“You’re just trying to change the world!”

When I was growing up, teens uttered this like an insult. The implication was that I was airy-fairy, naïve, unrealistically optimistic and slightly irresponsible … because everybody knew that trying to affect the status quo was a waste of time and energy, energy that should be directed toward hard work, toward good old manual labor. Obviously, I was blinded by my rose-colored glasses.

The first process in cultivating a positive, shameless and joyful relationship with sex is having a language that actively and accurately describes pleasure. But what is to be done when the very core of our lexicon is steeped in archaic implications that stop delight before you can even unbutton your jeans?