sexually responsible: how I invented ethics and learned how to love

insert image here

I looked up BDSM public domain images to plop into this post, and what I saw had nothing to do with what I actually did.

the stuff we did wasn’t costly–I didn’t buy any costuming or gear.  I’m not a thin white woman with big tits, restrained and slightly grinning, suggesting naughtiness.

I could be tied up with whatever was around.  it was power and pain play that must be less fun to photograph–real feelings changing.  how would you depict that inner transformation.  a picture of a butterfly would be more accurate, though cliche.  maybe a moth.

I need to talk about inventing sexual ethics, what happened to me sexually, over time, and what I do with it now.  how it was, being a kid and teenager, learning how to navigate sexual relationships.  the stuff I carry now related to earlier days.

here is confusion, cheating, morality.  what was done to me, and shame about that.  re-framing my past, BDSM for healing.  what we need while learning to love.

content warning: mention of sexual assault, re-enactment of harm for healing

kid-life

the next door neighbor kid was very cruel.  I thought that was normal; I didn’t think I could say no.

like watching kid movies, playing Sorry or Uno, going to school, what clothes I wanted to wear–my preferences didn’t seem to matter.  kid-life was a series of things I didn’t want to do and did anyway.

I’ve always had deep connections with people who were bad for me and good for me: best friends, friend / enemies, people I longed for or unskillfully flirted with.  different kinds of intimacy–boyfriends, girlfriends, non-binaryfriends.  I would connect better with the teacher than the other students, sometimes.

I had boyfriends by contract in the “will you go out with me?” sense.  it was like we were making arrangements to connect without interacting in this world–we were connecting in another place–the spirit realm?  another dimension?  our imaginations, definitely.

intensity, strange demands, tons of feelings, immaturity and maturity mixed together, anger, drama.  this was fifth grade through sixth grade.

then I had a boyfriend who was my lab partner in seventh grade science class–we held hands in our desk.  he wrote he loved me all over my binder. 

I didn’t really like him and didn’t understand how we got together.  after spring break, I broke away from him.  that had been all behavior, no “will you go out with me?” or any type of playground contract.

lust surging

then eighth grade, I had my first big crush on a woman.  she was an awkward, brilliant student teacher for my social studies class.  I was difficult for her and apologized when she was leaving.  the feelings were so strong, I didn’t know what to do with them–I acted out a little bit because I was overwhelmed.

I was full of lust surging in my body–it made me feel crazy at times,  traumatized by own wild desires.  simultaneously, I felt a lot of changes in how I was being perceived by the world, more interesting to men as someone with breasts, not enjoying those looks and unwanted attention from married, grown men starting when I was 10 years old.

vulnerable and so curious, I wanted a lot of knowledge about sex.  I knew facts from books, but I wanted bodily knowledge.  at slumber parties when we’d talk about sex, I was the most informed kid, but it wasn’t enough.  later, I explained to confused high school friends what a foreskin is. 

in ninth grade I was flirting with a tenor sax player who was very good at math.  we got together, my first real boyfriend.  

after months of struggle and lots of pressure, I “lost my virginity to him” in a costume room of a huge auditorium, during a play he was in.  but that was penis-in-vagina sex–I’d had other kinds of sex before then.

monogamy fail

I was supposed to be monogamous with him, but that didn’t happen.  I had other boyfriends during that time–mostly creative, vibrant people who wanted a lot of sex from me before I felt like doing that. 

we had weird ideas about what sex was, ideas of “going all the way,” fears of pregnancy and disease, what was wrong or right, childish morality based on stylized Christian-ish ideas of repression and what was in the air.  some rules we half-made up or intuited based on the words and behavior of our relatives, other teenagers, movies, and tv.

how do people figure these things out?  inventing sexual ethics was important because there was no good communication.  sex ed once a year felt stilted, confusing, and not in touch with reality.  it was anti-helpful.  a brief, confusing message from decades before, based on adults’ fears.  

I remember diagrams of vulvas and a weird tone.  infantilizing or intentionally vague.  it never actually spoke to me. 

