About our garden of sexual scripts, our orgasm obsession, and feminist sex…

Our garden of sexual scripts- weeds, flowers and anything in-between

What messages have you internalized about sexuality? And how do these messages affect your relationship to sexuality?

These are some of the questions that I discuss with my workshop participants during the Let’s Talk About Sex workshop, with the focal topic of pleasure and desire.

Because our mind is one of our—if not the most important—sex organs. Limiting and pressuring scripts around sexuality can immensely influence our sense of pleasure and desire. That’s why I start a conversation with people about the messages flying around in their minds that make them feel restricted or anxious around sexuality. We write them all down, put them out in the open, and realize that we are not so alone with these thoughts. Because, after all, these thoughts often come from society and were never consciously chosen by us.

So that’s what we try to do at the beginning of the workshops. We basically weed our garden of sexual scripts. We dig out whatever no longer serves us, and we plant messages that we would like to internalize instead. We share our positive sexual messages and inspire each other so that, hopefully, we leave the session with a whole garden of freeing and beautiful messages about sexuality.

These messages have started accumulating in my office, and I thought it was time to share some of the ones that keep getting mentioned.

So here we go with some of the weeds that we have been trying to let go of during the workshops:

“Sex needs to include penetration.”

“There needs to be an orgasm (and I cannot take too long).”

“Sex should be hidden, private, and monogamous.”

“The man needs to take the lead during sex.”

“You need to be turned on right away.”

“If you love your partner, you must want them.”

“Men need to have a high sex drive.”

“You have to finish what you started.”

“If you tell the other person what they should do, it will make them feel insecure.”

“You should just know how to have sex because it is natural and intuitive.”

“Sex should be spontaneous.”

Now here are some of the seeds we wanted to plant instead:

“Intimate touch alone can be enough.”

“Make each other feel safe.”

“There is no such thing as too much or too little sex per se.”

“I am not weird for asking for what I like.”

“I am allowed to enjoy sex as a woman.”

“I am free to have sex in the way that I like it.”

“It is okay not to want sex that I don’t enjoy.”

“I am allowed to slow sex down.”

“I enjoy solo sex.”

“It is okay not to feel turned on right away, but to slowly feel my way into sex.”

“Sex starts outside the bedroom and includes connecting outside of the bedroom.”

“Personalized, unique, and dynamic sex is good sex.”

“Good sex doesn’t need to include an orgasm.”

“I can always step back from what I started.”

These are some of the messages workshop participants have shared with me and each other during these sessions.

When I look at all of these conversations, two themes stand out above all others: the pressure around gender roles in sexuality and the idea that sex needs to end in orgasm to be considered successful.

The big O…

But what is successful sex, even?

Can sex be successful without an orgasm?

What would happen if we focused more on pleasure, intimacy, and connection, and less on the outcome of an orgasm?

What would happen if we shifted from an outcome focus to more of a process focus? (This goes for so many things in life.)

Many people (especially women) struggle to reach orgasm. Does this mean they never have successful or fulfilling sex?

What would be the effect of decentralizing the orgasm? What if we took the orgasm off the table for a moment and focused on exploration instead?

Feminist sex…

The other topic that frequently comes up is the pressure people feel around gender roles in sexuality. Men who feel immense pressure to lead and be dominant, while actually wanting to surrender. Women who want to set the tone and express what they want, but are afraid of being too dominant or too difficult. Men who enjoy dominance but feel uncomfortable with that part of themselves. And women who want to be dominated but find themselves in a values crisis: Can I call myself a feminist and still enjoy being dominated by a man sexually?

My short answer: Why the fuck not?

Feminism in sexuality, to me, doesn’t mean that you need to be dominant or active. Feminism in sexuality, to me, is about expanding choice rather than prescribing behaviour. It means that people of all genders get to choose what they like, free from societal expectations about how they should behave sexually.

This is why communicating around sex is so damn important. What if we just accepted that, at the end of the day, none of us really know exactly what we are doing, and that sexuality is, by its very nature, a place of uncertainty and exploration?

You know what’s sexy? Honesty, communication, curiosity, and vulnerability.

I felt like writing all these thoughts down to maybe give you a spark of inspiration to think about your own sexual garden. Does it need weeding? Or are there plants growing whose seeds you would like to spread even more?

Do you recognize some of the topics I talk about here?

If you're curious about gender roles in sexuality, you should check out my other Let’s Talk About Sex workshop with the focal topic of roles and communication. There, we really dive into the question of gender roles in sexuality and explore what each of us has learned about our "right" place in sexual relationships.