YOU CAN’T GET WHAT YOU WANT TILL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

BY THE TIME ANY OF US IS OLD ENOUGH TO THINK ABOUT sex and sexuality, we’ve been bombarded with so many years of confusing experiences and messages from our families, friends, culture, and media that it seems impossible to even remember that there was a time when we just knew what we wanted to do with our bodies.

Most of us can probably remember an experience when we, as kids, did something that made our bodies happy—like climbing a tree, or dressing in your mom’s best silk dress because it felt good against your skin—but then learned that doing these things made other people unhappy. Or maybe you were told that doing some things that made your body happy would get you in trouble, or put you in danger—like scrambling onto the counter to reach the package of cookies your father hid on the top shelf, and then eating all of them. Maybe you learned that doing things with your body that you’d rather not do, like having to kiss your gross uncle goodbye, would make other people really happy—people you cared about, people whom you wanted to please. Or that not doing those things would make those people not like you anymore. This happens all the time in childhood. You’re told to put your clothes back on. Go to bed when adults say so, no matter if you want to run around and play. Wear a dress, even if you want to wear pants. Don’t climb that tree, you’ll hurt yourself.

But instinctively knowing what feels good and what doesn’t—and being able to tell other people about it—is exactly what we need to do to feel safe in our bodies and to enjoy our sexuality. So how on earth do we get there from here?

Well, I’ll tell you. We can’t. You read that right. The truth is, it doesn’t just feel impossible to entirely shed the influence of the people and cultures that raised us. It is impossible. Even if you do everything exactly the opposite of how you were raised, you’re still acting the way you are in response to those influences. None of us can ever entirely unlearn the lessons we learned growing up.

What we can do is understand those lessons. We can take a long, hard look at what messages we’ve absorbed about our bodies, our safety, and our sexuality; where those messages came from; and what we think about them. And, just like boosting the bass and reducing the treble on a stereo, we can decide which messages we want to amplify in our lives, and which we want to minimize. The specific balance that works for you is nobody else’s business—it’s the process of finding that balance that matters.

Knowing what you want from sexuality is part of knowing what you want from life. Your personal desires flow from just one emotional spigot. If you’re cut off from your sexual desires, you’re likely to find it much harder to know what you want in other areas of your life, whether we’re talking about academics, career pursuits, or friendships.

Tuning in to what you really really want can be incredibly freeing. Not only does knowing what you want from sex significantly increase the likelihood that you’ll actually get it, it’s also like a love letter to yourself. Taking the time to get in touch with your own desires sends a strong message to yourself: You matter. Your opinions, instincts, beliefs, and feelings are important. You are the foremost expert about your own life and body. Paying attention to your own desires and limits teaches you to trust yourself, to be strong on your own behalf. It’s a practice that can inspire you to go after what you want in all areas of your life.

In other words? Knowing what you really really want can be a heck of a lot of fun.

CLEARING A PATH

Knowing what you want and what you don’t and how to act on that sounds great, doesn’t it? I’ll be honest—it absolutely can be. But, regardless of where you’re starting from, examining your relationship with your own sexuality can be quite the journey. So, just as you would for any important trip, you’ve got to prepare.

Let’s start with a checklist of things to do as you begin working with this book. Some of them are quick and easy, and some of them are things you’ll need to keep doing the whole time you’re on this journey (and may choose to keep doing even longer than that). It might be tempting to skip some, either because they seem pointless or because they seem too hard. But take it from me: The ones you want to skip are the most important ones for you to do.

Write Every Day

Starting today, and at least until you finish this book, find ten uninterrupted minutes to write every day. Doesn’t matter if you like to write. Doesn’t matter what you write. Doesn’t matter what time of day you write. Doesn’t matter if you write with pen and paper, use a keyboard, or use voice recognition software. All that matters is that you find someplace—a closet, if necessary!—where no one will disturb you for ten minutes, and that you keep writing the whole time. Write gibberish. Write, “I hate this stupid writing.” Write things you’ve always wanted to say, or things you don’t even believe. Burn or delete your writing right after you finish it if you want. Just write. And when I say “write,” I don’t mean “stare at the page for ten minutes and then write three sentences and call it a day.” I mean write for the whole ten minutes. Your pen, your fingers on the keyboard, or your lips should not stop moving for the entire ten minutes.

