Lusting After Freedom

Heterosexuality

Lusting After Freedom by Rebecca Walker

This article was such a positive look at sexuality. So far the articles in this coursepack have been so negative: lesbians who have struggled with their sexual identity, women who've been oppressed by their culture, angry and sad women with nothing good to say except how
awful the world is. Walker seems to be satisfied with her experience and it's great that she's sharing that. I wish I'd had such a positive experience discovering my own sexuality.

Although it seems that eleven years old is shockingly young to engage in first sex (yikes – as I think about my daughter who will be eleven in May) it's nice to see that she doesn't look back on the experience with 'how patriarchy ruined her life'. Just after my twelfth birthday I got my first perriod, completely unaware of the process, the procedures - any idea what was happening to my body at all. I waited at least 2 or 3 days before mentioning anything to my mother at which time she sent me to see my older sister who told me to "grab some stuff from under the sink." That was it, my entire sex education.

My group started to discuss this article in terms of how she probably had no male figure in her life, was probably desperately searching for male acceptance, yadda yadda, but I objected and found support for this in another group
member.

Some people do have positive experiences. What I've found is that people are more likely to write when they have something to complain about. When people are happy they're too busy enjoying life.