Dismantling Female Sexual Shame and Stigma

Let’s speak more broadly. This is a personal blog about parental hesitation, but anyone reading this understands where babies come from. So . . . let’s talk about sex! It certainly sparks attention.

I’ve been grappling with the Puritan moral roots underpinning white America since I was in high school. It is unbearably hypocritical that sexual activity is shamed and stigmatized (for both males and females) but child rearing is revered as the holiest duty of women. It’s the Madonna/Whore complex. Untouchable, immaculately conceiving mothers, or Earthly, sexually reproducing “whores”. There is no in-between. And more than anything, there is nothing more sinful than a woman who enjoys sex. Just ask Eve.

Now, I fully understand why parents tell their kids to wait. They want to protect them from having sex too early, when they aren’t emotionally, physically, financially, or mentally prepared for child rearing. But that’s just it: we fear the consequences of sex, not necessarily the sex itself. But instead of teaching our teenagers how to engage safely, we make it an altogether taboo subject. This has always lead to (and will continue to lead to) irresponsible couplings resulting in unwanted pregnancies. Ignorance leads to mistakes. Even worse, religious indoctrination leads to outright denial of tools (i.e. birth control of all varieties) meant to reduce disease and prevent abortions. And quick side note: I cringe when I hear people say things like, “God decides when you have children.” Like, no. God gave us free will to shape our own destinies. Having unprotected sex is a choice, and pregnancy is the inevitable result for those with functioning reproductive systems. This is biology. This is the law of sexual reproduction. I understand why eager expecting mothers consider their babies gifts from God, but certainly the women who have been raped wouldn’t see it that way. Likewise, barren women shouldn’t feel as though God is punishing them. Reproductive systems go wrong for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with one’s morality. To frame pregnancy in terms of divine intervention is all around unfair.

Society has to do a better job thoroughly educating our young people on how to have consensual, protected sex. Are we doing that? No. We most certainly are not. With a few household exceptions, in this country we shame teenagers into feeling dirty and sinful for having normal hormonal urges. We scold them into keeping their hands to themselves. Threaten them with punishment. Threaten them with eternal damnation. Whatever it takes to scare the desire right out of them. But fear-inducing, bullying tactics will always remain as ineffective as abstinence-only education: a waste of time that leads to lifelong regret.

(As a quick aside, I’d like to mention that I was blessed to have a very open, honest relationship with both of my parents. My father is a urologist and has been for more than 30 years. So, whenever I had questions about male reproductive organs, I could count on him to give me a thorough text-book answer. I went to my mother for all questions regarding female reproductive organs, as well as the more nuanced realm of emotions surrounding sex. Both of my parents gave me good advice. They never once shamed me or made me feel bad for being curious about sex. Instead, they gave me the tools and knowledge I needed to make good choices for myself and my future. Not everyone has this type of relationship with their parents. And even if they had a fairly healthy relationship with their life-givers, it might still have been too taboo or embarrassing to discuss sex. I cannot overemphasize how lucky I am to have parents like mine, who gave me the resources I needed when I needed them, without judgement or condemnation. My privilege exists in many forms.)

More recently I’ve been applying a variation of this sexual shaming lens to my own life, and to this particular stage of my life. The shame didn’t come from my parents, but from other moral figures in my life. It should probably be apparent from the way that I write that I had sex before I was ever married. GASP! I know. Sinful, shameful, I’m a ho, etc. But the truth is, having sexual freedom allowed me to find my voice, my agency, my boundaries, and my sexually-specific values in a partner. I was lucky enough to have good relationships that allowed me to learn and grow in safe environments and with people who genuinely, deeply cared about me and my happiness. Mid-paragraph trigger-warning for sexual violence! Yes, I was raped in college and yes, people who know me quite well are already aware of this. So, I undeniably carry emotional baggage about consent and bodily autonomy just like most of the ladies I know. I am most assuredly not alone in carrying this burden.

All that being said, even though I had sexual relationships prior to finding the most wonderful husband and best friend I could have ever hoped for, I’m tremendously relieved and grateful that I’ve never been pregnant. I didn’t get saddled with a lifelong commitment gestating and raising the spawn of an abusive asshole. I didn’t get trapped in an unhappy marriage raising kids with a checked-out, lack-luster partner. I didn’t have my agency taken away from me by any man or any embryo. Millions of women are not so lucky.

