Arrrrrgh there she blows.

Follow the northern star eastbound to the tropical island of Orgasm.

I am Captain Sex Pirate and I’ll be taking you on a magical journey today.

CRINGE.

Sorry but that is not how I’m going to be writing this post.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Of my own personal experience.

When I was a little girl, I was raised in a bizarre church.

I say bizarre because they believed women could not hold senior positions, that being gay was wrong and they excommunicated my mother after I was sent to a psychiatric hospital then eating disorder clinic and because she went through a divorce.

Needless to say, they were not supportive or loving.

My mother always taught me that my virginity was a precious flower to be shared with someone I loved.

I wasn’t allowed to watch Friends in case it taught me to jump on the casual sex train.

Because of all this, I was terrified of dating and terrified of sex.

What if I gave my virginity to the wrong person?

Was I evil if I had sex?

Would I be a whore if I had sex?

The answer to all of these is…… NO.

I lost my virginity when I was 18 years old to a Vicar’s son.

Oh the irony.

In a hotel room in Loughborough, with Tomorrow Never Dies playing on the TV, after visiting a Toby carvery.

Not the most romantic of experiences.

Afterwards we had to scrub the blood out of the sheets in the hotel shower.

I didn’t stop bleeding for a week.

For a first time, it was awful.

And the amount of blood and pain afterwards further fed my fear.

I avoided sexual encounters for a while after that.

When I moved to London, my mother gave me a copy of Fifty Shade of Grey to keep me company and a box of condoms and told me to enjoy myself.

Her view of sex had changed, as had mine but I still feared it.

I swiftly binned Fifty Shades of Grey, bought a copy of Lady Chatterly’s lover and a vibrator.

I was scared of being intimate with someone else, but at least I knew how to look after myself.

Although strangly an ex flatmate stole my vibrator. True Story. Ew.

I was very concerned in my early twenties that I had ruined my sex drive because of anorexia.

I was mostly exhausted at night time, at weekends, during the day, during the week…. ALL THE TIME.

So my desire to have sex was very low.

I had a thin body that I wanted.

But rejected all forms of intimacy.

My anorexia hadn’t ruined my sex drive forever but it had been stifled it during that period of time.

During my mid twenties, I went on a magical sex journey.

And had a lot of good sex.

And an awful lot of bad sex.

I learnt very swiftly that casual sex was entirely dull because there was zero intimacy or connection.

It was a weird time because I felt so much shame.

Shame after each casual encounter.

Shame that I was doing it frequently.

Shame that it was different partners.

My bizarre upbringing in the church had come to bite me in the arse.

I remember ringing my mum on one of these panic attack occasions and crying, saying,

‘Am I a whore?’

My mum ever the comedian said,

‘No. Because you aren’t being paid to do this.’

She and one of my beautiful best friends reminded me that sex was to be enjoyed. To be celebrated. That it wasn’t confined to marriage.

That I was in control of my sex life and body and what I chose to do with it.

I think as a woman often SHAME of female sexuality and what we choose to do with our bodies is piled on us.

If a man has a lot of sex he is a STUD.

If a woman has a lot of sex, she is a SLUT.

The downfall of Adam was to do with EVE.

She bit the apple. She gave it to him.

And the curse of womankind began.

So the story goes.

I have had personal experiences in which I have had sex with a person and afterwards been shamed for it by an individual or persons.

A friend called me a ‘whore’.

Not the man who also danced the tango with me.

But me, the woman.

As if I duped him with my magical evil woman ways.

I’ve also been shamed by an ex partner for having sex with somebody else weeks after we broke up.

Even though that ex partner then entered a long term relationship a few months after we broke up.

I was called a ‘cheating whore’, ‘a selfish bitch’ and a ‘slut’.

None of which are true but those words used to flash through my head as intrusive thoughts causing panic attacks years after the incident.

It is only recently I’ve been able to shake them off.

Which is a bigger betrayal- having sex with somebody else weeks after a break up, or a betrayal of intimacy by negating the past relationship by entering into a new one so quickly?

Honestly, neither is a betrayal, because we are all adults and humans free to make our own choices and navigate heart break differently.

The point of this post is there is no ONE way of navigating your sex life.

There is no shame in having sex with different partners, not committing to one but enjoying yourself none the less.

There is no shame in comitting to a long term relationship and only having sex with one person for the rest of your life.

There is no shame in saving yourself for marriage and exploring each other’s bodies through the years to come.

There is no shame in being in an open relationship and figuring out what you like with other people as well as your partner.

There is no shame in gay sex.

There is no shame in celibacy.

There is no shame to not enjoying casual sex and loving sex and intimacy within the bounds of committed relationships.

There is no shame in masturbation.

There is no shame in sex whatsoever.

Your body belongs to YOU.

You choose what you want to do with it.

How you want to explore it.

Your responsibility lies with learning how to pleasure yourself, how you enjoy to be pleasured or doing none of those things if you don’t want to.

Your responsibilty lies with you.

It doesn’t lie with making statements or opinions about how other people choose to navigate their sex life.

Or comparing your choices to others.

There is no shame in your body.

There is no shame to sex.

There is no ONE way of navigating your sex life.

Enjoy the journey that is your sex life.

And one thing I will recommend is investing in a good vibrator or learning how you like to be pleasured.

Wish they had taught that at school instead of algebra.

Peace out.

Much love,

Joy xx