What You Really Really Want (42 page)

These changes may be especially challenging if you have one or more ongoing sexual partners. Don't get me wrong: They may also be awesome. You may already have found that they've improved your sexual satisfaction and strengthened your relationship in general. But if you change the way you go about your sexual relationships, you're also changing the way your partner's sexual relationship works. And while you chose this process you're both now engaged in, they may not have.

It may be that working through this book has helped you to see your partner in a different light. Perhaps you've discovered that they're not very interested in your desires or your boundaries. That's difficult information to learn about anyone, let alone someone you're already intimate with. That kind of disregard is not something you need to put up with. On the other hand, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover how well your partner responds to your developing sense of your sexuality. Their responses to your new ways of behaving and communicating may increase the trust between you, strengthening the ties you already have.

But if their response falls somewhere in between—if they're supportive of the reasons you're changing but having trouble adjusting to it in practice—try to cut them a little slack for a while. As we discussed in chapter 9, make sure you're compromising
with them,
as opposed to compromising
yourself
. But if you can find ways to make room for them to work through their discomfort without sacrificing too much of yourself, you could be doing both of you a favor, allowing the relationship to grow to meet both of your needs.

That's exactly what Prerna and her boyfriend are doing. “Because this is my first serious relationship after being sexually assaulted, how I handled the sexual aspects of it was an entirely new territory that I didn't expect,” she says.

As for finding new partners, keep in mind what we talked about in the introduction: This book isn't designed to make it easier for you to find sexual partners. What it will do is make it easier to distinguish partners who'll be good for you from ones who won't, and to make your experience better when you do find a good partner. The sad reality is that since we've all been raised in a dysfunctional sexual culture, many of your potential partners may have unrealistic and sometimes damaging ideas about women and sex. (This may be more likely if your potential partners are male, but it's possible no matter what gender your partners are.) As you get clearer about what you really really want and what you really really don't, it can result in a smaller pool of people to pick from. That sucks, plain and simple. But it also means that when you do get with someone, you're far more likely to have a healthy, satisfying experience, whether it's a flirtation, a one-night stand, or a long-term partnership.

Whether you've already got a partner or are still on the lookout, you're ultimately going to have to decide how much you're willing to “educate” them, versus how much you want them to already understand and care about your sexual priorities. If you're with someone who believes women who go out wearing a short skirt are “asking to be raped,” is that a deal breaker for you, or a teachable moment? If your partner thinks it's unsexy to talk openly about sex, is that the beginning of an important
conversation for the two of you, or the end of the road? You're totally justified in feeling like it's not your job to teach your partners how to not be sexist, nor is it your responsibility to be their personal sex educator. If you choose the zero-tolerance route, you may have a harder time finding folks who meet your standards, but you'll have less work to do in your relationships when you do have them. On the other hand, if you're willing to take on “fixer-uppers” who are curious and well-meaning but need you to help out with some enlightenment, you'll find more willing candidates, but you'll be putting in more effort and taking a bigger gamble. There's no right answer. The right balance is up to you.

Now that you've got a stronger grip on how to know what you really really want (and how to go after it), you may stop and think to yourself,
Why does this have to be so hard?
It's not fair that the way our culture is structured makes it difficult for us to just be ourselves. If that makes you feel angry, frustrated, or sad, you're not alone. And while there's nothing you can do to change the past, there's plenty you can do to change the future, so that the generation of women growing up after you get a lot less of the Terrible Trio, and a lot more of what they really really want, from the outset.

The media's a great place to start. Pay attention to the types of media you're consuming. Video games, music, movies, TV, books, even porn—they exist because you give them money to exist. So think about the kinds of messages they're sending you and everyone else, and vote with your dollars. In other words: Give your money to media that portrays the kind of world you want to live in, and stiff the rest. Not only will you wind up consuming media that supports your values—an awesome goal in and of itself—but you'll also have a role in creating a world where more of that media exists for other people to find.

(Of course, you can indulge in “guilty pleasures” sometimes. We all have guilty media pleasures. But be aware when you're doing it, and, when possible, do it in ways that don't give money to people perpetrating shame, blame, and fear.)

Another place you may want to get involved is in shaping the way sex education is taught in schools. Think back to your own sex ed class: How helpful was it? Did you learn that sex was something good girls Just Don't Do until marriage, and
that was that? Or did you learn that if you insist on having sex, you'd better be super-careful, because otherwise you'll wind up pregnant and with all sorts of nasty diseases? Those are the two dominant models in the United States right now, and they're both missing something crucial: pleasure. As we discussed in chapter 10, if you talk to kids about sex and don't mention pleasure, it creates suspicion, shame, silence, and secrecy. It certainly doesn't make you seem credible: By the time kids are exposed to sex ed in school, even if they're not having sex, they have a sense that it might feel pretty great when they do. But leaving pleasure out of sex education does something even worse: It tells women that our satisfaction is an afterthought.