Why is it that when men sleep with multiple women or have multiple partners that its empowering and applauded, but when women decide to experiment and embrace their sexuality they’re shamed? Growing up I’ve seen the different ways that sexuality has a huge double standard. But I feel like as long as both partners are being safe and considerate, why does it matter who sleeps with who? It’s not like it effects anyone else’s life other than the ones involved, but yet someone always has something to say.
Girls are always told while growing up if you have multiple partners throughout your life time that you are of lesser value then someone who has waited to save themselves for marriage or someone that has slept with only one or two people. But in reality, just because you haven’t had as much experience it doesn’t make you any different than someone who has lots of experience. Sometimes women feel the need to experiment with their bodies, just like men do. Women just want to feel pleasure, just like men do.
This generation of young adults are completely shifting the views on sexuality and what is now considered ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ and it’s amazing. But let me say this, no im not promoting people to sleep around, catch unnecessary bodies and to be unsafe because there are still things to worry about such as disease and unwanted pregnancy. All im saying is stop demonizing women that also enjoy sex and don’t want commitment. There are now female artists that talk about their sex life in their music, such as Nicki Minaj, Megan the Stallion, and Sexy Redd. But it’s not just about sex, it’s about female empowerment, it’s about women being able to express what they like and what they don’t like.
In class, we were learning about experience, about phenomenology. I understood that with our experiences we add in our senses (taste, touch, sight, hearing). I was honestly stumped on what I could talk about. I know that I have many different experience as a woman. But then I started to think about a specific place that made me feel safe…
As a woman, I feel the constant stress of my body. But I’m not just any woman, I am a brown woman. The pressures of having to keep my grades up or being the perfect brown daughter who lives up to her parent’s expectations. Where would I go to decompress my feelings of doubt and anxiety? Where could I go to make the world go slow for a moment of peace and quiet? The Women’s Center. A home away from home. I can imagine the structure of the room as my safe space. You enter a room filled with posters of colorful affirmations, handouts of mental health awareness. Seeing the names and faces of those who work in the center makes it all that encompassing. I am always greeted with a welcoming smile by the wonderful staff who are ready to care for you. I see a prayer room for those who have no place to go, another for mothers to feed their children. I look to my right and see the many forms of aid. Did you get your period? Take a tampon or pad. As many as you need because your body, your UTERUS, is cared for in this center. Are you sexually active? Go ahead and take some condoms for protection because no one wants any STDs. Coziness is an understatement as you walk further into their center. The round table, to sit and do work or to relax while playing with a fidget toy from the fidget bowl. The hugging of many bookshelves enriched with stories of colored women, LGBTQ+ personas finding themselves, and in those books, a voice that comforts you. A “You are not alone” “You are accepted for who you are” here and there is what you’ll find. Towards the back of the room, soft couches for you to sit down and relax your aching womanly body. My curvy body type just melting away into the cushion, holding me and letting me rest. Are you hungry? Take a bag of chips from the food shelves. No one’s going to judge how you eat or how much. You won’t be judged for being a skinny to thick body type. Every woman is welcome here at the center. I was always scared to enter this environment not knowing that it was so peaceful.
Why didn’t I take the risk of pushing that door open my freshman year? Maybe it was the fear of other women judging me because they felt it was their own space. Was it was the unknown territory that frightened me to my core? Or my shyness because of the people who worked there could see me grabbing feminine products. But now, it has become my home, my safe place for the rest of my college experience. Of course there are other places I consider my home, sometimes it’s not even places. It’s people. My boyfriend is my home, my comfort. He makes me feel imperfectly perfect. But then I begin to wonder, What about men? Where are their safe places? Do they not have a safe space because it’s uncommon? I wonder these things when I walk into the center. Of course men are welcome inside the center, but maybe men are intimidated by the space. I feel like they are intimated by those bold lettered words above the entrance of the door. Maybe they feel like they would be judged for walking in and taking their own time to decompress. I started to think about the people I met in the center, the conversations I’ve had. There was one girl, I’ll call her M, she had Nigerian parents, we had a 20 minute conversation about the freedoms being a woman in college. We talked about relationships, how her parents wanted her to date her own ethnicity. She wished her parents allowed her to do anything. But just because she was a girl, she wasn’t able to go out, even past her driveway. I honestly am happy that I had parents who trusted me even though I was young developing woman in a very dangerous world. She too had came to the center to clear her head. That was the first time in a while that I had been confident enough to start a conversation with a stranger. But being in that environment helped me bring out my extroverted side. I also think it was just the fact that I am able to talk so comfortably to women. I would encourage any woman to go there for any needs they desire. Whether it be to get a tampon or pad, or a place to relax. I hope that anyone who reads this knows that there are places to go when you are feeling down to no energy. So don’t be shy, don’t be afraid to step into that center, you won’t regret it 🙂
It’s that time of year again. When all the “ghouls and goblins” come out to play. Or, should I say “sluts and sex–crazed men” come out and frolick about. Slut shaming has become a very negative stigma centered around Halloween time. Continue reading →
I can’t even count the number of times somebody said this to me in high school when I told them that I was a virgin. What the hell does that even mean? Continue reading →
Recently, I have started going to yoga classes at the RAC twice a week with my roommate and one of my suite mates. After going to a few sessions, I realized how much yoga makes me aware of my body in different ways.
First class: I walk into the room where the class is held, and I see a slew of medium-height, slender girls (and a few guys) with perfectly toned bodies who gracefully rolled out their yoga mats and sat down and stretched their perfectly formed muscles. Continue reading →
This past Friday I finally had a date with the guy I really liked for about six months, who also happens to live in Pennsylvania. I don’t fall for people very often..but when I do, I fall HARD. We’re talking send-a-care-package-in-the-mail-just-because-you-have-a-busy-semester kind of hard. And folks, it went horribly on Friday. I’ve been putting the list of things in my head that made this night turn into a similar scenario to the bombing of Pearl Harbor (maybe I’m a bit dramatic..but here it is): Continue reading →
Unruly Bodies 