I'm telling you that I've just started going to a counselor because it is a Thing and you should Know, because you are my friend. Also it's been helping loads; every time I leave a session I feel like when you shake an etch-a-sketch and everything is erased. Not that everything is gone, but I just feel a lot more at peace, and calmer. It's feeling like going to the doctor's, or the dentists', you know? I just feel better and rearranged after going. But I'm reminded constantly that getting better is a process.
The thing is, unlike other counselors I've been to, she always catches me off-guard with sexy questions! haha not in the "I'm hitting on you" way.
We'll be talking about something, and then suddenly she goes, "Are you dating anyone at the moment?"
And then I'll go that I hate being treated like a Girl with a capital G, and she goes: "Treated like a girl... do you mean sexually?"
and she asks "Have you any sexual relations with girls?"
Maybe it's my singaporean conservative-ness, but I'm ALWAYS caught off-guard by this; she is so cavalier with everything, and so comfortable with sexy stuff; whilst it's not conventional for me to talk about these things in regular conversation. And also because of my family's conservative-ness, it's considered uncouth to talk about sexy things. My dad, especially, tries so hard to avoid the topic that it's HILARIOUS. How much can you try to skirt when you have two teenage daughters? It's just so funny, like he's trying to deny the fact that we're not 10 anymore.
There are so many ways to say it, right? She could have said "have you been romantically involved with girls" or "have you dated girls" but she has to say "sexual relations". It's just really really funny.
I don't have any problems with this; in fact one of the main reasons that I chose to go to this centre is so that I can talk about sexythings with a rational, mature, adult. It's just a little awkward for me to treat my sexuality as a real, normal, thing. And it's so WEIRD to be treated like an adult! Other authority figures would tell me off for even CONTEMPLATING getting sexy, but this one just takes it for granted that I might have gotten hot and heavy with a number of people and it is no issue at all. She is so non-judgmental in this aspect, and so homonormative it is so odd for me; because so many people here are so heteronormative and are all like: "WHEN you get married; WHEN you get kids, WHEN you get a boyfriend..."
It's so RARE that I encounter homonormativity in real life, outside my circle of friends. (Namely, the ones who swear all the time and talk about hot girls in fiction.)
In singaporean families especially, it's not common at all for parents to talk about the sexy with their children. Some of my peers got most of their sex education online, rather than from their parents. The furthest my mum goes is, "When you're out with a guy ah, you must be very careful not to be taken advantage of." And my grandmother asked me if I'm dating anyone. Granted, my uncle started bringing girls home when he was in uni; that's after NS, so he would be in his 20s. It seemed to my young 4-year-old self that he was bringing home a different girl every week. xD
Anyways. What's it like where you live? Is it culturally appropriate to talk about one's sexuality? Is/ was it normal to talk about it with your parents? Tell ME.
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