“Have you done ‘it’ yet?”
You know what ‘it’ is – the thing mommy introduced in elementary school, you whispered about in middle school and listened to boys obnoxiously talk about in high school. And now, in college, “it” is on everyone’s mind – where to get it, how to get it, who to do it with, how to do it. If you haven’t already been assaulted by an onslaught of awkward memories regarding your engagement with this ambiguous “it,” I’ll give you a clue: “it” is sex. And everyone seems to think they have a say in it – your parents, your rabbis, your camp counselors and your politicians.
When we get to college most of us feel free: Finally, a place full of students who are similar to us; people we can learn with, grow with and most of all experiment with. Experimenting sounds like the sort of thing that would have made your dear grandmother blush, but experimenting is whatever you want it to be. Sure, this can involve all of the raunchier secrets about the aforementioned “it” you may have become privy to in the dark, warm and wet corners of the internet. But, experimenting is also integral to your growth as a person. Finally, a place to bridge the gap between a childhood dictated by parents and teachers to adulthood dictated by, well, you.
For both men and women a big part of bridging this gap into adulthood involves sex. People joke that college is like one big badly-run zoo. Lots of strange odors, a tad too messy for your mother, questionable grub and a few too many broken cages. According to the college graduates I’ve talked to, it seems that once you graduate, “college” becomes the title for your very own orgy – everything is hazy and crazy, academics aside. Maybe this comes off a tad facetious, however, this constant discussion, all the humorous anecdotes about “when I was in college…” put extreme pressure on college students – and really do make us feel like we’re in a zoo being given instructions about tricks to perform. While his pressure can manifest in many different ways, it seems to exude the most power over what should be a personal choice: your intimacy and how you are intimate.
Intimacy is a hot topic on campuses; everyone is talking about who they are getting with, who they got with, and who they want to get with. While we are far from denying intimacy and sex to women, the idea that a woman might like sex – for herself and not as a means to drag a boy to the fear-inspiring altar – and that she might be candid about wanting sex, and not necessarily a relationship, is something different all together.
When a girl chooses to be physically intimate with someone, without any notions of a relationship or longer commitment, she is crucified on the spot – given her a scarlet letter for life. She becomes everyone’s favorite word to whisper, “easy.”
By calling a girl easy we are insinuating she is something easily taken advantage of, that she is a no-strings-attached type, something to get the job done without having to talk to later. By calling a girl easy, society announces that because she is choosing to take her body into her own hands – when she chooses to be sexual and to enjoy her own sexuality – she is giving her body to the whole world. Because she has taken control of her own body, she must be sending an open invitation to society that we all now can have control and bastardize who she is. Clearly, the idea that a woman might actively pursue sexual gratification and take her intimacy – the thing everyone has been shoving their own morals about down her throat for the past 18 years – into her own hands means that she lacks any control whatsoever and is “easy.”
But what happened to all those crazy stories we were told, most often followed by “those were the best days of my life” and “enjoy it.” Why is it that despite emphasizing sex and the excitement of sexual freedom for her entire life, if a girl tries to take what she has internalized and act on it, she is seen as cheap and weak? Why do we expect that this secretive culture we have created around sex that we are told is meant to come to its climax in college (pun intended) will translate into women who turn up their noses at the prospect of experiencing this intimacy? Society throws so many conflicting messages at women, it’s a wonder anyone survives unscathed.
Let’s evaluate: What happens when a guy has sex after meeting a girl at a party? Lucky him, he got what he wanted without committing for more than a night with a girl. A girl has sex with a boy after meeting him earlier that evening? “Wow, I mean that's not what I would've done, but... Were you at least careful?” Spot the difference?
Choosing intimacy for intimacy and not for a relationship is not evil or cheap – especially when society tells us this is the general route to take in college. Choosing intimacy for intimacy is a way to have fun and feel good, a way to connect to the most core feelings we have as people. This connection and enjoyment should not be lauded in relation to one gender and shamed in relation to another. To do that is to unravel so many steps women have wrought to be taken seriously and treated as equals. The word “easy” should stick to describing mac & cheese, not a sex life.
