Happy Slut

CW: Emotional Abuse

I think I’ve always had a somewhat fucked up view on sex. This most certainly stems from my mother, and my therapist and I have talked about her and how she affects me even into my adulthood many times over. What I am about to tell you might make some of you cringe and some of you laugh. Either response is acceptable in my eyes, because what happened is so bizarre.

I “lost” my (PIV) virginity when I was seventeen. I didn’t really lose it though, and obviously that term is so degrading and obsolete, its difficult for me to even write it, hence the quotations. I was ready for this step in my life. I had a boyfriend who I loved, we discussed it and prepared for it, and when it was time, I hopped on top of him and put it in. It was perfect.

When my mother found out, she freaked out. Of course, I can empathize with her a little bit. It’s a big step for a teenager to take, both physically and emotionally. It’s a risk, but it was my choice and I made it with absolute care. She found out because she found a receipt for condoms in my purse. Empathy aside, adult me thinks she should have reacted differently.

She should have had a conversation with me. Instead, she invited my boyfriend and his mother over to our house so we could all sit down together and discuss it. Me, him, his mom, my mom and my dad sat down in my living room and talked about the sex I had with my boyfriend. I cannot describe the level of embarrassment and shame this caused me. I literally can’t because I don’t remember it. I blocked the whole situation out of my memory forever because it was that traumatizing. She also made an appointment for me to go talk to a priest. We didn’t go to church often when I was growing up, so this wasn’t someone I knew well or had any sort of connection with. This was a strange man, and I had to go speak to him about a very private moment. Again, I have completely erased this interaction from my memory for the sake of my own emotional survival. She also scheduled an appointment with a therapist, another stranger who I did not know at all. I do remember some parts of the therapy appointment. I remember feeling cornered, unheard, misunderstood. I remember feeling ashamed of what I’d chosen to do. She basically took my mother’s side and regurgitated her words back at me. I was too young. I wasn’t mature enough to make these kinds of decisions. It was too risky for someone like me. I wasn’t ready. I needed to make better choices. It was a terrible experience, one that had me avoiding any type of therapy for the next twenty years.

These experiences formed an idea in my still developing brain that sex was negative. It was only something to be shared between two “adults”, two people who “really love each other”. It messed me up for years! I became a serial monogamist, hopping from one long-term relationship to the other, even if those relationships were toxic or abusive. And, by the time I met my ex husband, I could only count on one hand the number of penises that had been in my vagina.

Not only did this experience affect the way I felt about sex with men, but it also affected the way I felt about sex with anyone, including women. If the idea of having a penis inside of me was presented to me as being so wrong, my brain couldn’t even wrap itself around the idea that sex with a woman might be something that was not only completely acceptable but could also be something I would actually want and enjoy. It has taken years to unravel the web of crap wrapped around me. And, even now, in the first months as a single person in many years, I am having to break these toxic barriers built up in my mind.

Last week, I got a text from my ex husband. He called me a piece of shit in several different ways. He called me a thing, a piece of meat. He said that the people I was sleeping with didn’t care about me. I was nothing to them. I know that none of this is true. His words come from a place of anger and jealousy. So, why did they fester in my mind for a whole day? Why did I question myself and the motives and feelings of my partners? It’s ingrained in me to feel that sex is dirty and I have to continue to fight these ideals. His words mimicked the words of my mother.

This summer has been enlightening for me sexually. I’ve chosen to do what I want, when I want, and with whom I want. I have finally begun to erase the negativity around sex taught to me by my mother. I have ignored the slut shaming from my ex husband. I am 38 years old, and I can sleep with whoever I damn please. The “numbers” don’t matter and they never did and they never will. In fact, I’ve changed my numbers to reject the patriarchal idea that sex only occurs when a penis penetrates a vagina. Neither of us have a penis but when I have sex with V, it counts just as much as the sex I had with any man who put his penis inside me.

This post has been working its way through my head for quite some time as I’ve wrestled with the shame of sex and the desire to seek pleasure. This summer has been a lesson in reprogramming my line of thinking so that sex can be simply something I enjoy and not a black mark upon my soul and womanhood. The whole idea that men can sleep around and not feel the same kind of shame as women is atrocious. The purpose of my own personal journey is to erase my own stigma and I’ll keep writing about it in the hopes that it might help to reprogram society as well. Hope is a strong word, but this happy slut has plenty of it!