It should go without saying that when we stigmatize sex, remove or restrict access to birth control, and then specifically ostracize women who dare take their destinies back into their hands by terminating unwanted pregnancies, we break down as a functioning society. We can’t reasonably treat our females like second-class citizens with fewer rights than cadavers, fewer rights than gun owners, and expect to keep up any semblance of civilization. To strip women of the right to keep their blood and their cells to themselves, to force them to grow traumatizing fetuses using their own nutrients and energy, is to subjugate half the population to sexual slavery. Calling it anything less than this minimizes its severity.

In my opinion, subjecting women to sexual slavery actually diminishes the sanctity of life. What do I mean? Well, I’ll use myself as an example. I have waited and waited, and seriously doubted that I would ever find a suitable husband/man that I deemed worthy of fatherhood. I was convinced I would become a spinster just from my sheer stubbornness and unreasonable standards. But now that I’m nearing my 30th birthday, now that I’ve found a partner who has loved and cherished me through thick and thin and would willingly and steadfastly stand by my side through all of the ups and downs of parenthood, now that I have fulfilled several lifelong dreams of cross-country travel, adventures in Alaska, and endeavors in creative and non-fiction writing, now that I have a stable income in a job within my field, I am at last mentally and emotionally ready to attempt conception. I have no nagging desire to spontaneously travel, no lingering projects haunting me. I just have an abundance of maternal energy and love waiting to be showered upon the child that may one day be borne of mine and Jack’s own flesh. I didn’t “save my vagina for marriage” (which is an altogether stupid and unrealistic request) but I did save my uterus for true love, and I think that that’s more important. I have waited until the opportune time to start a family and to serve it in perpetuity. This behavior protects and upholds the sanctity of life.

Meanwhile, due to our barbaric reproductive policies, any male-female coupling might result in a life that will go unloved, unfed, un-housed, dumped into foster care. Refusing to care for a baby after it is “Earth-side” is the complete and utter opposite of protecting the sanctity of life.

Wouldn’t it be better for individuals and for society as a whole if ALL prospective parents were working from the same strong, well-weaved safety net that I am so privileged and fortunate to have? What if every parent had embarked on their own soul’s journey and acquired fulfilling work that paid them enough to thrive PRIOR to producing biological offspring? And if it seems like a pipe dream to have every couple starting from a solid foundation, then that defeatist mentality only reveals the deep and pervasive cracks in how we relate to one another on a personal, intimate level, and how we relate to the generations that will come after us.

Time and time again we prove that we discount the future and we value our grandchildren less than we value our own unbridled, unreasonable freedom in the present moment. We prove this with our reproductive policies, with our lack of action on climate change, and with our vicious defense of unfettered gun rights.

I haven’t been to church since I was fourteen years old. But I pray every night: Heaven help us all. Free us from our own violence and ignorance. Help us reassess how we value existing human life and help us shed our stubborn unwillingness to provide for the children we forced women to birth. This culture of sexual shame and female sexual enslavement cannot be sustained. We all deserve better.

I Am Selfish For Wanting Children

I recently came across an Instagram post that struck the EXACT chord in me that drove me to write this blog in the first place. Yes, I focus a lot on the slowly unfolding catastrophe of climate change and how our kids will live in a more hostile and resource-scarce world, but more than that I’m struggling to accept the fundamental selfishness at the heart of my wish to conceive, gestate, and birth a human being that is half Jack and half me.

This particular Instagram post comes from Dr. Ayesha Kahn and her handle is “wokescientist”. The first page reads: “Children are the most vulnerable, at-risk population in the world. That is why parenthood is a lifelong ethical responsibility, commitment, and service. Yet, childhood trauma is widespread because people often have kids for selfish reasons.”

BOOM. Yes, precisely. Anyone who can, as I so very crassly wrote in my previous post, “bareback fuck” can become a parent. That doesn’t mean they have stepped up to the demands and requirements of the lifelong task before them.

