I know I sound like a broken record when I say this, but tumblr is really shockingly sex-negative. Yes, there are lots of teenagers here, but when I was a teen I recall being much more fascinated by the positive possibilities of sex than freaked out by the wrong turns, and all I see is people 1) fretting about sex as though it’s a minefield of horrors or 2) mocking people who are outspoken about enjoying sex. We spent all of the 80s and 90s fostering open dialogue, and… now I don’t know, it’s like everyone’s uncomfortable again.
I hate to be that person, but…
Maybe cybersex can be this light, airy, fun thing, but real sex, unless it’s in a monogamous, committed relationship, has characteristics that are actively against that.
When hetero, it always has the risk of babies. It always has the risk of incurable disease. It always has the risk of either causing or surfacing trauma. It’s extremely vulnerable and sensitive. It exposes our bodies with all the underlying concerns we have about them.
And it’s part of pair bonding.
A committed monogamous relationship
- Ensures greater resources for parenting, should it come to that, rather than single parent destitution
- Limits exposure to disease
- Allows longer-term discussion and working through trauma with up to the maximum share of attention one person can provide, rather than having to open up about it repeatedly to strangers
- Incentivizes mutual, reciprocal understanding as beneficial tit-for-tat
- Requires opening up deep vulnerability about ourselves and our bodies to only one person, which many find less emotionally difficult
- Promotes emotional bonding with someone who will emotionally bond back and still be there, regularly in one’s life
In that environment, sex can be fun, experimental, or exploratory, without having to worry so much about secondary consequences, straight, gay, or somewhere in-between.