A Post My Twenty-Something Self Would Have Loved To Read

Sex is everywhere. How’s that for a gross overstatement that’s also quite accurate? I mean sure, people all over the world are having sex at one time or another. But I’m referring more to sex in terms of desire. Think of the phrase “sex sells.” No matter who the model is in the __________ (choose your product) ad, a fair bit of marketing hinges on the viewer wanting to buy the product so they can be as appealing as the model, or desiring the product because of their attraction to the model her/himself.

And if you’re yawning now, I wouldn’t blame you, there’s not a lot new in that paragraph you didn’t know. What continues to surprise me is how ever-present sex and sexual desire are in our current era (and have been for a while), and how little all that content drives actual conversation around sex between people.

Maybe I’m living under a rock, and I’ll allow that possibility, but for as much sexual content as is in tv and movies, social media, billboard ads, and even ads streaming behind a plane at the beach, why are we so scared to talk about it?

Or maybe scared isn’t the right word, maybe it’s reticent or hesitant. But pick your resistance-ish word of choice and it still fits. For most of my life, sex was something I was super curious about, and would have appreciated some conversation around, but never found it. I came of age in the height of 90s-early 00’s purity culture in Christianity. The message around sex was: it’s this beautiful thing for a man and woman to share in marriage, but if you do it (or anything close) before marriage you might be on track for eternal punishment in hell. A camp I attended each summer had a “purity” talk one night on this topic. In one of the talks, the speaker glued two different colored sheets of construction paper together and spoke for a couple minutes while the glue hardened. Then, near the end of the talk, he pulled the two pieces apart and showed that pieces of the blue paper came off on the red and vice versa. In this gluey sexual encounter, both were forever changed, and the same would be true for me and my sexuality, so I just needed to stay pure and I would be great.

Except I met this really pretty girl at that camp (who is now my wife) and our hormones were raging, because we were teenagers and of course, they were. We heard those same stories for most of our youth. And then a few years later we got married and we were going to finally get to have sex and that was going to be great. Except that it wasn’t. Because while there was a tremendous amount of talk growing up about ignoring and actively fighting against sexual pleasure (partnered or solo), when it came to instruction on how to do it in a way that was pleasurable for one or both of us, there was radio silence.

If you’re looking for a recipe for frustration and disappointment in a marriage that is otherwise really healthy between two best friends here it is: one part guy whose only education about sex was from pornography (that he was too ashamed he watched to ever talk about) and one part girl who was told her pleasure, sensuality, and sexuality was a stumbling block for men and she needed to keep it at arms’ length at best so as to maintain her own (and their) purity. Stir that all together and let it foment on the countertop for a few years. Then put it in the oven of marriage, give it a few years, and you’ll be disappointed once it finally comes time to pull it out of the oven.

Because in those early years, I was super defensive because I felt like I was supposed to know what I was doing in the bedroom. And it felt great for me, so why shouldn’t it have felt good for her? And she also felt like I was supposed to know what I was doing, and why didn’t I? And when she would bring things up, I’d get defensive because I felt like it was an attack on my knowledge or masculinity or simply the shame that I was doing it wrong and somehow failing.

And the hardest part about that whole thing? I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone about it. I had some good friends, but sex never came up. Maybe once in a great while we’d go on a double date and the topic would be broached and I lived for those few moments when we could have a conversation around what was happening. But even then, it felt like the other couple had so much more going and I didn’t even know what question to ask to help us get move things in our own connection.

The funny thing there’s this whole thing about “locker room talk” with guys, implying that sex is coming up as a topic regularly between men. And maybe it is, but either because I was in the band in high school or because of the impact of a very purity focused Christianity on my adolescence, I wasn’t in those locker rooms. Even though I was feeling those desires (and then feeling a lot of shame for having them), I kept them all to myself, which is a pretty lonely spot to be. I tried to open up to a couple guys in high school about my struggle with porn, hoping to form a kind of accountability group. If you’re not familiar, accountability is basically a Christian way of getting other people to help you stick to whatever goal you had. For me, it was a lot of sexual shame. But those guys heard me share the depths of what I considered my darkness and shame, and never spoke a word about it again. They also didn’t share anything with me. Which left me feeling even more alone and isolated. It’s not a knock on them, I probably came in hot, and was looking for someone outside to validate me and tell me I wasn’t alone in this.

And for all the good friends I’ve had over the years, sex was never a topic that came up much. To be fair, I didn’t bring it up either, and that’s on me. Mostly because I was scared, and also how do you start the conversation with “yeah, sex isn’t great and I’m not sure how to make it better.” When you’re not even sure what’s not working, how do you begin to find a question to help you inch toward an answer?

I’m going to generalize here, and please let me know in the comments if this lands or not, but women appear to be ahead of men on this topic. The growing popularity of erotic fiction and romance novels only seem to have aided this openness. Now, the topic can come up in book club or dinner out. I’m obviously not party to these events or conversations, but it does seem to be happening.

And maybe you’re thinking: sex is a private thing and should stay a private topic. This is polite society, we don’t need to be discussing bedroom activities. Although if you made it this far, I’m guessing you’re not thinking that, but someone out there is. And you’d probably be right. For you, a public forum (Substack or local group conversation) isn’t the venue for that topic. But for someone who was so shaped by the lack of authentic conversation around this topic, I want more of it in the public square. Because we’re human, and for many of us, sex drive is a pretty big part of our lives for at least some portion of them.

And, sex is an incredibly intimate and vulnerable encounter. A place where you’re literally exposed. And the way I went into sex was like someone who bought a ticket to climb Mount Everest, but only heard the name and imagined it was a tropical location and packed tropical shirts, shorts, and flip flops. Sure, I could start hiking up to base camp with that gear, but it would be pretty unenjoyable and I would never make it near the top.

And I feel like that’s how we set up so many people to fail. We see and feel sexual desire, and yet we don’t talk about it because we feel shame, or maybe our own sex life isn’t great and we’re not sure how to improve it. And we feel like we’re the only one who feels this way, which keeps us from saying anything and exposing our inadequacies.

I’ll give the church and purity culture one positive: they did a great job of communicating their point of view about sex to the next generation. They were incredibly effective. And at this point, I’d like the other side of the coin (sex positive or whatever it should be called), to be as effective at having a more life-giving and pleasurable conversation around sex.

So, here I am sharing a bit of my own journey and hoping it maybe lands for you. Because this is a conversation the twenty-something version of me would have been desperate to have found. And while he didn’t get it then, maybe in some way this is allowing him some healing now. And maybe you’re in a similar spot, or you’ve been there. Maybe you didn’t have the religious shame (thank goodness), but maybe another piece resonates. Whatever the case, I want to have the conversations I wanted to have for so long, but couldn’t, and this is a step in that direction.

On my own relationship front, fast forward a bit (maybe I’ll cover the in between another time), but we’re currently in a season of much better communication on the topic of sex. I’m (still) working on being less defensive, and we’re both more openly communicating what we want, what we like, what we want to try, and what we do/don’t like once we end up trying it. And we don’t have it figured out, but there’s so much more fun and pleasure in the open conversation and exploration. And I could talk about that for a while longer, but we’ll save that for some future post.