...
I've seen one episode. One. And it's the one with David Duchovny in it. Everybody's got a price.
I'll warn you this one might be a little icky.
I think we try to normalize the abnormal quite a bit. I know why we do it, we don't want to judge, we don't want to feel bad about ourselves or others, we want to feel less alone. I know that quite a few therapists that I've been to have tried to convince me that a lot of my feelings were "normal." I think they meant "normal in relation to my history."
My history isn't normal.
It's a lot more common than most people would like to look at, but it's abnormal just the same. I remember telling one therapist I was seeing years ago "I feel dark, like there's this dark film, like week old sweat, all over me that I can't get off." She told me that was normal. I asked her if she thought the general populace felt that way on a regular basis. She smiled, probably at my being a smart ass, and said "I think it's important for you to focus on what makes you feel less out-of-place."
Out-of-place is an excellent term for it.
I wish I had been given better circumstances. I think most people do at some point in their lives. I can say "At least he didn't kill me." He tried, several times. I think he wanted to. He didn't. I can say "At least I'm not a drug addict/prostitute/repressed people pleaser." All of those things are true. But it's that modifier "at least" that I have a problem with. I don't want to dwell in the realm of "at least." It needs to be as bad, wrong, gross, dysfunctional, and hateful as it was.
I was molested by a family member. By the current legal definition in California, I was raped. Who knows what the legal definition in 1990-91 in Alabama was. I have a feeling it was somewhat less...enlightened.
That's not normal, ya'll. I don't want anyone to make me feel like it is.
So. Sex and the City.
None of the characters act like anyone I know. Well, anyone I hang out with on a regular basis. They all come off as incredibly shallow high fashion types, and Samantha...is a skeezy guy. She's totally slimy. And most females I know who watch the show will say "OMG, I loooooooooooove Samantha," she's a lot of people's favorite character.
Ew. That concerns me for their social outlook. It's brainwashed.
I found myself defending a friend last night. I shouldn't have been defending her that way, not because she didn't need defending, but because my defense was faulty. I was using age, when I should have been using history.
The deadly combo of sexual trauma and the Sex and the City-type thinking creates a self/society reinforced sexual acting out that can spiral out of control and be very difficult to break from. We're feminists, right? We should be able to screw around and get our rocks off just like guys do. I'll spare you my rant on that subject. Suffice it to say that I don't think we should be screwing around, especially just because "we can now." Sex and the City is the anti-feminist, in my viewpoint.
I have been promiscuous at points in my life. I'm totally upfront about it. I'm not proud of it but gah, did it teach me things. For one, that sex is supposed to be a complete emotional and physical exchange between two people that trust and care for each other completely and are committed to each other. And it taught me that by being the polar opposite when it was done for the wrong reasons.
I am a survivor of childhood sexual trauma, promiscuity's in the handbook. There is no handbook, unless you count the DSM. But if there was, it would be in there. I used to have an eating disorder. Also in the handbook. So, I was "normal" within my abnormality. I didn't know any of this until I started working in mental health.
But they don't tell you this part. Icky warning, reiterated:
When I was acting out sexually, sex commonly would make me nauseated. Not all the time, but a lot. It was that buzzing, spinny, motion sickness-like nausea. Like those scenes in movies when it's sepia toned, and the sun's too bright, you don't really know what's going on and the world is turning around you. That.
I envy you "normal" people. And I don't at the same time.
I don't because that nausea said "Look at this, Jenny." It was my fucked-up alarm. It let me know something was very bad wrong. Everyone needs one of those. It needs to be LOUD so you can hear it. I don't feel nauseated after sex anymore because I'm no longer having sex for the wrong reasons. But I still have the alarm. It tells me when something is dyfunctional. I feel sick. And I get out.
I don't know if "normal" people experience that. But I hope there's at least some emptiness. That can be the alarm there. I hope they can hear it. I know most people who haven't experienced what I have would then say "Well, maybe you just shouldn't then. But it's ok for me." It's not ok for anyone. I think it's creating all kinds of ridiculous consequences that nobody is looking at.
Sex and the City gives credit to the idea that casual, emotionless sex is normal. That idea is creating a society that is acting like it's been collectively molested! I know sexual acting out to be a symptom of deeper disorder. It always has been for me. It has been for every promiscuous person I have ever known. And it's textbook for sexual abuse survivors, so that's all the data I need. Maybe we have been collectively molested with the mainstream media bordering on pornography half the time. Those of us that have actually been assaulted that way though, are honestly baffled by the constant need to have sexuality shoved in our faces.
It's not healthy.
I have two articles for you. 1.) http://tinyurl.com/297bz2j 2.) http://tinyurl.com/28tvn7w
And then this one, an excerpt from a book called "Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Fail at Both http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/17453367/
I'm buying that book.
I was asked a question that I didn't answer. It was, and I'm paraphrasing, but "How can you teach your children that sleeping around is wrong if you think it's ok?" The answer is, it's not ok. It's destructive. Pardonemoi (sp) though, if this sounds condescending, it's not meant to be, but I think I could teach my kids that better than a lot of other people, because I know it in my bones. In. My. Bones. I know unhealthy sex can make you sick.
If my daughter was acting out sexually, and I believe I could short circuit that process by protecting her in the way I was not protected, but IF she was due to society's twisted teachings, I would be able to get AAAAAAAAAALLLLLL the way down to her level and bring her back out. That is not to say there would be hand-holding, anyone who has ever had a "Come to Jesus" from me knows there is very little hand-holding. I would show her what she was doing to her soul. And I would pull her out of it.
And then I would find the assholes that were using her and pull their junk out by the roots. [/motherly instinct]
If my son was acting out sexually, see above disclaimer about short circuiting, I would get all the way down to the level of the girls he was using and make him freaking feel it.
You can't shield your children from the world, but you can prepare them for it. And constantly debrief them about it.
And they will NEVER while there is breath in my body...watch Sex and the City.
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