But there’s one stipulation! If you write a blog, or poetry, or fiction, or journalism, or anything else that is written with the expectation that someone else will read it, that doesn’t count. Your ten-minute writing exercise must be independent of this.

What’s with all the writing? It’s simple: The process of finding your own answers to the questions this book will raise is probably going to stir up powerful feelings and thoughts for you. Imagine those feelings and thoughts are like steam, and daily writing is your release valve. It’s a private place where you can say or think anything without any ramifications. Even if you’re not writing about your feelings directly, it means that every day, you’re taking time to listen to yourself and hear your own thoughts.

I like to do this kind of writing freehand, with a pen and paper: The physical act makes it feel immediate, and differentiates it from all the other writing that requires a keyboard. But if you prefer to use a computer, go right ahead. In fact, there are a few programs that can help you keep the words flowing. I recommend Write or Die, which forces you to keep putting words on the page for the entire ten minutes or risk virtual punishment. If you prefer a gentler approach, try Ommwriter, which helps you create a tranquil digital environment.

Not convinced? Trust me. Just do it anyway.

Note: We won’t be revisiting your daily writing, but you will be doing writing exercises throughout this workbook, and you will occasionally need to refer back to the writing you do for specific exercises, so I recommend that you keep one notebook or computer folder with all your writing in it. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to tell you to “get out your notebook” by way of saying you should get in front of whatever writing system you like best.

Love Your Body

Starting now and at least until you’re finished with this book, spend thirty minutes a week doing something that makes your body feel good. It doesn’t have to be sexual, though it can be. However, it must be something you don’t feel confused about. If it makes you feel good but ashamed, good but afraid, “good but . . . ” anything, do something else. Maybe you’ll take a bath. Maybe you’ll dance or exercise. Maybe you’ll slowly and deliberately eat a delicious meal. Maybe you’ll get a massage. Maybe you’ll masturbate. It can be a different thing each week, but it’s best if it doesn’t involve another person. You want to stay focused on the good feelings you’re giving yourself, and not get distracted by whatever’s going on with someone else. Whatever you choose to do, be sure it: (a) puts the focus on your body, and (b) makes you feel nothing but good.

Finding something to do with your body that feels good may be harder than it sounds (or maybe it doesn’t sound that easy to you to begin with). As we grow up, most girls and women find it hard to avoid internalizing messages about whether or not we deserve pleasure, especially pleasure in our bodies. It’s okay if this is hard—you’re not alone. But you still need to do it. Start small.

Dive In: Get out your notebook, and write down ten things that you could do to make your body feel good. Do you like the feeling of stretching? Putting moisturizer on your skin? Taking a walk? Write them down. Don’t worry if you can’t think of how to make a particular activity last thirty minutes—you don’t have to do the whole time all at once. Maybe instead you can spend five minutes every day luxuriously grooming your hair. You can also combine activities to make thirty minutes. The important thing is just to do it.

To get you started, here are some activities other women have tried:

• touching things that have nice textures

• playing with a pet

• walking barefoot

• painting your nails

• dancing around naked

• taking a walk in nature

• oiling your scalp

• eating something delicious

• getting extra sleep

There are a lot of good reasons to spend time giving your body pleasure on a regular basis, but there are even better reasons to make sure you do it while you’re working on this book. For one, figuring out what makes you feel good is a big part of figuring out what you really really want! If you practice figuring that out in small ways every week, by the time we get to later chapters where we cover messy questions about sexual interactions with partners, you’ll already have more of the skills and self-knowledge you’ll need to figure out what’s best for you.

It’s also super likely that you’ve absorbed some less-than-helpful ideas about experiencing physical pleasure, and those ideas will probably get stirred up as you work your way through the book. That’s natural, and this practice of loving your body can help make sure it’s temporary. Practicing giving yourself pleasure will help neutralize those ideas, and maybe even replace them with some positive ideas of your own.

But the best reason of all? Because it will feel good. You never need a fancy reason to feel good.

DISCOVER WHERE YOU’RE STARTING FROM

Ready for another quiz? I thought so. This one’s designed to help you get a handle on where you’re at on the journey to knowing and getting what you really really want. Like the first one, we’re not going to score it. Instead, you’ll take it again when you’re done with this book, to help you see the ways in which you’ve developed.