I saw how everyone was assumed to be straight and cis.  I was identifying as bi already, and I saw how problematic it was that only one type of sex was being discussed.  huge swaths of sexual experience were totally unaddressed. 

the overall message of “don’t have sex” got through and scared me, but it didn’t make sense, as the world is full of people, and we all got here somehow.  the idea of waiting till marriage was laughable.  waiting was laughable; marriage was laughable.

yet the judgment hurt me, that every time I masturbated in my bedroom or blew a teenaged boy in his pickup truck, parked behind the hardware store, half an hour before my curfew, I was doing wrong.

that big judgement weighed on me, but the contradiction hurt more.  duplicity hurt me, that I was being fed a lie–not to have sex, when of course it was understood that I would have sex.

big deal

it scared me how sex was an intense, super-real thing that I could do and couldn’t undo.  I felt like it was such a big deal, who I had sex with, and it changed me….forever!  the gravity was overwhelming and made me feel deer-in-the-headlights frozen, like I couldn’t move forward or backward, at times.

there was a conquest aspect also.  I wasn’t conquesting anyone, but boys were doing that to me.  my name would go on their list, which I hated.  many people seemed to collect sexual partners or experiences, to put a notch on the bedpost. 

I was like a wild game that had been shot.  I didn’t understand it at all, the collecting, and how sex felt this certain way to me, but seemed to be a whole other thing for other people. 

it was a big deal for me.  I wanted it really bad, but in a way that I wouldn’t get hurt.  but I did get hurt.  I couldn’t separate out the physical from emotional or spiritual. 

looking back, I see–I wanted ecstatic experiences, to be in contact with the Sacred, and to form deep bonds with multiple people of all genders.  I was a queer, non-monogamous, pagan pleasure activist sex radical, needing a lot of love and with so much to give. 

but I was living in a conservative area, surrounded by people with more standard values, unable to find anyone on the same page as I was.  I was compromising constantly to find glimpses of what I wanted.  that means I suffered a lot from others’ agendas that felt very different from mine.

now I know–everything we do can’t be undone, and everything changes us.  now I want to be changed.  back then, I thought I could be more safe, not changing.

cheating on everyone

sex was a way to appease teenage boys.  I was being pressured into it.  I wanted to feel safe and ready, but I knew I wouldn’t for a while, so I decided to go ahead, unready.

when I was 16, I went away for the summer and got together with my first girlfriend.  she was harmful to me, but I enjoyed learning from that relationship.  suddenly I was seeing a few people.

my second real boyfriend, the actor from Berkeley, only child of two psychiatrists–I did want to have sex with him.  that felt more alive and connected to my actual desires, than the pressuring tenor sax player. 

but I was cheating on him from day one, because of assumptions about monogamy.  (later he hated me for having cheated on him and treated me unkindly.  I wish he didn’t do that to me–the punishment part.)

everything was mixed up:  

• intense sexual desires with total confusion about what sex meant–what the particular person would do to me, then and afterward. 
• fears of abandonment, feeling used, and being perceived as “cheap.” 
• confusion about how important that was, reputation, and how I was being talked about. 
• wanting security but not having the skills to make something last in a healthy way.  I would get dumped brutally.  

I felt little control over many aspects of my life, including privacy.  there was no safe place to have sex with other people.  I had sex in the field by my house, in vehicles, backyards, a golf course, a baseball field, a theater, on the roof of a restaurant. 

I had issues with birth control, including a couple pregnancy scares.  issues with shame, as my mom tried to police my sexuality down to nothing. 

my mom thought I shouldn’t have a sexuality at all, let alone a queer one.  why were these impulses that seemed so strong and undeniable making me a bad person?  (I understand now how shaming me and trying to quash my sexuality was her effort to protect me, so I wouldn’t experience the violation that she had.)

a lot about life was incomprehensible to me, not just sex.  I was struggling with social difference.  ethics as people actually live them made no sense to me, trying to understand words vs actual expectations and make rules of behavior for myself, then not always following through.

cheating on everyone was stressful, but I got into situations I didn’t understand.  I was uncomfortable being pressured, and I also couldn’t say no to things I really wanted.  I had a ton of desires, and very little support.  

bad boundaries

breaking up with anyone felt impossible.  I was desperate for intimacy, pleasure, love, and help, and I would accept bad behavior in order to keep getting those things, or the promise of those things. 

it was hard for me to cut ties with anyone when my needs were high, resources low.  people were fascinating, and being abused by someone who was sometimes nice and would hug me seemed better than isolation, loneliness, and being stuck home, abused by my dad.

also, my dad had been abusing my mom for years, and I had no role models for independence or breaking up.  I knew what love was, but I didn’t know how to enact it consistently.  my boundaries were horrible.  

in my family and extended family, I had no examples of healthy relationships–everyone abused each other, hated each other, or didn’t speak to each other.

