HOW TO BE SEXUALLY CONFIDENT

THE TALK WE ARE NOT HAVING (AND WHY IT IS COSTING OUR DAUGHTERS)

How to Be Sexually Confident Like a Southern Girl Part One of Two: Why We Need to Be Having This Conversation

I'm going to say something that might make you a little uncomfortable.

For most of my life, I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. Not in my career, not in my friendships, not in my relationships, and definitely not in the bedroom. I was the girl who went along with things. The one who smiled and nodded and figured out what everyone else needed and quietly set my own needs aside. I thought that was just who I was. Turns out, it wasn't who I was at all. It was who I had learned to be.

Growing up without confidence means you hand the wheel over to other people. And that's exactly what I did, for a long time, with a lot of men. Every intimate experience I had in my younger years was more performative than real. I wasn't showing up as myself. I was showing up as whoever I thought they wanted me to be. If I could just be what they wanted, maybe they would stick around. Maybe they wouldn't cheat. Maybe they would be nice.

They cheated anyway. And many weren't nice. 

And I found myself in situations that were uncomfortable, that I didn't want to be in, and I had absolutely no idea how to get myself out of them. Because nobody had ever taught me that I was allowed to. Nobody had ever told me that my voice mattered, that my body was mine, that I got to have an opinion about what happened to it. I didn't have the language, I didn't have the tools, and I didn't have the belief that I was worth speaking up for.

I figured most of that out in my thirties. Better late than never, I know. But I look back at the younger version of me and honestly, my heart breaks for her a little.

Now I have a four year old daughter.

And I will move mountains before she walks the same path.

Here's what I can't get my head around. Sexual education in schools starts and finishes with how to put a condom on and which contraceptive pill to take. That's it. That's the whole conversation. We are sending young people out into the world knowing almost nothing about boundaries, about consent, about how to understand what they want and don't want, about what's safe and what's not, about what's real and what absolutely isn't. Especially now.

Because here's what's changed since we were growing up. The worst thing we had to deal with was a dirty magazine someone found under a bed. Today, research is showing that children as young as seven and eight are accessing pornography. Seven and eight years old. And we're still having the same "here's how contraception works" conversation and calling it sex education. We are so far behind it is frightening.

I believe that children need age appropriate, ongoing conversations about their bodies, their boundaries, what feels right, what doesn't, and how to use their voice when something isn't okay and that it is our responsibility as parents to make sure they get it. Not just one talk. Not just one module at school. Ongoing, evolving, honest conversation as they grow. And yes, this applies to our sons too. My son will be getting the same lessons, because this is not just a female thing. But as a woman who has lived through the cost of not having these conversations, I feel a particular fire in my belly about it. I also have no blimin idea how I am going to have these conversations, but after building out our Sexual Confidence module for the Southern Girl Finishing School with Sexologist Melissa Vranjes I just know that I will be trying. 

Let's get very real about this, most of us adults are having sex, either with ourselves or with other people. Sex is how we were all made. And we're all tiptoeing around the topic like it's something to be ashamed of. Well honestly, I'm done tiptoeing.

Sexual confidence is knowing yourself. It's knowing what you want, what you don't want, and believing that you are allowed to say so. It is the foundation of safe, healthy, satisfying intimacy. And it starts way before you ever get into a bedroom with another person.

It starts with the conversations we have, or don't have, with our kids.

This is exactly why I built a Sexual Confidence module inside the Southern Girl Finishing School. And I didn't want to just share my own experience, as personal and real as that is. I wanted to bring in someone who knows this stuff at a professional level. So I worked with sexologist Melissa Vranjes to create something that gives real, evidence based guidance for women at any stage of life. Whether you are just starting to find your voice, rebuilding confidence after a difficult relationship, or trying to figure out how to model healthy sexuality for your daughter as she grows, this module meets you where you are.

In Part Two of this series I'm getting into the practical side. The actual tools and conversations you can use to build sexual confidence in yourself and raise a daughter who knows her worth, her voice, and her body. Don't miss it.