Why You Should Talk To Your Girlfriends About Your Sex Life

These days, it usually happens at my kitchen table over a morning cup of coffee and a Facetime session with my best friend. Five years ago, it was at Cafe Strudel, after a long night of graduate-school-fueled drinking, over a steaming hot plate of life-giving Hangover Hashbrowns. A couple Tuesdays ago, it happened again, after a solidarity protest at the State House, tucked in the back room of a dark local bar -- The Whig.

I talk about my sex life with my friends.

Now a married person. I frequently reflect on the arguably misguided teachings on sex from my childhood churches and women’s Bible studies: Keep that between you and your husband. Sex is private. Don’t kiss and tell.

Living in the Bible Belt, attending a mostly white university, and being raised on conservative, Christian values, I was surprised at how easily I unlearned these seemingly-ingrained rules. The first time I had sex as a wide-eyed 18 year old in college, I immediately ran outside under the moonlight of a chilly, upstate South Carolina Saturday night, and phoned a girlfriend, 3 o’clock in the morning and all, to tell her everything.

It didn’t stop there. Every Saturday morning in college, like clockwork, my curly haired, quick-witted college BFF would wander over to my apartment for fresh coffee and a debriefing of the evening before. We’d laugh about the oblong hickies that littered our necks and the mediocre sex that inevitably followed an evening laced with boxed Franzia and dining hall food.

For 18 year old me, these conversations served a much greater purpose than being a mere excuse to laugh with my girlfriends. Besides discussing the obvious topics, we’d inevitably delve into the more important questions: Did you enjoy it? Did you use protection? Do you need me to go with you to the clinic to get a birth control prescription? And no, they won’t tell your parents.

Talking about sex from an early age primed me to make better decisions about my body as I grew up. These crucial exchanges helped me understand that my body is not merely a vessel for someone else’s pleasure. I can say no. I can say no whenever I want -- from the get-go, halfway through, just before climax. I can confidently ask my partners the hard questions: when was the last time you were tested? Do you have a condom? These consultations with close and trusted friends taught me how to freely participate in sex while also physically and emotionally protecting myself. These ostensibly simple, collegiate heart-to-hearts, ultimately, prepared me to insist on my sexual enjoyment as a grown woman.

As I got older, my sex talks with girlfriends matured. Gone were the days of how to obtain birth control without someone’s conservative parents knowing. The conversations shifted and matured, but so had we. Between the ever-present giggles, awkward sexual mishaps, and humiliating Plan B purchases from CVS, there were serious discussions about past sexual traumas, kinks, UTIs, miscarriages, how to enjoy a healthy sex life with incurable, but manageable, STDs, and sex after childbirth. More than ever, we asked each other: But did you enjoy it? Pleasure for me -- the woman -- finally became paramount. Friends encouraged me to want that, and I encouraged them to not settle for partners who didn’t prioritize their desires.

Girlfriends were crucial in my sexual development. They raised the bar. They encouraged safety. They demanded consent. They advocated for pleasure, so often and so frequently, that I began to insist upon it myself. It’s for these reasons that I encourage women to talk about their sex lives, no matter the activity, with other women. If you’re nervous about approaching the topic with girlfriends for the first time, grab yourself a very large bottle of wine, and remember that sex, for many women, is a human experience, abounding with shared joys and frustrations.