturbate on webcam, but that's about it.  In general, masturbating is gross.
So false I don't even know where to start.  Like I said previously, the idea that only boys want pleasure is silly in itself.  Personally, I think a lot of the reason girls don't masturbate as much is (beyond the social stigma, just google "is it okay to masturbate" and you will find a lot of girls and boys being worried about such.) that it actually is harder for a lot of girls to get off by themselves.  It generally takes girls longer to orgasm, and is just harder to get to that level of arousal.  And although I never really shared this opinion, I have heard a lot of, "But masturbating is so gross.  Touching yourself?  Ew."  For girls and boys.  Masturbating is probably the most natural thing ever.  Exploring your sexuality, physically and emotionally, is completely okay.

Lie 3 - Sex is insanely complex, troublesome, and even if your partner is a virgin, if you're not married, you will mysteriously contract an STD.  Okay, so I have never had sex, and I know it doesn't just pop right in like a puzzle piece, but there seems to be the idea floating around that if you tell kids that it's really hard, they will be deterred, when the opposite is true...they will explore.  Also, with the STDs: Yes, caution is wonderful.  Getting STD screenings is great.  But so is reality.  And the reality is you probably won't get AIDS from a bathroom toilet seat, spread it to your partner, and die a painful death.  If you're both honest and virgins (or just honest and clean), nothing will randomly emerge.

Lie 4 - Having sex with more than one - even just two or three different people in a fairly small frame of time - makes you a slut.  So does talking about sexual preferences or your sex life.  Wrong.  Cheating is getting into slutty.  Not knowing who your babies daddy is makes you a slut.  Having every STD possible makes you a slut.  Being a hooker makes you a slut.  but being 18 and having had sex with two people doesn't make you a slut.  Neither does wearing "slutty" clothes or saying that you are horny.


Lie 5  - Liking it in the ass makes you gay if you're a boy, weird if you're a girl.
To begin, sexuality is not nearly that shallow.  Just as straight people have types, so do gay people.  And it's not really JUST penis and ass.  That's not all there is to being a male homosexual, just as bobs and vagina isn't all there is to being a girl.  If you're attracted to boys, you like boy faces, boy bodies, boy chest, etc.  The aura of a man.  If you are attracted to girls, you like the feminine hips, the girly face, the (probably) long hair.  But there is the male equivalent of a g-spot in the ass, and it is not purely by some twisted birth defect that it would feel good.  It's just as natural as any other sexual feeling.  And for girls: there's still nerves and stuff.  It's not this numb area of no feeling.


Lie 6 - You can be gay, you can be straight, and you can even be bi, but you MUST have a label.  If you don't know, you can't be anything. There's not even much to say about this except that it's wrong.  You  can be questioning sexuality, gender, you could be a gay guy that happens to like boobs you can be a straight girl that likes girl curves.  You can make out with someone of the same sex and it doesn't make you guy.  You can be gay and have a opposite sex crush and it doesn't make you straight.

Lie 7 - Gender if male or female.  Getting sex changes or cross-dressing is weird if you're a boy, but not if you're a girl.  Just wrong.  If I wear a men's clothes, why do they have to be men's clothes?  They're MY clothes.  My gender queer, confused self.  But even before I identified as that.  Are you going to tell a 10 year old she cross dresses?  If a boy wants to dress up as Cinderella, he can.  Heels, a skirt?  Still okay.  Doesn't matter the age or the wear.  It is an okay thing to bend, explore, or identify as different than the binaries.

Lie 8- In order to be a proper, functioning girl and not have your sexuality questioned, you have to have long, flowing hair, loads of makeup, and tight clothes.  Wearing boy clothing, putting your hair in a ponytail, and wanting to be a boy is weird and wrong.  Although no one has ever really solidified for me that this is false, I have discovered myself that it is, indeed, false.  AND that my gender isn't a huge fucking deal.  If I want to be boyish, I can, and I shouldn't be chastised or called a lesbian for it.

Lie 9 - You can never send someone a picture of you even making a silly face or showing a little boob because the moment the boy you send it to becomes even the slightest bit annoyed that you are late to dinner, he will spread it around the entire school and your reputation will be destroyed.  Although I'm sure that this actually does happen a lot - even if the guy only, I don't know, shows it to his friend and says you have nice tits, that's still not something you want.  I just personally don't like the very "EVERYONE WILL SEE THE PICTURE BECAUSE OF REASONS" mentality.  It's illegal, and that's more to worry about in a lot of cases.  It's considered child pornography, and sending them to someone whose not a minor, if you are a minor, can get them in huge trouble.

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