My Sophomore Year Of College,I Had To Take This Class Called Honors Human Sexuality.Which Was A Strange

My sophomore year of college, I had to take this class called Honors Human Sexuality. Which was a strange kind of class to wander into because you had a dozen kids: nerdy enough to be top of their class, getting scholarships just for doing their homework, but also who were willing to have completely honest, frank discussions about sex. (What I’m saying is, it was awesome.) So our first day, the professor went through this list of intimate acts, and wanted to know what we believed qualified as sex. She said kissing, we said no. She said oral, there was some controversy. She said anal. And one– one singular girl, in the corner of the room, said no. And god, with that one word, I could tell you her whole life’s story: I could tell you about the Bible Belt, Southern Baptist home, the “your virginity is a gift you give your husband.” I could tell you about the pushy high school boyfriend, the First True Love and how he said things like “blue balls is a medical condition” and “no, this is totally six inches” and “baby, baby, anal doesn’t count as REAL sex.” The tragedy here is not her ignorance, or her warped perception of human sexuality. The real tragedy is the education system that failed her– the way female sex drive is treated like a myth or a side-effect of heterosexual marriage, the way the clitorus is left un-labeled in high school text books or how I learned the word vulva on the internet. It’s the society whose obsession with sex can only be rivaled by it’s shame of it. How there is no right way to have a body: virginity treated as prudishness, promiscuity treated as lack of moral compass. In a world where boys talk about losing respect for the women they sleep with and yet never lose respect for themselves, it is not her fault that she didn’t understand what she was getting into. When she stumbled over her explanation that she thought anal counted as sex in gay couples, just not heterosexual ones, it made my chest ache. She was putting up parameters, working in clauses all so that what she’d done wouldn’t fall under the terrifying title of Real Sex. Because growing up under the Lone Star State of Abstinence Only turns the freedom of choice into a heavy burden where we are taught how to say no but not how to say yes– where women are valued by the state of their bodies. Did you know you can’t even pop a hymen? That it’s a muscle and it stretches and if you bleed the first time, you’re not supposed to? That stained sheets are not a rite of passage or a sign of purity. To every teenaged boy who’s ever bragged about how tight she was, here’s the part where I tell you that when she is aroused everything lubricates and loosens, she was only that “tight” because you have no idea how to turn her on. (Which is not something to brag about.) It is unacceptable that someone could make it to college—two decades of their life– without getting the bare bones basics of sexuality. And no, fear tactics and wait-until-marriage don’t count as an education. We can’t be so caught up in shaming sexuality that we neglect to teach how to express it safely. Because if Abstinence Only really works? Then I guess anal isn’t sex. It’s just cardio.

HONORS HUMAN SEXUALITY by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)

We happily accept that we can love more than one child, parent, sibling, teacher, friend or pet. When you think of it like that, isn’t the total exclusiveness that we expect of spousal love positively weird?

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion  (via fyp-science)

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (via fyp-philosophy)

You know what really bothers me? 

The assumption that, because I’m asexual, I’m depriving my partner of sex.

I’m not depriving him of anything. He came into this relationship fully aware of my orientation and preferences and made the decision to date me anyway. Why should I be required to atone for my orientation? I shouldn’t feel guilty about not wanting sex any more than he should feel guilty for wanting it.

I don’t have to feel guilty because he isn’t getting laid. He made that decision himself of his own free will and I don’t owe him sexual favor to keep him interested in me. If he suddenly decides that the lack of sex is a problem, that’s his prerogative and he can end the relationship if he so chooses. 

That’s the beauty of a partnership. We both have choices in the matter and we both have boundaries to maintain. We’re both responsible for happiness here, not just the one of us without sexual urges toward the other. 

I think this type of misconception definitely needs to be abolished.

I automatically assume people won’t like me, so I don’t talk to them unless they approach me first. I can’t become a part of a crowd because I can’t get past that feeling that I don’t belong.

Stephanie Kuehnert, Ballads of Suburbia  (via wordsnquotes)

If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.

Deepak Chopra (via creatingaquietmind)