Let's talk about sex: We're still talking about this?

I was raised in a Catholic home by a feminist. Suffice it to say, I am conflicted. My personal sexual neuroses are likely entirely my own and as such, the following few paragraphs may only be of real help if you were trying to sleep with me (giggity). However, being a narcissist, I tend to assume that everyone thinks as I do so I'm going to give you my personal perspective anyway. Hopefully it helps.

[What? I'm a narcissist, not a liar]

As far as I'm concerned, the concept of waiting for marriage is inexorably tied to the concept of women as objects. HOWEVER, that is not to say that intelligent, thoughtful people can’t wait. If that is their choice, more power to them. So long as it is not something that they are indoctrinated to do or forced into based on out-dated and incredibly sexist religious dogma/social standards. Many people I know choose to wait to form sexual relationships until they are married. Many more choose to wait until they are in love. Asserting your equality and making a charge for feminism doesn’t mean one has to open her legs for every guy who catches her fancy (not that I’m judging if she does). Waiting until you love someone does generally equate to better sex. When the intimacy shared between two people goes beyond the physical, there is a deep sense of trust there that allows for a judgment-free (and as such, much more experimental and exciting) environment.

Personally, though love may not be a factor yet, I find a lot of benefits to waiting. Ultimately there are four major factors which generally preclude me from sleeping with strangers:

1. A sense of not wanting to be a notch on anyone’s bed post. This is, admittedly, a flawed perspective originating in a hyper-conservative Catholic upbringing that prevents me from even considering that I take the power to make one a notch on mine.

2. Steadily rising STD rates. If rates continue, by the time I’m 40 around half the US population is going to have herpes. I would prefer to remain in the 50% without oozing genital sores.

3. "If you can't do something right..." One night stands are simply not worth the risk. Sex is better with practice, you need to learn what your partner does and doesn't like and each partner is different. The stench of too much beer pressed against me as a stranger struggles to excite nerves that have been numbed by binge drinking is not an erotic picture.

4.Emotion. Just because I’m somewhat commitment phobic doesn’t mean I don’t develop feelings. Though I may shudder at the thought of a long-term romantic commitment, I would prefer to, at minimum, have my lover remain my friend.

Using sex as an ice breaker may give your hands a rest but, much of the time, it is volatile for your heart. There are many women out there who have no problem separating sex from emotion. Good for them. The majority of women I know, however,feel remarkably different. No matter how much they tell themselves that it won’t mean anything, it almost always does. To any men reading this and rolling your eyes. Don’t. It’s your male ancestors' fault. Chalk this one up to centuries of opression. While you had your concubines, we had armored underpants. As such, it is harder for many women to embrace the free-love concept, no matter how badly we seek to equalize the gender playing field. If you're really pissed off, then the next time you go home to visit, kick your grandpa in the nuts.

[Not too hard, he's a veteran]

Beyond emotional health, waiting a while is beneficial if you are looking for a relationship. As far as I'm concerned, a woman trying to lure a man into a relationship by dropping her panties is just as much a road to catastrophe as coaxing him into a relationship by withholding sex. Jumping into bed with someone right away can seriously impact how a relationship develops.

Generally speaking, the first phase in a relationship is supposed to be the period in which you are getting to know one another – however superficially. It is the time to determine whether or not you are attracted to more than just your partner’s appearance. You’re learning the details of your would-be lover’s life, both past and present, and gaining a basic understanding of who they are. Then comes the rampant, contortionist, animal sex - the period in which you become seemingly incapable of keeping your hands off of each other. When you finally leave the bedroom, you transition into the next phase – the period in which you get to know one another more deeply. You finally see the bad with the good and you build on what you learned at the beginning of the relationship – discover what was pretense and what was genuine – and begin to form a stronger bond. When you skip that first phase, you will have nothing to build upon for the third. You’ve spent however long doing unmentionable things to one another’s unmentionables, and now you’re left with the morning after. And, unfortunately, more often than not, that sunlight reveals a lot that you don’t like.