Dr. Kahn says it better. “Some basic facts we can all agree on: 1) No child chooses to be born. They are brought into this world fundamentally without consent by the laws of nature. 2) Adults in various capacities are solely responsible for bringing a child into this world and hence, are entirely responsible for serving the child’s needs and wants as caregivers. 3) Adults are not doing children a ‘favor’ by birthing them or raising them. Children did not ask to be here and raising them is the bare minimum ethical responsibility of bringing life into this world. Your parents shouldn’t guilt you about your mere existence being a burden.”

But as I continued swiping through the slides of her post, I realized that however well-intentioned I am in my desire to provide a stable, loving environment for a child as my parents did for me, I am ultimately and inescapably selfish for even having the desire to procreate. Dr. Kahn continues: “Why do you want to have children? No matter which way I’ve thought about this or which way people have answered, the answers have always been selfish to varying degrees: Because I’ve always wanted to be a parent. Because I love my partner and want to create a child that is half of each of us. Because my parents want to be grandparents and have me continue my family’s lineage. Because I think the idea of me bringing life into this world is a beautiful thing that I’ve always wanted to do. Because it seems like the next step in life is to have a family. Everyone does it.”

I have, if not literally written those words verbatim, expressed nearly every single one of those sentiments from my second post in this blog onward. I talk about how much I love Jack and want more of his DNA around in the form of a cute kiddo. I talk about my desire to experience the magic of growing life first-hand. I arrogantly presume that I will be a sufficient mother, and when I doubt myself I callously throw other struggling parents under the bus screeching, “At least I won’t fail THIS hard!” Every single “justification” I can concoct fails to stand up to scrutiny. Every single one of them is selfish. It centers me. My desire. My vision for my life. My want for Jack to blend his body with mine into a new human.

I am selfish. It cannot be described any other way.

I could VERY easily fuck everything up as a mother. I could very easily fail at every junction. Traumatize my kid. Fail to prepare them for the trauma of living in an ecologically collapsing world. A dying planet. The existential dread is almost too much for ME to handle. What if I pass on my anxieties to my children? What if their anxieties are even worse? It would certainly be understandable if that were so. Much of what we take for granted now will be gone or unrecognizable in just a few decades. And I want to ask my son or daughter to forgive me for my selfishness? I brought them to a dead planet . . . . because I wanted to play house? How can I be viewed as anything other than a self-centered bitch? I’m truly asking myself this question, every day. Constantly. Always thinking about motherhood and parenting and the swirl of emotion around it.

Then we throw in Jack’s hesitation and his own doubts and fears about fatherhood. More than anything he wants to love, protect, and defend his offspring, but he struggles with his temper in emotionally triggering moments. Hey, the guy literally survived a ton of childhood trauma. Years and years’ worth of it. I don’t blame or begrudge him one bit, knowing what he’s been through. He knows the lasting effects of physical abuse better than I do, and he wants to break the cycle and avoid passing it down at all costs. It will be a tall order. Rigorous. Demanding. Exhausting. Triggering.

But parenthood is also rewarding. Fulfilling. Humbling. Inspiring. Even when parents say they aren’t necessarily more happy than their childless counterparts, they do report overall higher levels of purposefulness and satisfaction when they look back on their lives and the growth and evolution of their children. I understand why people become parents, and I think there should be more financial and social support available for parents specifically to reduce the amount of childhood trauma experienced today. There has to be a way for us to ethically bring humans onto this planet without setting them up for failure and removing their ability to meet their own needs in the future. We obviously haven’t figured it out yet and continue to get knocked-up willy-nilly, so all we can do is work within the messy, inefficient system we currently have in place.

I feel simultaneously obligated to adopt and somehow resentful that it would fall upon me. My boss offered her point of view last week. “I don’t think you need to feel obligated, Megan. It would certainly be kind and altruistic of you to adopt, but there’s no need to feel morally forced into it. Have children if you want them.” Then I think of the literal hundreds of thousands of kids in foster care in the U.S. alone and I’m all the more aware of my own wretchedness, insisting that I have my own because I somehow think I’ll be successful and worthy of the venture.

