Once you’ve done all you can and you’re feeling like you’ve got all the support you need, the only other thing you can do is to make good on your promise and be there for your friend no matter what. Check in with them once in a while, but don’t be too pushy—don’t make your concern for them the subject of conversation every single time you hang out. Just be their friend. Refusing to let them be isolated can be one of the most powerful and loving gifts you can give someone in this situation.

(Incidentally, if your friend tells you about an experience that sounds to you like it was sexual assault, but they’re not calling it that, you’re going to want to take a very similar approach. You should never tell someone they’re wrong about how they identify their experiences. But you can express your concern, ask them how they’re feeling about it, connect them with resources in case they decide they want them, and tell them that if it had happened to you, you would have called it sexual assault.)

What if, instead, it’s your friend who seems to be doing the abusing? Your approach should be similar. Don’t tell them what they should or shouldn’t do. Tell them what you’ve observed that troubles you, and why, and ask them what they think of the behaviors you’re reflecting back to them. If they’re troubled, too, you have an opening to help them get help. (Check out www.wyrrw.com/forabusers for some great places to start.) But if they don’t see what you see, there’s little you can do. Trying to force them to change behaviors they don’t want to change isn’t going to help anyone. It may, in fact, put the person they’re hurting at greater risk—some abusers will take it out on their victims if they’re challenged or confronted by a third party. So tread lightly. If you try to go in like an avenging hero, you may have the opposite effect from the one you intend.

There is one way your approach may differ: You’re under no obligation to stay friends with someone who’s abusing their partner. That’s a personal decision. Maybe you feel you can do more good by sticking around, or maybe the friendship is old and deep and hard to give up. But if you don’t want to stand by this person, that doesn’t make you a bad friend. It makes you a person with boundaries.

Dive In: Write about a time you were worried about a friend’s relationship. That time could be now, or use any example from the past. What was it that had you concerned? What did you do about that concern? How did the situation turn out? How would you handle it differently if you had it to do over?

If the situation is in the present tense, use the role-playing options from chapter 7 to role-play a conversation with the friend that you’re worried about, using the guidelines outlined above. If the situation is in the past, role-play a different ending—give yourself a chance to try an approach that you wish you’d thought of then.

SLUT-SHAMING AND PRUDE-POLICING

One of the most common ways friends and family may do harm to each other around sexuality is through slut-shaming and prude-policing. As we explored in chapter 2, “slut-shaming” is an umbrella term for all kinds of language and behaviors that are intended to make women and girls feel bad about being sexual. Of course, everyone has a slightly different definition of the word “slut,” but it hardly matters what the shamer’s definition of “slut” is, because none of the related behaviors are any of their business.

It’s not for any of us to decide the moral value of another person based on anything they may be doing in the realm of consensual sexuality.

Why does this matter so much? Because slut-shaming does real damage. It makes women mistrust other women. It can make us less likely to be honest with ourselves or others about what we want or what we’re doing sexually, and that kind of isolation can be dangerous, especially if we’re in an abusive situation but don’t let anyone know we need help, or if it means we wind up without critical resources for preventing pregnancy and STDs.

Slut-shaming also hurts women when we do speak up for ourselves. Beyond the real hurt that comes from being ostracized by their friends or community, women who are considered “slutty” can find their legal rights in jeopardy. (Like the woman who was at a bar where the exploitative Girls Gone Wild video series was filming, when someone nonconsensually pulled up her shirt for the camera. When the footage turned up in one of the videos for sale, she sued, but the court ruled against her, basically saying that a single woman at a bar where Girls Gone Wild was filming should expect whatever she gets.¹ In other words: A good girl wouldn’t have been there, so that’s what you get for being bad.) As we discussed in chapter 2, when rape survivors press charges, we’re also routinely accused of being sluts and thus “asking for it,” which inspires justice systems to ignore rape allegations, which in turn allows rapists to go free and rape more women.

Slut-shaming also plays into the myth that a woman’s value is tied up in what we do or don’t do with our bodies. Which brings me to slut-shaming’s sister: prude-policing. As much as sluts are set up for suffering in our culture, women who are perceived as having no (or not much) sexual experience can also be subjected to abuse, depending on our age or what kinds of communities we’re part of. This can have an equally damaging effect, pushing women to do things sexually that we don’t want to do, just to silence our critics. That often results in unsafe sexual practices and further alienation from our own actual desires (or lack thereof)—we’ve already explored the damaging cycle that occurs when we override our own boundaries, and that can result from prude-policing, too.

Slut-shaming and prude-policing often collide into one giant mixed message about how women should be sexual, as Zeinab discovered.

