Wednesday, July 2, 2014

"You're too young to be have physically intimate relationships"

Well excUuUuUuUuUuUuUuse me! I might be young, but the law still says that I'm legally an adult. You know what that means? I get to decide what happens to me. If I want to totally abstain from everything and not even kiss people until I'm married, that's up to me. If I want to have lots of casual sex, that's up to me. If I want to be physically intimate with one person at a time, that's up to me. Your only concern should be about the spread of STDs and my risk of pregnancy, which I'm already concerned about.

I don't think my parents get that they actually raised me to be smart. I know, I know, I get that there are risks involved with this. But I'm also educated on how to mitigate those risks. I know that I should always have sex with a condom, yadda yadda. It just gets exhausting when my parents keep insisting that "everything should still be covered at this point." *awkward cough* um. Sure. Okay. As if your opinion has any bearing on this at all.

Although I have to admit there were two surprises that I found when I started to become physically intimate with my current boyfriend: 1) it increased my confidence like 500%, and 2) intimacy is a spectrum. Allow me to elaborate:

1) confidence-- well, obviously this was a big jump for me as I've never really done much of anything with anyone in terms of intimacy. But once stuff actually started happening, I actually found that it was really... empowering, in a way. I knew what I was doing and I knew I had control over how much of it could be done and when (the importance of consent, people), and I liked it. It was fun. Plus, having someone appreciate your body is kinda nice, just sayin'. The combination of feeling like I had control over what happened to my body and that somebody thought my body was really fucking attractive was awesome. Could I have gained this confidence other ways? Definitely. But I gained it this way, and I'm proud of it.

2) the spectrum-- this one mostly comes from tv and movies and other media involving teenagers in physical relationships. Most of the time what I see is that their relationships involve "typical stuff"- kissing, hand holding, makeout sessions where the guy tries to go farther and the girl always stops him (seriously, that stuff is getting old- altho there were occasional gender-role-reversals in there, not gonna lie), but nothing more. Those relationships would then either stay that way, or jump straight into full on penetrative sex. This is what I thought real relationships were like.
The problem with this model is that it completely negates the whole realm of other stuff you can do with someone without risking pregnancy and still having fun. That was I think the best part about this whole experience for me, was discovering "OH THERE ARE OTHER THINGS!" I mean, if you just want to stick to making out and leaving your clothes on, go right ahead. But believe me, there's more than just plain old heterosexual sex beyond that. I don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner, but it has now.

I apologize if this post was a little bit, er... explicit. Although I suppose it's not like I'm going into any great detail or anything. For the record, about 88% of what Ptarckas and I do is just straight snuggling. I'm not even kidding. Which is fucking awesome, because snuggles are the shit and I would say anyone who says otherwise is lying but I get that there are people who don't like snuggling or stuff like that, and that is just fine.

I suppose I learned one more thing, though: there are people out there who want what you want. Or, at least, will negotiate with you. I sort of went off to university believing that boys didn't like snuggling, or hand holding, or mushy stuff, and that nobody would want to be in a relationship with me because I was pretty uninterested in having sex (and I still am- the pregnancy risk is too high for me), and that my unshaved legs and strong interest in feminism would deter potential boyfriends. While I may have found someone my parents don't entirely approve of, he has proven all of those things to be false (at least in his case)-- at one point when I was telling him about my mother's many warnings to me that boys wouldn't want to date me because of my hairy legs, he grabbed my shins, pulled them into his lab, and just started casually... augh, what's the word... stroking them? And also proceeded to say "there is nothing wrong with your legs" which just made me all mushy. How could I not love someone like that? Seriously.

Anyway, I just find it stupid that my parents think I'm too young and immature to make good decisions, which I probably am some of the time b/c I don't know anything, but in other respects I think I know what I'm doing. I might fuck up a little along the way, but the point is that I'm still proceeding with caution, and only with people who understand consent and make me feel respected, safe, and happy. (this of course comes with the mandate that I also respect them and make them feel safe and happy- if someone says they don't want to do something, or are not in the mood, the other person has to respect that. This is not optional).

yer pal,
swegan

p.s. sorry if I seriously weirded out any of my friends that read this. ILU GUISE. FOR SERIOUS.

2 comments:

  1. Re the "I thought boys weren't like this" bit: At one point last year, I was quoted as saying "I'M GONNA MAKE OUT WITH CUTE SMART BOYS WHO RESPECT MY INTEREST IN FEMINISM" in reference to my plans for dating in uni, and some people were like "you know what guys are like in uni? hahahah" but I TOTALLY FUCKING CALLED IT YOU CAN ALL SUCK IT HATERS HAHAHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSSSSSS

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  2. if I could offer my two cents just on the "too young for physicalness" aspect… I don't know, just because you're physically mature doesn't mean you're emotionally mature enough (and I mean "you" in the general-est way possible). like, my parents are keeping my 16-y.o. sister home from college for another year because they want her to not only be better prepared for what she wants to do (she needs a resume and letters of recommendation, etc., and they want her to work on those), but also 16 is really young -- for a girl who has never been to public school -- to be suddenly dumped in a school that is 90% male, you know? I wonder if that's more the sort of thing your parents have in mind; not that it isn't OKAY for you to have intimacy/sex/whatever with your boyfriend (my parents want my sister to go to college eventually!), but that at your emotional level right now, it's not the wisest choice. maybe?

    I know your parents have said some rather controlling things before, but I can tell from what you say about them that they really do love you and want what's best for you. (I have a hard time keeping this in mind sometimes.

    frequently.)

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