Sex, Judgement, and Your Thanksgiving

It’s that time of year again, when families get together and pretend their differences don’t exist long enough to engorge themselves with food and spiked eggnog.

There’s something special about this time of year. Not the overindulgence or the commercialism, but the tiny bit of acceptance I see in my own family – it gives me hope.

Tolerance has to be beautifully choreographed in my family. We’re a more extreme version of the show Modern Family. Our family includes extremely devout Mormons, partially devout evangelical Christians, openly gay cousins, camouflage wearing rednecks, poor and rich, bi-cultural, bi-lingual and well…me.

I like it. It’s fun to watch personalities bend and stretch to become respectful to those around them — especially when they’re so diverse. People who outwardly hate a category of people make exceptions for their family – or at least for a meal. It’s incredible to watch judgement be put aside, or stifled.

The whole family respects those who are religious and bows their head in prayer (or stays quiet). Cousins who might be “fags” any other day become “partners”. We moderate our political and social comments and stick to safer subjects, like how ridiculous my brothers new facial hair is or how good the onion rings taste at Red Robin.

Some people might say we’re cowards, afraid of conflict and sticking up for what we believe in. I see it in a different light. To me, it’s a magical mixture of everyone minding their own damn business, enjoying one another, and being thankful for a delicious meal.

Then I think about my job and how I see the same problems of judgement around sex.

Working in my field, there’s a lot of different sexual preferences.

I personally know of people who are into:

• People of the same gender
• People of the opposite gender
• People with no or multiple genders
• S & M
• Polyamory
• Pansexuality
• Sex toys
• Feet
• Huge tits
• Tiny tits
• Anyone who’s not their ethnicity
• People taller than them
• Spanking
• Biting
• Younger people
• Older people
• Big Beautiful men and women
• Bodybuilder chicks
• Guys who have a diabetic pump permanently in place
• Sex in public
• Straight men who like butt plugs
• Armpit fucking
• Watching their partner with someone else
• Foodies
• And even someone who likes to be yelled at in another language (even if it’s a fake one).

That’s not a comprehensive list and it doesn’t even begin to touch the variety of sex practices out there. But you get the idea.

I like seeing this much diversity in sex. But with diversity (whether it’s in a family, in sex, or in life) comes a lot of judgement and misunderstanding. When people don’t know a lot about something, their first reaction is fear and judgement.

Being from Montana and an almost completely culturally homogenous community, this usually plays out in the form of racism and homophobia. In my line of work, it comes out as sexophobia. (Yes, that’s a made-up word.)

I wonder what it would be like if the fear, judgement, and misunderstanding that surrounds other peoples’ sex practices were put aside for a moment with their other judgements. I wonder what it would look like just at a Thanksgiving dinner alone.

Perhaps we would be less ageist. Eating our turkey dinners we would look to Grandma and earnestly ask, “Have you gotten laid lately G-ma?”

Maybe we’d smile and feel excited when our teenage cousin and her new boyfriend snuck up stairs to make out. I’d likely be the first to take off my clothes and roll around in the mash potatoes. (Only after everyone had finished, of course.)

What would it be like if everyone felt comfortable with the fact that everyone else has sexual preferences different from their own?

What if instead of describing my family by their political, spiritual, and social standings I could describe them as armpit fuckers, gays, and vanilla’s? What if the topic of sex became so casual and comfortable that acknowledging the massive amount of turkey you just ate is likely to kill your parents’ sex drive because it contains large amounts of tryptophan?

My family still avoids the political and social topics this time of year, so maybe it’s too much to ask them to put aside sexual judgements as well.

I’m not sure what a judgement-free world would look like, but I hope this Thanksgiving you’re able to look at your parents or grandparents lovingly and hope that their lives are sexually satisfying.

I hope that your gay cousin feels comfortable kissing his partner in front of your Mormon family members.

Most of all, I hope that you’re able to spend the holidays being appreciative and giving thanks, regardless of the diversity, struggles, or tension that might be present.

How do you deal with diversity and the things you disagree with? Have you ever been judged for being diverse (sexually or otherwise)? Post in the comments below; I’d love to hear your thoughts!