I believed all of the assumptions embedded in this archetype of the woman who doesn’t embrace sex: that she is prudish and prim, that she hasn’t done the proper work of liberating herself from shame, and that she is politically conservative too. None of this aligned with my goals. The words used to describe women who didn’t have sex (celibate, abstinent, pure, chaste) seemed either clinical or moralistic in a way I disdained. The words used to describe women who did (free, empowered, bold) I liked and wanted to apply to me.
