What You Really Really Want (14 page)

Authors: Jaclyn Friedman

BOOK: What You Really Really Want

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Now, let me take a moment to say that if you're not a wild child by nature, by all means, stick to your nature. There's nothing liberating about acting like a party girl in order to prove
how free you are, when you'd rather be home in your jammies reading a book. What's more, few of us want the same level of wildness at all times. As long as you're doing what you enjoy, on your terms, and you're not hurting yourself or others in the bargain, there's no shame in wherever you fall on the snuggle-to-party spectrum.

So instead of adhering to a one-size-fits-none policy that discourages you from pursuing things you enjoyâwhether it's skinny-dipping with friends or having a hot flingâwhy not develop the tools to listen to your own needs and boundaries, separate real danger from manufactured fear, and learn how to determine and weigh risks involved in any given situation?

But first, let's do a quick check-in: How's it going with the daily writing and the weekly body love? Are you doing it every day, never, or some of the time? How is it feeling? You're a quarter of the way through this book, and it's about to get a little more personal, so now is a great time to recommit to these tools, which are key ways to support and affirm yourself as you go through this process.

Dive In:
To get in the mood, why don't you reread the list of body-loving activities you brainstormed in chapter 1, and then add a few more things to the list?

YOU'RE NUMBER ONE

The first and most important step in keeping yourself safe while pursuing a life full of pleasure is deciding that you are worth
protecting. For many women, this is no small challenge. Critical to it is determining what your personal boundaries are and respecting them.

Boundariesâsome people call them limitsâare any point past which you're personally unwilling to go, or any behavior you're unwilling to put up with. You're the only person who can decide what your boundaries are, whether it's that you don't have sex until after the fourth date or that you feel like a particular person is being rude to you and you don't want to talk with them anymore. Your boundaries can change depending on who you're with and what mood you're in, and that's fine. What's important is that you learn what they are, and that theyâand youâare worth sticking up for.

I tend to feel very selfish when I think about myself in any positive, want-to-take-care-of-myself kind of way. I have this feeling like “I don't deserve this. I don't do enough to deserve this.” I tend to disassociate from my body, so I don't really know how to take care of my body, or know how to be good to my body, so I also tend to be like,
Oh, well, if he doesn't want to use a condom, I'm sure it will be fine,
even though I know that's really stupid. It just happens, and I regret it, and I beat myself up for it, but I think it does come down to thinking I'm not worth protecting or standing up for. I'm not worth questioning somebody else's decision. Like, what if this makes them not want me?
{Heidi}

I've never felt clearer than when I admitted to myself out loud that if I don't care about myself, as a Black woman, nobody will. If I went missing, you wouldn't hear about me on the news. So when people are messing with me, I've decided to take the stance that I can be right, and our culture can be wrong. It is wrong. I'm not out of my mind, and it is within our power to change it.
{Gray}

Taking care of your own safety should be one of your primary responsibilities. When I feel deserving of my personal boundaries and capable of defending them, I feel safer and more secure in my life, which frees up so much energy to focus on other things. I use a lot of that energy to work for the safety of other women. You can do amazing things with that energy, too, for yourself and other people you care about.

Dive In:
Think about situations in which you've treated your needs or boundaries as unimportant. List at least five instances. Now pick one, and imagine that instead of you being in that situation, it had been someone you care about. Write an imaginary letter to that person, expressing what you wish they could have done differently in that situation. Acknowledge with compassion why it may have been hard for them to speak up for their boundaries, and then explain why it's so important to you that they overcome those obstacles and learn to believe and act like they're worth defending.

GETTING REAL ABOUT RISK

The first thing to know about risk is that it can't be avoided. There is no way to live your life completely and utterly safe from risk. Choosing to do nothing, ever, brings its own set of risks, including depression, vitamin D deficiency, muscle atrophyâyou get the picture. And in terms of sexual safety, staying in your home certainly doesn't guarantee that no one will ever sexually violate you, given that most rapists choose victims they already know. So it's crucial to let go of the idea that there are choices you can make that will guarantee your safety. They just don't exist.

What
do
exist are different types of risk (the emotional risk of isolation vs. the physical risk of assault), different levels of risk (are you risking being rejected by someone you just met or having your heart broken by someone you love?), and related pleasures or other rewards associated with pursuing them (bonding with friends, sexual satisfaction, emotional intimacy, adrenaline rushes, etc.).

When it comes to assessing the risks associated with self-expression and sexuality, it's good to prepare in advance by separating myth from fact. Let's start by reality-checking some of the most common “risks” women are warned about:

Being Out Alone After Dark

Myth:
A stranger will jump out of the bushes and attack you!

Reality Check:
Could it happen? Sure. But it's pretty rareâaround 80 percent of rape victims know their attackers, so, statistically speaking, you're in greater danger from the male acquaintance who offers to walk you home. Besides, men are 150 times more likely to be attacked in public by a stranger than
women are, so why is it that women are the ones taught to be afraid of being alone in public? Of course you should take precautions if you're in a particularly dangerous area, but overall, this myth doesn't make you saferâit detracts from the reality of how most attacks against women happen and makes women feel less free to live our lives.

Dive In:
Call your local police department and ask them how many violent crimes have been committed in your area, what percentage of the victims have been women, and how many of those were victimized while walking alone by themselves. (Keep in mind that 60 percent of rapes are never reported to authorities, and most of the nonreported ones are committed by someone the victim knows.) Then find out how many people have been injured or killed in car accidents in the same area in the same time period.

Still don't feel safe? Be sure to read the section on self-defense later in this chapter.

Going Out Drinking

Myth:
It will get you assaulted! And it will make you slutty!

Reality Check:
For lots of people, including women, social drinking is fun. Sometimes it helps us loosen up in social situations, sometimes we simply enjoy the taste of great beer or cocktails, and sometimes we just like feeling a little buzz among friends. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you're not regularly getting so hammered you can't think straight (in which case you may have a problem with alcohol).

However, it's important to know that alcohol and drugs are also the preferred tool of rapists. According to self-admitted rapists, over 70 percent used alcohol or drugs to subdue their victims.
²So if someone you're with is
pressuring
you to drink or take drugs when you don't want to, that's a warning sign that you're not in good company. Even if this person is not a rapist, the fact that they ignore your reluctance to drink or your desire to stop means they're someone who doesn't respect your boundaries. Pretty self-centered company at best, really dangerous company at worst. (It bears repeating that it's still not your fault if you succumb to their pressure and then they assault you. No amount of alcohol or drugs can ever make getting raped your fault. But forewarned is forearmed.)

It's also utter bunk to suggest that drinking will give you sexual desires that you don't normally have when you're sober. It may reduce any resistance you might have to act on your desires, but it won't create desires in you that don't already exist. Think about it: You're probably not a thief. Does drinking make you more likely to steal? Not if you don't already have that impulse.

On the other hand, if you are deliberately getting drunk in order to do things sexually that you wouldn't do sober, that's not healthy or safe. Using alcohol or drugs to numb your own desires or boundaries can also numb the part of you that insists on safer sex, and it definitely numbs your intuition about whether or not a person is safe to be sexual with. Beyond that, getting drunk to override your sober judgment is a way of violating your own boundaries. Every time you do it, you're telling yourself: My boundaries don't matter. You're setting a
dangerous precedent, because the next time someone ignores your boundaries, it will seem like less of a big deal, since you've done the same thing yourself.