I’m convinced everyone thinks about their wedding day. Even if it’s an event you can’t picture taking place for another 15 years, you’ve at least considered the possibility that it could happen. And when you imagine this most sacred of days, you likely also wonder who you’ll be standing up there with. He (or she) will be wildly attractive, that’s obvious. They’ll be brilliant and funny and love puppies, also a duh. But will they be a good kisser? Of course! Wait…right?

Some couples wait to take the big plunge until after they’re lawfully wed. Please note that when I say “big plunge,” I’m not talking about sex. That’s right, in certain religious communities and social spheres, it’s somewhat commonplace to wait until your wedding day before so much as kissing your future husband or wife. Read More »

A new sex study shows that a growing number of teens and young adults are not having sex. The National Center for Health Statistics released the study, which found 27 percent of men and 29 percent of women between 15 and 25 years old have never had a sexual encounter. The last round of data released in 2005 showed that 22 percent of young adults had not had sex. This study is considered to be the most in-depth federal report ever released. In order to avoid confusion, the study went into more detail than previous versions, even defining things such as oral sex. While just under 30 percent of males and females have not had vaginal intercourse, 62.6 percent of females and 64 percent of men said they’d had oral sex. Other findings showed young women as being more experimental with their sexuality; women are twice as likely to have a same-sex encounter than men. A higher percentage of women in this age range identify themselves as either bisexual or homosexual. Researchers attribute this to women feeling it is more socially acceptable for them to be experimental so they are more apt to admit to their experimentation.

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I just read the beautifully written (but also mortifying) novella by Ian McKewan, On Chesil Beach. It’s a lovely little book, with well-drawn characters, but I think the main reason it’s been pretty famous this year is because of its infamous sex scene, a scene in which two inexperienced virgins get just about everything wrong.

Without giving it away, I couldn’t help laughing even as I blushed. At the same time, I learned a lot about what NOT to do when the realities of our bodies inevitably trip us up.

1. You must talk about sex. On Chesil Beach is set in the early sixties, a time when it was “simply impossible” for anyone to discuss sex. It’s the ultimate taboo subject even when people are married, and as a result, couples who get together barely know what to do with each other or even what to expect.

In the book, Florence is given a brief pamphlet about the bare bones of sex, but she still doesn’t have the first clue of what to do or what will happen on the man’s side of things. Because of this huge taboo of talking about sex, neither of them can talk healthily about it when things go wrong. Times have changed a lot since then, but I still think the taboo stands in a lot of situations. We’re not supposed to say certain words, protest if something hurts, or talk about what we want. But without having these difficult and embarrassing conversations, people will end up being disappointed, hurt, or just plain confused.

2. Don’t feel ashamed. A powerful sense of shame is another reason why Florence and Edward feel paralyzed in McKewan’s book. When things go wrong, Florence immediately assumes it’s her fault, she has done something wrong. Edward similarly feels ashamed for having “failed.” In reality, sex the first time is harder than TV and movies make it out to be. It takes a little finagling to get the jigsaw pieces together, so to speak, and if either girl or guy feels shame about this, it will taint the whole experience. Read More »

I’ve always made a bad girl.

I don’t mean to say that I’m bad. I’m far too responsible for that. I listen to NPR. I vote in primaries. But when it comes to femininity, to the trappings of girlhood (the shoes, the makeup, the cooking, the arcane household crafts), I just do not get it. I am not good at it. I fail to perform “girl” correctly.

It’s not as if I haven’t been trained for the job. Throughout my childhood, several family members staged interventions and crash courses on femininity, from the grandmother who told me that I could be so pretty, if only I’d try a little, to the cousins who told me that ya cain’t use big words on a guy, or he won’t like ya. My father – a check-bouncing, hard-drinking, waitress-dating guy who rode motorcycles and used the word f*ck approximately eight times in any given conversation – despaired over my failure to become, in his words, “a real lady.”

I tried. I really did. Before I knew what feminism was, I studied gender, the assumptions and behaviors and roles that were assigned to the men and women around me. I didn’t have revolutionary aims. I just wanted to know what I was missing.

This is what I picked up:

Boys are strong. Girls are gentle. Boys are brave. Girls are patient. Boys want to have fun. Girls want to have babies. Boys are attractive because of what they do. Girls are attractive because of how they look. Boys smoke, drink, and screw. Girls cook, clean, and marry. Boys pick the girls they want. Girls take the boys who pick them. Boys can’t help themselves. Girls spend their time helping.

To borrow a phrase from my dear father: f*ck that sh*t. Read More »

Not since Joe Simpson said of Jessica’s rack, “She’s got double-D’s! You can’t cover those suckers up!” have I been so creeped out by a father-daughter relationship.

According to this Yahoo article, Purity Balls are on the rise.

What’s a Purity Ball, you ask? Oh, y’know, it’s just like a Sweet Sixteen or a Bat Mitzvah, except that instead of celebrating a girl’s coming-of-age, it is the celebration of a girl’s sexual repression as enforced by her father and The Christian Right.

And instead of getting a digital camera or a car, she gets a Chastity Ring! Good times!

The purpose of said Purity Ball is for father and daughter to exchange the following vows:

Dad: Pumpkin, I’ll protect your chastity and live an unblemished life.

Daughter: Daddy, I won’t have sex until I’m passed on to my next owner husband.

Seriously… is there anything more spine-chilling than a 10 year old girl, dolled up in white, looking her father in the eye and vowing not to have sex until she’s married? Or, worse, a father in a tuxedo, peering down upon his pre-pubescent daughter and promising to not jerk it to online pornography? Ew, ew, ewww! Read More »