starting senior year of high school, I had a main boyfriend whose family I mostly lived with, because my home was violence, and I needed an escape.  I had a main girlfriend also, in a town nearby.  things settled into me being mostly with just those two, which was negotiated honestly, but the situation wasn’t ideal for any of us.

then I went to university.  I was trying to do too much, with school full time, work, girlfriend nearby, boyfriend elsewhere, roommate dramas, moods.  too much to do, on too little sleep–fears, tons of writing, too much to read.

fending off dicks

sex became different things at different times, at first a way to appease someone.  relationships seemed to be a teenage boy pressuring me for sex–it never occurred to me that that was wrong or strange.  I thought that was life: fending off dicks.  

sex could also be a way to try to keep someone’s interest.  then a way to connect that felt sometimes beautiful, but confusing with expectations we didn’t talk about.  

I enjoyed sexual pleasure and orgasm, but masturbating worked well for that–better, actually.  in a way, I didn’t see the need for other people for sex, the physical pleasure part of it.  the social aspect was exciting: learning and connecting, intimacy, a quest for love.  inventing sexual ethics was in some ways pleasurable–I like ideas.

I needed to be known for who I was.  a feeling of being loved was deliriously pleasurable.  I would do a lot to get that feeling, even if I was being played.

I had little perspective, living in a small pond, not having faith I would get out into a bigger world.  the people in front of me seemed so important, and I didn’t know that years later I would live many different places and meet people I was way happier to connect with.

serious communication

there seemed to be a default setting about relationships that I couldn’t put my finger on.  wondering how “serious” we were, and what does that mean, if we’re serious?  

everyone but me seemed to understand it.  everything felt tenuous, and having conversations about intentions, needs, and rules seemed rarely possible.  teen boys wanted to keep terms undefined for as long as possible, to keep having fun with no accountability.  things could change really fast. 

just having intense conversations seemed like too much to ask.  conversation seemed not to help, sometimes.  as soon as something could be named, it changed.  sustained trust was impossible.  

almost everyone I tried to have a difficult conversation with was lying, I think, motivated by their own animal desires and fears, saying whatever they thought they should say. 

I couldn’t actually access their truth–maybe they couldn’t either.  I could access a momentary, physical truth during a sexual experience, but not a longer term truth about decisions, or their thoughts about what we were doing and what we really wanted.

painful relationship stacking

I would desire someone, in a sexual way–what did it mean, to desire someone?  I didn’t want to own them, though possessiveness could happen later–to want someone was to desire a deep knowledge and contact.

intense longing in a sexual, romantic, spiritual way all mixed together.  something about them having a unique greatness.  I tried to get self-worth by supporting people I thought were better than I was.  my soul wanted to be as close to them as possible, and my body was along for the ride.  but really, hormones were driving me.  

I would think I owed people things, trying to figure out commitment, loyalty, integrity, indebtedness.  always erring on the side of giving too much, guilt, and letting people use and hurt me.  I didn’t understand my own power.

sex became about validation also–chasing validation.  I would get into lopsided relationships, pursuing men who didn’t really want to have sex with me, or half-wanted to have sex with me, and the tension would fuel things, sometimes for years. 

painful relationships stacked up, though I didn’t want them to.  it became my normal to have several intense relationships at once, some with sex and some without, some out in the open, some more secret.

I would admire intellectual men who I thought were better than I was, mostly older white guys.  in service of them, I was trying to make myself great by supporting greatness.  

that went on for a long time–weird relationships with my teachers, and other men who were way older than I was.  I would be devoted, in a girlfriend role emotionally, and then get bitter when I was cast off or put on hold, in favor of their ex-wives or other women their age.  when anything sexual would happen between us, I would vacillate between being ok and not ok.

then when I was in college, I was in a bad relationship with someone 30 years older than I was, where the sex was more and more non-consensual and non-consensually violent, until I was being raped–I tried to break up with that person, and he wouldn’t leave me alone.  

that led to PTSD and more difficulty with sex, not to mention when I stopped talking, and my mental health declined more and more.

emotional well-being

when I was a teenager, I tried having sex without relationship, and it didn’t feel good.  I couldn’t do sex without love.  

I would get deeply connected to people who weren’t prepared for that.  how it played out wasn’t up to me–I didn’t experience many choices.  my body seemed to be deciding about my needs without asking the rest of me.

the sex for validation felt like–if only a certain valuable person would have sex with me, that would mean I was Good: smart, beautiful, worth cherishing.  I would strive and strive for it, and people took advantage of that, that they had all this power over me I’d handed to them.  I let them have way too much control over my emotional well-being.

a lot of this validation need was gendery–when I was with women and non-binary people, things seemed so much clearer.  I wasn’t trying to get them to validate me as much.  but I was more afraid of hurting women than non-women.  it’s still like that–men and non-binary people, I can accept more struggle with.  women I feel more careful with.

sex was and is also a ritual, a physical enactment of emotional vulnerability–letting someone enter me, in some way.  symbolic and literal.

