Sexual Shame in a Sexual Nation?

I live in a generation obsessed with shaming all forms of sex. Over the last six years since losing my virginity, I have had to overcome the several obstacles of living up to certain expectations due to my gender and sexuality. Because I have broken away and lingered from these strict expectations, I have been a victim of sexual shame, mostly of the name calling category. These include, but are not limited to, being called “slut”, “whore”, “freak”, and my personal favorite, “thot”. The worst aspect of this is I had never even slept around, the only thing was that, unfortunately for me, I was born into a gender not allowed to be promiscuous. I was told that I was supposed to conform to the “right” and “wrong” forms of sexual behavior, or lack thereof. Living through this was hard enough, especially since I viewed myself as a strong woman in charge of her sex life, in other words I don’t believe casual sex, or any other illicit encounters, makes anyone a “whore”. Just do you, boo boo. Living through this was enough, I could not imagine having to live up to the expectations of sex if I identified as queer. 

To be anything out of the ordinary in this society makes you prone to harassment and hate, which unfortunately includes even your sex life and sexuality. Michael Warner opens his book, The Trouble with Normal, with a chapter on the ethics of sexual shame, so that shows just how important the topic is to him. Warner would conclude in this chapter that as long as human beings are having sex, it is inevitable that the sex they are having will be controlled by someone else. He writes, “so the question is not how do we get rid of sexual shame..but what we will do with our shame”. 

In a New York Times article titled “When Your Sex Life Doesn’t Follow The Script”, author Rachel Hills explains why her sex life was something she never felt like she could discuss due to society. Hills writes, “shame about one’s sex life is an experience as old as Western civilization. Whether it has been gays forced to bury their sexual desires for fear of being shunned or killed, or pregnant teenagers sent off to “maternity homes” to have their babies away from prying neighbors, sex has long been treated as a measure of our propriety, carefully monitored for even the slightest hint of nonconformity”. Isn’t this a sad truth in our society, that sex is something not to be discussed and when it is we are judged for it? If sex is something we all do, how can we respond to a society that shames us? 

I think instead of ‘responding’ our society needs to work on being proactive in teaching our next generation to not be so ashamed of sex. Yes, I had ‘sex’ class in third grade. The discussions mostly just revolved around knowing our own bodies. We learned about periods and erections. Thats it. I also remember watching a live birth video. Looking back now, how the hell  can anyone tell me that a live birth is less weird for a third grader to watch than a sex scene? We need to start teaching all aspects of sex in school, in hopes that the next generations to come will be more accepting because they finally understand. We won’t shame things that we know...hopefully. 

America, according to Warner, presents this ‘paradox’ that “of all nations, it is the most obsessed with sex...it is the land of sexual shame”. The issue here, as I stated above, is that sex is EVERYWHERE in our culture, but we have never fully learned how to live with that. How can we be so exceedingly repressed as children and then be expected to be used to all the sex being forced on us later in life? Of course we respond with shame, it’s a natural human reaction, as messed up as it is. 

Sexual shame should not exist, and although it is more prevalent in some aspects of life, I wish it could cease to exist completely. Why do we feel the need to control other peoples lives and what they do? You can’t commit your own kinky acts and then turn around and judge others for it. Walk the walk if you talk the talk.