What drives a community, or the individuals within a community, to hold on to outdated stigmas surrounding an individual’s sex life?
Stigmas are, “a mark of disgrace with either a circumstance, quality, or person,” and they have surrounded the lifestyle since it began. Although we are far past the days of the tangible scarlet letter, we have our version… Today, our branding may not be the well-known red letter, but it is a feeling of judgement from a stranger, a look of disapproval from across a room, a subtle whisper behind your back and distance kept by those in fear of your lifestyle seemingly “rubbing” off. (Let us not forget most of this is coming from those who do not fully understand the lifestyle to begin with.) Why do people condemn one another based on sexual likes or dislikes? Why? Why is it anyone’s business what I do with my sex life? Why would anyone care about what happens behind closed doors within the four walls of my marriage? What if it does not impact them? How does my extremely private and wonderfully amazing sex life impact anyone but those directly involved?
Would anyone care about any of this if I were boring?
Nope. If my sex life were horrible, would anyone care? Nope. In fact, I would probably be told not to bring it up because they, “don’t want to hear that shit.” No one makes a scene of knowing my credit score or how much alcohol I consume, so why is my sex life the topic of conversation? No one cares if I cannot pay my mortgage, or my water bill so why do they care what my sex life consists of? We do not talk about those with the sexless marriage, or even those with deeper sexual unrest that at times may be considered unhealthy, and we all too often place blame on the woman in the relationship for sexual issues. We do not talk about any of this because all of it is considered taboo. We cannot discuss real family issues like abuse in relationships that tear a family apart, so why is it still considered acceptable to talk about someone in the lifestyle and their personal sexual choices?
Why should anyone care whether or not I am only having sex with the man that I married? What if I told them I love women? What if I told them my partner and I both love women? What if I then told them, at times, we loved the same woman? Wow! How would that make them feel? Why should anyone consider that a big damn deal, and why is being sexually free and open to experiences a bad thing? Aside from potentially harming another human being, or any living thing, why would anyone want to know the intimate details about my sex life just to judge it? Society would rather destroy the happy couple that puts a slight magical twist on the doctrine we are told to live by, and it is ready to burn them at the stake for behaving in any way that is contrary to main-stream beliefs... A gay woman having sex with another woman, the torches are lit… Why?
The people who make the rules we are all expected to follow, only care about my sex life so they can judge me for it… and you. Who would have thought my sexual preferences would become a topic that could grab a nation’s interest and become a platform for judgement, guilt and shame? If we want to be concerned with an individual’s sex life, why don’t we take a step back from our seat of judgement and pull together as a community to provide more services for sexual acceptance and exploration. Why is a non-vanilla lifestyle one to frown upon? Why are we not open-minded enough to see the benefits of sexual health and exploration? Why can a person find resources to help with any other need, but they can’t find a safe space to learn and grow sexually without judgement?
For those who judge me
I have to remind myself, their nosy asses are the ones who sought me out. They put their nose into my business to see what makes me so terribly happy, and they found it. They found what makes me happy, what excites me, what drives me wild, and now they want to ruin my life for it. The lifestyle is not easy at times, but we aren’t going anywhere. It’s going to take crowds of us, banding together in every city across the world, to rid this plague of stigmas attached to our lifestyle. We need to end the stigmas and be heard. We deserve to be understood and welcomed. We are beautiful human beings, comfortable in our own skin, caring for one another. We deserve to live “our” way without judgement. We are someone… Someone you may know… Someone you may love… We work, pay taxes, shuffle our kids out the door to school just as you do, and we try to live a good life. We deserve to be understood and invited to the table.
Do you know someone that is considering a lifestyle change?
Please let us know. We have been working on a new project that focuses on conversation. Open, raw and honest Q & A sessions aimed at the hard to ask and hard to answer issues. Join us. We can’t wait to see you again!!
