My friend Rachel Hollis wrote a very brave piece for HuffPost Women yesterday about her experience with sex in her 20s. It’s called, I Only Had One Kind Of Sex In My 20s, And It Was Amazing. 

Rachel wrote this very brave piece in response to another HuffPost Women piece called 15 Types Of Sex You Have In Your 20s.

Here is an excerpt from that piece to give you a sense of the subject matter:

“Between the ages of 20 and 30, your life is probably going to involve a decent amount of sex. And since this is the decade of exploring your options, that sex tends to be anything but uniform.
Here are 15 types of sex that you probably have had (or will have) during your 20-something years”

And another:

“You’re Convenient” Sex: Location, location, location. Maybe it’s the person who you’ve run into in your apartment building on occasion and shot a (you hope) seductive glance, or that friend of a friend who lives three blocks away and made out with you at that party a few months back. You’ll probably phone him or her after midnight and only when you’re bored. And you’ll hopefully enjoy yourself thoroughly once that call is made. (If the convenient sex also happens to be “just plain bad” sex, it likely won’t happen more than once, which brings us to…)”

And here is an excerpt from Rachel’s piece that explains her reaction to the above:

“I don’t for one second want to pass judgment on someone else’s choices in life and I’m all for owning your own sexuality. But I take real issue with the implication that every woman is running around engaging in casual (and it sounds like, unfulfilling) sex. Very few of the options even seem enjoyable or fun, and if nothing else, shouldn’t sex at least be that? This list makes it sound like an impulse purchase, like, “Girl, we’ve all made these same bad choices, no big deal.” But we ALL haven’t made those same choices and some of us think sex IS a big deal.

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve only had sex with one man and I’ve been married to him for the last eight and a half years. Now, before your head explodes and you start yelling that I can’t possibly write about sex since my experience is limited allow me to point out that the eight and half years I’ve been married were basically the whole of my 20’s. So doesn’t it stand to reason then that I should be able to identify with at least a few of the types of sex written on that list? By not having sex in “a hostel hallway” did I somehow not enjoy my 20’s as much as other 29-year-olds? I have to doubt it.”

I don’t know Emma Gray, the writer of the first piece, but I know Rachel Hollis. She is an incredibly accomplished professional who runs her own businesses despite having three, young boys. Here’s her blog – MyChicLife, which you should be reading every day. She does not live in some small town in Arkansas (no offense Arkansas) where the sexual norms are stuck in the 1950’s. She is not “unaware of what goes on with kids these days” just because she happened to get married when some of us were still blacking out off vodka sodas. She is as modern a woman as women currently come, and that’s exactly why her opinion on this issue is so important.

I’m with Rachel – I don’t care how much sex you want to have, with whom, where, under what circumstances. What I care about is the implication that you or anyone in their 20s should and will probably experience 15 different kinds of sex, especially if one of the 15 is “Barter-System Sex”
(“Sometimes you just really want some help putting together your IKEA furniture. And sometimes a little bit of (purely) physical pleasure comes out of a day of Allen key usage. It’s really a win-win situation.”). It’s not really a win-win situation.

I cannot believe I’m going to say this as a liberal, free-speech loving woman who believes experimentation is very important to ones sexual development, but I think there’s something irresponsible about Gray’s piece. It applies a certain universal attitude about sex that is, frankly, not universal. Strong women read it and say, “whatever, that’s one person’s opinion.” More impressionable women may read it and say, “crap, I’m not having any of the fun, cool, exciting sex I should be having in my 20s. I need to get on that, stat.” Is one bad notch on the bedpost the end of the world? Not necessarily. But speaking from experience, sometimes regretting sex in your 20s doesn’t add up to a funny HuffPost women listicle.

Here, in my opinion, is the most important message contained between both these articles. From Hollis:

“I never had “One-More-Time Sex”… but I have had How-Many-Times Sex, and anniversary sex, vacation sex and make-love-to-me sex. I’ve had sex to make up and sex to make babies. I’ve had take-one-for-the-team sex and sex so good that the memory still curls my toes even years later. I’ve had it fast and slow, in multiple ways, even on multiple continents. The point is, I’ve had a lot more than 15 types of sex and even if they didn’t make the list, all of them made my 20’s exciting and fun and special.”

I’m happy that Emma Gray wrote her piece. It gave me something really interesting to think about as a woman.

I’m happier that Rachel Hollis wrote her piece in response. It gave me something to be really proud of as a woman.  

What’s your take?