ETHICAL

THE ETHICAL SLUT
SEX-N EGATIVE CULTURAL MESSAGES
At the top of the list, many of us start out paralyzed by shame and
embarrassment, even after we figure out that we don't want to be embarrassed
by sex. Shame, and the beliefs we were taught that our bodies,
our desires, and sex are dirty and wrong, make it very hard to develop
healthy sexual self-esteem. Many of us spent our adolescences consumed
with guilt for our sexual desires, our fantasies, and our masturbation,
long before we managed to pull anything off with another human.
When we did connect with others, many of us spent those encounters
obsessing about our performance, often so busy worrying if we were
doing it wrong that we forgot to notice how good it felt.
When our desires and fantasies stretch further than a monogamous
marriage with a member of the opposite sex, we suffer additional attacks
on our self-acceptance-to some, we are sex-crazed perverts, deserving
objects of scorn to others and, all too often, ourselves. According
to some people, even God hates us. It's hard to feel good about an
expansive sexuality when you feel so bad about yourself that you just
want to hide.
BODY IMAG E
None of us look sexy enough. The advertising and fashion industries
see fit to line their coffers by making us all feel bad about our bodies so
that we will buy more clothes, makeup, cosmetic surgery, or whatever
in a desperate attempt to feel okay about how we look to others. The
perfume industry floods us with images designed to convince us that we
smell bad (and if we smell worse than these highly synthesized scents,
we must smell very bad indeed). Even those lucky souls who are young
and thin and cute suffer from constant worry about how they look:
why else do you think they throng to gyms and aerobic classes?
The more people you want to share sex with, the more people you are
going to have to expose your naked body to, so there you are. To enjoy
a free sexuality, you need to come to terms with the body you are living
in, unless you want to wait till you lose twenty pounds, which could
take forever, or until you look younger-don't hold your breath. Do
remember: your sexiness is about how you feel, not how you look.
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