I’m not a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination, but numbers do hold quite a bit of weight in my mind. How can this country have failed so badly that we have hundreds of thousands of unwanted children falling through the cracks of our broken, abusive foster care system? And why do I feel like the fate of each of those kids rests on my decision to get pregnant or not? It makes no sense. It’s not logical. I try to vote in a manner that increases funding for social programs. I advocate for reform. But it’s not enough and it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

I’m so emotionally drained, every single day. My brain is hard at work, thinking, bargaining, imagining, speculating, debating, visualizing. I work full-time writing CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) documents for clients, I teach six dance classes a week, I write for the Trinity Journal, and now I’ve picked up a few writing assignments for the S.A.F.E Newsletter (Safer Alternatives for our Forest Environment). I fill my time because what else am I going to do? If I don’t keep myself running at full bore, I’ll stop and cry for God only knows how many days.

To be a dreamer is to be perpetually broken-hearted, envisioning a world that could be so much better than the one we’re currently in, and finding the strength to cope with the crap that comes day after day after day. I love my jobs. I love every single one of them. I want to be spending my time this way. But the capitalist grind is wearing me down before I’ve even entered the prime of my earning years. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. I know other people are far more worse off and burned out than I. I know people are still busting their asses for too little pay, with no benefits, no supports, and no safety nets. I’m so grateful for my husband, my parents and siblings, my friends. I’m grateful for meaningful work and multiple creative outlets. I’m grateful to have a roof over my head and food on my table. I’ve crafted a life that, if it weren’t for this damn global warming, is my idea of perfect. My vision. My dream.

But to fulfill the next stage of this dream, to find myself pregnant with Jack’s child, is more selfish than anything else I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a LOT of selfish things in my life. This post is already too long, so I won’t exhaust the list here, but I need to be gutsy enough to openly state how absolutely, inarguably selfish I am. What I want in life (motherhood) centers me, potentially at the cost of my offsprings’ mental health. Their physical health, even! And for the life of me, I just can’t come up with a good reason to have children, a reason that center’s our child and their needs and wants . . . and not us, the parents.

If you think of one, let me know.

Procreating Right Now is Unwise. That Does NOT Make Parents Unwise People.

Earth is undergoing its sixth mass extinction. Fine. Drought, famine, heat stroke. Great.

So why bring more life onto a failing planet? Doesn’t that just bring more suffering? In a hot take on my Instagram story, I admitted I wanted to start a family, but said Jack and I knew “it’s devastatingly unwise to procreate at this historic junction”. Multiple truths can exist at once. Birthing more humans right now, during political and social turmoil in our country, while the end of a geologic era plays out in a string of increasingly violent natural disasters, resource scarcity, and armed conflict, is, objectively, unwise. But birthing a desperately wanted, eagerly awaited son or daughter is also the most beautiful thing in the world, the most fragile, tenuous, labored, worthwhile, humbling, fulfilling endeavor a woman (and yes, a new father, too) can undergo. Both are equally “true” sentiments.

There’s never been a historically “convenient” time to have children. Warfare is as old as humanity. Plagues and epidemics occur with regularity. Resource-scarce (or, more honesty, resource-robbed) countries have pushed ever onward, somehow supporting a population in perpetuity. I think it’s ultimately brave for new parents to step forward and fill the roles that have played out before them, bringing the next generation into fruition. Unwise still, yes. But that’s society’s fault. Not the fault of the individual. I don’t “blame” anyone for wanting to start their own family as it’s naturally, intuitively, evolutionarily the most highly sought-after life goal for billions of people. The ONLY true objective of life is to propagate more life. It’s hardwired into our DNA. All the same, this is why I have so much rage against society.

America, wake the fuck up. Please. Pardon my French, for anyone easily offended. We have historically emitted more CO2 than India OR China. We don’t get a free pass on our past emissions. Carbon dioxide from the 1920s is still warming the planet today. We, the USA, also has the highest per capita carbon footprint of any nation. It’s grotesque. It’s disgusting that we’re so heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, so lazy. So entitled. Why do we sit idly by allowing the world to fall apart?

I have a lot of rage toward the modern day “Republican” Party. They coalesce around their anti-abortion stance while conveniently ignoring the fact that climate change will kill their kids if gun violence doesn’t wipe them out first. Literal cadavers have more bodily autonomy than living human women, according to the policies of what I like to call the Regressive Party. If you don’t check the “organ donor” box on your license, legally NO ONE can touch your body after your death. Even if you were the only match for a transplant patient, no one could compel your next of kin to give up your organs. Meanwhile, FORCED PREGNANCY, WHICH IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, IS NOW PERMISSIBLE IN SOME PARTS OF THIS BACKWARDS COUNTRY. Sure, let’s let incestuous raping fathers knock up their 12-year-old daughters, then force them to give birth to their own sibling. Yeah, that happens sometimes. Sounds VERY HUMANE, this complete and utter lack of exemptions for rape, incest, or medical complications. What absolute sick bullshit.