So get out a pen, and get answering: There’s no way to do it wrong.

1. I know how to stay safe while expressing my sexuality.

2. I’m afraid of what others would think/say/do if they knew how I felt about sex.

3. I can tell when sexual activity is making me uncomfortable.

4. I can tell when sexual activity is giving me pleasure.

5. I feel comfortable telling a potential sexual partner that something they’re doing is making me uncomfortable.

6. I feel comfortable telling a potential sexual partner what to do in order to give me pleasure.

7. My beliefs and attitudes about sex make sense to me.

8. I often do sexual things or have sexual feelings that make me feel confused or bad.

9. My sexual partner(s), if I have them, share my beliefs and attitudes about sex.

10. My friends share my beliefs and attitudes about sex.

11. My family shares my beliefs and attitudes about sex.

12. I have people in my life I feel comfortable talking to about sex.

Make a Commitment

The last and possibly most important thing on your checklist has to do with getting clear about why you’re engaging with this book at all. That may seem like a big “duh” to you. You may have picked up this book for a very explicit reason, like: “I want to be able to talk to my partner about how to make sex better for me.” Or it may seem like a tall order. Maybe you’re still not sure why you’re doing this at all. Maybe it’s just a gut feeling you’re following. Maybe you’ve picked up this book because a friend wants you to work on it with her.

The thing is, some of what we’re going to cover in this book is going to feel difficult. I can’t tell you which parts of the book you’ll have reactions to—it’s going to be different for everyone. But odds are, at least one or two sections are going to be hard enough that you feel like giving up. You may think, This is hard and stupid and pointless. Why am I even bothering?

That’s why it’s so important to take some time right now, before you begin, to think about what you want to get out of this book. Perhaps the “Discover Where You’re Starting From” quiz can guide you—wish any of your responses could change? There’s no right answer to the question of what you want from this process—only your answer (or answers!). The crucial thing is to get as clear as you can about it now and then write it down, so that when you get lost or confused or frustrated or pissed off or whatever, you can go back and read what you wrote now and help yourself stay on track to getting what you need.

Dive In: Send yourself a message. Using your notebook or recording to audio or video, send your future self a message about why you’re committing to this process, what you want to get out of it, and what you want your future self to remember when things start to feel hard. Say whatever you want, but also be sure to include the following sentences: “I, [your name], am making a promise to myself: I won’t quit this process. I’m starting it for a reason, and I’ll see it through to the end. Because I matter to myself. My desires matter, my pleasure matters, and my safety matters. What I really really want matters. This process is a gift to myself, and I promise to accept it.”

Feel silly writing or saying some of these things? Not sure if you mean them? That’s okay. Do it anyway.

INFLUENCES

All right. Now that you’ve committed yourself to discovering what you really really want, it’s time to start the process of figuring out just that. But before we start finding a good path forward for you, we have to spend some time figuring out where you’ve come from and where you are now. Let’s start by taking a look at the forces that have influenced your beliefs about sex so far. As we do this, remember the stereo equalizer: The goal here isn’t to remove these influences—that wouldn’t be possible even if you wanted to. The goal is to figure out which of these influences you want to turn up the volume on, and which ones you want to minimize.

(A note on influences: Not all of us have been strongly influenced by all of the following common influences. Some of us weren’t raised with a religion; others of us were homeschooled. If you feel a particular influence hasn’t applied to you at all, feel free to skip it.)

Family

It’s hard to talk about families in a general way, because every family is different. That’s not just some Sesame Street lesson—it’s hard to think of another social structure that’s so important and yet so hard to define. “Families” are made up of a wide variety of different kinds and combinations of people. Different “families” have vastly different values from each other, and very different ideas about what a “family” is, and what it’s for. Some people’s families are incredibly loving, open, supportive, creative communities. Some people’s families are abusive, poisonous nightmares. Some people don’t grow up with a family at all. Most of us have flawed but well-meaning families—there may be some messed-up dynamics present, but everybody’s doing their best with what they’ve got, and hopefully the good stuff outweighs the bad.

