Reader Dear,

Have you ever fallen from a higher place?

I have, more times just recently than I can count on both hands. We all do it. But for me, lately, I've been falling like it's going out of style, and I'm a leather-jacket, classic rock kind of gal.

So what am I gonna do?

I'm gonna write about it.

So, here's my story. Fists clenched, teeth on edge. But I've gotta tell you.

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This is the hardest piece I've ever written, and perhaps it's also the most important. My time might be running down on the redemption clock, sure. But that's not what I mean. I went to search for some eloquent quote about redemption, but I realized I shouldn't. I'm a writer, and I know writing some high-flown, self-glorifying quote after biting the moral dust would make me look about 10,000 times worse (not that I'd even deserve the merit of some such quote).

And yes, I'm sitting here caring how I look. I'll come out and say it to you. We all care how we look. And as a woman who has fallen from grace -- yes, I'll say it, whether it's self-glorifying or not -- I am sure as heck allowed to.

I wrote something -- and did something -- that wasn't 100 percent honest, wasn't 100 percent me, so I'm going to lay it all out. Please, just bear with me.

It was a Friday night. I had been behind on some of my assignments, and especially my Odyssey writing since that came after my studies. I needed something to write. I always write what's heavy in my heart.

That's where the best writing comes from. A boy I had met for coffee a couple times wanted to meet up after 9. He seemed like a nice guy, but this seemed like a not-so-nice arrangement. I chuckled to my roommate about this potentially-sticky situation and continued to stare at my Odyssey queue.

"10 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Do Friends With Benefits." The words panged my heart as soon as they echoed through my mind. I glanced at my phone. This was going to be hard.

Heck, it was going to be much easier to write the opposite, and it would seem much more socially acceptable amongst millennials! "5 Reasons Why You Should Do Friends With Benefits In College" *mental note comparing 10 to 5*. Hurry up, hurry up the boy wants to hang out! I hurried up. I wrote the article. I hit submit.

It's not what I wanted.

I didn't want my family and friends to see this article, oh no I didn't, so I changed my name and picture. They didn't have to see. Why did I not want them to see again...? Another pang in my heart *not sure*. But oh well, they probably don't want to see me write it, so I probably shouldn't put it under my name. There ya go.

Now I know why I didn't want them to see it. I didn't want them to see it because it was a lie. It wasn't what I believed. I didn't quite believe in the opposite either, though. That was the hard part. I knew that some guys didn't mind having sex without love. For them, it was a physical thing.

I was beginning to understand that a man's body, a man's brain - -especially under the ripe ol' age of 30, when the brain reaches its maturity and its full-fledged judgment capabilities -- processed sex much differently than a woman's did. A man, for instance, doesn't necessarily feel that emotional connection when he has sex that a woman does, who "tend[s] to feel sexual desire towards those men for whom [she] [feels] an emotional connection."

That goes back to evolution and caveman days, where the woman needed to be attracted and attached to a steady mate, and the man needed to just get up and down the road and spread his seed if he must. Sure, both sexes experience a rush of the cuddle hormone, oxytocin, but certain biological factors guarantee that the woman will feel more attached than the male.

So whether it be spiritual, psychological, philosophical, or plain ol' biological factors behind them, I respect some guys' (and girls') more free-range beliefs when it comes to the birds and the bees.

But at the same time, I also used to say that I didn't want to mix up sex with love and that I wanted to keep the "closest" thing you could do with another person for that one person who would one day be "closest" to me: my life partner. But I know some people wouldn't necessarily agree.

What I think? I'm not really sure.

I know what other people want and don't want, but I don't know what I want.

And that's perhaps a large reason why I shouldn't be sexually active, or at least not without being safe. Oklahoma is facing a near-epidemic of STDs right now, and there's also unplanned pregnancy.

I know I don't want those. But I don't know what I want enough to decide to write "SHOULD" or "SHOULDN'T" and whether I'd rather make out with a random guy in the back of my car or just watch a movie with my roommate.

I don't know what I want, and because of that, our culture needs to change.

How will I know what I want? We need better sex ed in school. Going to college, I knew my family's values, but, never having had a boyfriend in high school, didn't quite know my own. I remember writing a letter to my future self before I left for college saying so.

I knew my family's values, but our culture is so thoroughly bombarded with media and other cultural references to sex that conflict with those Southern Bible Belt values that we need some middleman. In elementary school, we got the puberty talk; in high school, we got the human anatomy talk. Never, ever, EVER did we get the STD talk, the consent talk, the relationship talk.

Reader Dears,

We need to speak about sex more openly. I was the most strait-laced and one of the most innocent girls in my high school. I never dreamed of having a friends-with-benefits relationship, writing publicly about it, or writing about sex in general. But we need to have these talks. Because I'm a good girl, a maybe-not-so-good girl who has no clue what she's doing.

And who thinks a lot. And who feels a lot. And who wants to know. So why not give the knowledge, the wisdom, and tell me about your own experiences so I can do so? So I can go out into the world the beautiful, spiritual, sexual being I am well-informed and well-protected against the dangers and the stigma.

Because I face stigma now -- I'm not pregnant, but I'm a fallen girl in the Bible Belt. So, friends, teachers, professors, parents -- why don't you take a second to lift me up?