A Savage approach to sex-ed

Everything I learned about sex I learned from Dan Savage. I wish that was a gross exaggeration, but it’s not. I’ve spent most of my life ignorant of, misinformed about, or terrified of sex. For the uninitiated, Dan Savage is an internationally-syndicated sex and relationship advice columnist. Think a male, gay, “Dear Abby” who instructs readers on how to pull off things like threesomes and polyamory instead of successful dinner parties.

I learned about the “birds and the bees” aspect of sex from … actually I don’t know where. Health class at school? Movies? Books? It’s hard to say. I definitely did not learn about the specifics from my mother. When I was five or six I asked her how babies were made, and she told me it happened when grown-up men and women “cuddle.” A few days later when my friend and I were playing “pretend house,” which mostly entailed aping our parents’ behavior, I told him we had to stop because I did not want to get pregnant.

From this experience, the precedent for my sexual ignorance was set. When the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, I thought the oral sex referenced in New York Times articles had something to do with Clinton literally talking to this woman about sex, apparently in an inappropriate way because it was such a big story. Once again, I asked my mother to clarify, and she told me that oral sex was something that a woman does for a man when she really loves him.

I heard of blow jobs in seventh grade, when a girl on my soccer team was planning on “giving a BJ” to her friend’s older brother after practice, but I had no idea what a “BJ” was. I didn’t learn what BJ stood for or what it entailed until high school.

One would think that boarding school would be a hot bed for sexual education—the good kind, with lots of licentious details and helpful tips. And when I left my home for a New Hampshire boarding school my freshman year, it was a revelation, relatively speaking. That doesn’t mean much, though, for a white, recently-lapsed Catholic girl from a Connecticut suburb.

Many of my friends had their first kisses and first sexual experiences in high school. They would tell me in hushed whispers about an awkward hand job in the back pews during evening meditation, or about how an older guy had an impossibly pointy tongue that darted in and out of your mouth while he slobbered all over your lips. That was how I learned the mechanics of “making out,” although the specifications of a hand job and, scarier still, a blowjob, still eluded me.

It’s not that my friends and I didn’t talk about sex, but we talked about sex couched in terms of relationships. Which is how my mother taught me to talk about sex: never discuss the specifics, only refer to a vague act that happens in the context of a loving relationship. I am going to assume that this is why my mother didn’t think she needed to explain how to do things, because she assumed that once I was in a loving relationship with a man who loves me, he will be more than happy to explain everything.

So I sort of learned what “a 69” was from my friend Hillary, but I didn’t feel comfortable asking her exactly why she experienced lockjaw because “it” took too long. I heard horror stories about girls who bled their first times, and was told unequivocally that it “would hurt like a motherfucker.”

I was simultaneously envious and disdainful of my friends’ experiences. My mother’s “lessons” about sex instilled in me a very serious regard for everything sexual, including kissing. I was so paralyzed with fear over my first kiss, because of the importance of it all, that it wasn’t until freshman year in college that I managed to get it over and done with, thanks to a good friend and some liquid courage.

My first kiss marked a significant attitude shift about sex. Casually kissing could be fun, even with a guy on our high school hockey team who I’d always considered an idiot; did I really need to be in a serious relationship to have sex? Serendipitously, this was also around the time when I was introduced to Dan Savage’s column, Savage Love.

His readers sent in questions about such seemingly depraved acts that my concerns about casual sex seemed trivial. If it didn’t involve bondage, water-sports, or insert-kink-here, random sex was absolutely vanilla. Savage’s openness and non-judgment about everything from threesomes to open relationships was shocking and enlightening. He had principles I’d never heard of, like the idea that everyone should be GGG—”Good, Giving, and Game”—for their partner. He made sex sound like an endlessly fun part of life that, if approached with a sense of humor and an open mind, isn’t actually all that scary.

I wish I’d come across Dan Savage’s column and podcast earlier in my life. Learning about how babies are made is important; equally important is learning how to navigate adult sexual relationships. Because of Dan Savage I stopped being so scared of and embarrassed by sex and started being assertive instead. Who knew women masturbated? I didn’t until sophomore year of college. Porn no longer freaks me out, and I’ve discarded the notion of appropriate feminine sensibilities when it comes to sex. I’ve become more comfortable with myself overall. There is nothing more vulnerable than being naked with someone else; getting through that without dying of mortification first was a big deal for me, and a pleasant surprise.

I don’t totally disagree with my mother—sex is something you do with someone you love. But it can also be something you do with someone you like, or someone who seemed like a good idea at the time. As long as you’re safe and smart, that’s okay.