One of the few things most families have in common is that the people in your family are the first folks to teach you what you should and shouldn’t do with your body. It starts the moment you’re born, and for most families doesn’t stop, well, ever. Maybe they tell you to eat your broccoli because it will give you energy. Maybe they stop you from putting your finger in an electrical outlet, because they know that, sometimes, keeping you safe is more important than indulging your curiosity. Families are almost always where you find the primary adults who shape your life as you grow up and try to figure out the world. They’ve had bodies a lot longer than you have, and they have a lot of ideas about what to do with them. In short: They think they know better than you. And a lot of times, like when it comes to broccoli and electrical sockets, they’re right.

But when it comes to what you should do with your body sexually, families can get complicated. Your family may have very strong beliefs about sex—beliefs that they may expect you to abide by, whether or not you really agree with them. Heck, they may not even agree with each other, or with their own relatives, about what’s right and wrong when it comes to sex. Even more likely, your family may say little or nothing to you directly about sexuality, but instead convey their beliefs through the way they treat you and your body: stuff like offhand comments about your clothes, rules about what parts of your body are okay for you or other people to touch, assumptions about who you might be attracted to, or how you might behave around people you’re attracted to—you get the idea.

Take twenty-four-year-old Gray, for example, who says she grew up in a very religious family: “I was taught that my body was something to hide from men—including male members of my family. And I was always so confused about why I couldn’t sleep in the basement with my cousin when we were twelve, and why I had to be hyperconscious of it when I was walking around the house.”

Jill, twenty-seven, had a much different experience.

My parents raised me to feel full ownership over my body, including my sexuality, by encouraging me to use my body in productive, pleasure-centered ways that weren’t necessarily sexual. I grew up playing sports, sharing healthy and delicious family meals, being sent to arts camp, and going biking and camping and skiing with my family on the weekends and for vacations. My parents also talked to me about the birds and the bees and left a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves around, and my mom was clear that if I ever needed birth control I could ask the doctor and it would be totally confidential—and all of those things were great—but the best thing my parents did to help me develop a healthy view of sex was to encourage me to own my body and to use it in ways that felt good.

And what your family teaches you directly is only part of the equation. We learn so much from watching how the people around us behave, and our families are often the people around us the most as we’re growing up. If you watch members of your family be abusive or shaming or hurtful to each other, you’re going to absorb different lessons than if you watch your family be loving and supportive and respectful about sexuality.

The thing is, whatever your family’s attitudes about sexuality, they didn’t get those values from nowhere. They’ve been influenced by the same forces that influence all of us: the media, their own family and friends, their religious beliefs, what they were taught in school, etc. And they may never have examined their beliefs about sex as thoroughly as someone like you, who’s picked up this here fine book.

All of which is to say: Just because your family believes certain things about sex or acts certain ways—even if they seem really sure about what they believe or how they act—doesn’t mean those beliefs are right for you. In order to figure out what you really really want, you’ve got to think about the lessons you’ve learned from your family and decide what you value and what you might want to let go of in order to move forward with what you want.

Dive In: Write a short paragraph beginning with each of the following phrases:

• When it comes to sex and sexuality, my family _____________

• My family’s attitudes about sexuality have been influenced by _____________

• Something my family taught me about sexuality that I agree with is _____________

• Something my family taught me about sexuality that I disagree with is _____________

• Something my family taught me about sexuality that I’m confused or unsure about is _____________

• When I disagree with my family about sexuality, they _____________

Media

Is there any more confusing source of information about sexuality than the media? Whether it’s the movies or TV, video games or the nightly news, music or gossip websites—to say nothing of porn—sexual images of women are everywhere in our mass media. But what do they tell us?

On the one hand, if you went by the mass media, you’d think that it was a legal requirement that all girls and women look sexy at all times, and a very particular kind of sexy at that: perfect hair, polished nails, shaved legs, trendy clothes, etc. Not to mention white, thin, able-bodied, young, and conventionally pretty. In medialand, if you fail to do and be all of these things, you’re either evil or pathetic or both. But look too sexy—wear too much makeup, clothes too short or too tight, etc.—or act like you actually want sex too much, and you’re a “slut,” which also makes you evil or pathetic or both.

That teeny window of “correct” female sexuality in the media is a big tip-off that something’s wrong. There are so many different kinds of women, and we experience our sexualities a million different ways—sometimes all on the same day. So if the media are showing only one (or even two or three!) of those ways, they’re clearly not trying to represent the experiences of real women. But what are they trying to do?

