Am I a Prude?

Today, I find myself asking this question: Am I a prude? In truth, I think I’ve wondered this many a time before, but never really voiced it, not even internally. Sometimes things bother me, really to the core of my being, and I feel like I don’t understand why. Human beings are complex creatures and as much as we’d like to think that we’re rational, and that we understand ourselves and to some extent the world around us, a lot of things are just plain confusing. My own motivations and thoughts can be pretty perplexing at times.

I have always striven to understand myself and I’ve come to the realization that I never truly will–no one will ever ‘understand themselves’ whatever that means. We learn and grow and experience life daily, and things are constantly changing. The best you can do is keep trying to understand, knowing that it’s a journey and not a destination.

I think sometimes writing is a good way to take something that confuses you, and grapple with it. Turn it over in  your mind and try to understand it, and yourself.

And so I find myself wondering–am I a prude? Why? Well, I wonder this because of the way that I react to things. My partner told me about the blogs of two of his female friends. I checked them out. They’re amazing, and by anyone’s standards very ‘successful’ in the sense that they have a large and growing following of engaged bloggers. They are also both about sex, and dating. They’re very explicit, in terms of language and some visuals, and some events that feature burlesque dancers and almost topless (pasties on the nipples!) women. Instinctively, I feel uncomfortable. I read some of the posts and I feel uncomfortable. I see the tags of masturbation, erotica, porn, blow jobs etc etc and I feel uncomfortable. But why?

I actually really confuse myself. I believe in freedom of speech, I don’t believe some things shouldn’t be talked about because we ‘just don’t talk about them’ or it’s ‘not proper’. So why on earth do I react this way? It’s the same as when I’m watching a movie and there are naked women everywhere, though that I kind of understand in the sense that I’m really against the objectification of women and to be perfectly honest if women are objectified and made to feel insecure about their bodies then I think men should be too. But that’s a side note and an entirely different rant I’d rather not get into.

I’m trying to understand why I’m so immature when it comes to my own sexuality and that of other people. I know this might be a cop out but I think a lot of it has to do with socialization. I was socialized to believe a lot of things that actually as an adult I don’t buy into (ex. Sunday school teaching me I’ll go to hell for masturbating). I have formed different opinions and not simply absorbed what I was taught as a child. At the same time though, these things still seem to hold some power over me.

Two things stand out in my mind. One–Sue Johanson, sex therapist, once said if you can’t say penis and vagina then you shouldn’t be having sex. Really? Well…..what if you just prefer hearing ‘lady parts?’ Yeah, okay that’s really bad.

Second, my mother was quite funny when I started dating. I recognize all of her actions came from love, and she just wanted to protect me and my feelings and not see me get hurt. But she was funny, with my first boyfriend, she sort of made sure we were never alone together. She got so in my head that one time when we found ourselves alone at his place, because I had lied to her, I couldn’t even do anything I just left. I felt so bad and awful and guilty. Anyways, one time as luck would have it my boyfriend and I were going to be the only ones home at my place and my mother knew this. She dropped me off at school and as I got out of the car I remember her yelling after me “remember mama, remember Jesus!!!”  Yeah.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I did have sex with that boyfriend and I’ve had an active and fun sex life since, but I think the way I was raised definitely seeped into my consciousness. In the beginning I definitely wondered if I was doing something wrong. I never wonder this now–I don’t believe it’s wrong at all. Still though, I seem to fall on the prude-ish side of the scale, not so much in terms of my actions and behaviour but more so in terms of my response to sex in social media and movies and ads and daily life.

Maybe I’m just immature, or maybe I’m insecure, I don’t know. I can’t seem to understand where my discomfort comes from. I think this is something I’ll have to keep pondering until perhaps some sort of light is shed on the matter. For now though, I’m willing to say at least in part, it’s the way I was socialized. I know, that’s not the full story, but it’s a piece of a puzzle I’ll continue putting together.