Italy is unapologetic about its underwear lines.
Lingerie stores are a popular crop. They make no effort to cover up for the passerby, even on streets segregated by tourists. Storefronts are often floor-to-ceiling windows populated by nippled mannequins, statuesque in embroidered silk panties and black lace bras.
Clearly, America’s got some deconstructing to do. And so do I.
Moving through Rome with an expat girl-pack, the blatant sexuality underlines every conversation. We step off crowded sidewalks to let Italian powerhouse women pass. Some - the ones ripped direct from Vogue Italia - even walk in a different language. It’s a volcanic confidence concealed by layers of neutral-toned rock formation: suit jacket plus sweater plus collared shirt. Sexiness still flows over, and we are dumb-founded. I have been wearing more clothing than ever before in my life, paging Quaker ancestors about whether or not to go with the turtleneck.
Seeing lingerie in the daylight has triggered a snowballing revelation for me. My American Girl insecurities have been internally bleeding my entire life. If I can’t separate myself from my sexiness/sexlessness soon, I fear it’s fatal.
Binge-buying crop tops are bandaids for bullet wounds. Initially I cowered from the ‘prudish’ label in part because summer for me means barely-clothed. How can I be frightened of the flesh if I like to show my stomach sometimes? It’s flawed logic considering - like I said before - European women wear more layers than the Earth’s sediment.
“Covering up” is a deceptively physical response to public displays of sexuality. Every five seconds, a teenage girl gets humiliated during sophomore English for wearing spaghetti straps to school. Aluminum busts meant to personify The American Spirit are hidden behind curtains for the sake of “TV aesthetics”. Janet Jackson is sentenced to cultural solitary confinement over a nip-slip.
Scary big concepts are easier to take if they disappear once you close your eyes. Restricting sex to the physical realm is ignorant at best and dangerous at worst. There is no widespread agreement on sexual education - what, when, who, and how. Jurisdiction falls behind the nebulous fig leaf of local politics. It’s not surprising, then, that only about half of American youth say their in-school education hit the bare minimum.
Personally, I was unprepared. I learned the basic mechanisms not from health class but from Wattpad (plus that one episode of Glee). Nobody told me about the emotional ramifications. There were no informational pamphlets on sexual reality.
Sometimes subliminal, sometimes graphically explicit, always simmering beneath was the signal that sex is a trophy achieved only by men. It’s not masturbation, it’s mitosis. But there the twin Victories stand guarding Ponte Vittorio, draped in copper linen and dripping with sex. The stoic giantesses give nothing away. They keep all of it for themselves.
Realizing sex - meaning the way of life - didn’t have to be for someone else blew my mind. At that point, I’d already been conditioned to see my body as a vessel for third-party task management. I contemplated tacking ‘mid-fuck compartmentalization’ as an asterisk on my resumé.
But the body I thought I knew was a total cardboard cutout. A breeze had knocked it down, and the decision was mine to re-prop versus re-purpose.
How do you ask your body for its name again without feeling awkward? It’s hard to relearn a subject you never knew.
Two blocks from the Vatican, I have to authenticate my card. I am the only person still out beside the Jubilee campers and mini-market vendors. The 24-hour sex shop I’m stepping into is a windowless room lined by clear cabinets. A neon-pink machine in the center greets me (in Italian, of course).
I’m easily sold on the novelty of a vended vibrator. The protective plastic makes browsing a little difficult. Giggling awkwardly in the back of a Spencer’s, you can pick products off the shelves and give them a thorough once-over. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing the different settings a Lipstick Vibe offers. She looks pretty, though.
There’s no shame involved despite the security. Rather, a sense of abundance. These machines are a frequent crop. The city enfolds sex inside itself; America flies and fights.
Obviously, I’m experiencing this European Sex (tm) through the eyes of an inexperienced, uneducated young woman. Italy has its own share of incontinence - Rome especially. Vibrators might abound on the outskirts of the Vatican, but its presence looms over the city like a shadow cast by a coat hanger.
Still, these realizations wouldn’t have come about without this relocation. Seeing sex in a different light - something softer, less Big and Fluorescent than Las Vegas - helped clear my head. I’m starting up on the journey of self-actualization through sexiness. And I think, ultimately, that’s a very good thing.
It’s alien to look in the mirror and appreciate the woman staring back at you. I know why and so do you - but why do we have to carry on doing it?
TLDR; You don’t have to have sex to have sex. Thanks for listening.