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NewsvineLaura loves sex. And she has no problem telling you about it. For instance, I remember walking into Hoover Tower for one of our tour guiding shifts on some dreary Wednesday afternoon, and before I had time to sit down, Laura asked me if I had any AAA batteries. Her vibrator had lost power, and she was dying. She’s had 61 different dates between the months of March and October (granted, she was on the rebound), and not all of them were G-rated. She even had a vagina cake for her birthday. So when talk ventures to the topic of female sexual liberation, Laura is the first person who comes to mind — no pun intended.
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Laura is a rarity within our society. Her freedom in talking about sex catches most people off guard. And while the media becomes increasingly sexualized, it’s still taboo to talk about one’s own sex life as casually as one might talk about sports or the stars that scandalize our tabloids. For the most part, our society still makes us feel guilty about sex — whether it be by ourselves, with a significant other, or with a complete stranger.
The question is: Why do we still feel so guilty about sex? This guilt contrasts sharply with a brilliant point Laura articulated during our coffee date: “We’re all human and we all want sex. Everyone’s doing it — or if they’re not doing it, they wish they were.”
What surprised me the most when I asked Laura this questions was when she revealed her own guilt about her sexuality. Raised Catholic and educated at a Catholic high school, the principles she grew up with were screaming in horror when she first discovered sexual pleasure, and again when she realized her attraction to women. Even now, as Laura outspokenly embraces her sexuality, at her core she still feels the internalized reprimands of her childhood indoctrination. Her strong words are an act of rebellion, tinged by the guilt of her (now abandoned) religion.
Rebellion isn’t the only reason Laura vocalizes her sexuality. She feels more free to talk about sex because she is free of a different kind of guilt — the type of guilt that comes from the sexual act itself.
Sex is intimate. It exposes vulnerabilities. And sometimes, these positives can be exploited for selfish reasons, resulting in guilt on one or both parties. Guilt because we make ourselves vulnerable to people we don’t really trust. Guilt, perhaps, due to a power exchange inherent in the sexual act itself.
Laura is free of this type of guilt because she characterizes her own sexual experience as completely different. She has only ever been with women, and she feels like every sexual experience she has had reflected mutual respect, power and emotional investment. I’ve read of studies that claim that women form emotional and chemical bonds with the people they sleep with. So if women bond and (perhaps) men don’t, this could be the source of this mysterious guilt, at least in a heterosexual relationship. In contrast, Laura bonds with the women she sleeps with and vice versa — even if it is only a one night stand.
People feel guilty about sex due to a combination of social pressures, motivations, and our own biological nature. However, if it’s our own human nature that also drives our desire to have sex, we’ve reached a contradiction. When it comes down to it, I’m not sure whether or not we should feel guilty about sex, but we should at least understand the reasons why we feel the way we do in regards to such an important aspect of our lives.
Laura recognizes the conflict between the way she feels and her own rationale, and she chooses to overcome it with her own conflict: she rebels against her repressed guilt by speaking out about sex. In speaking out, she hopes her words will make her own sexual empowerment that much stronger, and in doing so she gives me the strength I need to embrace my own sexuality.