“Sex is apart of nature. I go along with nature.” -Marilyn Monroe

It wasn’t a peculiar morning that got me thinking about this topic. I got up early, at 3 AM, to be exact, to do my homework. It’s easier to hear myself think before the house wakes up with its liveliness. So it’s not uncommon for me to wake and have my morning flooded with deep thoughts. This particular question in my psychology class had me thinking: why don’t we talk about sex more?

On my blog, I talk about human connection, how much we crave it and thrive off of it just to survive, and none of that is inherently sexual in itself. It’s part of the reason why I keep it out and leave connection to interpretation… it’s more fun that way. 😏

But the more I did some introspection on the topic and did a little bit of research, the more I came to a conclusion—a hot take, if you will: 99% of you would benefit from taking a human sexuality class.

Because here’s the thing, at least from the perspective of someone who was raised in the deep South of the United States of America, I wasn’t exposed to sex in that way. It was very reserved. Sex was saved for marriage, and there was nothing beyond that. I hardly even understood what my period was, and when it started, I sure as hell did not know what to do with it. I thought I was dying. All I knew about sex… were the whispers in secret or the shame we put on others for not fitting social normalcy. Emphasis on social.

And here’s the thing…human sexuality isn’t even necessarily about sex. Isn’t that funny? When you hear “sexuality,” you just think purely about sex. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it is about that, but it runs much deeper. (Pun intended.) It teaches us love, connection, consent, and comfort without shame. It teaches us to dig deeply inside our cells to be able to reach out and connect to people in our barest of forms. It teaches us the rawness of humanity.

Learning human sexuality is learning about intimacy. And the thing about intimacy is that it isn’t inherently sexual. We experience it every day with the connections we have with our parents, our children, and of course, in marriages too. Intimacy can be displayed even among friends, in those late-night conversations where you sit on the couch and giggle until the night ends and the morning seeps in through the blinds.

And maybe the truth is that we’ve made sex such a taboo topic that we have forgotten how to connect in ways that are nonsexual. We mistake attention for intimacy and performance for love, even giving it a sense of moral shame. We all crave it, yet we’re terrified to talk about the very thing that asks us to be present and show up for one another.

So maybe this really isn’t even about sex at all. Maybe it’s just that, as human beings, we crave being close to each other. We want to be seen and heard, and most of all, safe in each other’s warmth. Maybe that conversation starts by learning about the very things we were told not to learn about.

Kisses,

Shay

Share your thoughts in the comments!

---

Follow my socials!