Sex, Love, and Romance- growing up, these were the top three taboo topics to talk about with your parents or with any adult. Matter of fact, it is a difficult topic to talk about, even when you’re a grown person. So, how did this generation get to know so much about these things and practice them all so often? Well, we relied on pop culture.
Pop culture has shaped a lot of things, both positively and negatively, in the past years. With the internet, books and TV shows on every aspect of human life, there is a whole pandora box of information to consume. With sex, love, and romance being three of the many things that humans crave at one point or another in our lives, or maybe all through our adult lives, pop culture brings a lot of messages on these things through adverts, commercials, books and a lot more- sometimes without us even noticing.
How has pop culture been positive?
Well, for most of us, our parents were not the ones we first got fragments of education about sex, love, and romance from; as those things were taboo topics. Thus, we got “educated” from reading romance novels, articles on the internet, watching movies (which may or may not have been porn *shrugs*) commercials and having conversations with friends, who we assumed had all the knowledge we needed.
While the information we got from these mediums may not have been the reality of what we experienced, we cannot deny that it gave us more information than our Liberian parents could have ever provided us throughout the entire course of our lives. From those mediums, I understood that sex was not “leh boy touching you,” but it was an actual penetration of the penis into the vagina. I also gathered that pregnancy didn’t happen from “touching one time” but through unprotected sex (sex without condoms and use of contraceptives), i.e., a male’s sperm fertilizing a female’s egg. Last but not least, I’ve learned that romance was more nuanced than just holding someone’s hand, which also includes a whole lot of things and was different for everyone, and love cannot be explained in only one way.
Pop culture gave us information that our parents couldn’t give us, but that also proved to be a problem too. It overemphasized and oversimplified how sex, love and romance actually is and forgot to tell us that things work differently for everyone.
That brings me to the negatives, which are a lot by the way. So, you ever read one of those books or articles that talk about falling head over heels in love with someone at first sight? Or a woman reaching orgasm by just kissing a man? Or sex being so amazing that both parties climaxed at the same time, fell asleep after orgasm, woke up still intertwined aroused and continued having sex?? I’ve read it all. Scam! Scam! Scam!! Once I read an article that talked about the most sensitive parts of a woman’s body and suggested things to do to it. The article later went on to say if you do this to any woman, she’ll fall helpless at your feet. In my mind, I’m like “hell no”. Different things turn different people on. Once I heard someone say they have a fetish for pretty fingers, it turns them on. So how are you going to tell someone who’s just looking for some nice fingers that kissing their neck should be the only thing that turns them on?
One of the most important things pop culture portrays wrongly for women is orgasm. A book will say “he reached his hand down to the center of her being and she was already wet,” which could imply that this woman had already reached orgasm; meanwhile that’s just vaginal fluid caused by arousal. Before I address the orgasm part, why is a woman’s vagina almost always described as the center/core of her being by writers?? What happened to the brain? I thought it was the processor, sensor, information and storage box of the human body. Why is the brain not a woman’s core???
Anyway, for the sake of education and orgasm-less sex lives of some poor women, let’s all understand the difference between vaginal discharges and orgasm.
Vaginal discharges are excreted from a woman every day. A woman does not have to be aroused before she discharges. During sex, foreplay, or romance, the vagina releases excess fluids/discharges that meant to aid penetration. Those are types of vaginal discharges, not cum- which sometimes accompanies orgasm. Orgasm, on the other hand, is more of a sensation than an actual fluid. It is the point where a woman reaches her elastic limit of sexual arousal and is climaxing. Fluids may or may not accompany that sensation, it differs from person to person. Vaginal fluids will be present way before this sensation occurs. But I’m not a biologist, so this is not a theory and if you still believe vaginal fluids are cum are the same thing, good for you.
In my opinion, the idea that vaginal discharges mean a woman has orgasmed is as ridiculous as assuming that a man has orgasmed simply because of the existence of pre-cum.
Pop culture tries to tell us what love should look and feel like. How romance should be and what sex should feel like. In many ways, it taught us things we wanted to know, but it also gave us false and unrealistic expectations. So, how do you balance between false expectations and reality? Know what works for you. Just because some article says hair pulling, lip biting, butt spanking is the way, doesn’t mean it has to be the way for you. Maybe slow and soft will be your thing or maybe fast, or maybe a mixture of slow and soft plus kama sutra would get your motor running. Whichever it is, just experiment and know what leads you to orgasm. My point is, set the rules for yourself according to what your heart and body wants. Define how you want to be loved, what turns you on during romance and how you like your sex.
In a world where everyone is very opinionated and thinks it’s okay to push their beliefs onto other people, knowing yourself and your body is the only way to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh fully.
Authored by Lusinetta W. Kormon
