My mum never gave me The Talk. The closest we got was a booklet left on my pillow when I was 12, titled something like Your Changing Body. It had a diagram of a uterus and a paragraph about periods that read like it was written by a committee of people who had never met a 12-year-old girl. Nothing about pleasure. Nothing about desire. Nothing about the fact that one day I would grow up and want things – in bed and out of it – and have no vocabulary to ask for them. I’m 30 now. I’m building that vocabulary. Out loud. On this blog. Because someone has to.
What we were taught
Most women in my generation got the same education: sex is dangerous, pregnancy is lurking around every corner, and pleasure – female pleasure specifically – was never mentioned. Not once. The boys got condom demonstrations on bananas. We got terrifying slideshows about STIs. The message was clear: sex is something that happens to you. Something to survive. Something to manage. Not something to want. Not something to enjoy. Not something to be curious about. I carried that messaging into my twenties. Into my first relationship. Into my marriage. It took me a decade to unlearn it. I’m still unlearning it.
Why I’m talking about this now
Because silence breeds shame. Every generation of women who doesn’t talk about pleasure passes the shame down to the next one. I refuse to be part of that chain. I want my daughter – if I ever have one – to grow up knowing that wanting things is normal. That asking for what you want is a skill, not a sin. That her body is not a problem to be managed but a source of experience to be explored. I can’t change what I was taught. I can change what I pass on. So I’m doing it here. Publicly. Messily. Out loud.
What unlearning looks like
Unlearning isn’t one big revelation. It’s a thousand small moments. Catching yourself apologising for wanting something. Stopping mid-sentence and saying actually, I do know what I want. Letting yourself buy the body chain without feeling embarrassed. Leaving it on the pillow without explaining yourself. Saying the words out loud – I want this, I like that, not tonight, yes please. Each one of those moments is a brick in a new foundation. The old one was built by people who never asked me what I wanted. The new one is mine.
If you’re reading this and you’re in the middle of your own unlearning – you’re not alone. You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re just at the beginning of something that took generations to build. Be patient with yourself. But don’t be silent.
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