Everything My Sex Ed Didn't Teach ME
I received my sexual education in 7th grade with my gym class. The coach spent a few minutes explaining where babies come from, advised us to not have sex but encouraged us to use a condom if we were going to have sex (saying that a condom would protect against pregnancy and AIDS). That was it.
You may have had a better experience depending on where you grew up. But for those not as fortunate, I hope you find this helpful.
Why talk to teens about sex and porn if they aren’t old enough for sex and porn?
Because teens are having sex and consuming porn. Sex isn’t just physical it is psycho-social and what you don’t know can hurt you. It is confusing if you are young and have not had any mature healthy conversations about sex and porn. As a parent myself, I hope that my children grow up and have happy, healthy and fulfilling sex lives.
Why talk to teens about Sex Workers?
Teens are on sex cam sites interacting with sex workers. Some teens make a fake account and live stream their own sex shows, interacting with adults.
Teens may one day solicit a sex worker as an adult.
Teens that may never solicit a sex worker but will form thoughts about sex workers that might one day inform popular opinion and/or public policy that affects the lives of sex workers (decriminalizing sex work, labor rights, being viewed as a human and not a “thing”).
WHAT IS SEXUALITY?
Sexuality is the way we physically and emotionally experience sexual attraction and sexual arousal. Sexuality is experienced at different magnitudes on a spectrum between casual and intimate, whether between your own body and imagination or while engaging with others.
DEPICTIONS OF SEXUALITY ARE ON A SPECTRUM
Some forms of entertainment, like romance novels, may contain sexual themes and arousing imagery, but explicit depictions of sex are called pornography or porn for short.
Pornography is classified by how explicitly the content is depicted:
Erotica (provocative art such as written stories, visual art, erotic dance etc. which may contain nudity or insinuation of sexual acts, but not their explicit depiction)
Softcore (Drawn, photographic, or writings depicting and focusing on full nudity, sexual kissing and/or body contact)
Hardcore (Pictures, videos, and stories depicting intense sexual acts such as oral sex, penetrative sex, kinks, fetishes and taboos).
We interact with all sexual content to different degrees, and thanks to technology and accessibility, the line between simulated sex/intimacy and actual sex/intimacy has been obscured. With that in mind…
Each classification of sexually explicit offerings are subdivided by the medium of presentation:
Text: Sexting, Erotic Fiction, Personal Testimonies
Audio: Phone Sex, ASMR
Video: GIFs, Hentai, Porn
Games: Adult Dating Sims, AI sexbots, RPGs, VR & AR
Streaming: Cam sites, Fan sites
Live Performance: Burlesque, Strip Clubs
Live Interactive: Play Rooms, Dungeons
PERCEPTIONS OF SEX ARE ON A SPECTRUM
Ideally, sex would be something everyone can enjoy without any associated negative feelings or anyone getting hurt. But sex is complicated and complicated things go wrong very easily.
Some Science
Our sex drive is biologically natural. Our sexuality is psychologically natural. Wanting to have sex and experiencing a personal sense of sexuality is a socially neutral phenomenon. Sex and sexuality can only be “bad” or “wrong” if we express our sexuality in a way that harms yourself and/or another person.
You cannot be “addicted” to a normal function of your body or a natural phenomenon of the human experience. Addictions are a dependency of chemical rewards in the brain. Most human drives are subject to problems with impulse control, maladaptive coping or escapism. If someone was experiencing their sexuality compulsively and destructively, then the problem is impulse control not a sex addiction. Focusing on a symptom is a way to deny confronting the real cause. “Sex Addiction” (or Nymphomania) is in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) for social/political reasons and is not based on empirical research or even basic logic.
Some Moderation
What if you are so positive and excited about sex that it makes others uncomfortable? Maybe you just discovered Sex Magic, the Kama Sutra or Tantric Sex and now you want to challenge a repressed culture and start a sexual revolution. Whether our behavior is accepted or rejected in a shared space depends on if our words and actions take into account social context, timing and consent. We live in community; society is a shared space. This is why consent is important (and we will talk about that more later). No matter how sex positive I am, I want to respect the people around me. A religious person is free to be disruptive and rude in a public space, but what they see as pride is intrusive and obnoxious to others. I try not to inflict others with the smell of my normal/natural bodily gases and I don’t talk about the worst atrocities committed against children during the holocaust at Saturday brunch. At some point we should talk about delicate subjects, and some parts of our culture are wrong and need to be confronted, but it’s more likely to be well-received with respect for social context.
