WHEN SEX AND SHAME CONVERSE…

So before I begin I will send out a disclaimer, this is probably my first blog post ever. I know I know I have a number on here but what I mean is that this is by far my rawest, most unedited piece of work yet. There are backdoors to the self in this that I didn’t even bother taking out by editing but I won’t lie I am also hoping no one who knows me ever reads this. Regardless, I am writing as I would in my diary. Yes that’s right I have a diary at 22, all the best writers do anyway, we need to cleanse the noise stories off our palate before we actually write. Anyway the point is that I call my diary Jade so do not get confused when you see that name floating around.
I just watched Luvvi Ajayi’s TED Talk yesterday and in the spirit of ‘being yourself can be a revolutionary act in itself’ I am doing this. I am high on bravery and as earlier mentioned this piece is completely unedited, I literally didn’t even re read it. OK that’s clearly a lie. I am writing this before its done so let me just say I promise not to edit it and any upsetting spelling mistakes should be directed at Luvvi Ajayi because she made me do this!
Alrightie then. Let’s get on with it!
SEX SHAME, SHAME, SEX.
So my once upon a time to this piece is the wonderful book written by Meg Jay, The Defining decade and how to make the most of your twenties. Nb/This book is really good and its helping me among many other effed up persons navigate their twenties which is really helpful because I have a ton of problems and I really can’t afford therapy so cheers to Meg Jay for writing a therapy books for people just like me.
Anyway…
I have reached the infamous chapter on love and twenties so you know this is going to be juicy juicy juicy with a capital x. So there I am learning on what I need to do and not do with men while dating, what is intimacy, cohabitation effect blah blah blah…. You know the usual therapy jibber jabber then I get to this chapter on Dating down and what was a very fun and entertaining read all of a sudden turns into the most lachrymose moment of the day.
I am literally still crying and that’s saying something I’m more stone than I am woman.
The point is there’s a story in there that really tugged at my tear ducts about a woman they call her Cathy. She is a 27 year old teacher and the picture of contentment, she has written a novella and she teaches. If you looked at her you’d be like “hm, she’s fine. On to the next sucker”
That’s where you’d be wrong, apparently she can’t hold down a relationship if you can even call what she does relationships. She just prances about with any man that will have her, she asks for nothing and it’s safe to say 90-100% of the ‘relationships’ are sex filled.
So Meg Jay asks her, notice I didn’t say interrogate. Therapists this one is for you. Don’t interrogate, it’s a therapist’’ office not the police station for God’s sake which are actually pretty terrifying in Kenya to be truthful. I was there recently when my mother had a crash, nothing major, nonetheless the police were all over her ass and I swear it is easier to get assaulted inside the station as opposed to outside. Can you believe that? That’s like saying it’s easier to drink water spilt on the floor when the glass has broken and the shards are all over as opposed to drinking it from a perfectly okay and intact glass. Anyway I digress. I told you it was unedited. So you know who to blame. Hint: Luvvi.
Anyway so Meg asks “why? Why do you do this if it makes you so unhappy?” And then the woman supplies her once upon a time after so much wheedling, damn these therapists are patient. I swear if I was a therapist and a patient hesitated with information at ‘my office’ I swear it’s going down. How the hell am I supposed to help you if you won’t tell me? I would beat the crap out of my patients both emotionally and physically. Hee hee! And that is why I will never be allowed to practice therapy. Ever.
So turns out the woman is an Asian American and where she grew up the standard of beauty was more blonde white blue eyes. I say fuck that. I have seen some hot Asians. Shout out to Gu Junpyo( some Korean soap I watched and …) and Buzzfeed’s Yu Jin Li Yang. Dang son!
Sorry back to the story, the woman felt inadequate physically and the kids in her school made fun of her A LOT, she even described it as torture. So you know this shit is real and its soul deep. Back home was no consolation, her mother kept telling her boys would like her if she just dressed better, lost more weight you now that shit a parent can tell you little do they know they are stabbing you. Further compounding the problem is that her parents didn’t really talk about race, some bullshit about a post racial world. I swear these parents must’ve been the dumbest people on Earth I am all the way here in Kenya and even I know that America is the least post-racial country in the world. Still that really warped her sense of identity.
Ok I’m gonna stop this for a minute and give a public service announcement, if you are going to date/screw/marry a person of a different race/tribe/whatever first of all just know kids are a possibility and with your unique brand of child, who is totally okay they are both 100% ‘this’ and 100% ‘that’. You can’t denounce ‘this’ and ‘that’ and move onto the progressive future where the world doesn’t know race or tribe, believe me it does. Teach your children who they are, a person with no roots cannot grow damnit.
This kind of imperceptible child abuse really gets me riled up, I swear if ‘child abuse’ could manifest as a person I would beat that person to a pulp then dismember them. Child abuse is 500%(yes I love percentages, I hear your sigh. Deal with it) to blame for all the crazy arse adults traipsing through life and fucking up everyone else’s life because they pay it forward of course then we have to do this all over again with their kids in 20 years or less. I mean. UGH!
Anyway the nexus of the issue is that the woman didn’t have sex all through high school and it made her feel like a reject. She felt unwanted, unloved but most of all the most recognizable one of them all, she felt ugly.