[It's the morning after that doesn't end]

Basically, not wanting to be a punchline for some skeezy douchebag or have the genitalia of a 1940s Guatemalan psych patient (that wasn't racist it was topical: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/01/government-apologizes-s-std-testing-guatemalans/?test=latestnews ) keeps me from going home with guys from the bar. Wanting my romantic relationships to be based on more than just orgasms means it won't be going down on our first date. I can't say for sure which of the many reasons discussed in the last two weeks is preventing that green-eyed brunette with the perfect rack from making hot monkey love with you after 6 shots of tequila

[Yeesh. Nausea, maybe?]

but hopefully this week's series has given you a little insight as to what sex means to (some) girls. And to the loyal female reader: if you have anything to add, I'd love to hear it.Our next few posts will be transitioning back to reader mail, but for now, I'm out. This is cutting into my *ahem* alone time.

Lets talk about sex: Jesus has bigger worries...

Over the past several decades, the prevailing sentiment expressed by mothers trying to convince their daughters to abstain from sex has typically been:

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Because I’m not livestock. You’re not “buying” me. Beyond the obvious, this statement gives the indication that I am to be “bought” exclusively for my milk, not because of any other redeeming attributes – my healthy coat, my uplifting moo, the adorable way I chew my cud.

[Awww]

The concept that a woman should wait and give the gift of her virginity to her husband is not romantic. It devalues women. It places everything that we are in our sexuality, and it leads stupid women to hijack skanky men into relationships they don’t really want by withholding sex. Personally, I never fully understood what woman would want to be with someone who is only with her so that he can ultimately get into her panties.

[I haz the buyer's remorse]

This concept is based in religious tradition. Bad religious tradition. I recently separated with the Catholic church over the issue of baby rape, but I still maintain belief in a higher power. I believe in God, but I cannot, as an informed woman, rectify my feminism, faith in science, love of gays, and, again, hatred of baby rape, with the teachings of my church. This is, naturally, also the case when it comes to my own sexuality.

The Church is all over the place when it comes to sex and my arguments against female sexual oppression are much the same as those against the oppression of homosexuals. When people come out against gays by saying that the Bible says that a man shouldn’t lay with another man, I always feel compelled to point out some of the other things it says. Let's look at Deuteronomy for example:

That we should break the neck of a cow at the scene of an unsolved murder (assuming, of course, it happens across city lines). [21:1- 21:6].

That raping a woman is okay if she is your captive and you think you may want to marry her. Of course, you don’t have to. If after the rape you change your mind, simply put the woman back in her cage or sell her (though she's worth less cause you banged her). [21:10-14].

That if a woman is raped in the city and doesn’t scream loudly enough for her neighbors to hear, she should be killed because clearly, she wanted it. [22:23-24].

If your parents weren’t married when you were born, then you are a bastard and you AND your children AND your children’s children (and so on through TEN generations) are not welcome in the church. [23:2].


See? Crazy. And that's just one book.

Interestingly enough, I have been hard pressed to find explicit statements in the Bible against pre-marital sex (Samson was bonin’ tons of bitches in the woods at one point). The only references I found were made in regards to a woman’s value. If you find out your new wife isn’t a virgin you can kill her or give her back to her father to kill (either way you keep the dowry). That’s not really the same thing. It’s more of a Lemon Law for misogynists.

[Don't damage it, dude, you'll only get store credit]

But don’t worry, religious right, I’ll keep reading. Even if I do find something, however, it is highly unlikely that it will change my feelings on the subject. You see, the Bible was written a very long time ago. And, while I will concede that some of the basic tenants are transcendent (those that are shared by all religious faiths, for example), a great deal of the text is abso-fucking-lutely crazy by modern standards.