Growing up, I definitely internalized a lot of what I was taught, especially by the Catholic Church. Wanting to remain a virgin was something that was very very important to me. And there were a lot of things that if I did them, I worried they might make me less attractive to a potential husband. Then I got older, and I realized that I actually really wanted to have sex, and I didn’t know how to go about doing that, so I would talk to people about it, and I had this one male friend who would tell me, “Just grab any guy! He’ll be ready to go!” It felt like I was receiving a mixed message, in that it’s good not to be a “slut” or a “whore,” but every man will be willing to get down, and that will decrease my stock in the world.

What matters most here is that you don’t let anyone define your value as a person by what you do or don’t do sexually, and that you don’t place those judgments on other people, either. It can be tempting. Defining ourselves as “not like” other women makes us think we won’t have to suffer the consequences we may see them suffering. We may think that if we’re not “slutty,” we’ll be safe from rape or STDs or pregnancy. Or that if we’re not a “prude,” we’ll be popular and loved and have all the attention we need. As you know by now, the truth is much more complicated than that. Judging others for their sexual choices creates mistrust and isolation among women, when we could be helping each other out instead.

If this dynamic is playing out among your friends or family, you may need to be the first one to speak out against it. If you’re not sure how to broach the subject, review the strategies for speaking up that we went over in chapter 7, and use your personal communication strength, whether that’s humor, bluntness, telling on yourself, or something else.

It’s hard to say what you’ll find: Some people may resist, not wanting to believe they’re engaging in anything but “harmless gossip.” Others may be relieved that someone said something, as they were also feeling uncomfortable but didn’t know what to do about it. Whatever the case, you’ll at least be sending yourself the message that judgment has no place in your sexuality.

Dive In: With your nondominant hand, write out the nasty voices telling you you’re a slut or a prude or any other term that pins your self-worth to your sexuality. These may be things people have explicitly said to you, or just messages you’ve absorbed from the culture at large. Let ’er rip—write all the most shocking or hurtful things you’ve ever heard said about you or believed about yourself. When you’re done, take a deep breath and read back what you’ve written. Then, with your dominant hand, respond to the vitriol. Take all the time you need. Tell those voices exactly why they’re wrong, and how they’ve made you feel in the past, and how you feel now, and then tell them you’re not going to listen anymore. You’re not going to let them hurt you anymore.

SETTING BOUNDARIES

Your friends and family may be flawlessly supportive about your sexuality. If so, congrats—you’re really lucky. Because odds are, your friends and family were also raised in a toxic sexual culture and have developed any number of responses to it, some of which may be in direct opposition to what you believe or how you want to live. They may judge you or lecture you—they may even believe they’re doing it for your own good. Some of them, while meaning well, may violate your physical boundaries with unwelcome hugs, uncomfortable kisses, and other intrusions. And, sadly, some of them may not mean well and may instead be emotionally or physically abusive, or may have abused you in the past.

You already have the skills you need to set boundaries with your friends and family. You learned boundary-setting skills in chapter 4, and they apply here as well. What you may not have is the belief that it’s okay to tell your loved ones to stop harming you.

Reread your definition of love that you wrote in chapter 5, and then think about that sentence for a moment. Using your definition of love, would someone who loves you want to harm you? That’s ultimately for you to decide, but my opinion on the matter is clear: no. Of course we all accidentally hurt each other sometimes, no matter how much we love each other. But if “love” is a verb, as I believe it is, then someone who really loves you will want to know that they’ve hurt you, so they can make it up to you and avoid it in the future, if at all possible.

What I’m proposing here is that a version of the Nice Person Test is the best way to approach your friends and family, too. If someone who’s supposed to love you is hurting you, either directly hurting your feelings or violating your physical boundaries, or inadvertently hurting you by pushing the Terrible Trio on you, put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself: If I was doing this to someone I love, would I want to know about it? I’m guessing you would. So act as though that’s true in this case as well. Tell them, respectfully, clearly, and lovingly, what bothers you about their behavior. Then pay attention to what you can learn from their response.

This is tricky stuff emotionally. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s easy. I don’t even mean to suggest that if your mother reacts badly when you try to talk with her about the sex shame she’s been pushing on you that she doesn’t love you. Obviously, it’s more complicated than that. Your mother has lived her whole life with a set of beliefs, and she may well think you’re in danger if you’re not adhering to them. It might be very unsettling to hear that her critiques of your wardrobe, which, in her eyes, are meant to keep you out of danger, are something that you experience as harming. So have compassion. Try to see her intentions in the context of what you know of her sexual values, which may be very different from yours. In fact, if you suspect that the issue really lies in your incompatible sexual values (maybe your mother believes that only girls with low self-esteem have sex before marriage, or that going out late and drinking is going to “get you” raped), it could be most productive to try to talk about those values, and not just about the behaviors that stem from them.

