getting mixed messages.

Posted byjennifer-jenny-jenPosted inUncategorized

When I was growing up, I got a lot of mixed messages about what it meant to be a girl. I was told that girls can do everything boys can do, that make-up didn’t make the girl, that girls could dress however they wanted to, that we could have a career and a family at the same time, that we were in control of our own bodies.

But I was also told that boys didn’t like to lose to girls, that I should try wearing make-up sometimes, that the way I dressed wasn’t feminine enough, that if I spent too long establishing my career I would miss out on the chance to have a family, and that while yes, we did have control of our own bodies, what we did with them was still subject to judgment. And should someone else steal control of our bodies, it was our fault for letting them.

My mother, wise to the ways of the world, claimed to live without caring what other people thought of her. Nevertheless, she lived by a set of rules that were designed to minimize any opportunity for others to judge her. Therefore, when I came of age and it was time for The Talk, instead of teaching me how to embrace and manage my attractions to other people, she warned me that no self-respecting woman would have sex in high school, and preferably college, because men were pigs who wouldn’t respect them after sex and would brag to all their friends about their conquests.

Even though I saw through my mother’s attempts to scare me into abstinence, her method was frustratingly effective. That, and I was feminist enough by age 13 to believe most of the boys I went to school with would live up to my mother’s expectations. Because I had surrounded myself by friends who mostly felt the same way, too, during those long school days when the minute hand crawled its way around the clock, we created our own set of rules to help us navigate the murky underworld of our burgeoning sexuality.

  1. Don’t have sex until you have your driver’s license. You definitely don’t want to get caught having sex in your own house, and if you’re having sex at someone else’s, you want to be able to leave when you’re done (or if you decide you don’t want to). 
  2. If you don’t want to have sex, don’t let a boy talk you into giving a consolation blow job. You should never have to do more down there than the boys, and if you are, you’re doing it wrong.
  3. Speaking of abstinence: anal sex is still sex. Don’t kid yourself. If you’re abstaining because you’re afraid of getting pregnant, don’t be fooled: he’s probably going to stick it in the wrong hole at some point, and you could still get pregnant.
  4. When you do decide you’re ready for sex, go to Planned Parenthood and get The Pill. You should be able to get it without your parents’ permission if you’re 16 or older (see rule #1), but if you live in a state where you must be 18, either wait until you’re 18 to have sex or see rule #5.
  5. If you need your parents’ permission to get birth control, get your pediatrician to prescribe it for menorrhagia. If you can’t pronounce it, or don’t trust your pediatrician to keep a secret, then tell your mom you’re tired of bleeding through your jeans in math class, and you read in a book that The Pill can make your periods lighter and control your PMS, which is why you’ve been such a bitch to her for the last two years. Duh!
  6. While we’re (not) on the topic of anal sex: don’t have anal sex with a man under 30. He’s going to do it wrong, but you can bet your ass (yes I know) he’ll still brag to all his friends about it.
  7. Speaking of older men: don’t date a man more than four years older than you, and don’t even think about dating a boy younger than you. While it may be “cool” for senior boys to date sophomore girls, senior girls who date anyone still in high school are lame. 
  8. If dating isn’t your thing and you’d rather be a free agent, don’t have sex with more than one boy in the same menstrual cycle. This has the obvious effect of making sure you aren’t having sex with so many boys that they’ll start comparing notes on you, as well as the practical application of making it easier to figure out who the father is, should things go horribly, terribly wrong. 
  9. If things do go horribly, terribly wrong, there’s no shame in having an abortion. ONE abortion. One abortion is totally acceptable when Plan A fails, but abortion is not an acceptable form of birth control ((see rules #4 and #5). 
  10. When you do go to Planned Parenthood to fix the mistake, bring your best friend instead of your boyfriend. Make sure you buy all of the Ben and Jerry’s on the way home, and plan on binge-watching rom-coms for the rest of the day. 
  11. If, after bingeing on Ben & Jerry’s and romcoms, you decide it might be fun to kiss your best friend, do it. If she’s not into it, she’s not going to tell anybody about it. And if she is into it, then maybe you won’t even need rules 1-10.

Although my friends and I were too shy to have sex in high school (most of us, anyway), and too scared to admit that we wanted to kiss each other more than the boys we flirted with, had I actually written rule #11 when I was 16, I might have saved myself (and my ex-husband, for that matter) a lot of heartache. Once I fully accepted myself as a sexual person (after high school graduation, of course), I eventually broke each of the remaining applicable rules. With every rule I consciously ignored without consequence, I understood a little bit clearer that the definition of slut I was given hadn’t been written by women. Women were allowed to not only own their sexuality, but enjoy it. And enjoy it I have–even if that makes me sound like a slut.

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