Yet, for all of my anti-organized-religion proselytizing, I still cower in fear of an unknown deity and second-guess my life decisions as a result. Because, as with prevailing social mores, deeply ingrained religious teachings don't disappear overnight. The two people who mean most to me in the world - the ones who have never lied to me, who always sought to protect me, who brought me into this world and taught me how to navigate it - are the ones who took me to the church that instilled these beliefs in me. That is an incredibly powerful thing. Despite growing intellectualism and acknowledgement that so much of what I was taught is obviously wrong, there will always be an underlying sense of fear in me, a part of me that worries that I haven't ostracized enough single moms to get into a heaven that may or may not exist. It may not be enough to have kept me a virgin personally, but it does further that "golf score" mentality.

[Purgatory's not all bad. Apparently you get to play naked 7-Up ]

Thus, it's easy to see that someone who doesn't share my doubts and intellectual curiosities will easily take a hands-off approach to their bodies. The fact is that the vast majority of Americans identify strongly with a religious faith, with most following a judeo-christian or muslim model. Even if someone is is not personally religious, the fact cannot be ignored that these religious principles have, for better or worse, guided how our and many other societies developed (many would argue that's why they were created in the first place). So even if the girl you're after is not personally religious, the influence of western religion is the basis of nearly all of the social mores earlier discussed. Until we can all collectively separate the good aspects of spiritualism from the crazy stuff, the official word of God is going to be "c-block".

Lets talk about sex

Apart from just not being attracted to you…

[Eh, I’ve dated worse].

one obvious reason a woman won’t sleep with you is that she doesn’t want to be a “slut” or a sexual object. Eons of sexual and social oppression doesn’t disappear in a matter of decades.

[Sorry, ladies, but this just ain’t gonna cut it].

I have many strong, sexually liberated friends, two or three of whom claim to have been with close to a hundred men each [presumably not at the same time]. But even the toughest amongst them still winces at words like “slut”, “whore”, and “ho”. They’re smart enough to know that no intelligent man would ever degrade a woman for her sexual choices. But it’s not just the word or who it’s coming from, it’s what it means – undesirable as anything else.

[Professor fiddy says “can’t make a ho a housewife.” He also tweets “My grandma pregnant again trying to talk her out of keeping it” (not sure how that last part applies, but I don’t want to silence his genius)].

Obviously any man who uses these words or believes such an adage is an insecure p*ssy that no self-respecting woman would want, but it still creates an environment of fear for many girls. That judgment by others for doing something could prevent you from finding a desirable mate in the future is one of many reasons that a lot of girls follow a different adage: “keep it like a golf score”.

Too many offers

It’s only natural for you, when you go out to a bar, to look at us as conquests and objects. There are exceptions, of course, but the man asking the question wanted to know why women wouldn’t bone him, so, addressing him, I think I’m safe in my generalization. The truth is that, when we go out, there is a constant stream of dudes vying to feel us from the inside.

[Sexual harassment Panda gets all the ladies cause he knows how to respect boundaries].

If a woman is insecure, she may enjoy the attention, but ultimately, it’s exhausting. It’s nice to feel sexually attractive, but after guy after guy talks to her breasts, tries to touch her face [Ed. Note: Do not ever touch a stranger’s face], or asks her back to his place, one starts to feel degraded and worthless. No one goes to a bar to meet their soul mate, but try to remember that even if the girl you’re chatting up is the first girl you’ve seen all night, you’re likely the tenth guy that day who has tried to bang her. It gets old. Even as a man in your horny prime, it would start to take a toll if roles were reversed.

[In the immortal words of Milhouse “I’m a human [girl] I have feelings"].

As such, sex has a value. For golddiggers and other professional whores the value is monetary, but for the rest it is emotional. Women who withhold sex do so to get something out of it. For some, it is simply an assurance that you actually have to talk to us and recognize our values as complete human beings. For other, sadder people, it is the basis of how they form entire relationships (often marriages…sick, poorly-founded marriages). Finding more liberated women who only want you for the night is not impossible. As social mores change, it is an increasingly easy task. But for many of us, the remnants of past oppression linger, and the desire to be seen completely takes on an increased significance with every cocktail thrown our way and…well…we’re not giving it up without a fight.