Since I was gone:
Our oldest child started having sex (he’s 17).
Our daughter started her period (she’s 11).
I went from being really really busy in my career to having several projects fall flat. I have a couple of things I’m doing, but nothing like last year. So, a few chuckles at how life is weird like that, and moving on.
That’s the thing – we move on. The kids certainly are. In fact, I remember that turbulent and glorious time in my life when moving on was what I looked forward to the most. Get to that first kiss. Get to Second Base. Get to genital discovery and play. Get to fall in Love. Get to That First Time. Moving on wasn’t just a relaxation technique – it was the #1 priority!
Honestly, there’s a lot we can still learn from our kids. They look so optimistically at the future, and they can be so excited and infectious with their bubbly attitude, that it’s almost a sin to be a curmudgeon shaking your stick (proverbial) at them calling them out for being lazy, undisciplined, naive, and out of control. And when it comes to sexuality, that’s where we REALLY can fuck up as parents and grandparents.
What happens when you have children, and you yourself are ashamed of your sexuality, or you create your own arbitrary rules on sex because it might be too “dirty” or “nasty” or “degrading”? Kids, whether we like it or not, watch us and remember things we wish we never did or said to the letter. And feelings of shame about our sexuality is one way to mess them up about their own sexuality.
Fear and ignorance traps us. We don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want to explore it. We don’t want to offer equality to those “others” who engage in odd forms of sex (and I’m talking about adult consensual sex here, nothing illegal). We want to focus on more “moral” priorities like work, health care, education, organic food, Afghanistan/Iraq, and Farmville on Facebook. Sexuality is best left in the bedroom……where we crash at night after exhausting ourselves all day – OR – we have a 7 minute intercourse moment ending in the dude ejaculating all over her stomach.
Yikes.
Sooooo, SEX. Let’s put it out on the table. We see people enjoying it. Instead of thumbing our noses at sexually explicit material in front of kids, shouldn’t we be explaining WHY these people are enjoying it? Don’t WE want to enjoy sex to the fullest? But let’s admit it….sex is intimate, and makes people talking about their sex lives really uncomfortable. We want to keep it private because we don’t want to admit how certain things are desired or how certain things we really don’t like. We want to remain in the public eye as a “good girl” or a “Godly man.”
Porn be damned.
Sting be damned (seven hours of sex is apparently supposed to be mocked, no matter whether the claim was true or not).
All right! I get it! But now……it’s time to move on.
Self-reflection can allow us to sit back and look at how we respond to sexually explicit material. Pornography demeaning to women? Have you seen how many porn actresses wind up sitting on somebody’s face? That’s not demeaning….that’s empowerment. Taking the time to reflect on any artistic medium helps us to see the state of our own minds, and to stop pointing the finger at everything else.
Time to move on. We want to be happy. We want to have a fulfilling life. We want others to be happy. Sex is one hell of a potent elixir of creating the kind of bliss that we only read about in romance novels or view on the ‘net in the form of amateur bi-curious porn.
Kids grow up fast, yes. But they don’t have to be afraid. We have the opportunity to lead by example how to be unafraid of our own sexuality and to be knowledgeable and informed. It’s natural to move on. It’s the law of impermanence. Everything changes.
Point being: have fun. Stop worrying about those layers of skin, or that misshaped nose, or that bald spot, or those stretch marks, or that fascination with feet. You’re not ugly, or stupid, or undeserving of pleasure. Know yourself, know your boundaries, and when interacting with others sexually, communicate your desires and your boundaries, and respect theirs as well.
We can only do that by letting go, being open to the future, and moving on.
