While I plan the release of Peg’s Story: In Search of Self, I’m still writing. I have several short stories that are actually thumbnail sketches of longer romances, so I’m turning some into novels. I want to make sure nothing I write undermines women. Therefore, I’m looking at common myths about sex and making myself some rules. The first one is about alcohol.
Myth #1 – Sex is better after a few drinks
Alcohol lowers inhibitions. If it’s a situation that will lead to remorse (like bedding a friend’s mate), alcohol is obviously being used as an excuse. Where women are concerned, the idea that sex is better after a few drinks reinforces the underlying myths that nice ladies are reluctant to debase themselves that way or that good girls don’t get horny. It supports the dichotomy between “good women” or “nice girls” and the ones who are “easy” or “sluts”.
Physiologically, alcohol makes women less ready for sex. (This Cosmo article goes into that in more detail.) Just like men, women who have too much to drink are less likely to become fully aroused and achieve orgasm.
Alcohol also impairs judgment, which can lead to morning-after regrets. Whenever someone takes this on to denial and falsely cries rape, they impair the credibility of the person who said “no” or “stop” or struggled to get away or were too drunk to know what was happening. In fact, the common practice of having a few drinks to prepare for sex makes any sexual assault involving alcohol or drugs more difficult to prove.
Me too
When I was a teenager, two guys got me alone at a party and with clear intentions to take advantage of my impaired condition to have sex with me. Had they succeeded, that would have been rape. However, I was sober enough to deal with it by pretending to “come on” to the smaller one, which got rid of the other guy. By the time I could have walked away, I was feeling the effects of the alcohol I had willingly consumed earlier and was enjoying necking with him, so if we’d had sex at that point, I’d call it my stupidity, not rape – because I got myself drunk and I could have walked away once I had him alone. Fortunately, he’d had too much to drink anyway.
However, I was drugged and “taken advantage of” in college. I was at my desk working on my term paper, hoping the jerk who’d dropped in uninvited would take the hint and leave, then it was dark, we were naked, and he was on top of me and in me. My stomach burned for two days from whatever he put into my Coke. When I saw him on campus after break, I jumped into a relationship with a townie, spent most of the semester off campus or hiding in my room, then dropped out to get married. It took a couple decades to label that correctly as rape.
Rule #1 – My heroines will never drink to have sex.
They’ll have sex because they want to and being sober won’t stop them from being hot or wild. Whoever they’re with will turn them on, loosen them up, and give them satisfaction—no alcohol or drugs required.
