By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com  
www.sensuoussadie.com 

One steamy summer night of my junior year in high school, I was hanging around one of those parties populated by the offbeat intellectuals of my high school set, the so-called “frisbee people.” Ours was no friendly tossing-about-the-yard game however; rather a determined snap of a competition-sized Frisbee, whipped with all the energy of kids too smart for their own good. We weren’t the only clique at this particular party and in the half darkness I observed a local jock. He was in a league foreign to my own, but still attractive for the cocky look in his eyes. I wanted to sleep with him and hesitated only a fraction of a second as I leaned close and whispered “I heard you’re well-endowed.” Of course he responded with “Would you like to find out?” And of course I did.

Even at sixteen I was aware of my own sexual precociousness. I “got” sex, and I knew that I got it. I understood how to flirt, how to seduce, how to make love. This came not from early sexual abuse as some might assume, but from a combination of my mother’s razzy attitude and genetic poetry.

It may have been in the genes, but I didn’t know it until maybe the realm of twelve years old when I had an unexpected urge to hump my bed headboard. The wooden curves bruised a bit, perhaps foretelling my future BDSM orientation. Fortunately it wasn’t long after that I discovered my mother’s electric vibrator, the glorious Prelude III. The sensations spoiled me sufficiently to disdain the hand job for life. Every afternoon I’d slip into her room to buzz out, and then spend the evening worrying she’d notice the vibrator was warm. Mom never did ask me about it though. I think she never noticed because despite not being shy about sexual matters, she sure wasn’t any more observant than I am.

My mother was a radical and practical woman; a woman who not only believed sex is a joyous gift from God but who also left brochures on contraception in the bathroom. At fourteen I was as organized as I am now, and so visited Planned Parenthood a full year before I would ever have intercourse. I scribbled a shortlist of first-time candidates and decided on Daniel, a good friend although not technically a boyfriend. I chose him because his baseball-toned body glowed, setting off his sun-bleached hair. I wanted to always be able to say my first lover was a stud, and so I have. One afternoon I proposed that he be the recipient of my cherry, and he cheerfully accepted. He was probably thrilled at the direct approach. In order to score a blow job, Daniel insisted I go down on him because otherwise he’d suffer from blue balls, which was apparently medically threatening. Who would’ve thought I’d fall for that old line? In my defense it sounded daringly new the afternoon I lost my virginity. He never did go down on me though, and I didn’t have the cojones, blue or otherwise, to call him on his hypocrisy. I would also discover a year later that he too had been a virgin, although admittedly I probably wouldn’t have slept with him had I known.

Daniel and I did the hoochie every Wednesday at 3 PM for a year. Did I love him? No. Did I orgasm? No. Did I know that I was missing something? Yes. It wasn’t love I missed, rather a lover who could make me fly, one who’d make love to me at 2 AM on intermittent nights.

This lover came along in the form of Duncan , a chess-playing, frisbee-tossing geek, a geek with a strange charisma which kept me up nights obsessing over him, an obsession that would continue unabated through my college years. His hands were those of a magic man, electric with sensuality. Duncan worked part-time delivering for the local pharmacy, so I’d call for a box of cough drops every time I got itchy. Even years later, glimpsing a pale green van can induce me to arousal.

I’ve always approached relationships with this kind of ease, but the whole thing does seem more weighty for most young people, especially when they are taught that sex is a scary and secretive thing. One of the most damaging issues is the tendency to think of young women as sexual victims and of young men as sexual predators. In the article The Sex Lives of Kids, Dennie Hughs writes, “we need to move away from the idea that girls who engage in oral sex but not intercourse are ‘technical’ virgins - that you’re not having sex because no one’s penetrating you. Let girls know that every time you do something like that, you compromise yourself and give up some of your power.” It sounds like she’s suggesting girls would give up less power if they just had the darn intercourse and stopped fooling around with labels. In fact she probably meant that whether it be oral sex or intercourse, women lose power when they have sex. She never mentions that boys might also lose power by sleeping with someone, or that both girls or boys might suffer emotionally when they have sex for the wrong reasons.

Is it not possible that girls could be “gaining” power by having sex? Even possible that sex not be about power at all? If a girl is a victim to start with, she may be well be victimized by someone’s sexual agenda. Victimization is about low self esteem, not about sex. She can equally be emotionally or physically victimized by an abusive partner. And yet it would be foolish to tell young people to abstain from relationships, because it is the relationship dynamic which creates the atmosphere where we can develop interaction skills.

In contrast, a budding bawdy girl like myself may be empowered by the sexual experience. Even as a Submissive in a BDSM relationship, I am “exchanging” power with my Dominant, not “giving up” anything. I am still a whole person, with or without a Dominant.

In this same article, co-author Dr. Drew Pinsky states, “deep feelings of intimacy are overwhelming and confusing and can easily be exploited and most experts believe that kids under 16 do not have the psychological or neurological development necessary to satisfactorily manage these feelings.” Although Dr. Drew may not have been correct about me personally, many young people are clearly not ready to handle the complexities of sexual relations. This being the case, why not provide young people with both emotional and sexual skills to navigate relationships?

My mother provided me with navigation, although unconventional to be sure. She never told me to keep my knees together or not to sleep around. She never told me that monogamy is the only option, or to wait until marriage to make love. Good thing, because I never did marry and if I’d waited I’d still be a virgin at nearly 40.

Instead, she told me the story about how she made love the first time with her uncle, a consensual and loving experience. She explained that most people have a series of love relationships in their lives, and that it’s okay to accept this as a natural circumstance. She said sometimes the best lovers were not the best looking ones, and that just because you loved someone, they might not be a good partner for you. Somewhere in my college years, she told me about the open relationship she and my father had and how they worked out the rules. And then there were those brochures in the bathroom.

My mother may not have given me much in the way of traditional relationship advice, but she did teach me to make my own decisions. Her advice made losing my virginity at fifteen an exciting and decisive experience. I have enjoyed a number of open relationships without the destruction jealousy brings. I never felt pressured to have children, and so have been free to explore my creative energy without encumbrances.

When I reach sixty I will become the eccentric aunt archetype: artsy and a bit eccentric. I will wear short skirts with hot pink aerobic shoes, and speak my mind when I’ve a mind to. I will have a lover or two, and flirt with sexy Italian men serving me New York Style pizza. I will have been a bawdy girl and a hoochie mama and regretted nothing. I may not have the things every little girl was brought up to think she should have, but I will have had a life defined by my own vision.

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Sensuous Sadie is the author of It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex, and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene (http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html). She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn , Vermont 's first BDSM group. Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com  or visit her website at www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing in most venues.

Copyright 2003 Sadie Sez Publications