GUILT & SHAME: External and Internalized
Some people have negative feelings about sex. Maybe they have unresolved past trauma. Maybe they have been indoctrinated with ideology that demonizes sex. Maybe they just have anxiety about not living up to peer expectations, societal standards or patriarchal messaging. These sentiments threaten to brand sex and sexuality as shameful (“wrong" for everyone in your community) and/or unethical (“wrong” for you in your circumstances). For example, “Hedonism” (which is basically a belief that pleasure is good and a valid life pursuit) becomes synonymous with evil, or a female that enjoys sex is shamed as a “slut”. If these negative views of sex and sexuality are internalized, then we might feel guilt about sex (we’ve DONE something bad) or shame (we ARE something bad).
If you carry internalized shame you may find yourself in a difficult situation. You will still have biological and emotional desires for sexual intimacy. You may be actively pursing sexual intercourse only to be paralyzed by fear of acceptance. You probably understand fear of rejection, but fear of acceptance is the anxiety when someone is going to say “yes” to having sex with you, but you can’t go through with it because you will feel too guilty. This can be confusing, frustrating and painful for the person that has been receiving your flirtations and advances. Ultimately it is very irresponsible to make someone else feel rejected because of your own unresolved feeling of guilt and shame about sex.
RELIGIOUS GUILT & SHAME
*I can only speak on religious sex-shame from my own personal experience. If you are not or did not come from a Christian culture then you can skip this part
Some might think there are right and wrong ways to have sex based on spiritual harm. Every “spiritual person” must acknowledge that there are hundreds of different views of righteousness (what it means to be “good”) just within your sect or denomination. Consensus is an illusion – one hundred people in a local congregation do not believe the same things and don’t agree with their spiritual leader on every issue. “Spiritual Growth” means that our understanding grows and matures in nuance and sophistication. A Christian that believes the same exact things ten years from now that they did ten years ago is not a spiritual person, they are consumer and a conformist, and thus cannot claim their views of sex and sexuality are spiritual.
The New Testament explicitly says that humanity is no longer under the moral law (which condemns) but under the new law of Grace. The only guiding principle for behaviors and intentions is to be “a good tree producing good fruit”. Good fruit is not determined by Levitical Law, it is determined by peace, hope, joy and love.
Theological concepts like “Priesthood of the Believer” and “Indwelling of the Holy Spirit” and “Personal Faith” means:
Your parents don’t speak for God.
Your church doesn’t speak for God.
Your Pastor doesn’t speak for God.
The Bible doesn’t speak for God.
*The Bible says that Jesus is “The Word”, the Bible NEVER says that The Bible is “The Word”.
And a guilty conscious is ABSOLUTELY NOT the Holy Spirit speaking to you.
*incidentally there is a lot of evidence to suggest that early Christians had very diverse positions on sex and sexuality, and that the old system of legislative morality was resurrected by authoritarians for political and social power.
PORN ISN’T REAL SEX
Pornography (even amateur porn) is staged and edited, this is the magic of cinema. Something that seems very private is still being created to be viewed by an audience. Makeup, lighting and unnatural angles are the technical engineering to manufacture the most attractive and arousing presentation, to help us dismiss that it is artificial. Body image & performance are tailored to earn money based on what the performers and industry imagine the audience desires, an idealized fantasy or a simulation of real world sex.
Some Examples
Example 1: Workplace Role Play
Sex with a boss or superior is strictly a fantasy. When there is a disparity of power there can be no true consent. The subordinate is ALWAYS at risk of exploitation.
Example 2: Normalization of the unpleasant
There are porn performers that will do something like stick the tip of their tongue in the hole of something simulating the tip of a penis. Copying this behavior will result in the penis owner feeling pain.
Example 3: Best Practices
Every woman’s body is different and does not produce the same natural lubricant upon arousal. Many women need artificial lubricant (like Astroglide or Uberlube). It can feel like your internal lining getting torn by friction if something is inserted into a vagina or anus without natural or artificial lubrication. Most porn will edit out this step since it interrupts the flow of the performance creating a false representation.