“My mother’s advice about when to have sex was always ‘when you feel ready for it and are in a good, loving relationship,’” recalls Avory.

For a long time, I thought this was great advice because it was a sensible alternative to the “waiting for marriage” thing, and seemed to be promoting healthy behaviors—love is good, right? It wasn’t until many years later that I realized this taught me that monogamy is the only option, that love is the only thing you need for sex to be great, and that there is some sort of black-line difference between a romantic relationship and a great, trusting friendship. Over time, I started to see that her well-meaning advice was steeped in one particular idea of how romantic relationships are supposed to work, and learned that for me, sex depends principally on trust and ability to comfortably communicate with someone—whether friend or romantic partner, and no matter how many relationships I have at the time.

Keep in mind that no one changes their values overnight, and lots of people won’t change them at all, no matter what you say. Also remember that you may not be perfect at talking about this, either. These conversations can get emotional and heated, even if everyone has the best of intentions.

Ultimately, you’ve got three basic choices for dealing with people in your life who don’t support your sexual health:

1. Engage. If the relationship is important to you, and if it seems like the person you’re dealing with also cares about the relationship and wants to find a way not to hurt you, I really encourage you to try to talk it through. This can take a while. You might even want to get a neutral third party involved to help. When I came out as queer to my parents, it got messy really fast. I never doubted that they loved me, but they really struggled to support and accept me the way I needed them to. There were tears. There were fights. Some of them were ugly. But we all hung in and kept trying to get to a better place with each other, and eventually, over the course of a few years, we really did. It was hard work for all of us, but it was worth it. We have a better, more honest relationship now than we did before. That doesn’t happen for everyone, but it’s possible for many.

2. Agree to disagree. If things get too difficult, it may be useful to back off the conversation for a while, or altogether. If you can both manage it, try agreeing to not talk about the sticky issue. This works best with an explicit conversation in which you agree on exactly what types of conversations or comments are off-limits. (So, you might say to your roommate, “You don’t comment on what I’m wearing, and I won’t tell you about what I do when I go out.”) You can also decide if this is a permanent arrangement or if you want to try it for a period of time and then reopen the conversation once you’ve both had time to think and cool down. Of course, the tricky part is sticking to it.

3. Disengage from the relationship. This may mean cutting the person off altogether, or just keeping your distance and engaging in polite conversation only when socially required to. If a family member has been emotionally or physically abusive to you, especially if they refuse any accountability for their actions, this can sometimes be your best option. If you want to leave the door open for the possibility of future reconciliation, you can do this with conditions (“I’m not speaking with you until you acknowledge and apologize for the way you treated me”), or you can do it unconditionally. The older and/or more important the relationship is between you, the harder this can be to do. But you’ll know it when it’s time to cross this bridge. Trust your instincts. If you’re dealing with physical or emotional abuse, consider this option if you think the person who’s harming you doesn’t care that you’re getting hurt and is uninterested in stopping or negotiating. Also consider it if just being near this person is too painful for you, even if you think their intentions toward you are benign.

Of course, none of our relationships exist in a vacuum, and other people who know you both may try to get involved. This can be either helpful or hard, depending on so many things. It may be that cutting one person out of your life means that other people cut you off. But it may also be that, say, opening a conversation about slut-shaming with one of your friends leads other friends to engage in that same useful conversation. You’re going to have to deal with the fallout in each of your relationships as it arises.

Dive In: Make a list of three to five family members or friends whose attitudes toward sexuality negatively impact you. Write down how they behave, what they believe or say that hurts you, and how you wish it could be different. Be as specific as you can. Now, circle the name of the person who seems most likely to be open to finding out how they’re impacting you. Using the role-playing options from chapter 7, role-play a conversation with the person about what’s bothering you—their false assumptions about your sexuality, the way their behavior toward other women affects you, their controlling behavior—whatever it is. But before you start, review the strategies in chapter 7 for helping yourself initiate a difficult conversation, and think about what outcome would be satisfying to you and what outcomes would be acceptable. Write those down, too. Remember to use the Nice Person Test: Tell them about it the way you’d want to hear about it if you were hurting them but didn’t know you were. Let them know you value the relationship and you trust their intentions, which is why this conversation is important. Use a shit sandwich if it helps.

HOW TO TALK TO KIDS

There may be any number of situations where you have the responsibility to talk to children about sex. I’m not going to tell you what to say to them—there are just too many factors. How old is the child in question? What’s your relationship to them? If you’re not their parent or guardian, do you share their parent/guardian’s values about sex, and if not, is it okay with the Head Grownup in charge of this child for you to share your own values? And if it isn’t, what are the circumstances when it’s worth doing anyhow?

So many questions, a lot of which you’re going to ultimately have to answer for yourself. But I can share a few guidelines I like to follow.

