Some of our very first memories are of the media. One of my earliest memories is watching television as a toddler and getting so excited for "Teletubbies"or "Barney" to come on. This is true probably more so nowadays than when I was a child, but the media heavily influences our perception of the world from the moment we are born.

Ever since I was young, I've been a fan of horror movies. You can name a horror movie and chances are I've seen it or heard of it. For whatever reason, in American culture and in my household, my parents never had a problem with me watching Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees terrorizing teenagers, mostly when said teenagers were having sex.

That would be the moment when my parents wanted me to turn off the television and go do something else. Something more innocent. Something a child should be doing.

Why though? Why was it acceptable for me to watch Drew Barrymore literally get gutted in the beginning of "Scream" in elementary school, but the minute sex is involved in any capacity, that's crossing the line. I'm not saying a seven-year-old should be witnessing a gruesome murder either, but I can't help but question the hypocrisy.

Instead of my parents talking to me about sex or allowing for safe, open discussions about it, it was simply ignored in my house growing up. Everything I knew was from movies and the media.

While I was growing up in high school and my first few years of college, I refused to accept the fact that I was gay. This is partly my fault as well, for not willing to live my life earlier. Since I was so frustrated with who I was and didn't want to come to terms with it, I wasted several years where I could have been learning about an important aspect of life. Until my 21st birthday, I was essentially living in my own head.

The truth is that we have the power to control how much the media influences our thoughts and ideas. For some reason, however, we choose to let it win. Just take a look at the 2016 election. From watching the news to reading inaccurate articles on Facebook, peoples' thoughts were influenced from all directions.

Once I turned 21, I started to allow myself to feel what I was feeling. It took patience. It took a lot of willpower and strength to go on dates with guys or be intimate with guys because I grew up in a town where that was wrong and different.

Because everything was new to me, my experiences varied on many scales. I practically started out as a helpless virgin. There were instances where guys were teaching me how to kiss because I apparently wasn't kissing properly.

I spent a year or so meeting a lot of different guys. Some were one night stands. Some were flings. Some of them were very important to me and who I needed to meet at that time in my life.

Because I was still learning and growing, I made mistakes. We all do. I was selfish. I was stupid. I hurt people. I hurt myself. I was degrading myself. I was seeking all this validation from other people when all I truly needed was to have validation within myself.

It took me a few years to really understand this journey I decided to take myself on, but I'm so fortunate that I did. I could have continued to try and live a life that wasn't for me and I would have been miserable for the rest of my life.

Upon meeting all these guys and having some deep connections with them that I never knew I could have, I learned a lot about the idea of love and sex and its place in our society. The media loves to play off of our emotions on love and sex because it's where some of our most vulnerable feelings come into play. It's easy to take advantage of that.

I've learned that there are going to be some people in your life that stay. Some of them will fade away. Some of them won't matter. Some of them will stick in the back of your head forever, even if you don't want them to. Some of them will still bring a smile to your face years later when you think about your memories with them.

In order to better understand sex, love, and relationships, just like anything else in the world, you have to go out and experience it. We're living in a transitional time not only in the United States, but in the history of civilization. We're finally beginning to question what we're being fed and that's scary for a system that's been succeeding for so long in feeding us lies and telling us what we want to hear.

Keep questioning. Keep an open mind. Most importantly, keep living. When we're old, it's not the money that's really going to matter. It's our experiences and relationships that will determine who we become.