Example 4: Orgasms
About 4% of women (global average, differs from country to country) orgasm from penetrative sex (having a phallus thrusting into their vagina). Most women need clitoral stimulation or a combination of both. When you see a woman orgasming from penetrative sex in pornography there is a high probability that it is a fake orgasm. When there is clitoral stimulation, it is usually shown just as the exposed tip under the clitoral hood. A clitoris is actually shaped like a wishbone and extends around the opening of the vaginal canal. But full clitoral stimulation does not convey visually for a camera as just the tip under the clitoral hood.
Example 5: Condoms
Condoms are not seen very often in porn, but it can be a good idea depending on the situation (who you are with, what sexual activity you are doing, etc).
Some women put a condom on their sex toys to make clean up quicker and easier (which is nice if you are wiped out and feeling flooded with post-coital dopamine). But if you’ve only ever seen women using a sex toy in porn then you probably don’t know about this life hack.
*Again, unrealistic scenarios can still be entertaining. And a skilled or specialized sex worker could safely take someone through a sexual experience that might otherwise be taboo or socially unacceptable in another context.
THE DARK SIDE OF THE PORN INDUSTRY
For most of its history, the porn industry has been a male dominated business and generally exploitative of women. In the 1980’s, many testimonies emerged of studio executives and managers getting women addicted to drugs to manipulate them into filming a scene that they would not consent to performing under normal circumstances. At this time, there was also a practice of “predatory casting” that was oriented around profiling young girls with a low sense of self worth. This would often mean targeting abused or neglected girls in desperate circumstances, and thus more easily manipulated due to internalized objectification.
More recently, performers have exposed a “bait and switch” manipulation. A performer agrees to a moderate sex act then on the day of filming on set they are told the scene has been changed to something they did not consent to perform. The Social pressure and guilt are used to coerce the performer (usually a younger performer who is less likely to advocate for themselves in front of a group, and worried about vague threats of being blacklisted).
SAFER PORN: The Harm Reduction Model
Thanks to a handful of conscientious individuals, there is now a “Sex Positive” movement within the porn industry. These are mostly women or non-binary creators/curators producing what is called “Ethical Porn” or “Fair Trade Porn”. These are not official labels but the emphasis is on the all the sex workers/performers having true consent, equal rights, compensation (fair wages, royalties or full ownership of their own content) and access to legal representation & health care. And just to be clear, pirated porn is absolutely unethical and exploitative.
People must be 18 or over to legally view pornography. But because of the internet and the culture, this is unenforceable and not policed. Given the option, it would be better for anyone under 18 to view material that is ethically produced rather than violent, exploitative or objectifying. It would also be beneficial to have an ongoing open conversation so that young people can process material that might raise questions about their sexuality or something that may have felt confusing/troubling to view.
EXPECTATIONS
Being socialized by porn can create unrealistic expectations. Since porn is designed for sexual gratification, it can reinforce selfish impulses and objectifying a sexual partner. The spoken or unspoken pressure can severely damage a relationship.
The biggest risk of having any specific expectation is disappointment. Disappointment regarding something as intimate and emotionally vulnerable as your naked body and/or your sexual desires and responses can be devastating. Everyone has body hair. Some people chose to remove their body hair but to so out of shame (because a partner socialized by porn expects a hairless body) can hurt how we feel about our own bodies.
Excessive use of pornography can lead to feelings of sexual isolation or inadequacy and sometimes depression. Comparing your body to the bodies of sex workers (the shape of your breasts or the look of your genitals) contributes to internalized shame. Porn performers are like super models, chosen for their exceptionally rare body types (as well as stage lighting, camera angles, expensive lingerie, professional makeup and hairdressers). These kind of insecurities from comparing yourself to a professional that has dedicated their life to being sexually arousing will cause barriers to intimacy with a partner and diminish the way you appraise your own self worth.
