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I entered high school fully armed with an arsenal of safe sex tips. I knew all the ways to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. I felt prepared.
However, as a young girl, I was missing the most basic and important knowledge—that sex can and should be fun for everyone involved.
While we had received similar education to my male peers, it seemed as though many of my female classmates (including myself) emerged with shame. We seemed to carry a general misunderstanding about our own pleasure that our straight, cisgender male peers did not.
I am unsure when the differentiation was made, but the impact was there. While many teenage boys were exploring their bodies and vocalizing it proudly, many teenage girls were experiencing guilt and embarrassment from the same activities or were avoiding them all together.
According to a 1993 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, twice as many men had masturbated by adulthood than women.
It is imperative that there is a space for young women to be encouraged to explore their bodies.
Self-exploration and masturbation is extremely important in determining consent and developing sexual intimacy. To understand what you are comfortable with you must listen to your body. If you are aware of what makes you feel good, it is much easier to communicate what you need and what to expect from a partner. Discovering your own pleasure alongside another person can be tricky at a young age when you aren’t used to dealing with sexuality at all.
Knowing your own pleasure also allows you to have more successful sex! According to a U.S. study published in 2017, heterosexual women have the lowest rates of orgasm from sex alone, with 65 per cent saying they always or usually orgasm, compared to 95 per cent of heterosexual men.
It is dangerous for young women to feel as though they are unable to orgasm. It can lead to the assumption that sex should always end in orgasm for men without concern for women’s pleasure. This influences young women to believe that their role in a sexual relationship is to please their partner. This is harmful, convincing young women that “good” sex is determined by how they make their partner feel and that they should do whatever they need to ensure pleasure.
While many men only require penetrative sex to orgasm, women more often require various sexual activities to do the same, according to the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior.
There are several topics that should be included in sexual education in order to teach healthy relationships between women and their own sexuality: Masturbation, sex toys and oral sex are among topics rarely touched on in a positive light but are proven to bridge what is traditionally seen as the gap between men’s and women’s pleasure.
By now, most parents and educators have embraced the fact that teaching abstinence is not effective in decreasing sexual activity, according to the Journal of Adolescent Health. However, by ignoring the wonderful aspects of sex, modern sex-ed still frames it in a negative light.
Many young women are actively fighting the idea that they are non-sexual beings and that sex should only be desired by men. We are still being taught that sex should be feared and is not something that can serve our own pleasure.
Teaching women about our own pleasure is not about encouraging young girls to be sexually active. It’s about teaching women to advocate for their own needs in every aspect of life and assuring them that they should be receiving the same pleasure as their partner. This is crucial in developing women’s confidence and teaching holistic sex education.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
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