I’ve written many a blog about romantic relationships, men, flirting, sex: all those topics which easily draw a crowd. But often my writing shows, as I’ve said before, the more logical part of my personality. I conveniently omit moments when I’ve failed to follow my own advice because everyone likes to present the neatest version of themselves to the internet and honestly, I can’t see myself regurgitating every detail of my life on this blog or my social media pages any time soon. This isn’t because I’m trying to mislead anyone, it’s because I’ve no obligation to and it’s nice (healthy, even) to keep some things private.

Obviously I’m going to tell you about something today though…

For over a year, I was subconsciously slut-shaming myself every time I slept with someone and I didn’t even acknowledge it. The logical, feminist, part of my brain always knew that it was a misogynistic and nonsensical thing to do, given that every time I’ve had sex with someone it’s been consensual and feeling guilty about it afterwards was never necessary. I never cried about it or said really hurtful things to myself; my method of slut-shaming was way more insidious than that. In the days after having sex I’d low-key pretend that it didn’t happen, give in to embarrassment, and avoid any contact with the boy ever again. But doing that started to feel silly after a while.

I’d realised what I was doing through the conversations I was having about sex with the young women around me, and decided it was time to stop partaking in this form of psychological self-harm. I know why I was doing it though; it was because I’d really rather not sleep with different people, so every time I did, I felt guilty straight afterwards. I’d have this stressful internal monologue of not regretting the sex, but wishing it’d been something more interesting than just that, with someone I knew better. However, I don’t know anyone I’d want to date yet, so does that mean that I should numb all urges I feel for physical interaction until prince charming comes along? No, that doesn’t seem right either.

The ideal situation for me earlier on this year was to engage in a good, old, friends with benefits relationship. Yet, there are so many unspoken rules when having sex with a person that the idea of sending the ‘you free later?’ text just made me cringe. Frankly, I thought I didn’t have the personality to ‘pull that off’ – an idea no doubt derived from the patriarchy suggesting that it’s abnormal for a woman to want to have sex simply because she’s horny – something I recognise as complete bullshit, of course. But we’ve got a lot of internalised patriarchy to undo here on the daily, so yes, when I texted a lad I trusted asking if he was free later for the first time, it felt weird. No regrets after doing it though heyooo.

I know that I’m fortunate to have so many sex-positive people in my life and that it’s a luxury not everyone has. There continues to be countless women out there who spend a stupid amount of energy telling themselves to stop feeling what they’re feeling. But you’re not only horny when you’re in a relationship and you should never make yourself feel guilty about when or who you want to have sex with. It’s a toxic way to waste your time, and even though stopping doing it hasn’t made me want a relationship less, it’s made sex a lot less associated with guilt and embarrassment in my head. Which is definitely a win. So go get your kicks with whoever you want, whenever you want, and start taking better care of yourself by taking control of your sexuality.

Oh, and if you and a couple of your friends order vibrators at the same time and split delivery, it’ll be cheaper.