*this is actually not just a concern limited to porn but also the messages broadcast by marketing, celebrity culture and platforms like Instagram
BECOMING SEXUALLY ACTIVE
Watching porn can be arousing because it is created to arouse the audience. Being aroused can lead to body exploration and masturbation. Feelings of arousal combined with thoughts of other people who we find attractive can lead to feelings of wanting to explore sexually with another person. Sex is beautiful and natural and it takes many forms. Regardless of who the sex is with or what types of acts are performed, all sex must be three things: safe, consensual and honest.
CONSENT
Consent is permission for something to happen or agreement to do something. Respecting consent is the lowest standard for being a decent human being to another person.
Consent is active, not passive:
“Yes” is consent.
“Not saying no” IS NOT consent.
“No” is not consent.
Coerced “Yes” is not consent.
Being intoxicated is not consent.
Dressing provocatively is not consent.
Being at a certain place at a certain time is not consent.
*these are all real things that men have self-reported that they consider consent
Why is this important? According the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 women have experienced physical violence at the hands of men. In a 2018 survey, women were asked what they would do in a world without men. The answers were simple things like take a walk at night, wear whatever they wanted, not worry about their drink being spiked at a party.
All participants must be aware of what is happening and want it to continue to happen. Minors and people under the influence of alcohol and other drugs lack the social and emotional awareness to grant legal consent.
Consent is given before engaging in any sexual act and consent should be maintained between partners by checking in during sex (consent is not a moment, consent is ongoing).
Consent also extends to “sexting” or sharing sexual pictures or videos with each other. If consent to share your sexual images is not explicitly given then to do so is a violation; this must be understood before any private images or messages are sent.
Real consent is informed consent. This means everyone involves fully understands the risks, if someone has: a sexually transmitted infection, a behavior that is triggered by certain sexual activity, assumptions about what the sexual activity means for the level of commitment in the relationship.
SAFETY
The main issues to be concerned with for sexual safety are:
Physical Safety – there should be no risk of physical danger involved in sex. Both parties should be aware of any pain or discomfort while engaging in sexual acts and communicate those feelings. Only if everyone is willing to stop to keep each other safe is anyone actually safe.
With the rise of hook-up apps and hook-up culture, there is a new aspect of safety that must be addressed. When meeting someone for sex (no matter how much you have interacted online or even if you already met in person), take some precautions for your own safety:
-make sure someone knows where you are going, do not go to a second location
-make sure someone knows who you are meeting (a screen capture, a selfie and ask for a picture of their ID, it IS NOT too much to ask for ID if you are having sex with the person)
-make sure someone know when you should be back, and can check in
-set up your smart phone to disclose your location (or an app that live streams video, audio and your GPS location to the social media platform of your choice)Emotional Safety – *see consent and honesty - but also, if you have any reservations about a sexual partner that you are not brave enough to voice, then you will not feel emotionally safe during sex, which could lead to sexual trauma.
Medical Safety – taking steps to minimize risk of unwanted pregnancy and transmission of infections; condoms DO NOT protect against all STIs.
HONESTY
Even if sex is safe and permitted, it might not be what makes you or your partner happy and feel pleasure. There are legal, cultural and medical definitions of sex, but the act of having sex with a partner is a process of exploration. Only you and your partner/s can know for sure what you like and, sometimes more importantly, what you do not like. Just because someone else says a sexual act is normal or pleasurable, doesn’t mean that’s true for everyone.
Sex can be intoxicating and can cloud our judgement
Being honest with yourself is very difficult for young people. It is difficult even for some adults to have the self-awareness to exercise sound judgement concerning the profound allure of sexual gratification (this is why a minor cannot grant legal consent). The expectations of a partner and other social pressures can lead us to make decisions, even ones we may want to make in the future, before we have the context to consent and keep ourselves safe.
Why does this matter?
Becoming sexually active is serious because of the profoundly personal nature of sexual activity. Having a negative or painful association with sex can diminish or ruin future enjoyment of sex. This usually happens in cases of rape or molestation, but can also come from being sexual with someone before we are ready, at an emotionally unstable time, or under the influence of alcohol and/or other drugs.
Imagine that every time you were intimate with someone (or even just with yourself) a painful memory popped into your head. It could merely kill the mood or it could lead to feelings of anxiety or disassociation.
