There’s a war on fear.
It’s consistently been my biggest beef with the pseudo-intellectuals and Tony Robbins of the world. The less than sage advice of “leaning into fear”, of shunning its primary purpose for the sake of conquering it, harms more people than it helps. It’s not even enough to lean into fear, we’ve been instructed to make enemies out of it and I’ve found as a woman (or rather someone who functions as one), it doesn’t serve me. To wrestle fear into submission is to sever an unseen limb.
This belief I’d inherited, that fear functions only to move rather than sedate me, greatly informed the earliest experiences I had attempting to exercise sexual will. It evokes violently colorful memories. I was 18, in the backseat of a truck, straddling an older man I had no business seeing, growing more aware by the second of the erection under me. There it was, this throbbing hard-on loudly proclaiming it wanted to be taken care of and though I didn’t feel emotionally or physically equipped to do so, I had geared myself up to make a valiant effort. Effectively concealed over his shoulder was the general shape of my fear, the reason my hands had a tremble and I found myself profusely sweating. This feeling, anxious tendrils draped over a growing ball of dread wanted me out of there, to be driven home and pretend this never happened but such calls went unanswered. I fell asleep that night knowing what foreskin felt like in my hands, having to contend with the reality that I used fear to mash on the gas instead of slam on the brakes. The single most effective tool baked into the human body, had been rendered obsolete in a few anxious moments.
At the time of my sexual debut, I was more informed than most. I’d already started my would be career in sex education as a certified peer sex educator, and came from a family that didn’t champion sex positivity per se, but hadn’t disparaged seeking knowledge about it either. There was ever growing curiosity on my part and as if they could sense it, the women in my life opened the floor to have discussions about sex, and I had questions, lots of them.
All advice given to me by female elders when making my sexual debut were the usual suspects: “Don’t get pregnant.”, “Always pee after sex.”, “It hurts at first but, it’ll get better”, and other cautions. At the time, I was grateful for it, mostly because it felt like a reward to have these conversations at all, like the women in my family thought me worthy of real answers rather than placations. To me, advice meant my elders acknowledged I had space to take up if I so pleased. It was as if every exchange we had contained bricks I could erect the foundations of my sexual archetype atop of. These dialogues were important to my sexual development, obviously, but they harmed me as often as they aided me.
I wouldn’t have the language until much later to articulate my displeasure with the guidance echoed in my home and overarching society. Though in some ways it was useful, it set dicey precedent for teaching tween and teen girls about sex-stating as plainly as language could that sex in our body, that womanhood itself came with warnings. Reminders that all of our decisions, the wisest ones anyway, should be colored by fear. I wouldn’t be in conflict with this education had an addendum not been attached encouraging us to advance through the fear by any means necessary.
[*There are viable arguments one could make about the contributions mass produced cishet porn, BDSM being co-opted by an uneducated public and toxic masculinity made to this phenomenon, but that’s simply too large to tackle in a singular essay.]
Instead, I’ll note that, in all of my years of sex education, I’ve yet to encounter communities who don’t teach their girls to fear sex in the same vain that they pursue it. I liken it to visiting haunted houses but hating Halloween: one seeks the terror they believe is already on its way. This is not to say there aren’t real reasons for woman, girls and femmes to have sexual apprehension, (my November newsletter features a story detailing why these fears are founded), but rather, we do a disservice to girls every time we tell them the fire is hot then expect them to run through it.
Watching my peers and elders adopt an erotic skittishness as a prerequisite to an active sex life felt like concession to the belief that sex isn’t, has never been and could never be for our benefit. Our language supports it “she got banged, clapped, smashed, railed etc.” and it only takes a brief scroll of your timeline on your social of choice to fall into some “save yourself for your husband or you’re a whore!” trap (Christian purity culture) or “preserve your yoni until your divine masculine appears or you’ll be stuck with soul ties!” trap (crystal purity culture). Whether peering straight ahead, or keeping yours on a swivel, you can rest assured that sex in a woman’s body, womanly sex if you will, is not only meant to be demurring, but harrowing. Essentially, womanly sex is frightfully compliant. And that compliance is why so many women find themselves unsettled throughout their sexual history. The consent was there (in theory), all the legalities and one could argue ethics were in order, but there was an internal chasm, one that perhaps couldn’t be addressed because we refused to name it.
Fear breeding action without true reward awakens a discontent beast. One that shouts, “If you won’t listen to yourself, listen to me.”
The gentle whispers from grayed and wrinkling women as well as the disclaimers from friends are always well meaning, but serve only to bolster men’s claims over our bodies. It means that misogyny, capitalism, patriarchy and every other oppressive system continues to succeed at making us do its dirty work. The buck’s been passed and women have no problem tossing it amongst ourselves. It’s one of the initiation tools of womanhood in fact, exercising the muscle of sacrifice. Making us stand in a circle and ask: how much can I give before they complain of how small the portions are? As intended, it’s thankless and denigrating work wetting the whistle of those in power.
