New Year's Sexual Resolution #4: Stand Up for Your Own Sexual Rights
In her moving and incisive essay, "It's Time to Politicize Our Sexual Oppression" the late Barbara Waxman Fiducia suggested that one of the reasons we don't stand up for our own sexual rights is that we may believe it's our fault we aren't having the kind of sex we want to have, or aren't living the kind of sexual life we want to live. Many of us are unaware of our sexual rights, either because they are summarily dismissed by the mainstream, or because we look and act mainstream enough that the ways we are actually different are swept under the rug.
This year take time to consider your sexual rights, and more importantly, think about the ways they are ignored, stomped on, and taken away, by others and also by your own actions and inactions. A wonderful small web example from 2005 is the inspiring HollabackNYC blog that encourages anyone to fight street harassment by turning a camera and some attitude on the perpetrators of creepy catcalls and send in stories and photos for posting on the site.
New Year's Sexual Resolution #5: Support Someone Else's Sexual Rights
Standing up for our own sexual rights would be much easier if we felt like we weren't the only ones struggling. So in addition to the important act of fighting for your own rights this new year, consider supporting the rights of others to be sexual on their own terms. I find it's best to do this when the person you're supporting isn't even around. You avoid the moral quandary of whether you're only doing it for gratitude, plus you'll aggravate bigots who can't figure out why you care so much, when you aren't even (gay/lesbian/polyamorous/or fill in any number of other things people like to put down).
New Year's Sexual Resolution #6: Try Something New For You
What's a new year's sexual resolution list without something salacious? After you've worked on your inner self, make sure to spend plenty of time satisfying, and encouraging, your sexual curiosity.
Buy a vibrator, start a phone sex relationship with your partner, write some smutty love letters, rent some porn, take a sex workshop, read a how-to book, stretch yourself in whatever ways you are resisting. You may find some, or even all of the new things you try are boring and unsatisfying, but what's important is the journey, not the final destination. This isn't about following the latest trend, or keeping up with the Joneses, the key is to find what's new for you, and to experiment with things that you're interested in but are shy of trying. I'm constantly amazed at how many people feel as if their sex lives are what they are, and can't be changed. If this is you, make a new year's resolution to do something about it in 2006.
Published December 20, 2005.
