• While our parents did not talk to us about sex, we found information on the Internet
I am constantly finding myself in spaces where I am surrounded by brilliant women.
As the eldest daughter, I have had to be the first to experience growing up as a girl and navigating puberty, high school, university and now, life.
The older sisters I got growing up were my mother (but in adolescence, you kind of stop thinking that your mum is cool) and my older cousins here and there.
It prepared me to be a big sister but I always wished I had someone in whose footsteps I could follow.
I did follow in my brother’s footsteps for a while, but then I outgrew that.
That journey requires female guidance and my brother is, well, a boy.
Anyway, I was privileged to be in a room full of women (and a few men) who were having great discussions about life and everything in between.
The discussion took a turn into a realm considered taboo in many of the households we grew up in: sex.
The way women talk about sex is very different from how men talk about it.
Not to mention the men and women who are not comfortable talking about it at all because culturally, they have grown up knowing it is a taboo.
Even in households where sex could be discussed, it was still hard to have that conversation.
I remember when I was 13 and puberty had arrived, my father gave me a pamphlet on 101 ways to say no to sex.
I was embarrassed but I took it to school with me so my friends could read it, too. They completely devoured it and it got lost eventually.
He tried and I commend him for it.
My mother had a harder time talking to me about sex, so I made it easier for her and I did not ask questions (and I was an inquisitive child).
Yet, despite our lack of sex ed (sexuality education), we seem to be pretty versed in the area theory-wise, as far as I know.
Young people are having more conversations about sex now because let’s face it, it has become something of a norm and not a taboo as we were raised to believe.
Everything you need to know about sex is at your fingertips now, thanks to the Internet and Western TV shows.
So if parents don't talk about it with kids now, they will still learn, just not from reliable sources.
Women are now claiming sexual pleasure of their own, saying it does not belong to men alone.
Sexual empowerment is now a term commonly used, especially by women to mean they no longer connote sexual intimacy to feelings of guilt or shame.
Basically, a woman who enjoys sex is not promiscuous or immoral.
One of my ‘big sisters’ at the space I was in said the only consequence of sex should be orgasms and more orgasms.
The much older big sisters in the room applauded, saying how our generation is becoming enlightened each day.
“If a young woman is exploring sex and being careful, why should she be ashamed when her male counterparts are equally doing the same, if not more? There is no shame she should be made to feel,” she said.