So, maybe this doesn't seem relevant to this blog, but hear me out. This is about bodies and people and body image and messages. This is inspired by this article that spoke to me, that exactly mirrored my experience growing up.
First, a little background. My mother is Korean and I grew up in Korean protestant churches. We weren't too picky on the denominations because what really mattered to my mother is that the church was Korean. You see, my father was in the USAF and was stationed in South Korea, where he met, presumably fell in love with, and married my mother. Shortly thereafter, I was conceived and sitting cozy in South Korea until the ripe age of two months when my father was stationed back in the States. Despite being in the USA for more than twenty-six years, my mother still says she feels more comfortable with the Korean language and understands concepts better in Korean so, Korean churches was where it was at for us.
Growing up, I felt deeply disturbed by how adults treated little girls being friends with little boys in a way I couldn't quite verbalize. It was quiet, sinister, and never really called out by anyone. If I really think about it, I don't think little boys and little girls were ever really encouraged to be friends. We couldn't play together behind locked doors or away from the watchful eye of a responsible adult. I really didn't understand why it was this way as a little kid, but it's not a little kid's place to question why. You follow the rules. Because I said so. That's why. Because I'm the adult. That's why.
Now I get it. Now I can verbalize it and call it out for what it is. The adults in our lives were terrified that we would engage in sexual activity with one another as children. Gasp! The mere thought!
Okay, first of all: you're assuming that sexual activity at any age is deviant and/or abnormal (it's not - it's generally developmentally appropriate). Second of all, you're assuming that this would only occur in opposite-sex interactions (also no - also developmentally appropriate). Thirdly, you're running the risk of giving kids complexes around sex.
That's what happened to me. I was terrified about sex until I was twenty-one years old and even then I had to do a lot of work to re-wire my thinking. Heck, I am still working on that. I did a speech about this in graduate school. So, let's get to the meat of this entry.
1. Sex is completely normal, natural, and actually fun!
Man, would I have never known that based on the messages I received about it. It seemed like the adults in my life wanted me to believe that sex was abnormal, deviant, and horrible. It hurts! It's just bad for you in general! And, my personal favorite, you'll go to hell! What outright lies!
2. There can be a deep, emotional component to sex.
Really? Because all I was told was the very cold, clinical, even mechanical views on sex. On television and in movies people seem to have sex all of the time with no attachments and little in the way of consequences. To cry during or after sex is just weird, awkward, and unnatural. To feel anything makes you "such a girl" and that's a bad thing, obviously.
3. Same-sex attraction is normal and happens along a spectrum.
What, you mean like most things in life happen on a spectrum and not in these arbitrary binary schemas? Go on!
4. Sex can be seriously dangerous for real, medical reasons.
Everybody seemed to make me want to be afraid of sex for reasons that - well, now I realize - weren't real. In my current vocation, I am constantly exposed to STI/HIV/Hep C education and I realized that despite the boring presentations in Health class growing up, no one ever actually let me know how dangerous sex can be. Similar to how sex and emotion were separated to me in Sex Ed, so was sexual activity and health, and the education around it was so overblown it was like they were trying to make it so that we ignored the real dangers! If I told you the prevalence rates of some of these things, it'd make your head spin. If I told you that the majority of those infected have no symptoms whatsoever, you'd call me a liar, but it's true!
5. You can and should have open communication about sex with potential and certainly current partners.
What? Nobody does that! I mean, certainly not in mixed company and definitely not on television or in movies. That's just weird! Why would you have discussions about what you like or what your expectations are or your needs or whether or not you've been tested for infections? Come on, that's just crazy talk!
So yeah. I'm going to raise children eventually, and you better damn well believe I'm going to let them know about all of the above and then some (in developmentally appropriate ways, of course). No one should have to live in fear of something so natural and so beautiful the way that I did.
TL;DR - I was told or sent messages that made me scared of sex and didn't at all prepare me for the realities about being a sexually active person. That sucks.
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