Caitlain's Corner

Sex Education

Sexual Ownership

How many things do you own – things that you can claim as yours and only yours? You might list things like the little odds and ends in your room, your clothes, books, CDs and DVDs, and maybe even a car. There is one other thing that you can claim full ownership of, though, and that is your self. Some of us are more proud of what we own than others, and some of us treat our property better than others, but the fact remains that we each own our bodies, our souls, our spirits. And, by extension, we also own our sexuality.

At first this may seem like common sense, but when you examine how some people manage their sexuality, you have to question just who does own it. It is important to understand what it means to own your sexuality. If you cede control of your sexuality to someone else and allow them to control you through it, you become objectified. To be objectified means that you are no longer seen as human, but an object for someone else to use or manipulate.

What does it mean to "own" my sexuality?

One of the most fundamental aspects of humanity is your sexuality; everyone is a sexual creature. Nothing you experience in life will be as intimately intertwined into your being. You cannot be "whole" by suppressing a part of yourself or by allowing someone else to exert control over a part of your self. Therefore, you must recognize that you own that part of you and learn to manage it so that it allows you to enjoy what is perhaps one of the most personal aspects of being alive.

Taking ownership of your sexuality means that you control your own sexual destiny. You don't let others control it for you, through physical or emotional force, pressure, coercion, or deceit. Ownership means that you make the decisions about all facets of your sexuality, and are responsible only to yourself for the decisions – and mistakes - you make. The bottom line is that it is up to you to recognize that, understand it, and address it in a manner that allows you to remain true to yourself. That can be very hard to do, especially if you're not equipped with or given the tools to recognize those situations and deal with them adequately (ultimately, it is your parents' responsibility to provide you with those tools).

When you own your sexuality, you feel good about it, and enjoy the celebration of your "self" as you share that aspect of your being with someone else. You become comfortable in your own skin, with your own approach to what sex can mean between two consenting individuals. That is very empowering and confidence-building. If you don't own it, you always feel coerced, uncomfortable or even pressured into doing things with someone when you don't want to. This is not to suggest that you won't have insecurities; everyone has those. But through ownership, you deal with those in a manner that allows you to recognize them and compensate, either through self improvement or using other assets you have to make up for your perceived shortcomings.

One of the most critical aspects of ownership is that of agency. Having agency means that you can reason and form self-interested judgments, and are capable of acting in your own best interest and on your own behalf. It is what allows you to function as an autonomous human being. Thus, as your own agent, you have the capacity to manage and make your own decisions about every facet of "you" – including, of course, the sexual part.

You should also not allow society or other external constructs dictate how you manage your sexuality. There are a number of societal constraints on sex and gender roles these days. Some of them masquerade as "morals" imposed by people who would have you deny or confine this part of who you are. I'm not suggesting that you completely ignore them, but you have to ask yourself what real purpose many of those constraints serve. If you make a value judgment that it is appropriate to not do one thing over another, then so be it. Just make sure that you are doing it because it feels right for you, not because of some specious reason that no one understands or because that's the way someone else thinks it ought to be. Doing that means that you're allowing them to manage your sexuality to one degree or another.

This is not to say that you shouldn't consider opinions and values from others. Indeed, part of owning your sexuality is learning how cultural expectations impact your identity, building a positive relationship with your desires, and learning to take an active part in defining who you are as a sexual person. The key of course, is to balance all of that with what you think you ought to be sexually.

Some people will find the fact that you own and control your sexuality to be threatening, because they sense that you are rebelling against the "controls" that they have sought to place upon you. This may include the church, your parents and perhaps even your friends. While you should pay heed to the instruction of your parents (and, to a lesser extent the church if you are of religious faith), there's nothing that suggests that you should follow them blindly. Part of growing up is learning to exert your independence and make your own decisions. If you follow someone else's guidance without question for 18 years, what will happen when you do get out on your own? You will be unable to function in society and unable to make decisions for yourself. This can have negative consequences, especially from a sexuality perspective.

Failure to take ownership can lead to problems such as low self-esteem, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and violence such as date rape. If you're a female, you'll be forced to deal with the dichotomy of the slut vs. prude paradigms that seem to permeate the halls of middle and high schools. If you're a guy, you'll find yourself always needing to "prove" your masculinity by having to explain how many girls you've been with or why you haven't been with any. Both of these are manifestations of a failure for you to exert control over your own sexuality.

You may find yourself in a situation where you are pressured into doing something you wouldn't otherwise do. If you allow yourself to be coerced into doing something, you can hardly claim ownership of it. Your sexuality should not be dependant on anyone else's whims or desires. Owning sexuality means thinking and acting out of your own sexual interest instead of "letting" someone else have sex with you. Sex is something you should want to "do" as opposed to having it "done to" you. Refusing to acknowledge and assert ownership puts you in a position where you're liable to "let things happen" because you feel as if you "owe it" to a partner. Simply put, you do things because they want you to as opposed to doing them because you want to.