BDSM for healing

that first year was heaven.  I remember almost breaking up over a couple conflicts and fears, but mostly I remember bliss, tons of sex, that otherworldly place we went to.  we had sex every day, sometimes two or three times a day–exactly what I needed.

I was doing bdsm to heal from trauma.  my spouse and I would enact past stuff in a safe way, and it would feel intense and amazing.  I would do or request things to trigger a panic response in myself, based on my past, then force myself to stay with the feelings rather than dissociate like I would before.

he hit me, called me bitch, slut, whore.  sat on me, forced me to suck his dick, restrained me, ignored my no, fucked me forcibly, made me beg, pulled my hair.  we roleplayed violation and harm–rape, incest, weird childhood memories and desires.  some of it is hard for me to remember now. 

those experiences taught me–it was ok, I was ok.  I could live through it all.  I didn’t really understand this healing modality, but it’s a thing people do.  no one taught me to heal this way, inducing PTSD flashbacks and feeling the feelings.  it felt good to trigger the panic in some weird way, and then because my spouse is a really kind and safe person, it resolved.  

the pain play and power play felt excitingly creative.  I was taking control of something that had previously felt less intentional and often passive.  sex was something that had been done to me, a lot of the time.  but with my spouse, I was making good choices about sex for the first time ever.

sex joy

nowadays, sex is a way he and I connect.  all the little everyday conflicts vanish.  we go into this sweet world where nothing matters but being with one another, giving pleasure to one another, being vulnerable, caring for one another through pleasure.  

I’ve learned a lot from him about the potential for light-heartedness.  simple appreciation, with deep love and trust underneath.

there’s the physical goodness, oxytocin and endorphins probably, and the emotional goodness of us nourishing one another with kindness, nice words, attention.  it’s really easy–so uncomplicated.  

he never makes me feel pressured, ashamed, or confused about sex.  I had enough of that as a teenager for a lifetime.  he’s completely welcoming of my needs and all my ideas–I’ve never said an idea too weird for him.  

he appreciates my body, my fantasies and sex writing, my sexual behaviors.  my fatness and disabilities are no problem.  he’s good with my past, knowing or not knowing about old trauma.  he’s good with my desires toward people besides him and what I do with other people.

there’s all this joy about it, and he’s really honest also.  there’s openness, and I have good access to him, about sex.  he’s genuinely healthy about it, not compensating or hiding problems.

another way we use sex is getting to know one another, from a physical knowing of his responses and preferences, his smells, his beauty, the weight of his body, his ways of moving and of touching me, his breathing.  we’re always reacting to one another in happy ways.

free

I generate a lot of fantasies.  we’ll be having sex, and I’ll ask him what he’s thinking–he’ll say, “I love you,” and a few minutes later, his answer is the same.

it’s cool he can be so present and feeling feelings rather than thinking a lot.  it’s hard for me to understand the lack of thoughts, because I’m doing the opposite.  I’m having sexual fantasies, layers of them, sometimes fantasies about fantasies, old ones and new ones–I’ll be having sex with him and getting off on imagining other sexual situations than the one we’re having.

sometimes I’m with him in some other place, like on a mountain, in my mind–by a creek, under trees.  or in the desert, with huge rocks and earthy simplicity. 

I imagine us doing different things together, from what we’re actually doing.  I imagine him having sex with other people.  sometimes I imagine him saying things to me he isn’t saying, and I get off on those words. 

the previous relationship I had where sex was an issue had hurt me.  my spouse meets those needs, that had gone unmet for 12 years.  

we use sex as comfort also.  a way to give affection.  a way to depart from regular reality–a way to have an authentic, intense experience that’s safe.  sex seems like an extreme activity, in a way–that much sensation and emotion.  when the feelings are really strong, it can feel like a risk, but it’s safe.  

it’s free.   we really like one another–feels healthy.  I like being on a journey with him, more than eight years now, seeing where we’ll go.  I want the journey to last my whole life.   he got a vasectomy, early in our relationship, so I can relax about that.

