Fascination, Disgust: Reactions to Women Who Like Sex
Why I’m no longer telling people my number of sexual partners.
Writing about Sex has its awkward moments. When people read over your shoulder while you are typing away in a coffee shop, for instance. Or the worry that your parents will stumble across your articles. Or when your boyfriend’s family asks what you’ve been writing about recently, and the only thing your brain will say is “Do not say boobgasm, do not say boobgasm.”
But generally, when someone asks me about my work, I’m not embarrassed to talk about it. Sex is important. For many of us, it is an essential factor for our well-being. And it is intermingled with crucial social issues.
Still, I am often met with a ton of judgement about my writing. Not because I’m writing about sex, but because the fact that I write about sex is proof that I must really love sex. Which I do, I see great potential in sex as an anti-consumerist activity that can bring people together or simply help improve mental health whether alone or in company.
I love sex, but I don’t love people’s reactions to that fact.
It’s often a mixture of fascination and disgust. People want to know your number, whether you have had a threesome, the old chestnuts. They ask questions about your sex life, they are curious, a sexually liberated woman intrigues them. Since I have no reason to lie, I answer honestly. To be met with open judgement and disgust.
Take my number of sexual encounters. Why do people ask if they don’t want to know? That is a mystery, but anyhow. On revealing my number, I have had guys saying “Wow. Does that not make you feel like a slut?” Or another who told me I must be a “nest of STDs,” to which I can only answer, Bro, There are these little things called CONDOMS and please use them, I am not enthusiastic about the idea of you procreating.
Mixed with the disgust and fascination, you often also get a good old dose of pity — since a woman who enjoys sex must have terribly low self-esteem or some tragic past.
Plus, in their infinite subtlety, people often assume that if you like banging, you will enjoy it with anyone. That if you talk about it openly, you are fair game for their advances.
I was discussing my article on Boobgasms with a guy I met when travelling. The next day he came and told me he had dreamed of giving me a boob massage, and offering to make the dream a reality.
A worse time was when I was on a nightbus in a country where I didn’t speak the language. The conductor was young and handsome and smiley, and, although we had no way of communicating verbally, we managed to have a few laughs at the beginning of the 12-hour journey, and we both knew that we were attracted to each other. At some point, he led me into a secret part of the bus, in the underbelly, where the driver and conductor have a cute little room for napping. We were fooling around inside, when the conductor had to go and do some work. I stayed inside to sleep. After a few minutes, his colleague arrived, and asked me, in broken English, for his turn. He got pretty pissed at the fact that I had some say in who I wanted to f*ck.
I’m not going to tell anyone my number anymore, nor be so open about my sex life. It’s not because I’m ashamed of it, but I don’t owe anyone that information, and a lot of people just don’t deserve it.
