No one IS Sex

A few years back I had a friend who contributed towards my growing as a sexual person. She is an amazing person. I'm going to call her Peaches because that was my special nickname for her and because no one who reads this would identify her by that name except for a few people who know her and I really well.

Anyway, Peaches is this beautiful woman who is completely secure in her sexuality. She's had a wide array of sexual experiences and isn't afraid of trying new things. When I met her she was very curvy. Some would say overweight but I prefer to say she was voluptuous. She's a lot thinner now and the funny thing is it hasn't made her sexier. She's just as sexy as she ever was. But when she was curvier, she wasn't ashamed of it. She embraced her curves. But this isn't about her curves. This is about how people perceived her and how people have perceived me.

This is about how the world perceives a woman who is confident in her sexuality.

Peaches could talk about anything sexually. She didn't reveal everything to everyone because she didn't need to but if someone asked her a question she wasn't ashamed to give an honest answer. Peaches loved men and sometimes women (and I was fortunate enough to be one of those women for a time) and could see beauty in all sorts of people. She loved to laugh and a lot of the time we were laughing about sex because let's face it, sex can be pretty damn funny sometimes. She loved to tease and play coy and loved knowing that she could arouse someone. Sex was fun. Sex could be serious with her too but that was reserved for special people.

One day someone said, "Peaches IS sex!" I don't recall whether they said it to her face or behind her back. If they said it to her face I know she would have been very upset about it. If they said it in front of me, I was very upset. To this day I don't remember which it was. Years later, someone said the same thing about me. If you're a sex worker or a writer who enjoys the topic of sex maybe someone has said that about you, too.

No one IS sex. They may enjoy talking about it, writing about it, or participating in it for fun or as a career, but NO ONE IS sex. People who love sex have lives and I think it is important for others to realize that.

Peaches also loved kitties and had a really close relationship with her family. She had an eating disorder as a teenager that was very difficult to overcome. She got hurt by people's words and sometimes she cried. She is incredibly intelligent and has a degree in Art History. She's written some fabulous papers. She struggles with depression. There are parts of her life that are great and some not so great. She's not sex.

I'm a single mom and I take my parenting role very seriously. I'm engaged to a wonderful man and we don't just fuck our brains out every night. We talk and we laugh a lot and we worry about bills and whether "the girl" (my daughter) is growing up too fast and if "the boy" (my son) is getting enough sleep. We make plans for our future and have goals that don't include when we can find time for a quickie. I am not sex.

People can love sex or work in the sex industry or both, but no one IS sex.