Friday, September 14, 2007

sex activism Vancouver

City Hall is really really making things a challenge right now. And no, I am not talking about Surrey either. It's another City that is grating me the wrong way right now. It's a zoning issue, it's a parking issue, it's the egress, it's the electrical, it's the [insert issue] here type of continuous scenario. Anyways this was the entirety of my morning and left me in a not so happy mood.

Off to get my toes painted again at the mall. It really is an indulgence. They look super pretty which makes me happy. And after my morning, this was an excellent choice of a pick me up.

Then off to pick up T. from her Orthodontics appointment and her exciting day at a Leadership conference up near Metrotown. We hung out together for the next few hours tackling life's necessities. Once home, I packed for my evening class and jumped into the shower to to refresh myself for the night ahead. It was a day certainly running on a close clock.

Class was a blast. I was in my own neighborhood, teaching a basic sex education class to all these new-to-me women. They were in age from 26 - 35 I believe. Two were married, a couple were mothers, the rest were not. A wonderful giggly group of women. Everyone wanted to learn general sex info and also they shared a theme of wanting to get more knowledge on achieving orgasm faster and more intensely. We just blew through two and half hours of information so fast, that I ended up staying late as the women were just starting to warm up, as I was packing up.

This class, unlike so many others I teach, was truly a very basic and general sex education class. One that the contents of, belong in a Grade 10 mandatory sex class to all pupils, both boys and girls. Every adult woman, should know and be able to identify her own genitalia by naming each piece with her own fingertips. Sadly so many adult women do not even know the correct words to identify their vulva's with, let alone to pass on the proper language to their own children. It is a tad bit disheartening to me as a mother to hear another mother say, that at 3 her daughter is too old to be seeing her father naked because she might ask questions about his boy parts. I am fairly sure she was talking about "the penis" so I did not ask for clarification. I find it equally heart wrenching that for many women their sole orgasmic experience with their vulva is that which their own partner gives them, and that is if they are even that fortunate.

I've been empowered surrounding my sexuality for a long time now, and in control of my own pleasure. For this has been one of the greatest gifts of my adult hood. Blissful orgasmic ecstatic pleasure at my own hand. Not at the hand of a lover, no other person involved. My being able to make love to me. With a toy, or my own hand. I have it in me, to do this for myself. Not by fluke. Not by accident. But because I took responsibility for it, for my own bliss. There came a time when I couldn't rely on another, when I needed to know how. There came a time when it was important enough for me to really get to know myself.

I spread my legs before a mirror many moons ago now, years in fact, and started learning the correct words for my girl bits. With this knowledge I gained strength. I passed this strength on to T, she won't be one of those women spreading her legs for some partner in her adult hood and being reliant on them for her both a glimpse of what she may look like down there as well as her pleasure. No, she like me, will claim her own! This is a legacy that is so important for me to bestow upon her.

I wish all parents would give their children the gift of sexual knowledge, it's power. Teach your children what's between their legs, teach them the difference between the sexes and celebrate this information together. Living in shame of one's genitals, or even showing them at home or asking questions about them, that is just a breeding ground for ignorance, further shame, exploitation potential and a growth stunt in sexual development.

And society wonders why young people [hell, adults in general] make mistakes when left alone with own another, their own idle curiosities about sex and their bodies. Everyone wants to feel good and most people don't even know how to go about it. Or if they do know how to give themselves pleasure, they are so limited in what works for them by preference, or worse, what is morally acceptable to them that the options are sparse. The people I meet in classes are starved for information, so much so that they don't even realize that to answer their questions, you have to explain to them first the unique names of each of there genital complexes and other concepts that are foreign to them as well.

This is my job, sex-positive activism.