*another re-post from the project that got me started here, because it matters now more than ever that we acknowledge women’s stories – not just because we matter, women and girls matter – but because our complications are lived reality, and hiding behind ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘that’s a taboo subject’ or whatever objection anyone has, is harming us, is killing us. We cannot and must not hide our realities. Until Dobbs was overturned, did we know that one in five pregnancies ended in a miscarriage, very often requiring abortion care? Did we know women have IUDs for endometriosis, and that white christian nationalists want to outlaw IUDs because it interferes with embryonic implantation in the uterus, which is (WTF) ‘against God’s will’? Did we realize just how many pregnancy complications were possible? Did we know women and girls would die after being denied care, or lose their fertility? Did we realize DOCTORS and NURSES would deny that care due to stupid cruel laws and in oder to protect their own self-interest? Deep breaths. Let’s fucking go. Please consider contributing to this project, with my thanks.
I started this project – The First Time – in hopes of eliciting women’s narratives, women’s stories, to highlight the other side of the coin of the never-ending, head-banging litany of men, men, men (and teenaged boys) and their limited point of view on their first experiences of sex. Men have been controlling too many slices of human life, including dominating the subject of how, where, when, why humans experience their initiation into sexual intimacy. To date, only five stories including my own have been told and recorded here. I know there are at least two other women out there working on their tales, and I also realize there’s a reason why women don’t tell, don’t write, don’t want to participate in this project, or are reluctant to, and that is because because women’s first sexual encounters are often coercive, violent, the result of a secret bet made by male peers only discovered later, or otherwise abusive and just plain fucking ugly. Not, in other words, fun, and very often a source of shame, pain, and regret. Who TF wants to remember, let alone tell that fucking nightmare of a tale? Well, I do, and I believe women and girls need to, need to tell, to write, and to share these stories – because when we don’t tell them, we are alone, and alone is not good, not in this, or in any area historically darkened by shame, and misogyny.
So. A plea. To set aside fear and embarrassment and humiliation and shame and whatever else the concern is and write, write it out, get it out. This week I shared over lunch the particular vomitous-ness that is my tale of being assaulted by two (married with children) men who only days before were my teachers in high school. What an idiot I was as a teenager, but – was I? Was I really an idiot? Isn’t it more correct to say what fucking predatory pieces of shit they were? Yup. Why did or does trusting them – one was also a member of my church – make me an idiot? Weren’t they the actual idiots, thinking for even one second that I was either interested or open to their advances, thinking too that they were safe and untouchable in the small-town scheme of things, which (fucking hell) turned out to be (mostly) true; I think they might be ashamed of themselves but…I’m also resigned to the fact that they may not reflect upon past misdeeds at all. Still. Risking so much for what? A bit of teenaged pussy? Fucking assholes. Fucking pieces of shit. Fucking entitled idiots. And, teenaged girls are entitled to be young and dumb; teenaged girls are entitled to be alone in spaces, to get in a car or drive someone else home, to walk through all the places public and private that exist without being assaulted, groped, harassed, stalked, cat-called. Teenaged girls and women deserve to occupy and occupy fully any and all spaces – including the space of adolescent risk taking – without fear, including fear of death. Teenaged girls and women deserve the right to trust, to safety – and to make mistakes without dire or life-altering consequence.
Staying in the shadows helps no one. Silence aids the perpetrators; they count on it, the silence of women and girls, of children of both sexes. And, even if the first time for you wasn’t traumatic, just messy and embarrassing, that too needs telling, that too is relatable, powerful, moving, valuable. Sex – grunting and groaning and slipping and sliding – is hilarious, ridiculous, sublime, anxiety-producing, glorious. Telling your truth, sharing the story of what happened in your own life, is healing, is helping, is capable of breaking hearts open, and knitting others up – all of which we need in this increasingly on-line world, one that lacks empathy (or seems to) for others.
My mother was addicted to romance novels, which I read quite a few of as a kid because they were there and I was a reader, which I still am. For at least fifteen years she received a box of skinny-ass novels (twenty at a time) in the mail, addressed to me. To me. This went on until my late twenties, when I finally demanded that she stop this nonsense, saying Mom, if you’re embarrassed about getting a box from Harlequin or Boons and Mills, that’s your lookout, not mine. She didn’t want the post master locally to judge her, but she was fine with him judging me, and why wouldn’t she be? I was her shadow. All that to get to the fact that each and every one of these asinine stories had a virgin who was instantly multi-orgasmic, instantly able – and willing – to give amazing head (though they never mention swallowing!), and instantly bonded to the hunk in question, for life. This is not how it goes in the real world, not even close. It’s cotton candy for the brain, and perfectly fine reading if you’re into that, but not even close to reality. These bullshit stories, however, dominate in the world, in our culture, in our conservative and even not so conservative religions, in our families, and all too often in our minds. I also believe they provide relief of a kind to those whose personal experience of sex for the first time was anything but rosy, bonding, and instantly orgasmic. Reality is not cotton candy – it’s a healthy meal made fresh with all food groups included! Women and girls need more of that kind of brain food, dahlinks.
Sex is fun, and girls and women get to enjoy it, including with multiple or same sex or whatever combination of partners you can think of. And, orgasms – unless you’re very lucky – don’t happen instantly, especially if there is any history of abuse or even ‘just’ body-shaming. Sex is one of if not the most powerful drivers of human behavior we crazy-ass humans have; it is too often twisted and exploited. Another goal of this project is to light up our perspective – women and girls’ points of view and experiences – to change that, to throw a little needed light on the subject because many men, too fucking many men, simply don’t get it, or care. They’ve bought the idea, the male-created and male-centered myth and narrative of male dominance, of predatory behavior being biologically defensible, natural even, which it most certainly is not. Safe in their enclaves of male privilege, they don’t fucking care; when I look at photos of sporting events in the middle east – which are all male on the field and in the stands – I get so angry I have to force myself to take deep breaths. Predatory behavior in men is learned, encouraged by sexist cultures and blatant misogyny; it is also often excused and ignored, but one thing it ain’t is natural.
Y’wanna see behavioral change? Change the dominant story, the myths, the patriarchal narratives, the founding and foundational tale of how and where and when – bringing the matriarchal and female point of view into every space and aspect of human life and behavior. And, if you’ll join us, do so by sharing your tale or tales of joy or woe, bringing light and air and truth to the subject of sex, sexuality and intimacy for women and girls. Because, it matters. It really matters. One story at a time.