Dear Mama

Dear Mama,

There are so many things I could thank you for on Mother's Day, from helping me pay for Smith College, to letting me endure the insanity/bad fashion choices of my adolescence to their fullest without censoring it, to just being there when shit got real. But this year, I want to thank you for helping me develop a healthy sexuality.

Moms play a seriously huge role in their daughter's (and ideally, their son's) mores, ideas, and knowledge base about sex. Shaming your daughter for her sexual desires and her newly developing body, or simply not talking to her about them and ignoring the elephant in the room, leaves an enormously lasting and quite negative impact on the way that these women will eventually feel about sex. Thankfully, you raised me in an environment where I never felt that shame.

While my attitudes towards sex and my body had some seriously rough points, you did nothing but to help foster a positive idea of sex. I ran around naked most of the time until I started kindergarten and never felt ashamed or weird for it. At three, when I asked what the pills in the cute pink container with the butterfly on it were (still don't know what butterflies have to do with fucking or babies...), you explained to me that they'd keep you and Daddy from having any more babies, giving me my first introduction to birth control. You didn't lie, or give me any stork bullshit; you simply told me the truth.

When I developed extraordinarily early (and surpassed you in cup size by the 4th grade), you taught me about self-defense and warned me about men but never made me feel afraid or that it was my fault I attracted more attention at ten than I was equipped to deal with. In fact, it was from you that I learned most of my curse words, as you yelled at men who stared a little too long at me at the beach or crossing the street. With the start of my period, you didn't cry or mourn my innocence or any of that crap; you offered me a heating pad and a cup of tea, which was all I needed since I'd known for a loooong time (thanks to you giving me a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves when I was 8) what my menstrual cycle would be like.

And when it came full circle and I had to ask you to put me on the Pill and take me to the gyno, you didn't try to convince me to stay sexually inactive or lecture me about the consequences. You didn't hold my virginity up as the paragon of what I was; you knew I was smart and kickass and didn't need to hold onto my hymen to stay a worthwhile person.

You've come to photo exhibits and seen naked pictures of me; I've explained my VCH piercing and my Diva Cup to you. While you might not understand, you don't judge, and that's been enormously helpful. When I compare my attitudes toward sex with those of other women my age, I'm astonished by their shame, their secrecy, their complete and total lack of knowledge of even their own anatomy.

Your calm, no bullshit or euphemisms approach to sex probably explains the presence of my participation in this blog. While my sexual psychology still has a lot of holes from growing up fat/the negative nature of my first sexual experience (that's another post...), you gave the foundation and knowledge to enjoy a lifetime of healthy, positive sex. Given the rape-culture that we live in, chock-full of lovely double standards and fear of female and LGBTQ sexuality, that's a beautiful gift you've given me by shaping my attitudes in a way that wasn't oppressive or narrow, but gave me the sensible basis from which to form my own story and sexuality.

So thanks, Mama, even though you don't read this.
Much love,
The Albright Sheriff (or Peanut, as Mama would say)

For my female readers, how has your mother and your relationship to her shaped your sexuality and attitudes towards your body?