#oh jeez people are probably going to get mad about this one
Every Friday, Boggle adopts the format of a traditional advice column to answer someone’s question in-depth. Have a problem you can’t fit in an ask, but you still want to get Boggle’s input? Write to him here! You will always remain anonymous.
This week: The letter isn’t long, but I knew my response would be. A teenager writes in about sex and shame.
Boggle, I am sixteen. I have had sex with six different people already. Half of them I thought I loved at the time, but the other half, I knew I didn’t love at all. I feel like a whore, and due to this, I have begun to despise myself. Any advice?
You are not a whore. But I am worried about you. Please let me explain why.
Right now a lot of people are telling you what you should do with your body. This never really stops? But it’s definitely at its worst when you’re a teenager, which is especially unfortunate since you probably haven’t had time yet to decide what you want to do with your body. So I am not surprised you feel ashamed, although–and I want to be so, so clear about this, anon–you haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. It's your body. Sex is your decision. Nobody else gets to decide if it’s okay for you to have it. And while there are certainly people who would disagree with me when I say this, I do not believe that the choice to have sex–with one person or a dozen–says anything about you other than that you felt like having sex at the time. Sometimes I just feel like ice cream, you know? It’s not a character indictment.
Okay, obviously the choice to have sex is a bigger deal than the choice to have ice cream. But I’m trying to say something about the inherent moral weight of your decision. The choice to have sex with somebody isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s just a thing you can do, hopefully with an eye towards the potential consequences (emotional and otherwise). And I don’t find the idea of an arbitrary age at which sex magically becomes acceptable very useful. Of course ‘the age of consent’ is important to protect young people from exploitation, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I know adults who started having sex at fourteen who have never had anything but positive feelings about it, and adults who started at eighteen or nineteen who later admitted to feeling too young. So the fact that you are sixteen, and you are having sex, with multiple partners, is not why I am worried in and of itself, okay? I respect your right to make your own choices, and I would never, ever judge you for them.
So after all that, I hope it goes without saying that I don’t believe you should feel like you have to be in love with someone to have sex with them. That’s a good rule of thumb for some people, but a lot of other people are perfectly happy having more casual sex, and it doesn’t say anything bad about them. If that’s you, that’s fine! Be safe and have fun!
What I hope for is that you only have sex if you actually want to have sex.
You’ve taken on so much negative emotion because of your sexual behavior that I’m worried that hasn’t always been the case. Now, I’m not talking about rape (statutory rape included); while I don’t know if anything like that has happened to you, I certainly hope it hasn’t, and for the sake of this letter I’m assuming that none of the sex you’ve had has been against your will, or in circumstances where your consent was in any way compromised. But there’s this big, weird, kind of depressing space between “sex that you didn’t want to happen” and “sex that heck yes you wanted to happen” where sex just sort of happens. Because you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. Because you want somebody to like you. Because you’re dating, and you feel like sex is something you owe them. Because they want to have sex, and you don't mind if you have sex, so the sex just sort of goes ahead, because you decide that “enh” might as well mean “yes.” Because you’re worried that the other person will stop liking you if you don’t.
These are all really lousy reasons to have sex, especially when you’re young and you’re still kind of figuring out how you feel about this stuff. And they can really do a number on your self-esteem, because you can start to feel like you’re only worth how much sex you’re willing to have. You’re great. Your partners are lucky just to hang out with you. People are going to like you whether you have pants on or not. Sex should be fun, and something you look forward to, not something you do out of obligation or anxiety.
Was any of this actually advice? I think it probably wasn’t. But I hope it has helped you get a new perspective anyway. This stuff is really hard, and confusing, and people get incredibly judgmental about it, but ultimately all of these decisions are up to you. I just want you to stay safe (please stay safe), and do things that will make you happy.
Take care of yourself out there.
