When your friend goes to confession and is told to pray 44 Hail Mary’s you know that a) she sins a LOT and b) she’s probably having a lot of fun! I even mused “Was your last confession just a confession that you’re gonna do it all over again this weekend?” Yes, obviously!
But sex is a huge hot button issue especially for Catholics: sex with your non-wedded partner, same-sex sex, sex with your friend, sex with your co-worker, sex with a friend’s husband, sex with yourself, sex with your table (there are a LOT of very weird fetishes out there friends), sex while ovulating, sex while not ovulating, safe sex, rough sex, paid for sex, oral sex, sexy sex, the sex list goes on and on. And we’ve been doing it long before anyone ever told us it was sinful, or regretful. Sex has been happening since before humans were even humans. We just made it into a thing.
Last summer while I was traveling through Italy, I took a tour of the ancient city of Pompeii. Built around 300BC, this very “high-tech” city boasted indoor plumbing, running water, heated flooring, a local wine shop, bakery, housing, court of law, two-story homes and a plethora of brothels. Long story short, Mount Vesuvius erupts covering the town of 20,000 people under 20 feet of volcanic ash. For 1500 years Pompeii remained a hidden gem. It was initially discovered in 1599, however excavation didn’t begin until 1748. In truth, it’s still being excavated even as we speak.
Before I get ahead of myself regarding how amazing, brilliant, wise, resourceful, creative the Romans were, let’s get back to sex. The brothels specifically. Each brothel is marked with a giant penis above the door because truthfully, let’s call a spade a spade. No shame. No one knew they were suppose to be ashamed of sex 2000 years ago (ok, it’s possible they did know but the Romans we just a bunch of honeybadgers). Inside a menu of sorts was painted onto the walls so men could essentially order whatever sex they liked. And people, sex is sex is sex. It’s been, basically, the same-sex since the beginning. Each room was outfitted with a big enough bed and that was just about it. The rooms in this brothel were roughly the same size as all the windows/rooms currently in the red light district. Not much has changed. Except our ideas of it.
Let me tell you this regarding sex, I never in a million years thought my mother would be comfortable mailing me her copy of 50 Shades of Grey (I immediately read and frantically ran all over NYC looking for the next two books within 5 days) but she reasoned that because I was in a relationship, I might want to…ya know. I can’t even you guys!
And here’s something we all know and as women deal with on a daily basis: men, for whatever-the-f*ck reason are allowed to be promiscuous without incident and in fact, it’s often encouraged. Women on the other hand… I don’t even need to say it. Evolutionarily speaking, women have much much much higher stakes in choosing a sex partner because GOD FORBID (or God willing depending which side of the aisle you’re on) you get pregnant. Regardless of rather or not you’re married, we need to determine things like a) is this guy gonna show up at 3am? b) will he help with bottles, diapers, love? c) will he hopefully not judge my ever-expanding body? d) is he going to murder me one day? or e) is he going to be an absent father who just watches tv all day? But the catch! There’s always a catch. We’ve, as females/ladies/independent women, have evolved into a world where we don’t always want to have kids but sex… I mean, sex! Why can’t we just have sex and then decide, as adults, when we want to procreate? We have plenty of birth control options available to us but the stigma of “slut” still remains. Science gets it!! Why can’t society realize that our desire to be loved, or be touched, or be held doesn’t always have to end in a 8 pound watermelon flying out of our vaginas 9 months later. Let’s just all calm down a minute., okay??
The flip side of all of that, according to the fascinating documentary The Science of Sex Appeal, is that no matter WHAT, our evolutionary desire to have children, rather you know it or not, is always one step ahead of you. When you’re ovulating your voice becomes sexier, you walk sexier, you actually smell, look and taste different, and girl, on top of all that YOU KNOW IT! Notice when you get catcalled the most or when you most desire to roll in ze hey, it’s all natures big trick to knock you up. At 35 I started tracking like a demon my ovulation chart and sure enough, science!
Love! Death! GLITTER!!! 