OBJECTIFICATION
Being sexually aroused usually has to do with being excited by your partner’s body. This can be visually, from physical contact, or even the sound of their voice. So in some ways we act as an object of desire for our partner, but sexual objectification is a specific term that refers to an unhealthy sexual experience of a partner’s body. Objectification is when someone consciously or unconsciously feels that they care more about what their partner can do for them (in this case sexually) than they care about the person’s emotional and physical well-being.
Why is it easy to be objectified or objectify someone sexually?
It can feel good to be touched. Erogenous zones (nipples, genitals, orifices, etc.) have nerve clusters that are extra sensitive and can be extremely pleasurable or painful to be touched. On top of physical pleasure, it can also feel good to be intimate with another person.
When someone lets you see them naked, lets you touch them, lets you see and feel their sexual arousal and orgasm it feels… special, because the person is being vulnerable with you. They are “letting you in”. This is intimacy. It can be scary and exciting to “let someone else in”. This can feel emotionally good, like love (safe and secure) when you experience the same nakedness, touching, arousal and gratification with another person… if the vulnerability and trust is well placed.
Even a close friend can be “seduced” by the intense pleasure of sex. Having a “friend with benefits” can destroy a friendship because of one of the friends developing romantic feelings or if they start to care more about sexual gratification than the friendship. In other words, caring less about you than what you can do for the person. This is sexual objectification, a person’s humanity or personhood being reduced to an object for the other person’s pleasure.
*There are kinks and fetishes that are oriented around rough treatment, but the difference is CONTEXT. Kinks and fetishes are a specifically agreed upon arrangement that includes physical safety but also the emotional safety that comes from understanding the context.
UNATTACHED or “Casual Sex”
Eating is an intimate act. You literally put something inside your body and it becomes a part of you. Sex is like this in some ways – both are a physical pleasure than can be enjoyed alone or enjoyed very differently as a shared experience. Sharing a meal with one person or a group can be casual or intimate. Some people prefer casual sex, but everyone involved must understand the terms for casual sex BEFORE the act happens for it to be ethical and not exploitative.
It takes a high level of emotional maturity to be aware of when an emotional attachment is developing in you or in a casual sexual partner (which is how heartbreak and insecurities happen - which make you vulnerable to manipulations).
Once sex with a partner becomes part of our life, it can be easy to start tying our self worth to our sexual performance or our body image. Whether you have sex or not, you are still you and you are still deserving of love, support, and respect. The same is true even of people who don’t experience sexual desires or feelings at all.
REJECTION
Sex is one of the most vulnerable and intimate acts a person can engage in. You are naked, and your sexuality is experienced by another person in a full spectrum of sensory stimulation, it can feel much more personal when rejected by a partner after being sexually involved.
People are complicated; we may never know why we are rejected. The person rejecting us may have been deceptive to get what they wanted or they may have internalized shame and they are not even aware of it. REJECTION IS NOT ABOUT YOU. Even if a person explicitly says something cruel about you (or your sexuality or your body), then what you are really hearing is the other person’s social/emotional impairment (their inability to see past their own unmet needs and fail to value what is uniquely you).
We can’t control other people. We can’t make them be more mature and articulate with perfect clarity and respect when they want to terminate a relationship. An angry breakup sucks, getting ghosted sucks, a bad rejection never gets easier.
Unfortunately, rejection is inevitable. Everyone experiences pain and loss, but not everyone has to do it alone. No one can un-break a broken heart but talking to people that love you can share a burden that may otherwise crush you.
GETTING ATTACHED
There is a phenomenon in theatre and role playing called "reality bleed", where the line between what is real and what is fantasy becomes obscured. This can happen easily since the consumer wants their experience to feel real, and the performer wants the consumer to feel like they are having a real experience. This can be a serious problem for respecting a sex worker’s boundaries and compromising your own real sexual needs by emotionally investing in an illusion.
A performer may or may not consider what they are doing an act of openness or vulnerability; they are doing a job after all. If they are successful, then the seduction should feel personal and intimate (or whatever gratification they are seeking).
People on either end of the interaction might feel an attachment but this is where caution must be exercised. It hurts very badly to believe you have genuine love when it is only a facsimile. A relationship based on the exchange of sexual intimacy for money is a transaction. It isn’t necessarily just a transaction, but if you are paying someone to tell you what you want to hear then you are unlikely to hear the truth and a real love connection or committed relationship requires truth.
