Sex

I’ve been noticing a lot of articles, podcasts, tweets, and other coverage lately about slut shaming and rape culture. Maybe it’s that I have decidedly feminist sexual politics and my friends and news feeds tend to reflect and amplify those topics, or maybe (I can hope) it’s because our society is starting to realize that feminism and (more basically) respecting women is an issue that men have a serious stake in. When I hear on the news that people are sympathising with rapists who’s “futures have been ruined”, I assume that the part of the population that thinks that way must be incredibly small, uneducated and dim witted. When I read the dozens of brave letters from women (some in their middle years, some in high school) who have been sexually bullied, slut shamed, and raped I would love to believe that they represented 100% of the population that has been saddled with such a burden. ...

Mom, you might want to give this one a skip… Erica Jong does not speak for us. She doesn’t speak for many of the families I know, and those parents that she does speak of may want to distance themselves from her vitriolic rhetoric. That said, this post is not a critique (per se) of her “Is Sex Passé” article. What I hope it will be is a wake-up call to our generation. Erica Jong was reflecting a secretly but widely held belief that many of my peers either struggle against, or become oppressed by; that sex after marriage, and more specifically sex after kids, is bound to be less steamy, less intense, less fulfilling, and less adventurous. I, fortunately, am the antithesis of what Erica is depicting in her article. For me sex after children has been more… of everything good. But even I am dogged by the persistant awareness that that is not normal; that we are lucky. In the last week—and thanks to Erica’s article—I have been seeing that amazing, passionate, wild, earth-shattering, post-child sex is not only normal but apparently common. Many of my peers have come out publicly against Erica’s sentiments, sharing intimate glances into their own experiences. What this has shown me is that while I may well be fortunate to be in a monogamous, post-child, firey-hot relationship, I am not lucky. Luck, as with most things, doesn’t have anything to do with this. What makes my sex life awesome is what seems to be working for many of my friends and peers; deep knowledge of our partners; trust and openness (which are a breeding ground for experimentation); and love. Yup I said it, love. ...