When you tell someone you write about sex, you can expect a few standard responses: What do your parents think? You should write about me. Why sex?
The last one is the most interesting to me because it’s the most important.
That’s precisely why I write about sex — because it’s important. Sex is the cornerstone of our society. It’s literally how we are made.
But if it’s so important, why is it so hard to talk about?
Sure, we talk about sex. Your bros pat you on the back when you tell them you got laid last night. Over drinks, your girlfriends laugh with you about the latest and most ridiculous Cosmopolitan “How to please your man in bed” article. You ask your partner what his or her kinks and fantasies are.
But it’s never a real discussion. We have more in-depth debates about foreign policy, gun control and religion than we do about sex.
News headlines and family dinner conversations cover things like the latest celebrity happenings, sports games and how you’ve been doing in your financial accounting class.
But when was the last time you spoke to your parents (or friends and colleagues, for that matter) about the effect of technology on sex or about getting tested for sexually transmitted infections?
Despite the fact that most people will have sex at least once in their lifetime, it’s still not considered to be an appropriate discussion topic, both in verbal conversations and in printed works.
Arielle Pardes, who wrote a sex column for The Daily Pennsylvanian, said in an article about sex journalism “For something as almost mundane as sex, there’s so much outrage, and people are so personally inflamed and offended that you would want to talk about it.”
That’s the kicker.
Sex is as common as doing the dishes, although the former can be admittedly more frequent than the latter in college, but it’s still frowned upon to actually talk about it.
Of course, there are a few reasons for this. Sex and sexuality are generally viewed as private matters that are only discussed behind closed doors.
It’s difficult for us to make those private matters public.
Sex is different for every person. What I constitute as sex may not apply to someone else. Thus, a column that I write about sex might not be applicable to every person or couple.
At the root of it, though, sex is no different than any other controversial issue.
I was met with criticism after my last column, which detailed the benefits and drawbacks to the pull-out method of contraception. But would the crowd reaction have been any kinder if I wrote about how religion is a hoax or how we should make guns more easily attainable?
Probably not.
See, the issue here isn’t really sex. It’s us.
It’s hard for us to accept an opinion that is different from our own.
This can range from a classmate’s ideas on religion versus evolution to your best friend’s stance on whether he or she liked Harry Potter.
Disagreements are uncomfortable, frustrating and occasionally pointless. But they’re also how we grow and learn. It’s important for us to put aside our differences so that we can have productive, meaningful conversations — even if it’s not always the easiest thing to do.
Just because you personally do not agree with a concept does not mean that somebody else doesn’t. If I write an article about lesbian sex, it doesn’t mean that everybody has to have lesbian sex — although, can you imagine? It just means that someone out there is having that form of sex, so we should talk about it.
In the same article about sex journalism, blogger Lena Chen said that the purpose of a writer’s platform is to start a conversation.
So let’s do that.
I’m not saying you have to start raising your hand in class and asking, “Hey, before you go over the mechanics of a sodium potassium pump, can we discuss how I got laid last night?”
But if you get anything out of this, it should be that it’s ok to talk about sex.
I, for one, would love to hear what you have to say.
[Robyn Smith is a UF journalism junior. Her columns appear on Tuesdays. A version of this story ran on page 7 on 6/17/2014 under the headline "‘Let’s talk about all the good things’: Sex shouldn’t be taboo"]