Most women know this on some fundamental level— that their work and home and sex life have been hijacked by a culture that requires they earn care, love, adoration and rations of humanity through selfless, fearful acts of service.
For every dubious sexual encounter we have, there’s a culture of fearful acceptance being strengthened, unfurling paper with our names on it proving it can’t be that harmful if we all continue to do it which you should know by now, is bullshit.
There are many disservices done when we forsake the signals of our body but the worse perhaps is the blow to our confidence and physical awareness. By that, I’m not referring to measurements and ratios of bust to waist to hip, but rather the ability to read internal messages fluently, without pause. To walk into fear and conquer for all’s sake but your own, is to publicly support the notion that your body can’t express your needs to you adequately. Your body, an advocate in its own right is stripped of utility and dignity. At that point, sex is not even done to you, it’s done in front of you, with your conscious participation acting as a specter standing flush against the wall.
And sending against that wall long enough leaves you clueless as to how to step into the room, to be having sex again (or maybe even for the first time). It doesn’t come easy, and there’s resistance.
The resistance is in challenging not just the who or why of sex, but also the (internal) when. By allowing fear to unspool and be examined, it puts you in a position of power. It betters your chances of making decisions informed both by your body and mind. You begin to function in this liminal space, no longer propelled forward by fear but not quite halted by it either.
When I started preaching these things in sex ed spaces as well as in my personal life (cause I talk about sex everywhere with damn near everyone), I got a surprising amount of pushback. Colleagues argued how important it is not to be consumed by anxieties and family and friends stated they’d probably have had a quarter of the sex they did in their lifetimes had they not put fear aside and to that I ask: would that be such a bad thing? If we can agree quality, not quantity makes for an empowered, fulfilling sex life, then we should be gung ho at the possibility of people stepping away from sex when their body can’t muster more enthusiasm than alarm. And with the internet having circular conversations about consent (and how enthusiastic it should be) weekly, there’s no better time than now to address this unspoken social trapping.
The culture can do better, by girls and women and everyone else. The power to appoint fear as an authority rest in every sexual encounter we have moving forward and is something we should be encouraging. Sexual health can’t just be about abortion access, contraceptive and frequent testing. It must include building an environment where we frequently recall experiences we want to remember because the rest simply don’t exist.
In a lot of ways, I was failed by my community. It wasn’t enough to slide me a condom or express relief that I was using birth control. What I needed was armor and a sword, a command not to have sex when I was afraid. Not to associate sex with things worth fearing because when I did start having sex and engaging with people, all I felt was fear; fear that I was fucking it up or that it would never be pleasurable or that this wasn’t the right time to voice whether this thing we were doing was my thing and that was damaging. Moving through my sex life in such a way didn’t collapse my fears, just internalize them. I likened it (fearful sex I mean), to building a habit, something that when confronted enough times you’d stop thinking about consciously and just do, except when that happened I didn’t know how not to be afraid.
When I started having the sex I craved, when I found my things, I felt lost. The absence of fear became its own crippling force, one with no quick fix in sight. This is the plight of many of us attempting to navigate the world post second wave feminism, existing in a notably hyper sexual yet sex negative era. As I try to dodge the hookup culture think pieces rebranding puritanical ideals as feminist (which spoiler alert: is the same dating landscape as 110 years ago when dating was invented just with hyper visibility due to internet accessibility & more women in public facing social lives) & continue to preach the actual gospel (how to self manage abortions at home cause I’m a sex educator who fucking loves my job), I’m constantly confronted with the reality that women are trained to seek absolution for their inherently “feminine flaws” through sex, making combating such complex themes that much harder.
Despite hours of pondering on this subject in length, I’m aware that the solution to such issues aren’t singular or linear and will require time, resources, people (copious amounts) and patience to tackle. Keeping that in mind, there’s always work for us to do. Namely, building community that actively supports sex as a fearless endeavor. As a collective, we have to get on one accord about how we’ll approach sex. What protocol will be used to honor the signals our bodies give us about whatever it is we’re doing and how to plan our escapes if shit hits the fan.
Instead of spilling more cheap red wine in each others glasses after shitty sexual encounters, we need to grip our friends hard and tell them we don’t fuck people afraid anymore. We organize sex toy gift exchanges and purchase each other audio erotica app subscriptions. We take our meds and go on our therapeutic little strolls. We entertain crowdsourcing decent hookups (not the worst idea in the world) and save up for a Sybian. We build connections that feel hopeful and inspire playful, sexy curiousity.
Most importantly, we nurture our bodies away from running, because we want to be here, right here, where pleasure’s never soured, only sweetened.