Does Morality Belong in the Bedroom?
By: Yael Wolfe
Tags: Sexuality, Morality, Howl, Feminism, Religion

Does Morality Belong in the Bedroom?

Or is it just another tool for shaming ourselves and each other?

Photo by Ivan Obolensky from Pexels

Though I grew up in a liberal household in which traditional Christian values were mostly a quiet undercurrent, somehow, my parents imparted some pretty uptight perspectives on sexuality to their offspring (thanks to their own baggage, no doubt). Even if they hadn’t, I’m still a cisgendered woman who grew up in a sexist, patriarchal culture that has limited, damaging views about sexuality, so no matter what they did, I was bound to end up with baggage.

The problem was that for many years, I didn’t even realize what kind of baggage I was carrying or how it was affecting me.

In my mid twenties, I moved far away from home to attend a liberal arts college. It yanked me out of the world I had known, dropping me in the middle of hundreds of people who were aggressively pursuing sexual and creative fulfillment in any way that inspired them.

Being surrounded by this “free love” mentality turned everything I knew on its head. I grew up believing that sex had to be experienced within a loving, monogamous partnership. Yet here were people seemingly having a very good time going out with (and sleeping with) several different partners.

I am grateful that I allowed myself to be open-minded enough to try pursuing my own pleasure without imposing the moral expectations with which I’d been raised on every man I met. During that year, I dated and had sexual experiences with three different men (though not at the same time — I wasn’t ready to take it to that level), and though it didn’t go particularly well, in many ways I enjoyed myself. Mostly, I loved the freedom of feeling I could do what I wanted.

That was literally the first time in my life that I felt any sense of sexual sovereignty and freedom from self-imposed moral codes about the relationship between love and sex. I didn’t love any of those three men, but damn, I had some memorable experiences with all of them.

In my thirties, I ended up with a very conservative Christian partner who had some pretty intense baggage around sexuality due to his religious upbringing. My experience with him helped me identify yet more of my own latent sexual judgments and hang-ups that I no longer wanted to carry.

My partner (who had had several one night stands and whose former partners outnumbered mine) felt very strongly that women should not sleep around.

I realized I held a similar belief: that women shouldn’t have more than one or two sexual partners. I’d always been aware that I wanted more than one (because I felt culturally pressured to have some experience in the bedroom), but not more than four (because I didn’t want people to think I was promiscuous).

I was mortified that I had carried that belief for so long and was ready to let it go. I knew I couldn’t change his propensity to slut-shame, but I could change mine.

I didn’t even realize how deep this rabbit hole went. Hitting my 40s as a single woman (yes, my slut-shaming partner is history) led me to all new realizations. I wasn’t living the traditional life I thought I would live, and my lack of tether to that lifestyle made me look at the world in a whole different light.

I started exploring the sex-positive community and realized that — oh my god — I had never truly understood consent, I had determined that sex work was “wrong,” and I had been holding on so tightly to limiting expressions of gender, love, and sexual expression.

And worse, I realized that so many of my beliefs had kept me living in shame and that maybe sometimes (inadvertently, unintentionally) my own shame made others feel shame, too.

This was so strongly illustrated to me when a thoughtful reader commented on my story about faking orgasms.

My intention in writing that was to share my belief that honesty is so important to sex and intimacy. I know so many women who faked orgasms out of boredom, impatience, or their desire to make their partners feel confident — and that just wasn’t something I, personally, could get on board with. (No judgment!)

However, as this reader pointed out, there are far more reasons for faking orgasms that what I mentioned, including trauma, struggling with feelings of safety in a relationship, etc. And, to paraphrase, she also said that my moral argument about faking orgasms might be a shame-trigger for women.

I was stunned and deeply grateful for her response. I realized how that essay might have come off — heavy-handed, morally simplistic. I also realized how much my experience sometimes gives me tunnel vision. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me that there were other reasons for faking an orgasm.

Yet again, I find myself looking into the mirror and seeing all those damaging beliefs about sex that still need to be uprooted.

Since I began to unpack the sexual beliefs I’ve been carrying around, it occurs to me more and more that morality really needs to be taken out of the bedroom. (That is, when we’re talking about consenting adults, of course.)

What if we had an accepting free-for-all when it came to sharing our sexual fantasies with one another? What if we didn’t keep track of the number of our sexual partners or shame ourselves or each other for one night stands? What if faking an orgasm was just considered a perfectly acceptable — and honest — iteration of climax?

I know I have a long way to go when it comes to working through all my sexual baggage. Often, I feel reluctant to make statements about sex when I know my beliefs about that statement might change someday. Maybe tomorrow.

But there’s one thing I’m not shy about saying: I want to let go of shame, and I strive to speak and behave in a way that doesn’t make anyone else feel shame.

We’ve had too much of that already.

© Yael Wolfe 2019