Masturbation is for All: Let the Gasps Begin.

Strong Right-Wing Conservatives, Grandparents, overbearing parents, and youths that giggle every time the word ‘penis’ is said in conversation, close your ears… or rather, listen harder than anyone else- because this crazy sex positive lady is about to tell you why our past and current sex education system is actual excrement and why everyone, yes everyone, should masturbate (if they choose to do so of course!)

Let me take you back to the days of my Junior year of High School to every adolescents worse nightmare and hands down the most awkward semester of their schooling career, Sex Education. Mind you, I grew up in small city Wisconsin, population 12,000, with the majority of citizens somehow still knowing one another and one another's business, making the fact that the teacher chosen to be the one to educate my sweaty, pimply, and immature classmates and I about the “Birds and the Bees” was none other than my High School’s baseball coach- that much more painful. There he stood, day after day, trying his damn best to teach 16 and 17 year old young adults about the Sex Ed basics: STDs, birth control, the beautiful and sticky miracle of life, and oh yes, the Big A. While abstinence only education is not mandated and required to be the only means of sex education in public Wisconsin schools, unlike many schools across the nation that features real life "Mean Girls" type sex ed, the concept was definitely stressed, leaving girls like me who had never dated, kissed someone, or even considered having sex until I was 30 content...but made my classmates who were already sexually active, struggling with their sexualities, or already pregnant, in the dust wondering where the hell they were supposed to learn about actual sex.

And here leads to the debate of the freaking century. Should we teach young adults about sex? What do we teach them and at what age? How do we properly educate young adults that identify within the LGBTQ+ community about safe sex and accepting one's identity? How do we educate youths about rape culture and consent without scaring the crap out of them but also becoming advocates? Do we do any of this at all or do we stick to the Big A? And if we give young adults, children, knowledge about sex… will they learn from it and be safe and decide to engage in sexual actions when they feel they are ready -OR- will they all become sex crazed animals who will hump anything with a heartbeat?

I cannot answer these questions. I cannot, although I may try, simply cannot make every person happy with my beliefs regarding the current sexual education systems in place in the States and what I believe they should be because I will always have someone who will fight against me with every breath in their body. But, I refuse to give up educating those who choose to be educated on something as simple, necessary, and completely normal and wonderful as sex and one's body. It is my personal belief as the crazy sex and body positive lady that every single human being has the right to their own body and to the knowledge of what their body can do.

The reason I am so passionate about this subject is due to a variety of reasons, all stemming from my sophomore year of college when two crucial and life changing events occurred: my best friend got raped at an off-campus party and I learned how to masturbate. Both of these events, one of course being tragic, heartbreaking, and leading to a life of advocacy for sexual assault survivors that will never stop, altered my perspectives on sex and the sex education I received so many years ago in that musty classroom. We’ll start with masturbation.

Never in my life was I taught how to masturbate. Never was it talked about with my families. Even my closest friends and I waited until we were 20 years old to break down the sex talk barriers before we discovered that all of us, except one, masturbated regularly. Before my sophomore year, I perceived masturbation to be something that 1) was gross, 2) wasn’t needed or necessary and 3) was only for people who were really desperate. Boy was I wrong. I remember it like it was yesterday. My three best friends and I jokingly strolled into Spencers in our local mall and naturally found our way into the Adult Section filled with toys and supplies I still have no clue about when all of a sudden, one of my friends pointed to a vibrator and said, “If you get one, I’ll get one.” Laughing it off, I turned to see her dead serious face and began to panic, thinking that surely, it would be a waste of money and that I would never use it, my parents would find out and punish me, and that I wouldn’t like it. Again- wrong, wrong, and wrong. So as one to never let down a friend or a dare, we both purchased our first toys, and quickly stuffed them into the bottom of our purses so that they couldn’t fall out or anyone could see the naughty toy we, as crazy clueless 19-year-olds had just purchased. That night, I went home to my single dorm room and experienced my first orgasm and oh, was it a beautiful disaster! Not truly knowing my own female anatomy, thank you again High School Sex Ed, I had no clue what to do with the thing or where to put it, leaving my awkward self to fumble around with my body and toy until finally, a very strange sensation began to build. Moments later, after almost becoming too scared to continue, my body was taken over by the most beautiful, strong, and exhilarating convulsions leaving me shaking and breathless and immediately wondering why the hell I hadn’t done that before.

Now for those of you out there that think I’m crazy for telling my first orgasm story and for talking about masturbation and sex education in general, you’re right, I am. I’m crazy for wanting a world that young adults know how to use their bodies for pleasure and find ways to naturally relieve stress and anxiety. When a person orgasms, thousands of oxytocin hormones, the feel damn good hormones, are released from your brain, leaving a person feeling waves and waves of pleasure, calmness, and happiness- something the majority of pills can never do. Masturbation is a known temporary aide for menstrual cramps, it helps with insomnia, weight loss, and all around built up stress in a person's life so why isn’t it being taught or encouraged my teachers, parents, and peers? Humans are the only members of the animal kingdom that are shamed for masturbating and engaging in sexual activity. We are the only creatures that are afraid of our bodies and the sheer power they can have, and it is for this reason, the fact that members of the LGBTQ+ community are taught little to nothing about safe sexual activity and how to actually have sex by educators, leaving them to either fear sex or find out information by themselves, and the fact that rape culture even exists. The sheer concept that my friend was sexually assaulted by a person after she said the one golden word, “No,” blows my freaking mind because sex and sexual acts are meant for pleasure, not for pain. They are meant to be a means of exploring one's own body, exploring one's partner(s), having fun, bonding, engaging in an act of love and/or procreation, having sex because damn it feels good! Never should a person feel unsafe about having sex. Never should a sexual act not have consent from both or all parties involved. Never should a person be victim blamed for being abused. Never should a person be “slut shamed” for having sex. Never should a person be forced to do anything they don’t want to do. And never should a person feel afraid or embarrassed to explore their own body if they so want to.

So while masturbation and sexual acts are an absolute delight, and I am a strong advocate and supporter of all people who fall along the “Sex Spectrum” of waiting until marriage, choosing to with-stain from sexual acts all together, having one monogamous partner, having multiple partners, having yourself as a partner, I will support all of these with my whole heart. But what I refuse to support are the people who shame others for being curious or for choosing to be sexually active with one or many partners. I have no tolerance for rapists and perpetrators of sexual assault or violence. And I have no tolerance for people and for educational systems who choose to educate their students on every topic from Algebra to Basket Weaving, but are reluctant to teaching students how to love themselves and how to properly be safe and unafraid of the amazing things their bodies can do.