National Domestic Violence Awareness Project

hellyeahscarleteen:

“ People of all genders get sent a ton of confusing messages around sex. That’s certainly true for men. These pressures — like pressure to be a “real man” by experiencing sex in one specific way — can look different for different guys, and vary a lot depending on culture and community. What most have in common, though, is that they make it hard to develop a healthy relationship to masculinity, and to seek out what you, as an individual, want and need from sex and relationships. As a transgender man, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a man in a world that tells us masculinity can only look one way. When it comes to sex, I know that the only “right” way to experience your sexuality is the way that works best for you and any partner(s) involved. But it can be harder to remember that when the world around us makes so many assignments and assumptions about what sex and men “should” be like. These assumptions hurt all of us — men, women, nonbinary people — and it’s important that we learn to recognize and name them, and to challenge them in our everyday lives. “