Mostly, they’re trying to sell stuff. TV shows want you to buy whatever their advertisers are selling, so the companies will keep advertising and the show can stay on the air. Movies are trying to sell tickets and DVDs. Video games are selling not just the game itself, but the next version of the game (which is always coming out soon!), the merch associated with it, etc. You get the picture. Whatever the medium, one of the most popular ways of trying to sell us stuff is by presenting impossibly narrow and idealized representations of women.

What’s that do? Well, it tells women that they can be happy, but only if they buy the infinite things required to make them look and act like the media’s Ideal Woman. And it tells (straight) men that they can be happy, but only if they buy the infinite things required to attract the media’s Ideal Woman.

To make matters worse, our mass media often treats violence against women casually (think Grand Theft Auto) or like a joke (as in the movie Observe and Report), and passive, normative women’s sexuality (think the Victoria’s Secret fashion show) like wholesome entertainment, while treating complex and authentic portrayals of sex as beyond the pale and dangerous to minors. Is it any wonder we live in such a violent and sexually repressed culture, or that we’re deeply and often permanently confused about the many ways we deviate from those artificial ideals?

Dive In: Think back to some adolescent media crushes—that song or album you listened to over and over, the magazine subscription you thought would change your life, the book you picked up again and again, the movie you imagined yourself starring in, the video game you played and played and played, the TV show you just couldn’t miss. What drew you to these particular experiences? What, if anything, did they say to you about sexuality? What lessons did you learn from them that you’ve since rejected, and what did you learn that you still adhere to today? If you could go back and tell your adolescent self something about your media choices, what would it be? Get out your journal, and write about it for five minutes.

Peers

Let’s face it: As much as we like to see ourselves as independent thinkers, it can matter a lot what people think of us. So your peers’ attitudes toward sex and sexuality are probably going to have a big impact on you, for better or for worse.

This influence can work a lot of different ways. Some of them have to do with comparing your sexual behavior to other people’s: Maybe everyone you know is having sex or doing some particular sex act and thinks you’re weird because you don’t want to, or aren’t ready, or haven’t found the right circumstances for you. Maybe the opposite is true—you’re sexually active in a way that no one around you seems to be, and you feel like you can’t say anything about it, or they’ll think you’re bad, amoral, or “easy.”

Twenty-four-year-old Zeinab shares how she struggled with this: “A few of my friends are very conservative, and when I started exploring more of my sexuality and sharing that with them, a lot of times I felt like I was getting veiled hostility, and I felt like I was getting shamed by them as well, because they weren’t doing what I was doing, and so it almost felt like they were acting superior to me.”

Sometimes peer attitudes about sexuality come out in ways that have nothing to do with what sexual activities you are or aren’t participating in. If you’ve been teased for being “slutty” or “trampy” or a “ho,” it’s probably not because the people doing the teasing (who, let’s face it, are just as likely to be other girls as they are to be boys) have information about what you’re doing sexually. More likely, it’s because you dress differently, or exhibit a kind of confidence in your body other girls don’t, or even simply because you’re unafraid to express your opinion about things that have nothing to do with sex. The exact same things can be said for girls who are accused of being “dykes” or “lesbians”—those “accusations” rarely have anything to do with actual sexual orientation, and everything to do with the insecurities and immaturities of the people using those words.

Fortunately, peers can also be an enormous support when it comes to navigating your sexuality. Good friends—ones who support your happiness and health, whatever form it takes—can be great sounding boards when you’re experimenting with new ideas or experiences. They can be your lead cheerleaders when you’re setting difficult boundaries with yourself or other people. They can laugh with you (not at you!) about how ridiculous all this sex stuff is sometimes. They can comfort you if you’re grappling with trauma or heartbreak. They can be incredible resources when you’re looking for ideas, information, advice, or reality checks. And they can defend you and reassure you when it seems like other people are judging you for your sexual choices.

Shira, age nineteen, learned this the best way. “While so many of my friends were telling me to read Cosmo articles as preparation for my first time having sex,” she remembers, “one friend talked to me instead about masturbation, finding my clitoris, and instructing my partner. She taught me to be my own first partner. For her, I am so grateful.”

That’s why it’s important to be choosy about your friends.