I find it really deeply disturbing when men force women to gestate their unwanted sperm. I think men who force women to complete a pregnancy against her will are insecure and uncomfortable in their very souls. They need to ban abortion because they sense no woman would ever willingly carry their fetus to term. I wish these men would get convicted for their sexual crimes and perversions, get locked up in prison. Too bad white men especially almost never have to serve time for the crimes they commit against women. When I was 16 years old reading the Handmaid’s Tale, I had sincerely believed it to be fiction. Now, at 29, I recognize that I live in a hellish nightmare of a nation, one that views women like breed stock, less human than a corpse. I thank the Creator every day that I have Jack. I have never been pregnant in my life. Never had to make the decision to have an abortion. Now I never will, because if I ever find myself with child, I will be glowing with love and joy knowing it is the long-awaited, beautiful, precious gift bestowed upon me by my favorite human of all time, my husband Jack.

Seeing families with 10, 12, dear Lord, 20+ kids and counting is, admittedly, a bitter pill for me to swallow. The parental hubris alone. In my experience, it’s somehow the folks with the MOST children who are also the most apathetic to our degrading, destabilizing natural environment. My family, by contrast, is small, dwindling, and hyper-conscious of our entire Western way of life spiraling out of control, unsustainable and crumbling. My older sister decided years ago she didn’t want children. Too much money, too much responsibility, too little freedom, too many potential complications with her health. All very sound, solid reasons. But that means it’s literally up to Jack and I to carry on “the bloodline”. I shudder to think of my nuclear family just . . . quietly . . . “going extinct”. I have no living grandparents. Once my parents are gone, it will only be my sister and I, and our respective partners. No new family members. No firsts with a new baby, a growing child. To me, it sounds lonely and a little boring.

I can be both supportive of parents who wish to bring new life into the world (however unwise it is thanks to our shitty society destroying the one and only planet we have to live on) AND supportive of women who wish to terminate their pregnancies. I can stoke a tiny flame of hope for starting a family of my own while having huge fears and doubts about it.

Endless hypotheticals circle in my brain. What if my son or daughter resents me for bringing them into conflict, knowing how bad it would get? I should hope they righteously cuss me out. What if they loathe me for the grief and struggle more than they love me for whatever sweetness in life I can give them? I am a flawed woman. I am physically weak and emotionally exhausted. What right do I even have to attempt mothering? And for some reason, my heart keeps whispering that I can do it. That I’ll find the strength and endurance. Maybe it’s just my ovaries whispering.

The bigger obstacle is my own husband. Jack insists that he’s “not opposed” to children, but that’s not the same as wanting them. It’s certainly not enthusiasm. I don’t want to force him to assume a role he’s reluctant to take, even though I’m convinced he would rise to the occasion and soar. He has assured me he would stand by me through anything and everything, upholding our vow to love each other unconditionally and whole-heartedly. But his rationality is stronger than my own. Curse these hormones! Curse my ticking “biological clock”! It’s as futile as raging against the sun.

Anyway, shout out to all the new parents who have undertaken the role of child-rearing in a truly wild, lawless, biologically unraveling time. Eager parents make excellent parents. There is nothing more beautiful than two humans actively participating in the raising of new life. You are brave. You are strong. I’m sorry this country cares more about convenience in travel and work, cares more about guns staying in the hands of abusive white men, than it does about the safety and welfare of our offspring.

If I could single-handedly change our cultural priorities to be those of education, healthcare, nutrition, affordable housing, and jobs formed through the renovation and reconstruction of our infrastructure, I would. That’s why I vote blue. Not because I’m a “Democrat” but because I believe we need to progress to the new world. We need to shed the old world. I, for the life of me, do. not. understand why conservatives want to conserve the fucked up culture we’ve been clinging to. It’s time to let go.

We need to change everything if we want to give our next generation a fighting chance.