validation fantasy

I had a fantasy about a friend, and I told them a little about it.  I imagined kissing their chest and different sexy activities, then being very vulnerable to them sexually, and orgasm.  while I was in those tender, vulnerable places, they would validate me.  

validation was saying some sentences about me being a good person, doing good for the world.  my deep respect for this friend would help me heal some old trauma about my self-worth.  that was the idea, anyway.

it was funny how the validation fantasy was the opposite of a degradation fantasy, which I enjoyed before, getting off on someone saying bad about me.  degradation play seems about accessing shame and transforming it–reenacting trauma in a safe way, and getting erotic energy from that.

the validation seems more direct, and I wonder if it would really work.  to reprogram my core values, I mean.  I would really like to believe I’m a good person and feel steadier about it.

yoga panic

my spouse and I were having sex, and I’d told him all this, about wanting my friend’s validation, and my spouse’s also–we decided to try it.  I tried to get into a vulnerable position I had a huge emotional reaction to, years previous, in a yoga class.  

this is what happened in the yoga class: I’d been facedown in child’s pose, but with my legs spread, and the teacher thought I should have my hips closer to the mat.  so he started gently pushing on my lower back, on the sides, by my hips, and I simultaneously enjoyed the pleasure and started to panic.

my mind was racing: “oh my god, what should I do, why is he doing that, is he going to keep doing that, that feels too good, I need him to stop doing that, how do I get him to keep doing that.”  I had a fear response as the pleasure aroused me.  

I had been feeling really safe, so the safe feeling was still with me as the scared feeling was arriving.  also I was feeling really surprised.  my body was symmetrical, and the teacher was pushing in a way that was symmetrical, but I felt off-balance.

I really wanted the pleasure, so I tried to say no to the panic, so I could stay in the situation.  it felt like a mental discipline: concentrating on feeling the pleasure and not giving the panic control.  not like I was ignoring or denying the panic–just letting the pleasure motive me.

I don’t know how many seconds it lasted–probably just a few.  but it was around six years ago, and I’m still thinking about it.

enacting

when we decided to try my fantasy, my spouse stood up next to the bed, and I was naked, on my tummy, trying to get into the position, trying to remember how to do it.  I spread my legs a little farther.  I shifted my weight, negotiating how my head should be in contact with the bed and what to do with my arms. 

seemed good, and I indicated that he could try pressing, but he didn’t do it symmetrically, and he didn’t get the right spots.  I tried to tell him a better place to press, but the position was difficult to maintain, and I got too scared, then curled up turned on my side, saying we could try again another time.

maybe I would need to do yoga beforehand, to really inhabit my body and feel relaxed in that mindset, in order to reenact the weird combination of feelings.

re-framed

what do you think about all this?  I asked my spouse to read this essay on inventing sexual ethics, and he read the first part. 

then I was telling him how ashamed I felt for cheating, when I was a teenager.  I cheated on everyone, usually from day one.  the shame I carried for that was a big item in my lifelong emotional baggage.

I was 100% certain about that time of my life–I was bad.  there was no question about my badness.  I could try to forgive or redeem myself, ignore that happened, or work with it in different ways, but my badness was undeniable.

in about two sentences, my spouse re-framed those years.  my mind was blown.  he said I didn’t do anything wrong, I was doing my best, and I was actually being preyed upon.  I had nothing to feel ashamed about.

it was amazing how quickly I could take in what he was saying.  inventing sexual ethics is actually something brilliant I did for my survival.  it’s not my fault I’m different and need different things.  it’s actually admirable that was able to live through all of that and come out the other side with more skills and a deeper understanding. 

what my spouse helped me see is important because I dropped much of the shame I’d felt, for cheating on everyone.  but people have been really mean to me about it, when I’ve mentioned the cheating, and used the fact against me later. 

my most recent ex-boyfriend did that to me.  I mentioned how my spouse may be the only partner I’ve never cheated on, because we have our agreements ok, so I don’t have to cheat.  the ex laughed in my face, criticizing me.  it hurt, to feel his judgment and how he had no respect for the little pride I had for myself.

special needs

I decided: the teenager me was trying to behave in a good way and be kind to people, but my particular challenges were making negotiating all that really difficult. 

it’s not my fault, the general lack of ability to talk about sex, the necessity of inventing sexual ethics, I had no support around it, sex ed was a joke, and my family had not prepared me in any way for what I would face, as a mostly healthy, good-hearted, curious kid in a girl kind of body.

in fact, my family and my society had modeled as normal and acceptable some ridiculous ways of relating.