Dive In: Actually, this is more of a “don’t do this.” As you embark on this journey, be cautious about who you discuss it with. Even good friends of yours may be challenged by hearing about the questions you’re now asking yourself and the things you’re learning. This can happen even with friends who truly have your best interest at heart, because hearing about the issues you’re grappling with might remind them of how uncomfortable they themselves feel with their own sexuality, and how little they know what they really really want. It’s natural to want to talk about this process and the strong feelings it’s probably going to bring up, but the best thing to do is to share those feelings with a friend who’s taking the journey with you. If you don’t have a partner in this process, see if you can find someone to confide in whose relationship with her sexuality you admire. Above all, remember: If people are making you feel bad about engaging in this process, that’s telling you something about them, not anything about you. Don’t go back to those people for support on these issues.

School

What did you learn about sexuality in school? If you’re like most students in the United States, you probably learned that sex is both emotionally and physically dangerous if you have it before you’re married. If you’re “lucky,” you then learned how to prevent some of the greatest risks of sex, just in case you were going to insist on doing it anyhow. If you weren’t as lucky (if you were the beneficiary, for example, of U.S. federal initiatives in the last decade that poured more than a billion dollars into sex education programs that taught abstinence as the only choice), you likely learned that girls who have sex before marriage are like presucked candy, have given away the most precious thing they have to someone who doesn’t deserve it, or are just plain doomed to hell.

There’s a reason, of course, that schools teach this way—they’re made up of people who’ve grown up in our messed-up sexual culture, and they’re trying teach what they can while offending the fewest people possible. But the problem with both of these approaches is that they treat sex like a yes-or-no question—and one with only one correct answer at that. The reality is much more complicated. (You probably already know that on some level, or you wouldn’t be reading this book.) Sexuality encompasses a vast spectrum of feelings, thoughts, and desires, none of which are “wrong” or “right” so much as they just are. It’s what you do with them that matters. As long as what you do with your sexuality (a) doesn’t hurt anyone else and (b) doesn’t hurt you or expose you to unnecessary risk (we’ll be talking lots more about how to decide what risks are unnecessary in chapter 4), then there is literally nothing you can do that’s actually “wrong.”

I’ll say that again because it bears repeating: As long as you’re not hurting anyone (including yourself), then there is no wrong way to express or experience your sexuality.

The problem is, that’s a complex statement. What does it mean to hurt someone else, or yourself, with your sexuality? How can you tell if you’re hurting someone or yourself? And if there’s no wrong way, that leaves open a dizzying variety of options that can feel overwhelming and hard to navigate. Helping you sort it all out is one of the main purposes of this book. But this book might not even be necessary if, instead of spending all that time telling you that “giving it away” too soon was the worst decision you could make with your life, schools spent time actually helping you figure out what kinds of sexual expression and experience were right for you. What if they’d taught you how to make your own informed, healthy decisions about sex? And what if you could assume that nearly everyone else you might want to interact with sexually had had the same lessons?

School is also a place where many of us experience physical violations in “small” ways—think bra snapping, butt grabbing, and the like—and school is far too often a place where we learn that, even if we complain, boys are given blanket permission to violate our boundaries in these ways. This “boys will be boys” mentality leads to what I call the “boiling frog” problem of women’s sexual boundaries. I call it that because of the legend that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out, but if you put a frog into a pot of room-temperature water and slowly heat it to a boil, the frog will acclimate as the water heats up and never jump out, eventually boiling to death. Similarly, when we learn as young girls to tolerate “low-level” boundary violations like the ones we often are forced to suffer in silence at school, it makes it harder for us to notice when even greater boundaries are being violated, eventually leading to the reality that many women who are pressured into having sex against their will don’t even recognize it as a form of violence (though that lack of naming hardly spares them the trauma of the experience). On the other hand, schools that teach, through actions as well as policy, that everyone has a right to their own boundaries and no one has the right to touch you in ways that you don’t like are teaching girls to recognize and name it if they ever find themselves in really hot water.

Dive In: Make a list of everything your schools have taught you about sexuality. Now make another list, of at least five things you wish they had taught you but didn’t. Now pick one thing on that second list you still wish you knew more about, and go to Scarleteen.com—a fantastic site about sexuality—and read up on it.

RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS

If you were raised in any kind of religious tradition, odds are, you were taught some very particular sexual values (that is, a set of beliefs about what’s right and wrong when it comes to sex) in conjunction with that faith. And depending on how you feel about the rest of your religion, you may put more or less stock in those dictates about sexuality.

