What Love Got To Do With It
You must understand that the touch of your hand makes my pulse react
That it’s only the thrill of boy meeting girl
Opposites attract
It’s physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore that it means more than that
What’s love got to do, got to do with it
Tina Turner
The past three weeks has had us debating what makes a healthy and normal sex life as we have watched the trial of the accused murderer of Grace Millane
A whole new world exposed. As well as the tragic death of a young woman and the grizzly details of her burial what has been exposed is the danger of the secrecy and shame that is still connected to sexuality and sexual expression.
This commentary is not about the verdict - guilty or not guilty. That was for the jury to decide, since after all only they sat through all of the evidence. The rest of us had to make do with what the media chose to spotlight – the tinder dating scene, the secretive chat rooms, that consent to be choked for pleasure is ‘a thing’, that online dating is full of danger and risk and that sex is about secrecy and shame.
This is not about how the trial process treated Grace Millane either, pulling apart every morsel of her most private life. Although, how New Zealanders talk and react to sexuality (in all its colours) was an important thread running through the trial and how people responded to it.
New Zealanders are still guilty of secrecy and shame about sexuality and sexual expression and yet it’s probably one of the most popular recreational activities. Why don’t we talk about it? And why don’t we talk about it with our kids and young people, our colleagues and our partners?
What makes human beings unique is that we are pretty much always on heat, seeking each other out. Sex can do wonders for your self-esteem. It can make you feel powerful, alluring, confident, vibrant, and addictive. It can take you away from the hum drum of regular life. It can be intoxicating and it can make you feel reckless and invincible. Our bodies are amazing in the pleasure they give us. The building of passion. The desire to push the boundaries and as the young people say “to have the feels”. So if sex is all of these wonderful things then why the secrecy and the silence?
Compare how we talk about healthy sex to how we talk about healthy nutrition. There is no shortage of information about the benefits of good nutrition. Everyone is talking about it openly, what food is good for you, what goes best with what. We make sure our kids know about all the options because, let’s face it, no one wants to eat the same meal three times a day every day . We want our kids to experiment and try different combinations. We are encouraging and supportive. We’re there for when they made the wrong choices and help them make better ones.
When it comes to food we understand that education is the key. Information is power.
None of this applies to sex education, of course. With sex we continue to treat it like it’s shameful or should be.
The court in the Grace Millane case heard a lot of evidence about different ways that people are intimate with one another, about consensual non consent, about BDSM and fetish websites. The coverage was voyeuristic.
What happened to Grace was shocking and violent and she was certainly not consenting to have her life taken. We are all rightly shocked and horrified at what happened to her. But the reaction I heard was also from people being outraged that a young woman might want to be experimental with sex, or that consenting couples might get pleasure from some practices that carry risk. What I heard people muttering was ‘what type of person does that’?
Life lesson: there is no ‘type’. Sexuality and sexual expression comes in many colours (no pun intended). If we were shocked by what the jury heard – about Fetlife and Whiplr and others – it’s simply because so much of sexual expression is still cloaked in secrecy and shame.
Sex can be about adventure and taking risks, trying new things, reaching new heights. But it can be dangerous and people – young people in particular – need to know how to talk about mitigation of risk in a sexual context. We all know that Health and Safety is about communication. So let’s communicate about sex. Check in. Share. Call each other out on shonky sexualized behavior. Talk about the realities and not the fictional stories….imagine just how terrifying it would be to find a baby in the cabbage patch.
Dating websites are the ballrooms of the 21st century. They make relationships and sexuality accessible. But just like all the information on websites about healthy food choices there needs to be better information about how what you are seeing and trading online might impact your lifestyle. Facebook has been called out on allowing hate speech and acts of violence to be shown on its platform – why is Tinder, Fetlife, Whiplr not being challenged in the same way?
What if dating and fetish websites started taking responsibility for educating people about how to negotiate around sexual activities? I believe the developers/owners of such websites have an obligation to ensure that information about safety and contingency plans are included on their sites.
When - as now – the whole subject is taboo then experimentation (which is completely normal) becomes more risky.
We need to stop judging and start loving and looking out for each other. We need to stop assuming that certain types of people lead certain types of lives. We need to check in with our kids and each other. We need to stop perpetuating the idea that sexuality is a taboo subject and that talking about it will incite a global orgy.
So what’s love got to do with any of this? It’s got everything to do with it, because if we don’t love then we fear. And no one should live in fear.
Claire Ryan is a Sexuality Educator