• violence
• abuse
• repression
• self-sacrifice to the point of self-annihilation
• horrible gender roles
• hardcore deception
• disrespect
• misogyny
• irresponsibility
• sadness as a way of life
• using people for years
• denial
• avoidance
• gaslighting
• guilt
• fear
• totally incorrect, harmful ideas of what love is

I had special needs that weren’t being addressed, mostly sensory sensitivity, and I was crazy.  you know I’ve heard voices for as long as I can remember, and I’ve had mood issues a lot too, my whole life.  and anxiety.  and trouble performing normalness. 

that was a lot to do, while being abused at home.  and trying to finish my homework.

not nice

the pressuring people did to me wasn’t nice.  I would get pressured and give in, or not give in and suffer the person’s anger.  I would do things I didn’t want to do in order to avoid worse things being done to me, giving in so I could avoid being raped.

I’m thinking there’s a name for that.  my spouse suggested date rape.  I said no.  I asked if it was harm reduction?  saying yes to a terrible thing, to avoid having a worse thing done to me.  I don’t like thinking about it, but I know it still affects me, is the sad thing.

I experienced everything from mild pressure, to the guy who took me out to a llama field and tried to rape me in the back of his van.  when he pushed me down, I pushed back harder. 

it was confusing–I’m still confused.  I think he was stronger physically–he could have, but didn’t actually want to actually rape me?  just pressure me super hard till I gave in, and then when I didn’t, he changed his mind?  I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I want to try.

preyed upon

it was not fun to realize all this stuff.  yeah, my spouse was right–I had been preyed upon.  if I had been safe, had a safe place to live, had clear relationships with people who were honest and ok with conversations, I wouldn’t have cheated on anyone, probably.  we could have negotiated appropriate rules, what we wanted, what sex was, what commitment was, and how we wanted things to be.

I know I was raped when I was 20, by the man who was 30 years older, and I thought it was great that I didn’t get raped till then.  I was really glad I had managed to get to adulthood, kind of, without that particular trauma.  

now I’m seeing all those tons of things that happened, with all those people, when I was a teenager–lots of it was sexual and not consensual.  that’s sad for me.

speaking honestly

did everyone go through this?  no–while I was inventing sexual ethics, other people were learning how to be manipulative, learning how to use people, anesthetizing themselves with entertainment and drugs, working for money, and mostly fucking around.

some people were making art or learning to do cool things like fix cars.  playing sports might have been fun, and some people were caring for others, like raising children or tending to other relatives.

but most people weren’t feeling a deep responsibility to learn how to be kind and negotiate needs and expectations fairly.  they were playing video games and eating cheeze whiz.  watching movies and drinking beer.  what compelled me to spend a lot of effort to do this work?

I don’t understand why I was required to have the project of inventing sexual ethics, detecting out what my culture expected from me, piecing it together that way.  maybe it’s that we have a culture of denial, or the puritanical bullshit pretending overlaid onto toxic capitalism.  looks like consumerism, and treating people like products.

monogamy is one standard, but it seemed like monogamy wasn’t really expected at first, sometimes?  and people could have different definitions of sex, and different ideas of cheating.  

most people expected everyone thought like they did, so there was no need to talk about it.  but then things changed a lot, depending on someone’s mood or how entitled they felt that day.

maybe a lot of people go through what I did, but they don’t have the language to talk about it.  or maybe people are talking about it with their therapist only.

happier world

working with kids isn’t my destiny, though I did a little of that, long ago.  but I want to create a world where kids are safe at home, have people they can speak honestly with about anything, but especially sex, without cruel judgment or repercussions.  and have some help figuring out possibilities and different ethical options.  inventing sexual ethics shouldn’t be lonely work.

I needed all that, without misogyny or prudishness, and with accepting all the different kinds of sexuality and ways of doing gender.  I guess that’s a tall order.  there’s so much trauma passed around and passed down.  

add to that a popular religion that tells us to deny our bodies and needs.  and fear of information being dangerous.  ignorance is dangerous-er, but people think they’re putting ideas in kids’ heads.

I already had all the ideas.  but I don’t know how other people are.  I’m still figuring that out.

thank you

thank you for being there for young people in your life as you can.  inventing sexual ethics might be something we all need to do for ourselves, to some degree, but support and feedback would really help.

thank you for speaking up about what really happens to you now, and what happened when you were younger.  honesty is important.

I need to live in a world where we do relationship and sex in ways that make us truly happy.  thank you for sharing that project.

Nest is a queer, disabled sex blogger who enjoys healing trauma through love and BDSM.