I’m not going to waste your time summarizing the way different religions think about sex—it would be almost as foolish as trying to list all the different ways families think about sex. Even within any given religion, there are subgroups that vary widely on their approach to the matter. Besides, all that really counts is what your religion has taught you. And you know that better than I do.

Honestly, the religion-family analogy is pretty strong when it comes to sex, the main difference being what’s at stake. If you go against your family’s values when it comes to sex, you might be grounded or otherwise punished by your family. In extreme cases, your family may be violent to you, or kick you out of the house, or disown you. That’s all pretty awful. But religion has bigger weapons still, depending on what faith you belong to. Your religion may tell you that if you stray from its sexual principles, you’ll suffer for all eternity. Some fundamentalist religions believe that women who violate their sexual norms should be publicly shamed, or even killed. The fear these threats instill can make it difficult to even question what your religion has taught you about women and sex. But you’re not alone, and you’re obviously up to the challenge, or you wouldn’t be reading this paragraph.

The other things to think about when it comes to sex and your religion are these questions: Why does my religion teach me these things about sex? What is my religion’s attitude toward women’s equality in general? Some—though certainly not all—religions believe that men should be dominant over women, and they use their sexual teachings to keep women afraid and compliant with a system that doesn’t have their best interests at heart. If you can think about your religion’s sexual teachings as part of its values about women in general, it may help you see what drives those teachings, and whether or not you want to learn from them.

Dive In: Complete the following sentences.

If you’ve received conflicting religious messages about sex, feel free to choose the ones that seem loudest or strongest to you:

• When it comes to sex, my religion tells me _______________

• One thing my religion says about sex that I agree with is _______________

• One thing my religion says about sex that I disagree with is _______________

• One thing my religion says about sex that I have questions about is _______________

• If I don’t act the way my religion says I should sexually, I’ve been taught that _______________

Medical Professionals

Because doctors, nurses, and therapists are the people we turn to when we need expert advice about our bodies and minds, they can have an incredible influence on how we understand our sexuality. But for better and for worse, our medical professionals are also influenced by all of the factors we’ve been discussing in this chapter, so they can promote harmful stereotypes just as easily as they can provide helpful information.

Prerna, twenty-three, shares her experience with this. “As a sex-positive teen, I went to my first gynecologist appointment with lots of questions about safety and health. But I never asked any of them, because one of the first things the doctor asked me was if I was having intercourse, and when I told her I wasn’t, she looked at me like I was lying and asked me again. It went well beyond ‘you can trust me and should be honest’ and was definitely more of ‘we all know you’re a slut, so just admit it.’ It freaked me out because I really wasn’t expecting virgin shame from my doctor, of all people.”

Shana, twenty-eight, had a similar experience. “I stopped anwering their questions truthfully when at a more recent visit they asked me how many sex partners I had in the last year, and when I answered honestly, they gave me a twenty-minute safe-sex talk. They never even asked me if I was having safe sex, or if I knew how to. I’m known amongst my friends for always, always having condoms with me and handing them out to unprepared friends.”

And it’s not just in terms of the virgin/slut dichotomy that medical professionals can fail. Some therapists have been known to blame victims for their sexual assault, and doctors may make false and silencing assumptions about the gender of your sexual partners. Pharmacists have denied birth control ¹ (and even, in a 2011 case, lifesaving antibleeding medication²) to women because they disapproved of those women’s sexual choices, and doctors all over regularly deny women the information they need to get an abortion, which is a safe and legal procedure in the United States. The list goes on.

On the other hand, some medical professionals can be lifesavers, giving you information and access to sexual health care that your family or community may make difficult to get, and otherwise supporting your healthy pursuit of what you really really want. My current doctor, for example, supports my efforts to love and accept my body by practicing medicine from a Health at Every Size perspective. That means she may tell me I should eat healthier and exercise more because my cholesterol is too high, but she’ll never tell me I need to lose weight, because she knows that the scale tells you nothing about a person’s health.³ And my therapist supports my sexual decisions as long as they seem to be coming from a healthy and centered place—even when those decisions find me having casual, safe sex with strangers.