SEX WORKERS
When it comes to live streaming webcams, the performers may be feeling real things or having a real orgasm (it might even be between people that actually love each other) but the context is not naturally occurring interpersonal sex; it is a manufactured situation for exclusive or potential subscribers/followers. Even the most low-budget webcam is not exactly what it seems. You see a real person, you see them naked and doing a sex act (maybe interacting via text or private stream).
When we combine feeling horny and lonely, then it is easy to convince ourselves that a fantasy is reality, like the misguided hopefulness of mistaking a clerk or wait staff’s friendliness as filtration. The employee is expected to compromise and suppress their own feelings and personality to serve the customer; that is not a relationship of equals.
BOUNDARIES
A sexual fantasy is more potent, more exciting when we get caught up in the fiction, to lose ourselves in it and feel what the performer expresses. But eventually the fantasy is over and it’s time to return to real life and let go. This is very important. No one is entitled to the personal life of a sex worker. They are real people with the same human rights as anybody. Their boundaries deserve the same respect as anyone else’s boundaries. To impose or stalk someone is a violation of their privacy, and no payment ever trumps a person’s consent, especially over their own personhood.
Paying for sex does not entitle you to sex. You cannot demand goods or services from people that do not consent to providing the service. Everyone must be free to withdraw consent at any point (because feeling safe or unsafe changes in the course of interacting with people). A person’s body is not a commodity that you are owed because you paid money. Any employee can quit in the middle of a job for any reason because slavery is wrong.
MATURITY = SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
If a person (you or your partner) cannot talk about sex and sexuality, then they are not mature enough to be sexually active.
A sexually active person needs to be able to:
give and receive consent
understand sexual safety
know their own boundaries, communicate them and enforce them
That’s just for safety. The road to mature enjoyment of sex is a life long journey. Most adults struggle with being aware of areas of sexuality where they have shame. Most adults struggle with being aware of and asking for the things that they want (whether simply saying touch/lick/fuck higher/lower harder/softer faster/slower or confess their kinks, fetishes & taboos).
There are many types of people that you might partner with to assist you on this journey of discovery: a dear friend, a lover, a sex therapist, a sexual surrogate or a sex worker (keeping in mind the age of consent may determine what kind of partner would be ethical).
The positives… FINALLY
That’s a lot of heavy stuff, but let’s just reiterate that sex is beautiful and everyone should get to experience it during their life if they want to. And we started this talking about porn, so let’s look at a couple positives of porn and sexuality as we wrap this up.
SUMMING UP
Fantasies are exciting. Porn is exciting, the human body is beautiful, people’s state of sexual arousal and their orgasms are beautiful and intoxicating. Seeing another person intimately is exciting and arousing.
It feels good to be aroused, and when you are aroused it feels good to masturbate and have an orgasm. Masturbation is a safe way to learn about our bodies and how we like to be touched, before we share that information and experience with a partner.
Likewise, porn can show us examples of sex acts which we might like to try ourselves. They may show us the kinds of clothes we find enticing or the environments or situations we find exciting. And of course, we don’t want to do everything we like to watch. Just because watching a performance of sex arouses us, doesn’t mean that we want to engage in the same sex acts by ourselves or with a partner. Some people like to keep their fantasies and realities separate.
So, just like masturbation, porn can be a safe medium for us to explore fantasies and get some context for sexual acts before we try those acts with a partner. Porn can also provide an opportunity to rethink your own sexual identity, or what your boundaries might be (sexual boundaries can be non-negotiable, conditional or a matter of give and take).
And remember, porn is not reality, it is a performance (often by professionals that have a disciplined body regiment and are skilled in the art of seduction) and we shouldn’t feel a need to “measure up” in terms of which sex acts we can perform and how we look while performing them.
What you don’t know can hurt you. Before you have sex, try to understand your hard, soft and conditional boundaries, and how you want to respond when they are challenged. Try to understand consent, safety and honesty, try to understand these things now when you are not feeling the anxiety or feeling judged, pressured or the fear of rejection or the fear of acceptance.
Good Luck!