Respecting what's yours

Part of being a responsible owner is treating your property with respect. If you want to keep it in good condition, you have to treat it well, not abuse it, and take the necessary steps to make sure it doesn't get damaged or destroyed. Of course, this applies just as much to your sexuality as anything else.

As you grew up, your parents told you what to do, and this is perfectly normal of course. This is how you learn right from wrong, and so forth, and it is pretty much essential to the formation of who you become as you grow up. As you grow into your teenage years, though, you begin to want to assert your own individuality, make your own decisions, and explore the possibilities outside the narrow scope of what you've been a part of since birth. Not only is this normal, it is essential to the formation of your own individual identity. For some, this process is easier than others, due to a variety of reasons – family conditions, individual shyness, the experience your older siblings (if applicable) had, and external forces such as your church and school environments and experiences.

Does it make sense to you that you should allow someone else to dictate to you how you should "be?" By and large, you don't allow someone else to tell you how to dress, how to walk, or how to eat. Why in the world would you allow someone else to tell you how you should manage something that was as intimate to you as your own sexuality? Why would you allow someone else to restrict who you can love, who you can share emotional intimacy with, who you can have sex with, when you have sex, how you have sex, or why you have sex?

Sexuality is one of the most intimate measures of who you are as an individual, and if you can't/don't feel free to express yourself freely, you cannot truly be yourself. For some people, that might be acceptable. For most, however, it becomes restrictive and puts them in a position where they are forced to compromise and are never really able to enjoy themselves fully sexually.

With ownership comes responsibility

With ownership comes responsibility and that is certainly no less true for your sexuality. As the owner of your sexuality, it is your responsibility to:

1. Become educated about sex, sexuality and all that it engenders. In all likelihood, you won't learn what you need to learn from school or your parents, so it is up to you to learn it on your own. This includes not just information about how not to get pregnant, but learning to understand the role of emotions and the development of relationships and how they interact and impact your sexuality, for example.

2. Learn what makes you tick sexually. For everything else that you own, you know how to use it, right? The same must be true of your sexuality; physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Take the time to explore your body (masturbate), explore your fantasies, and explore the entire realm of what sexuality encompasses. Don't be afraid to indulge yourself in fantasy and thought to find out what things turn you on and what your limits are.

3. Be a safe, healthy practitioner of sex, regardless of what form you participate. It is your responsibility to make sure that everything you do sexually results in no diseases, no non-consensual harm to anyone or anything, and that you are using appropriate birth control mechanisms if you don't intend to get pregnant.

4. Be respectful of others' sexuality, regardless of whether you understand or agree with it or not. You enjoy your sexuality the way you see fit, and allow others to do the same. There's literally nothing wrong or "abnormal" with any sexual activity done between consenting people, so long as no one gets hurt (and no laws are violated)

5. Make sound, rational, informed decisions about how you experience sexuality and how you interact sexually with others. Enjoy those aspects that bring you pleasure, and strive to learn from the mistakes you make and not repeat them. Relish your successes, and accept responsibility for your failures.

Purity Rings and Pledges

One of the most striking examples of someone else owning your sexuality is the concept of the "purity pledge."

By way of background, up until recently (a couple hundred years), females were considered "property" of either their fathers or their husbands. Some cultures still practice this – your father determines who you marry, when you marry, etc. If you are raped it is treated as a property crime, and in some extremist cultures, the rape victim is killed because she's "damaged goods." The practice of the father giving away the bride at today's weddings comes from the tradition that the father was giving his daughter (as his "property") away to her husband (the new "owner").

We see an extension of this with the purity pledges that are somewhat common these days. Purity Balls are events where young girls pledge to their fathers that they will not have sex and will remain "pure" until they get married. Her father gives her a purity ring that she wears until she gets married, whereupon she gives the ring to her husband. This ridiculous practice reinforces the concept that your sexuality belongs to someone else (your father and, subsequently, your husband), and makes you a "sexual object." Hanging onto your virginity because you know your entire worth to your future husband is centered on the status of your hymen instead of you as a person is the ultimate in degrading objectification.

You are an independent, free-thinking individual capable of managing your own sexuality, and don't need your father or anyone else overseeing it for you. The boys don't suffer this indignity and neither should you. If a parent asks you to participate in this kind of activity, explain to him/her that, while you appreciate his/her concern for you, you feel you are fully capable of making your own decisions about how you manage your sexuality, or that you'd like the opportunity to do so as you grow up.

Summary

One of the most essential elements of being a human is your sexuality. It literally defines you as a person from the time you pass through puberty until the day you pass on to the next world. You can choose to control your own sexuality and enjoy it to its fullest on your terms, or you can allow others to dictate how you manage it. The choice you make in this regard will determine to a large extent how sexually satisfied you'll be for the rest of your life. You need to know, though, that it is okay to feel desire, okay to act on it, okay to make the first move, and okay to enjoy it. It's your sexuality Own it.

Lest someone misconstrue the entire point of this article; I am not advocating promiscuity or sluttish behavior. Virginity and monogamy are just as viable a choice as is sex with multiple partners. The point is that you make the decision to do it, as opposed to you doing it because someone else thinks it ought to be done that way.