The psychological and practical power medical professionals can have on our sexuality is profound indeed, which is why it’s really important to examine what we’ve already learned from medical experts we’ve encountered—and also to find providers in the present tense whose values support our own.

This can be a challenge, depending on where you live and how much money or medical insurance you have access to. But there are resources for finding truly helpful medical care. One of them is Scarleteen’s Find-a-Doc service, where you can recommend healthcare providers you’ve had positive experiences with, and get recommendations from others if you need to find someone better or new. Find-a-Doc covers not only doctors, but also counselors, LGBTQ centers, doulas, shelters, and other in-person sexual/reproductive health, sexuality, and/or crisis care. Share your tips or find ones from others at www.wyrrw.com/scarleteenfindadoc.

Dive In: Get out your journal, and write for five to ten minutes about an experience you’ve had with a medical professional that influenced your sexuality. Maybe it was a scary or negative experience, or maybe it was a positive, empowering one. What did the person do or say that made an impact? What did you learn from them? How did you respond? Do you still believe in that lesson today? Why or why not?

Partners

If you’ve already been sexually active with a partner, or even if you’ve just experienced strong desire for a particular person, you know just how much that person can influence how you feel about your sexuality.

The tricky part here is that it’s hard to control who you want, and yet wanting someone sexually makes their opinion of you seem important. That can be wonderful: There are few better feelings than having your desires reciprocated. It can make you feel all kinds of good things: desired, loved, beautiful, strong. And being sexually open with someone can strengthen the bonds of intimacy in many ways, leaving us feeling safe and understood and supported.

But sexual partners can also have the opposite effect. They can leave us feeling inadequate or like freaks. They can pressure us to want things we don’t want, and do things we don’t want to do. Or they can make us feel bad about the desires we do have, or the sexual interactions we’ve already experienced. They can abuse us physically or mentally, and they can use our desire for them to control us, leaving us feeling that our very desire is dangerous to us.

Dive In: Make a list of five sexual partners you’ve had or wished you could have. Don’t worry about how you choose them; just write down the first five that come to mind. Now, for each of them, answer the following questions: How do you feel about your sexuality when you think about them? Did/do they try to give you what you want/ed sexually? Did/do they ever make you feel bad about your sexuality? Did/do they make you feel safe, or loved or scared or abused, or all of the above?

It’s beyond fine to be influenced by other people and institutions—it’s unavoidable. But you have more choice than you may have known when it comes to how much and in what ways you’re influenced. This chapter is a great start—but don’t stop now. Adjust the balance levels over time, so that the sound you’re getting gets closer and closer to the ideal soundtrack to accompany you on this journey to what you really really want.

Dive In: Make a life chart on a large piece of paper (landscape view). Draw a line across the paper horizontally. Then divide your age by five, and divide the line into five equal sections, each representing a fifth of how long you’ve been alive. (So, if you’re twenty-five years old, divide the line into five-year segments, from birth to five years old, five to ten, etc.) For each section, write at least one key incident that happened in that period that shaped your attitudes or feelings about your sexuality—from a video to a favorite song, to something your parents told you (that either did or didn’t match up with the way they behaved), to whatever you were taught in school, to actual sexual experiences you or your friends had that have made an impact. Don’t worry about getting everything down right now—we’ll be filling in this timeline throughout the process of this book.

Now choose one of these incidents and write about where you were (the location), who was there (the characters), and what happened (the incident). You can do this for any or all of the incidents you have listed.

Go Deeper: At the end of every chapter, you’ll find a few optional exercises that you can use to go deeper into the process of this book. The best ones to choose are the ones that provoke a strong reaction when you read them—even if it’s that you think you’ll hate doing it.

1. Stick a photograph of yourself (one you like) in your journal. Write the woman in the photograph a love letter. List all the things she does well or that you like about her.

2. If you could take yourself on a date, where would it be? What would you do? Describe your perfect date in detail.

3. Keep a media journal. This week, pay attention to the depictions of women’s sexuality you see in the media. Think about what song lyrics are saying, how billboards are pairing women and sex, what the characters in your favorite TV shows and video games act like (and what the consequences of those actions are), how the women in the books, newspapers, magazines, and websites you read are portrayed, etc. At the end of every day, write down what you remember and how those depictions made you feel. And at the end of the week, make a list of which media outlets gave you mostly positive feelings, which were mostly negative, and which were a mixed bag.