• Be honest. If a child asks you a question about sex, and you can’t answer it because they’re just not old enough to understand, or because you’re not sure it’s your place to do so, tell them straight up. Don’t lie. Kids can smell lies from a mile away. So if you lie to them about sex, they’re going to get (a) false, confusing, made-up information about a really important subject, and (b) the feeling that they can’t trust you.

• Teach them that their relationship with their bodies and their sexuality is the most important one. When they’re young, that means that they get to say no if they don’t want Grandpa to kiss them at Thanksgiving, even if that causes awkwardness with Grandpa. You may need to talk this over with Grandpa in advance if you think it’s going to be an issue. So do it. Because Grandpa’s hurt feelings aren’t more important than a child’s learning that they get final say over who does what to their body.

• Teach them that there’s so much more to them than sexuality. For such a repressed culture, we spend a lot of our collective energy evaluating who’s more important or powerful based on who’s sexy. The best way to counteract this isn’t to tell kids that sex is bad or dangerous and they should never even think about it, because this not only makes it seem more taboo (and therefore more compelling), but also does nothing to counteract the idea that sexuality is the most important thing about them. Instead, give them positive attention for other things. If, for example, you’ve got a girl in your life with a princess fetish, maybe role-play with her about what it would be like to actually rule a kingdom, and help her learn to wield power firmly but benevolently. Or indulge the princess stuff for an hour, but only if she’ll agree to do something with you that’s not related to princess play (like playing soccer or completing a puzzle) for an hour after that.

• Teach them to respect other people’s boundaries, too. That means practicing enthusiastic consent (though you don’t have to call it that). Playing rough or physical games is fine as long as everyone’s having a good time. But if somebody stops having fun, the physical stuff has to stop immediately.

• Walk your talk. If you tell your thirteen-year-old brother that it’s not cool to tease girls about their bodies, and then he hears you snarking to your friends about how fat or skinny or slutty or prudish or whatever some woman you know is, he’s going to learn that (a) you’re a hypocrite and (b) it’s actually totally fine (and possibly cool and grown-up) to snark on women’s bodies. Which brings me to:

• If they’re confused, let them know they’re not alone. Kids tend to think that grownups have all the answers. But while they should be able to trust the adults in their lives to have more answers than they themselves do, it can also be affirming for them to know that some things are confusing, even for grownups. Letting them know that some of the things about sex that seem complicated or scary are actually complicated and can, in fact, involve real risk reassures them that their instincts are right and empowers them to ask more questions without feeling like they’re “dumb kids.” But don’t forget to also . . .

• Make sure kids know that sex can be pleasurable! So much of what we tend to teach kids about sex is designed to scare them off of ever having it or even thinking about it. Of course it’s important for kids to understand the real risks that come along with partnered sex, but it’s also crucial that they know that people do it for a reason! If we leave pleasure out of what we teach kids about sex, we’re essentially teaching them that when they do wind up feeling sexual pleasure, there’s something dirty and secret about that pleasure. And we’re especially teaching them that they shouldn’t talk with us about it, because we either lied about it to them or don’t understand. That kind of silencing from adults can lead kids to get their sexual information from each other, or from distorted sources like porn.

• Be prepared. There’s no hard-and-fast rule about when a young person is ready for partnered sex. Your job is to encourage the young people in your life to find the time that works for them, and to resist pressure to “do it” because everyone else seems to be, or to “save it” just because someone else thinks they should. Instead, help young people decide for themselves using some basic guidelines: Are they comfortable talking about and acquiring the necessary supplies to practice safer sex? Are they with a partner who practices enthusiastic consent and will respect their boundaries, and are they ready to do the same for a partner? Are they genuinely excited and curious about sex? Are they emotionally strong enough to handle any fallout that might result, from heartbreak to unintended pregnancy? Heather Corinna of Scarleteen has developed a great “Sex Readiness Checklist,” which you can find in her book, S.E.X.,² or at www.wyrrw.com/sexreadiness. Go over it with a young person who’s thinking of dipping their toe into sexual waters—it will inspire great conversation!

Of course, by now you’ll recognize that these are great sexual values to teach anyone, at any age. Because the basics don’t change, whether you’re eight or eighty. As Heather notes,

The biggest part of where my father did really well in teaching me about sexuality was in making clear that if I was going to be sexual with others, I needed to be able to take my own responsibility around it, which included things like seeking out my own sexual health care, safer sex, and contraception and being accountable for my own actions. He also made it clear that while those kinds of things were things I needed to do for myself (the idea being if I needed him to do them, I probably wasn’t ready to be actively sexual with others), I’d always have 100 percent of his emotional support, acceptance, and advocacy as I navigated being sexual and managing my sexual life.