None of Your Business

I'm going to be an adult pretty soon. That's pretty scary, especially considering that I'm a woman living in these times. When I grow up, will I be able to afford birth control? Will my health insurance cover that? What if I need to access abortion services? Will I be able to find services in my area?

All of these "what if" questions wouldn't exist if the American public would just declare an end to the war on sex. Really, that's what this all boils down to. Abortion restrictions are meant to punish women who have sex that's not intended to produce a child, although unwanted pregnancy is not the only reason women need access to safe, affordable services. Limiting access to birth control is an attempt to deter women from having sex that's not intended to produce a child, even though a recent study found that giving women access to free birth control did not increase the number of sexual partners they had.

The war on sex also extends to the desire to demoralize and discriminate against the LBGT community. I'm all about marriage equality but the fact is some of my gay friends don't want to get married. Some of them just want to have casual relationships. Some of them even want to have lots and lots of sex. Oh the horror.

The war on sex sometimes leads to dress codes that many times affect girls more than boys. No tank tops, ladies. Showing those arms and shoulders could lead to rape! If your shorts or skirt are too short, it could be distracting and that's YOUR fault for making boys think about sex.

Chances are, if a kid asks her parents about sex, she'll get some version of, "Well dear, when two people really love each other..."

Well kids, here is your new and improved birds and bees talk. Sex is something people do for various reasons. Sometimes, people have sex to have a baby. Sometimes they do it because it feels good. Most people think of sex as something involving a penis and a vagina, but there are other types of sex too like oral sex and anal sex. There are a lot of feelings that come along with having sex, and those feelings are different for everybody. Before you have sex, you should make sure you really understand your feelings and know that having sex might lead to you having very different feelings after you have sex than you thought you would beforehand. You should also ask yourself how sex and the potential consequences of sex fit with your own personal religious beliefs. Make sure that whoever you choose as a partner is comfortable discussing sex and your feelings with you before you go through with it. Also make sure that you're both protected from diseases and an unwanted pregnancy. And- this is the most important part- other people's sex and the decisions they make surrounding that sex are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

There's quite a bit more to it than this, I realize, but this is a lot better than what many kids get and there are a lot of adults who need a refresher course.

Want to be pro-life? That's awesome! It doesn't mean you have to be anti-choice. As a matter of fact, not being anti-choice means we won't be wasting money on sending women into unsafe places to have unsafe procedures but will be investing more money on actual pro-life values like helping women with medical care and childcare.

Are you afraid that your employees might do things that go against your religious beliefs? If you could put cameras on every person that worked for you and followed them all the time, you would probably fire everybody anyway. What happens between a patient and their doctor is really the least of your worries.

Do you think that if your children see gay people it's going to turn them gay? Take comfort in the fact that if your kid was born that way, there's nothing you can do to change your kid's sexuality. You can try to shame your kid and do other things that can lead to your kid possibly committing suicide, but you can't make your kid a heterosexual if she's not.

Making other people's sex none of your business is liberating! You don't have to constantly worry about other people's sex. And when you don't constantly worry about other people's sex, you're not only providing more freedom for them, but for you too! Think of all the other things you can do with your mind when you clear out all those thoughts about other people's sex. You could help world hunger or improve the environment. If you have deeply held religious beliefs, you could devote more time to worship instead of thinking about other people's sex. You could even think about your own sex!