Who Taught You About Your Body? Our Parents, Our Pasts, And The Shame And Avoidance Surrounding Sexuality Education
In Feminism is for Everybody, author and activist bell hooks explains that before the feminist movement, women largely could not define a healthy sexual identity for themselves, as rampant sexism asserted that sexual desire and pleasure was only for men and that only a woman with “little to no virtue” could claim sexual desire. This “Madonna vs whore” binary as hooks points out, left no room for women to explore their sexuality.
Because of this, to speak of the body or of sexual inclination was almost taboo. If a mother was obligated to inform her daughter of the changes her young body was going through, it was more than likely hurried, vague, and described in such a way that a young girl might feel that growing into womanhood was an incredible inconvenience, if not a downright curse. Left to fend for herself, this young girl learns about her body and sexuality through the men she encounters. She learns quickly that she attracts the attention of men (more so, that she is to blame for the attention cast upon her). This attention and physical interaction, both wanted and unwanted, teach her the parts of herself which are desired and how men use those parts for their pleasure. When does this young lady learn sexual agency over her own body? Without this knowledge, she may resign to being at the mercy of men, acquiescing to their whims and potentially becoming the victim of violence should she resist. She may never realize the ways in which she can explore sexuality for herself, even if she realizes that she is wholly unfulfilled by her relationships with men.
If this young lady has a father and brother, then the conversation is quite different. The father may tell his son exactly what to do and how to do it. In fact, he might even empower his son’s sexuality as a symbol of manhood, encouraging the boy to explore his sexuality as often as he sees fit, whether on his own or with women, effectively implying that women are for his consumption, created for his pleasure and that the use of force is acceptable to “keep a woman in line” or “show her what she really wants.”
We like to hope that things are better now, but reflect on who taught you about your body or your first introduction to your sexuality. Did they teach you freedom or inhibition? Did they empower your bodily autonomy or did they demand your chastity? What did they teach you about pleasure?
Unless you were born to a sexually liberated mother, chances are that your sexuality was one of the first taboos you ever knew. Someone probably moved your hand if you reached between your legs between diaper changes. As a young girl, someone probably taught you to “cover up” in front of male family members and friends before you even really knew the difference between male and female bodies. As you got older, you probably realized that the way you felt was not valued, and you were taught only to think and do as you were told. If anyone talked to you about your changing body, your menstrual cycle, or sex, they probably did not go into much detail, if any, about what womanhood is and what it means to be a sexual person. Instead, if anyone spoke to you at all, it was probably along the lines of warning you against getting pregnant. And unless you were brave, you probably never thought to try to get a good look at the parts between your legs, let alone spend too much time exploring “down there.”
If your family was religious, then there was an entirely new layer to this repression of sexuality. Patriarchal religious dogma teaches women to remain covered, virginal, and pure. The woman’s body is but a vessel through which she serves God, sacrificing sinful worldly pleasure with the promise of paradise in the afterlife. Women are to remain humble and are most often unclean or somehow defiled but “by His grace” some man agrees to marry her so that she can fulfill her sole duty of bearing children.
Think about the roles that boys and girls are still taught to play as they develop and come into adulthood. A large majority of women still see themselves and their sexuality through the lens of its relation to or attraction from a man, remaining at his will for a sense of fulfillment or satisfaction. Young men are still taught (whether by their fathers or by society) that women are objects for their enjoyment. And in all of this, where do women or men find space to explore same-sex attractions or other sexual inclinations that they may realize at differing stages of development? Things may not be as different as we hope.
Now, women have the advantage of a few more freedoms than our foremothers, but feelings of powerlessness and threats of violence are pervasive even today, decades after the feminist movement began. Campaigns like the most recent reignited #MeToo movement (created by Tarana Burke nearly a decade ago) were created to show just how prevalent sexual harassment and assault against women still is. These traumas can and often do cause shame and repression in women. But there is a method of resilience and resistance through which we all can learn: informed, detailed, reflective, and personal sexuality education. This sexuality education can look differently for different people based on needs, identities, and desires. Ultimately, this education could be for the purposes of understanding and empowerment. A woman who has been taught about herself and her power and agency will have a voice that allows her to speak up and speak out should she find herself in less than ideal situations and have the courage to name and accuse men who have violated her. A sexually educated woman understands who she is outside of a man, and understands that the implications of embracing of her power go far beyond the bedroom.
In Sister Outsider, author and essayist Audre Lorde refers to the personal and political power which she calls “the erotic”. This power is one of satisfaction, fulfillment, and pleasure stemming from oneself instead of another person. She expresses how imperative it is that women reclaim this power and in doing so reclaim themselves. Our best chance for raising the next generation of women who are fully free in and of themselves is to teach them their power, unencumber their erotic, and allow them the sexual agency to explore define themselves, encouraging their confidence and empowering their choices, so that they might carry on the beauty, resilience, and power of the feminine.