And so we begin. I have to ask, what is this with shame and sex? I mean obviously I know this story all too well being a 22 year old virgin myself. I am just of the opinion that shame and sex should never be in the same sentence, you know. Sex is sugar spice and everything nice, and shame is to put it lightly Harvey Weinstein (ok that was funny, I think, shit I hope.)
You have to understand I have been asexual by choice most of my life(I’ll explain this isn’t ignorance on what it means to be asexual) because of just this because when shame and sex converse ‘ugly’ is born. And from many other people I’ve talked to there are so many different variations of this sex and shame conversation for both men and women and I know you all know it.
Either your penis is small, your breasts are too small, your libido is too high or too low, you are gay or pan or something the world doesn’t care to cater for, you are inexperienced or vice versa. It’s always something! The problem is if you go about mating and sex with what I’ve just mentioned in mind which is basically just stating characteristics of people really you will hate it. I mean all the things I have mentioned are not qualifiers for ugliness, they are all beautiful by default. They are a kin to painting a landscape, there is no ugly. Ever. It’s only ever what it is, and beautifully so if I might add.
I hate how the definition of sex is characterized by physicality or porn standards or I don’t even know what. People actually think sex is a physical act and it’s a quantity issue that you should get to right now! Come on now. They couldn’t be further from the truth. It happens when it happens is the best response to that deplorable idea.
The physicality of sex is like Isaac seeing the apple fall from the tree and discovering gravity. It is quite literally the tip of the iceberg, as in for real though, Isaac’s Principia was no fucking joke even the great mathematicians of that time like De Moivre carried it around trying to figure it out. Imagine. The way De Moivre and his axioms have made me sweat. I’M GLAD Isaac made him sweat. Take that De Moivre. Ok I’m kidding I love math and I love those guys…Oh God De Moivre forgive ‘them’ for they do not know who you are, by them I mean me. I sometimes refer to myself as ‘them’ like ‘Everyone’ in Elementary. Don’t ask. Oh Lord the analogy has taken on a life of its own. Let’s back pedal.
As I was saying the physical of sex is like ‘almost nothing’ in the grand scheme of things. Just like Isaac saw the apple fall and declared for gravity which is essentially a pull from the core of the earth on any and everything within its vicinity. When people have sex, sure it’s all gonads, hands and mouths but there’s something much bigger going down. Always.
That gravity shaped something should be the focus, the main focus. I mean have fun with your hands, mouths and gonads and whatever else. Seriously have fun but don’t forget that you aren’t touching their skin, what you’re feeling is the texture of their soul. It seems simple enough but honestly in practice it’s like no one knows this.
When you understand this facet of sex, you immediately understand the golden rule of sex and I dare say you can finally evolve from hooking up, fucking, bumping uglies or whatever and finally make love because you want to AND YOU KNOW IT. And let’s be real what else is there, right? Your job. Come on now!
Now am sure you are wondering Jade, what is this golden rule you speak of wise impostor? Well it has less to do with sex and more to do with love because sex is too small a term when we are talking about souls.
The rules are simply everyone must love and be loved in turn. That’s it and I can guarantee you this statement has been paraphrased so many times but this is its true format. When you hear the phrase, ‘you need to get laid’ or ‘I’m horny’ or ‘I masturbate three times a day’ that’s what they are referring to a deficit in loving and being loved in turn. Just the way your stomach grumbles when you feel hungry. Your gonads too vibrate and cry bloody mercy as an indication also your heart hurts but that’s for the poets amongst us.
Jade notice I didn’t say ‘should’ or ‘could’ or ‘would’ because when it comes to love, it’s not conditional. It’s a must! Trust me, the people who aren’t getting their quota of love are a mess. Go and get love and stop being a damn mess, its …
So now that we know all of this it goes without say that sex should never be a source of shame, it’s all about humanness and acceptance. And yet it is such an issue that here I am writing this. Sometimes I think humanity was designed to end humanity because these very ideologies that kill our ability to make love like the dreaded virginity, ridiculous physical and performance expectations, sometimes even pregnancy drama and STI’ s fear were designed by us. Surprise surprise!
I want to go back to a time when sex was fun and your awkward birth marks are a source of exploration, lack of experience is an opportunity to enact the whole teacher fantasy, the awkwardness a comedic pursuit and the pleasure a loving gentleness not a rough physical catharsis that ends even before it begins. Goddammit! Maybe we all want to go back to that time, good news is some people are already in the ‘Promised SeX Land’ . Some selfish people might I add who should totally speak up because people are out here suffering with sex of all things to suffer through.
Please please please suffer through bills, childbirth, elections, your leaders, tribalism but don’t suffer through sex.It ain’t right! The writers of the karma sutra are tossing and turning in their graves after they had to draw those images(so funny and cute). hAHAHAHHAHA.It’s a good book though, hell a great book. Right up there with Dickens, Khalil, Lahiri and Tolstoy.
Now you know Jade. Thanks for the ear, just promise me one thing.
Never let Sex and shame meet in your mind lest they have a conversation about you.
Ok I lied I sort of edited this thing but barely. You’ll probably find some typos. Intentionally placed to make sure you were looking, which you better do! Bye I have to run!