Tag: sexual identity | A Banana Peeled

I’m back to talk more about sex, baby. Let’s talk about you and me. Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. Is that the lyrics? It’s close enough. I don’t feel like Googling it. I like the song, though, and I may include it as the video below. I loved that Salt-N-Pepa were so frank and open about sex in 1991. And from a female point of view in rap. I have to give them props for being pioneers, and I’m so happy that they made the Hall of Fame.

You know what? They have a song I like even better than Let’s Talk About Sex. It’s not Shoop, though that’s a great song, too. Nor Whatta Man ft. En Vogue (also a terrific song). It’s None of Your Business, and I found a video of them doing it live on the Jon Stewart (!) show. I love that they’re telling off everyone who scolds women (and, yes, specifically women) for having casual sex and those who are harsh on sex workers.

I love that they are sex-positive and very unapologetic about it (at least in their music). There were very few female rappers and DJs at that time (and still, sadly). Their songs are catchy, and their hit with En Vogue is truly something special. I loved seeing that many badass (and hot) women strutting their stuff.

Here is my post from yesterday in which I wandered all over the place talking about whatever came to mind as it pertained to sex or technology.

Here is something about sex that I don’t get–why I’m supposed to feel guilty about enjoying it. I grew up in a very restrictive, shaming, fundamental Evangelical household that made it seem like having sex outside marriage was a Mortal Sin tthat would cast my soul into Hell for all eternity. Especially for women. That’s a very important part of the shaming process. Making sure the woman feels like she’s total trash if she has sex.

Only before marriage, mind. Once he puts a ring on it, then the heavens part, angels come down to sing Hallelujah, and then you get immediately pregnant. That’s the only reason to have sex in the eyes of the devout.

I was fed that bullshit all my childhood. When I was dating in my late teens/early twenties, I had what I bagan to call everything-but–meaning anything that fell technically short of actual penis in vagina. This was a known thing In fact, I didn’t do this, but it became a well-known Christian thing for girls to have anal sex as a way to avoid giving up their vaginal virginity. Which, I mean….

Side note: virginity is not a real thing, anyway. It’s just a thin piece of skin that not every AFAB person even has, and there are so many ways for it to break. In addition, it’s such an antiquated way of looking at sex–and so sexist. So many young women thinking they were ruined or broken just because that little piece of skin was no longer there.

I talked in my last post about two letters I’d read in Care & Feeding (Slate), one right after the other. They had to do with highly sensitive people and how parents/grandparents reacted to them. The third and fourth letters were about gender identity and closely related.

The third letter is from a mom grieving as her daughter transitions from M-to-F. She was happy to embrace her daughter, but sad to see the son she took care of leave. She was honestly struggling, which was better than my mother when I came out as bi to her. I don’t know why I did given what I know about her, but I thought because she was a psychologist and because she was supportive of my cousin coming out as gay, she would be at least neutral about it. I should have known better; I really should have. When I came out to her, she said, “But you used to like boys so much!” At the time, I told her that I still did, but I liked girls as well. Now, I’d say that gender wasn’t important to me when choosing a partner or that I welcomed partners of all or no genders. My mother also made the tired old ‘next you’ll be wanting to have sex with animals’–I don’t know WHY sex with animals is always next–comment. In other words, she was not understanding at all. I dropped it because it was clear she did not want to talk about it. Years later, I mentioned something again about liking women and she said in a dismissive tone, “Oh, I thought you were over that.”

I introduced my first serious boyfriend in college to them. It was dinner. My father could not have cared less about meeting my boyfriend and I could tell my mother didn’t care for him. She wasn’t wrong, but they could have at least made an effort at the time. After that dinner, I vowed I would never introduce a partner to my parents again, and I haven’t. They are also a big reason I never wanted to get married and have children. Not only because they were a very bad example on both fronts, but also because I did not want to subject a loved one to their venom. I knew if I had kids, my parents would warp them the way they did me. My mom was so desperate for me to have kids (which was a mindfuck all by itself), she said she’d move back here to take care of them. As if that would be an incentive for me to have kids! Even if we were close, having kids to make her happy would be a stupid idea. In addition, it’s not even true. She likes the idea of being a grandmother more than she actually likes being a grandmother. She moved away after my niece and nephews were born and only comes back once a year (before the pandemic, of course. It was twice a year for some years, but then tapered off to a month in the summer–even though it was supposed to be six weeks–and all of this before the pandemic. And when she’s around the grandchildren, all she does is ask them stilted questions and basically ignore them. She complains about them every time she sees them, which again, remember, was maybe two or three times during the four weeks they were here. This time, my father said he was embarrassed that they had been here two weeks and not seen my sister-in-law and my brother’s kids. When they had been here for two months. And they could have seen my brother’s family; they chose not to. When they went on a cruise with my brother’s family a few years ago (I put my foot down for once and refused to go because I knew I’d be miserable. I hate being confined; I hate groups of people; I hate being with my family. Yeah, that would have been a recipe for disaster). I asked them how it went when they came home. They complained for a half hour about the boys (my nephews) misbehaving. The same thing happened when my brother took his family to Taiwan many years ago (again, I refused to go). I got to hear all about how one of my nephews misbehaved.

Tag Archives: sexual identity

Sexy times (or not), part four

Family dysfunction is getting old